Fast Friends

by Jill Mansell

  “Joke,” she said, taking a sip of his coffee and deliberately not commenting on the fact that it was heavily spiked. “Cecilia and I are going to the Sanctuary. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

  “Fine.” Nico nodded absently, resuming his scan of the racing pages. He had been surprised when Caroline and Cecilia had struck up a tentative friendship, but now they met each other for shopping expeditions or lunches almost every week. He suspected that they enjoyed gossiping about him and Mac; it gave them a chance to air their grievances while at the same time presenting a glamorous, united front to the people who saw and envied them their spectacular riches. It was too much to hope that Caroline might really be meeting a lover, he thought with genuine regret.

  * * *

  Madge Pargeter, who had been busily hoovering the master bedroom upstairs, paused to kick a pair of knickers out of the vacuum’s path, then left it running while she massaged her rheumaticky spine with both hands and watched from the bedroom window as young Mrs. Coletto slammed the front door shut behind her and stalked over to the dark-green Ferrari parked askew on the gravel drive.

  Poor Mrs. Coletto, thought Madge with a touch of indignation. That pink minidress she was wearing now had cost almost £300—she had found the receipt in the shopping bag only yesterday—yet for all her ritzy silk underwear, fast cars, and fancy clothes she still wasn’t happy. It just went to show.

  Madge had cleaned some houses in her time. She’d seen it all: big, noisy families who seemed happy at first but who existed on violent arguments and plate throwing; married couples who weren’t happy at all unless they were both cheating on each other; even one household where the man was knocking off his wife, his stepdaughter, and the baby’s nanny all at the same time.

  Knowing what was going on in other people’s lives was what made the job interesting, and she hadn’t quite figured out the Colettos yet, which intrigued her.

  Having applied for the job at her daughter Shona’s insistence—Nico was her current all-time favorite rock singer—Madge was still, after almost three weeks, figuring out the situation. Slowly resuming her cleaning, she considered the facts so far. Mr. and Mrs. Coletto never seemed to argue, which was odd. Everyone had arguments. Mrs. C was unhappy, but she had phases of trying too hard to please, whereas he scarcely seemed to notice either way, as if he didn’t even care. It seemed likely to Madge that he had other women on the go, yet she had no proof of this.

  Funny family, she mused, bending down to pick up an emerald earring caught in the thick pile of the carpet. I give ’em six months at the most before the lawyers move in and the real fighting begins. I’ll settle for my Albert and our Shona and Keith any day.

  * * *

  Downstairs, unable to stand the inactivity a moment longer, Nico threw aside the Standard and went into the sitting room, picking up the phone and punching out Camilla’s number before he could think of a reason why he shouldn’t. Mrs. Pargeter, the nosy old witch, was upstairs, safely out of the way. He knew that Caroline deliberately chose cleaning women who were so ancient and unattractive he couldn’t possibly fancy them, and he found it vaguely amusing, but she also took pains to get the old crones on her side, presumably so that if he did do anything wrong they would immediately tell her. Right now, he felt too guilty to find that funny.

  Not really guilty, though, he amended, picking up and glancing at a postcard that had arrived that morning from Montego Bay. Shaun, his drummer, had scrawled “Born to rum” across the back. No, he wasn’t really guilty; he just needed to sort certain matters out in advance. As soon as he explained everything to Camilla, and as soon as she told him what he needed to hear—if, of course, she told him what he needed to hear—he would square everything with Caroline. She could leave this sad, loveless marriage practically a millionairess in her own right, for God’s sake…and then be free to find a man who would make her happy. How could that be wrong?

  “Hello?” The sound of Camilla’s voice, slightly muffled and at the same time echoing, convinced him that he was right. He realized how tightly his fingers were gripping the receiver and deliberately relaxed them.

  “Hi, it’s me.”

  More muffled noises—she sounded as if she was changing the phone from one ear to the other—then: “Who’s me?”

  Nico’s heart sank. He would recognize Camilla’s voice anytime, anywhere in the world. Why didn’t she know his voice, for heaven’s sake?

  “The wasp killer,” he said lightly. “You haven’t paid your bill.”

  “Nico!” At least she sounded pleased to hear from him. “I’m sorry—my ears are full of shampoo. You sound all bubbly.”

  “Have I got you out of the shower?”

  Camilla giggled. “I’m in the bath. Isn’t it decadent? Listen…”

  As Nico heard the splashing of water, his imagination ran wild. The idea of talking to Camilla while she was lying naked in a hot, scented bath was incredibly erotic. Suddenly, it became easier to say what he had to say.

  “Sounds fun,” he told her, smiling into the phone. “Listen, I’m leaving for Jamaica in a couple of days, and I’d really like to see you before I go. Are you free this afternoon?”

  Camilla hesitated for only a moment. “I can be, yes. Where shall I meet you?”

  He hadn’t properly thought this out. “I could come over to you,” he said hopefully, but this time she didn’t hesitate for even a second.

  “No good, I’m afraid. There’ll be…people here. I could always drive over to your house, though.”

  “That’s out too,” said Nico, admiring her innocence. It would never occur to Camilla that he might not want Caroline to know he was seeing her. And he certainly wasn’t going to give Madge Pargeter the pleasure of reporting Camilla’s visit back to her.

  Then he remembered Cino’s restaurant, hidden away in a leafy corner of Kensington. He could reserve their private dining room and ensure their privacy for the afternoon. And since Camilla had picked him up from there on several occasions when she had been working for him, she knew where it was.

  “Cino’s restaurant,” he said, crossing his fingers and praying that the room hadn’t already been booked. “I’ll meet you there at one o’clock and we’ll have lunch in the back room—it’ll be more private.”

  “I remember it,” Camilla told him, and he heard a splash. “Damn, the shampoo’s fallen into the bath. One o’clock, then. I’ll be the one reeking of peaches and almonds.”

  “I can’t wait,” murmured Nico, already imagining how she would smell. “Bye, Cami. I’ll see you there.”

  Interesting, thought Madge Pargeter, carefully replacing the receiver upstairs. Listening in on other people’s telephone conversations wasn’t something she made a habit of, but once in a while, it proved almost irresistible. And very, very occasionally, even profitable…

  * * *

  The traffic was appalling as Camilla drove through Belgravia. If she was a little late getting there Nico would just have to wait, but at least it was better than allowing him to turn up at her house, where Roz and Natalie were due to arrive at around two o’clock. She was pleased that there was no longer any animosity between her and Roz, but Nico had indirectly been the catalyst for at least part of the feud while it had lasted, and she wasn’t yet up to a three-way confrontation between them.

  And Nico didn’t yet know about Natalie.

  Still, thought Camilla as she opened the sunroof and breathed in the scent of hot tarmac and exhaust fumes, it would be interesting when she returned home to see how Roz and Natalie were getting on together. Roz had booked them both in at a hotel off the Bayswater Road, but Camilla had persuaded her to cancel the rooms and stay with her instead during their visits to London. She enjoyed the company, and it seemed ridiculous to waste money on a hotel when she had empty rooms in her own house. Also, since she had been the one who had persuaded Roz to meet her daugh
ter, she felt it necessary now to support her through what couldn’t be a particularly easy time.

  But she had done the right thing, she decided, in keeping Nico away from the house. According to Roz, Natalie worshipped Nico and was pestering her to see him, and for this among other reasons, Camilla had left a note with the back-door key—hidden in their prearranged spot—saying that she was out visiting Zoë and that she would be back by four at the latest.

  * * *

  Because the sunroof was open, the crash when it came sounded like an explosion. Camilla jammed her foot on the brake and the car slewed sideways to a vicious halt at the curb.

  Terrified, appalled by the suddenness of the accident, she clutched at her seat belt with frozen fingers and stared at the crushed, metallic-blue tangle that a second ago had been a new Focus. The truck into which it had careered head-on had ground to a stop beside the traffic lights with only a slight dent in its front bumper.

  Both vehicles were less than twenty feet away from her, and the abrupt silence following the crash rang in her ears.

  Without even thinking, Camilla unlocked her seat belt and stepped out of the car on legs that were shuddering and jerky. The Focus’s windshield was an opaque maze of cracked glass, but there was blood on the driver’s window, and she could make out the dark outline of a head slumped sideways against it.

  Reaching the car at the same moment as the truck driver, who was unhurt but visibly shaken, she saw that the man inside was bleeding heavily from a head wound and that his arms were flailing as, panic-stricken and confused, he attempted to escape from the crushed confines of his prison.

  “He jumped the lights—I couldn’t avoid him,” blustered the ashen-faced truck driver, pulling at the passenger door.

  “Leave it,” said Camilla automatically, but although the door was too buckled to open, the sharp movement brought a shower of glass down from the windshield onto the man inside.

  “Call an ambulance,” she said as other people began to converge around the car. Moving around to the other side, she opened the passenger door and climbed in, not even noticing the cushion of glass fragments that tore at her stockings and dug into the backs of her legs.

  “You’ll be all right,” she said in a low voice to the injured man, taking his hands in hers and holding them firmly against his chest. He was wearing a pink-and-white-striped golfing sweater splattered with dark blood, and his dark curly hair was so like Matt’s that, for a confused moment, she thought it must surely be a dream.

  “I can’t see,” moaned the man, shaking his head and struggling to release his hands. Camilla, moving closer, put her arms around him. Now there was blood on her own hands and on her white skirt. As she wiped the warm, sticky liquid from his forehead, he coughed and spat out a front tooth.

  “You’re not blind,” she told him, wondering how she could feel so ill and at the same time sound so calm. “There’s a cut on your head and the blood’s run into your eyes. You’re not blind, and you’re going to be all right. An ambulance is on its way. What’s your name?”

  For a moment, he seemed not to be able to remember. His head moved helplessly from side to side.

  She said urgently, “Don’t move. You’re safe. I’m here. My name’s Camilla.”

  “Eddie. Edward Fairbank. My wife… She’s expecting me home… I was playing golf this morning…”

  Camilla, her mind flooded with the terrible memories of that evening just over a year ago, felt her chest heave. But I mustn’t cry, she told herself fiercely. Mustn’t cry, mustn’t think about that…

  The urgent blast of the ambulance’s siren came as such a relief that she felt sweat trickle down the back of her neck.

  “It’s OK, they’re here. Give me your phone number and I’ll call your wife, tell her that you’re all right.”

  “I’m not all right,” groaned the man, squeezing her hand so hard that Camilla winced.

  “You’re alive,” she said fiercely, then closed her eyes and willed herself not to be angry with him. In a quieter voice she went on, “You’re very lucky. You’ve had an accident. But you aren’t going to die, are you? So give me your wife’s phone number. I’ll find out from the paramedics which hospital they’re going to take you to. And just remember—you’re going to be OK.”

  * * *

  In the dim, secluded corner of a tiny Greek restaurant across the road, Camilla succumbed to the grief and shock that earlier she had managed to stave off. The ancient proprietor, who had also seen the accident occur and who had been the one to call the ambulance, wondered but did not ask why she should have been so deeply affected by it. People, he decided with a shrug, had their reasons, and this English woman clearly didn’t want to share them. The pain in her eyes, though, was unconcealed.

  To help her as much as he could he moved her car from its rakishly parked place onto a meter, plied her with strong Greek coffee, and left the telephone at her table.

  “I’m phoning on behalf of your husband,” Camilla had told Edward Fairbank’s wife as rapidly and reassuringly as possible. “He’s all right, but he has had a minor accident in his car. He asked me to tell you that he’s being taken to the Whittington Hospital, but please don’t worry, he really isn’t hurt badly. Just cuts and bruises.”

  Then, when there was no longer any need to remain in control, when her duty was over, she gave herself up to the nightmare. Memories of Matt came flooding back, as vividly as if his own accident had just occurred.

  That was what it had been like for him—the unbelievable suddenness of that split second when calm had become chaos. When life had become near death. And when, later that night, life for Matt had ceased to exist.

  For one bewildering, agonizing moment, Camilla had thought she was being given a slow-motion replay of Matt’s accident. Then, to her shame, she had resented Edward Fairbank for not being Matt and for being alive. Would he ever truly appreciate how lucky he had been to escape with such relatively minor injuries? Would his wife ever understand the extent of her reprieve?

  And why had they been spared, when she and Matt had not?

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The restaurant owner watched from his own corner while Camilla wiped away her tears. Despite the heat, she was shivering, and the coffee sitting in front of her had gone cold. Her white skirt was smeared with blood, her pale stockings shredded. She still looked terribly shocked and upset.

  Stiff-upper-lip English, he thought with mounting incomprehension and frustration, and moving slowly, anxious not to startle her, he approached the small table where she sat.

  “Is there anything I can do, madam?” he asked, his English good but heavily accented, his dark eyes sympathetic. “Perhaps you should telephone your husband, for him to collect you. Is that a good idea?”

  * * *

  Nico, sprawling sideways in his chair in the private dining room at Cino’s, glanced at his watch for the hundredth time. Two fifteen. Where on earth was Camilla?

  He debated ringing her home a third time. Before, there had been no reply and he had assumed she was on her way to meet him. Now, as he pulled off his tie in agitation and tossed it over the chair where his charcoal-gray jacket already hung, he was beginning to wonder whether something had happened to her—or whether for some reason she had simply chickened out.

  Impatiently, he picked up the phone, cradling the receiver close to his ear to block out the sounds of revelry coming from the main restaurant. The rip-roaring party next door only accentuated the silence in his own private room. When the telephone was picked up, he thought he must have dialed the wrong number. “I’m sorry. Is Camilla there?”

  “No, I’m afraid she’s out at the moment. Who are you?” inquired a girl with a Geordie accent.

  “A friend,” said Nico carefully. “Have you any idea where she might be?”

  “Yeah, she’s left a note here. Hang on…she’
s gone to see someone named Zoë. Does that help?”

  “Thanks,” he said, puzzled and slightly irritated. “I’ll ring her there.”

  Zoë, when he eventually obtained her number from directory inquiries, was equally surprised.

  “Oh, hi, Nico. No, Camilla isn’t here. Why, should she be?”

  Telling her that he had only called on the off chance, he replaced the receiver and looked at his watch again. Being stood up was a new experience for him, but it appeared to be happening now.

  Well, she really picked her moment, thought Nico with mounting anger and disappointment. So much for the afternoon planned to change both their lives. Obviously, Camilla had realized, at least in part, the implications of today’s lunch date and had decided she didn’t need the hassle.

  She simply wasn’t interested, he realized grimly, his stomach churning with the cold, sickening reality of rejection. After hours of delicious, terrifying anticipation, the finality and sense of anticlimax was brutally fierce. What might have been was now lost forever. Shit, shit, shit.

  * * *

  He wouldn’t be there, thought Camilla, leaving the car and hailing a passing cab. Not now. It was almost two thirty. She should have phoned the restaurant, she thought helplessly, but until a few minutes ago, it simply hadn’t occurred to her. And as Charlotte had borrowed her cell phone without asking, again, she was out of luck. All she had been able to think about in her state of shock had been Matt, and when she had finally remembered Nico, out of the shock and grief had come a resurgence of guilt. No matter how strenuously she might deny it to herself, deep down she was chillingly aware of the formidable attraction between her and Nico. He had shown his hand over and over again in different ways, sometimes teasingly, at other times with heart-stopping honesty. Finding himself trapped in a marriage that wasn’t all it might be, he freely admitted to having had other affairs, and it appeared now that this was what he had in mind for her, even knowing as he did the strength of her views about such harmful deception.