by Clive Hindle
Or was he? Was it that simple? He stopped off at the desk and checked out, ordered a place on the hotel bus bound for Kai Tak and sat waiting in the foyer. Why did he do that? Why didn’t he just get a taxi and move on? Was he clinging on to the idea that Diana might arrive while he waited? If she did, he wondered if he’d speak to her before she went upstairs and tried the lock only to find it wouldn’t work. He decided a trifle maliciously that, if she didn’t see him, he wouldn’t speak; he’d let her find out for herself that her gear was with the concierge. Why hadn’t he just got a taxi and high-tailed it out of there? Did he for some reason want that last meeting?
The bus came before he found out and he boarded it looking back over his shoulder to see if she arrived. The way he’d last seen her, though, it was unlikely she’d be rushing back. She’d looked like a woman satisfied with her life and he had to admit it was exactly that carefree attitude, that sense of the freedom to do as she willed, which had attracted him to her in the first place. That and her sensuality, which, Amie had implied, was something closer to nymphomania, a condition in which Jack did not believe except as the product of a fevered male imagination. Anyway it was over now. He imagined the look on her face when she found she’d been dumped and she’d have no idea why except for a guilty conscience, if she possessed such a thing. At least that made him smile. Either way she wouldn’t be best pleased, whether it was about being found out or him voting with his feet.
When he reached the airport he didn’t go straight through to the Departures Lounge but stayed out on the arrivals concourse. He had plenty of time before the plane took off but there was no reason why he should have a coffee out here rather than through there. Once he was through there it was final. No going back. Was he hoping still that she might appear, that they might have their say? He bought a newspaper and sat down at a café. He became engrossed in the story about the capture of triads plotting against the government and chuckled when he read how Sir Clifford was accepting all the plaudits. He wasn’t mentioned, which was just as well. It was Peter’s gang-from-Moscow trick again. He didn’t want that kind of limelight. He didn’t know how long he’d been reading when he heard the soft voice, “Thought I might find you here, Jack. I never really believed you’d go without saying goodbye.”
He looked up from the newsprint and, even though he’d been half-expecting this moment, wishing it on himself, perhaps, he gave a little start. She sat down opposite him, not a blond hair out of place, as if she’d just come from some business meeting rather than from another man’s wrecked bed. He recovered his composure swiftly and folded up the newspaper, “Well, it’s goodbye from me, then,” he said. He made something of a performance of putting the paper in his bag, first of all undoing all its catches and then clicking them shut, laboriously resetting the codes. All this time neither of them spoke.
She leaned across the table then and put her hand on his wrist. He noticed the perfect half-moons of the cuticles and wondered how she’d kept them like that through all the trials and tribulations of their Russian excursion and that made him yearn suddenly for their time together all over again. “What is it, Jack? Cold feet? You don’t really love me? What?”
He stood up as if to go and just then his plane was called, “You ask me that?”
“Yes. I think I have at least earned that right. You proposed to me and I accepted, remember?”
“Like Gerry did?”
She didn’t flinch, “So you know about that? Okay, well I was going to tell you.”
“Oh really? When?”
“Look, I have made the mistake of accepting a proposal twice before but I didn’t think it was a mistake in your case.”
“Oh well, welcome to the real world of disappointed expectations.” He grabbed his bag and began to walk towards Departures.
She wasn’t accepting that as an explanation, though, and she got up and followed him. “Look, that’s not the problem. You know that. It’s something else. You want to tell me, don’t you? You waited here for me. You knew I’d come when I found you’d left the hotel. You telegraphed the fact you were coming here and it wasn’t hard to find the next available flight to somewhere you could get a connection. What is this is about? Why not stop fooling yourself and playing these stupid mind games? I am not one of your chess opponents. There’s nothing to hide. You can be up front with me.”
He stopped in mid-progress and looked at her. “Nothing to hide? Park Hotel mean anything to you?” He asked it airily, knowing that would floor her, would bring home to roost her worst suspicions. Then, equally airily, satisfied that he’d dealt the coup de grace, he resumed his stride towards the gate.
“Of course, it does,” she said, momentarily interrupting her stride but then picking it up and following him again, “but what about it?”
He was slightly nonplussed by the lack of guardedness in her voice as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. She was a cool customer, this one, so used to lying she didn’t even know herself when she was doing it. She’d just deny, deny, deny until the cows came home. “The Tictac room? That mean anything to you.”
“Yes, I know it well. The ICAC keeps a security room there, so what?”
“You ever used it?” The gate was drawing closer.
“Yes.”
He shook his head with disgust, “Last time you were there?”
“Let me think. It was before we went away, certainly.”
“Oh yeah? What about today?” The gate loomed up ahead now.
“Today? I haven’t been near the place today.”
They reached the gate. He turned and faced her, “You know a DEA agent called Lionel?” He was waiting to see the blush but of course she didn’t do blushes. She was far too cool for that.
“Yeah, course I do. Mate of Graham Witherspoon’s. Friend of mine too.”
“Another of your lovers?”
“Which one?” This time she flinched a little.
“Ha! Yeah, you see. Now you stop playing mind games, lady!”
She held out her hands, a despairing look on her face. “Jack,” she replied, “I thought we’d been through all this. Sure I’ve done some things I’m not too happy about now but I thought we had got over that. The Gerry thing, okay. I missed that out but it’s hardly a crime, is it? Otherwise I’ve always been honest with you about my past. That‘s where it is. I thought we agreed we‘d leave it there.”
He was already moving down the aisle towards the gate and she couldn’t follow him now, not without being arrested. He turned like a stag at bay. “Liar!” he said, “I saw you today in that room, with that guy, in bed, naked, asleep.” There it was, out now. Nowhere for her to hide.
And she did look astonished, “You saw me? How did you do that?”
“What does it matter? I saw you with my own eyes. Witherspoon gave me the code.” He shook his head and turned away. He was almost gone but he was moving slowly, his ear attuned to any response. This time it took a while to come.
“Jack,” she called, “I accept you must have seen something….”
“Something! That’s rich!”
“Okay, someone with Lionel.”
“Good,” He turned and looked back at her one last time.
“But it wasn’t me.”
That brought him up short. He had no response to it. He stood there dumbstruck, just staring at her, running through the scene in his head. What had he seen? A blond in a bed with a man. Had he seen her face? No, he couldn’t swear he had. By the time he’d got up there he’d known the worst case scenario and he’d already half-accepted it. Could it have been the power of suggestion? It was an attractive argument, a shock move even, but it wasn’t quite good enough. Not yet anyway. “Why would they want to fool me?” he asked.
“They?”
“Graham….”
“Hmm. He might want to teach you a lesson. Or it may be about me. Maybe he doesn‘t want me to leave?” She cocked her head to one side. She wasn’t going to spell it out bu
t Amie already had.
“And Amie.”
“Ah,” She shrugged, both hands open to the heavens. “I don’t know,” she replied, “that may be more about you. But it wasn’t me you saw in that bed. Doesn’t that make a difference?”
He breathed out deeply. Of course it did but could he trust her? Wasn’t that the crux of his problem? He just never knew where he was with her. What if she was fooling him again right now? Why would Graham set him up like that if it wasn’t true? Why would Amie? How he wished he‘d gone for that moment of confrontation in the room, the one he’d shrunk from in such cowardly fashion because he’d felt like the intruder. He made a snap decision. “Have you got your passport?”
“Why?”
“You’ve just got time to get a ticket for this plane.”
“No, of course I haven’t. It’s in my bag back at the hotel.”
He nodded. That was right. He’d put it there himself. “Okay,” he replied, “I’m going now. Got a flight to catch.”
“Okay. If you must,” He was astonished that she looked so forlorn.
“If you’re on the next plane, then I guess I’ll know I have a partner. If you’re not, then I guess I’ll know I don’t.”
He took a step towards her and kissed her gently on the lips then he picked up his bag and strode through the gate. He didn’t look back.
DON’T FORGET
NOT GUILTY NOT INNOCENT is 99c for a limited time
Not Guilty Not innocent is the brand new thriller by this author and a co-author.
Grab it now, price goes up on March 10 to $3.99
Teaser:
Valda is on trial for murder and it’s the biggest scandal since Profumo.
Murdered singer Renee Porter is the link between a Russian oligarch and a key political player - what she knew was dynamite. Can Valda work out what it is before she pays the ultimate price?
Lawyer Jack Lauder is in Belfast dealing with the case of a young well-heeled Russian woman at the special request of up and coming Labour MP Dustin Stanhope acting on behalf of his ‘friend’ oligarch, Oleg Lagunov.
Valda and her band, The G-String Girls, are performing in Belfast as part of a UK tour. Was it the hand of fate that led her to Jack that night or does she have another agenda? Can Jack ever be entirely sure that Stanhope wasn’t behind this coincidence? Although he does not yet know it Valda and her band mate, Renee, are also tied up with Stanhope and Lagunov, two of the London high society power brokers who quaff Moet in their clubs whilst they decide the fate of others.
When Renee is found dead in the bath, Valda is branded the “jealous femme fatale” and charged with her murder. Jack puts his reputation and his life on the line to defend her; he is fast falling for this enigmatic singer even though he knows she is not always 100% honest with him.
Meanwhile the Fleet Street hacks salivate at the prospect of the Trial of the Century. Valda and Jack have little time to gather the evidence which will save her whilst carefully watching their backs as Oleg Lagunov plays only for the highest stakes.
Readers who enjoy John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon will find this book right up their street.
* * *
[1] Nothing wrong with a drink
[2] down
[3] Take away
[4] Walk on water
[5] Talking
[6] Russian
[7] Sir
[8] Tournament
[9] Going
[10] About
[11] I’m
[12] Alright
[13] Nice
[14] Blokes
[15] Don’t know
[16] Pal
[17] To do with
[18] once
[19] Where’s that
[20] yourself
[21] Told
[22] Myself
[23] Want to know
[24] outside
[25] head
[26] Mouth out
[27] Mate
[28] Wasn’t
[29] Child’s
[30] Don’t
[31] murder
[32] All wrong
[33] Mate
[34] Wasn’t
[35] was
[36] Nothing personal
[37] was
[38] down
[39] You deaf
[40] Someone from Sunderland
[41] Nothing personal
