The Semi-Sweet Hereafter

by Colette London

  “When we get to the East End, we can make out like crazy behind the scenes at Jeremy’s charity function, okay?” I poked Liam, emphasizing my put-on. “If the press are this worked up about me harmlessly putting my hand on your arm at the park, that ought to really given them something to talk about.”

  They had to still be following us, right?

  But Jeremy’s former personal trainer was in no mood for kidding around. “I’m not attracted to you that way, Hayden,” he said bluntly. Then, before I could reason out why, Liam turned on his heel and gestured for me to follow. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Eleven

  I’d be lying if I said Liam’s unswerving statement of non-attraction to me didn’t put a damper on our outing.

  It wasn’t that I was attracted to Liam “in that way.” I wasn’t. Jeremy’s former trainer was nice (mostly) and friendly (ditto) and undeniably well-built (duh), but even if Liam wasn’t an unrepentant murderer, things could never work out between us.

  Me, with a man who disavowed chocolate? Impossible.

  I imagined myself dreaming up a scrumptious chocolate soufflé with silky chocolate sauce, a rich chocolate cookie studded with melty chocolate morsels, or an extravagant mocha ice cream pie with a chocolate-cookie crust . . . and Liam looking appalled at the whole lot. Then maybe binning all of it. (That’s Britspeak for “throwing away.” You know, in a bin.)

  Liam would hate everything I did for a living, I knew. That meant we could never find a common ground. I wasn’t going to quit working magic with Theobroma cacao, and he wasn’t going to stop believing that scrummy sugar, carbs, and alcohol were evil.

  Speaking of which . . . “You ate chocolate today, didn’t you?”

  Liam’s terse accusation caught me off guard. So did the way he glared at me while gripping the steering wheel of his modest Ford Fiesta. I’d been surprised when he’d shown up with such a non-flashy car. I’d been expecting, I don’t know . . . an Aston Martin?

  Surely Jeremy had paid him reasonably well, I figured.

  I made a mental note to ask Liam about his car later, then addressed his question. “That tactic might work on someone else, but not me,” I warned him. “I know you’re just trying to change the subject.” I gave him a penetrating look. “What’s going on between you and Phoebe? I saw that thing”—I made googly eyes at him for reference—“that happened between you two earlier.”

  A pause. Then, “I asked you about chocolate first.”

  “My question is more important.” I wasn’t giving in. Danny had the address of the charity function. He could track me down, if need be. In the meantime, Liam couldn’t very well pulverize me with both hands on the steering wheel, could he? “Isn’t Phoebe coming to Jeremy’s Jump Start Foundation? Are you two having a torrid affair? How many miles to the gallon does this thing get, anyway? You must enjoy excellent gas mileage.”

  At my trio of rapid-fire questions, Liam finally laughed.

  The streets of London flashed by outside my passenger-side window, full of people, history, and life. In some parts of the city, you can actually touch sections of ancient city walls that were built by the Romans when the place was called Londinium.

  It was really fascinating. Less so was Liam’s stonewalling.

  “I’m going to find out anyway,” I pushed. “Phoebe and I are getting really close these days. I’m tutoring her in baking.”

  “Without tasting a scrap of chocolate?” Liam asked.

  He had me. “If you and Phoebe were involved, she might need you now,” I tried in a gentler tone. “You know, for comfort.”

  Liam arched one blond eyebrow as he stopped at a light.

  “It would be equally understandable,” I went on, studying his profile for signs of deception, “if you and Phoebe didn’t get along. After all, she runs a bakery and chocolate shop. You wanted to get Jeremy healthy. Something had to give, right?”

  I was spitballing here. As I’ve said, I’m a neophyte.

  Liam knew it. “Phoebe didn’t care about Jeremy’s workouts.”

  I was surprised. “Did she think they were undignified?”

  “She thought he was perfect, just the way he was,” Liam informed me. “She never missed a chance to tell him that. Or anyone else who would stand still long enough to listen.”

  Aw, sweet. So much for Nicola’s divorce theory. “Then why would she cheat on him?” With you? remained unspoken between us.

  Liam swerved his car between two black cabs, then tossed me a heated look. “Phoebe was cheating on Jeremy? With who?”

  He sounded convincingly infuriated by the idea. Whoops. I guessed he’d thought I’d been joking earlier and had been willing to humor me—but only to a point. This point. I began to have doubts about my both-hands-on-the-wheel safety philosophy.

  It was possible Liam could pummel someone and drive responsibly around the Isle of Dogs past Canary Wharf. High rises dotted the area near the West India Docks, their names reading like a who’s who of international banking, media, and professional services firms. It was ironic that just beyond them lived so many people who couldn’t afford their specialties.

  I could read a map. I knew we must be getting close to Jeremy’s rough old neighborhood. Time was running out.

  “Yes, an affair,” I ventured. “With you, I’m guessing.”

  “With me?” Liam’s incredulous gaze pinned me to my seat. “What makes you think I’d want anything to do with Phoebe?”

  Well . . . “Right now? The fact that you’re denying it so hard.”

  He seemed chagrinned. “I can’t believe you think I’m the kind of person who would betray his friend that way.”

  His wounded tone got to me. I couldn’t help it. I felt painfully aware that I suspected Liam might be a killer. But I didn’t feel bad enough about that fact to stop questioning him.

  “I’m sorry. But I heard Jeremy and Phoebe were divorcing—”

  “No way.” Liam shook his head. “That’s not true.”

  He may have thrown in a few expletives, just for emphasis.

  “Then he never said anything to you about marital trouble?”

  “He wouldn’t have had to say.” Liam inched down a busy street bordered by shops. These weren’t the expensive boutiques found in K&C, though. These were curry shops and takeaway fried-chicken restaurants, carpet shops, and small merchants offering spices, fruits, and vegetables from sidewalk stands. “I would have known,” Liam said. “It’s hard to hide anything when you’re sweating through a workout. People get honest right away, yeah?”

  I considered his self-assured statement as we passed by what I assumed were council estates—multistory apartment buildings made of instantly recognizable yellow-brown London stock brick and given little embellishment. I glimpsed graffiti and cigarette butts, a job center, and a health clinic. There were people of a variety of ethnic backgrounds in the streets.

  This wasn’t the London of Downton Abbey fans. It was the real London, lived in by real people with real, ordinary lives.

  Liam frowned my way. “You said you weren’t scared.”

  “I’m not scared.” I’ve been all over the world. Poverty doesn’t scare me—it makes me want to do something to help. I knew of at least one way to do that: by supporting Jeremy’s charity. Later, I’d make a call to Travis and transfer some funds. “I was thinking it must have been difficult for Jeremy to make his way out of here. He must have been quite a man.”

  At that, Liam smiled. “He was. He really was.”

  But his trainer was not as keen a student of human nature as he wanted to believe he was, I realized. Not if he’d studied my face just now and seen fear there. Maybe things would have been different if I’d been trying to knock out a few push-ups, but I doubted it. Liam Taylor’s viewpoint couldn’t be relied on.

  That meant I was on my own when it came to deciding who to trust in Jeremy’s namesake foundation. Because a second later . . .

  “We’re here!” Liam parked and
turned to me, his biceps flexing as he pulled out his car keys. “Ready for this?”

  We’d stopped on the street beside a park, I saw. It was a bit more run-down than the green spaces I usually frequented in London, but it was still welcomingly bordered by trees. In the distance, a crowd of children had gathered near one particular tree. Beneath it stood a table, several stacked-up cardboard boxes, and a man wearing khaki pants and a button-up shirt, along with some other adult volunteers and a few teenagers.

  Liam followed my gaze. Hostility emanated from him as he squinted in the direction of that tree. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Who? Mr. Nervous over there?”

  Liam looked at me blankly.

  “Come on. There’s no way you’re not familiar with those children’s books,” I urged. “Mr. Men and Little Miss? They’re cartoons. There must be . . . I don’t know, dozens of them.”

  The guy under the tree was a dead ringer for the Mr. Nervous character created by Roger Hargreaves. Except he wasn’t purple.

  “Ah.” A look of nostalgia suffused Liam’s face. “I always wanted to be like Mr. Strong. He can tie knots in iron bars.”

  Mission accomplished. Pleased with myself for remembering the books my dad had read to me as a kid and using them—just in the nick of time—to defuse the situation, I got out of the car. I shut the dusty Fiesta’s door, reflecting that it was possible that Liam didn’t own a fancier car because he just wasn’t a “car guy.” Most likely, he usually used public transportation.

  Liam slammed the other car door. He practically growled.

  “He’s leaving. Right now. I’m making well sure of it.”

  “Wait!” I ran after Liam as he stalked across the grass. I caught up to him and restrained him (ha! as if) with my hand on his muscular forearm. “Who is that guy?” I nodded at him.

  Liam only glowered. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

  He walked. I chased him again, feeling the way Goldie must feel when out on a walk with him. Liam’s pace was Olympics-worthy. “If you get in a fight, I’ll have no ride home.”

  He paused to lob me a disbelieving look. “A fight? Most people don’t fight with me. I’m just going to talk to him.”

  I had the feeling Liam’s idea of “talking” primarily involved him towering over Mr. Nervous, menacing him. I glanced toward our destination, searching for inspiration. “Look, he’s handing out candy to the kids in Jeremy’s charity! That’s not—”

  Bad, I’d been about to say. But then I remembered who I was talking to. To Liam, handing out candy to kids was very bad.

  There was only one thing to do: beat him there.

  I silently blessed my jeans, T-shirt, and Converse All-Stars for bringing me this far. Then I took off at a run.

  My tactic worked. I caught Liam by surprise and beat him to the designated tree by a good thirty seconds—maybe because he’d spent some of that time sniggering at my ungainly running. That was long enough for me to wend my way breathlessly through the assembled kids, approach Mr. Nervous, and put forward my hand.

  “Hi! I’m Hayden Mundy Moore. It’s nice to meet you!”

  He looked up, startled. With both hands full of candy bars, he glanced from me to the open boxes that held still more candy bars. Except those weren’t candy bars, I saw. They were Hambleton & Hart “vitality bars.”

  I’d seen those somewhere before.

  “Erm, hello.” Still holding those colorfully wrapped, slender bars, he pushed up his glasses. Left-handed. Then he hesitated with his arms in the air, plainly wondering what to do with his burden. He settled for dumping them all back into the opened box atop the stack in front of him. “I’m Andrew Davies.”

  While the kids nearby groaned and complained about having to wait for their “vitality bars,” Andrew Davies shook my hand. Sort of. Unassumingly was how I’d describe it. His was one of the most lifeless, moist handshakes I’ve ever encountered. He seemed amiable enough, so I resisted the urge to wipe my hand.

  “How can I help?” I asked briskly, inserting myself between Andrew and Liam. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Liam striding toward us with homicide in his eyes.

  You know . . . figuratively speaking.

  “My, aren’t you a brash one? Not like Nicola at all.” Andrew ran his gaze over me, from my sneakers to my ponytail. His ruddy cheeks colored even further, contrasting with his sandy hair. “I’d heard Jeremy had hired another assistant.”

  Where did everyone keep getting that idea? Did something about me radiate administrative proficiency? I doubted it. Travis, especially, would have laughed uproariously at the notion. Besides, Phoebe had confirmed that Jeremy hadn’t had time to hire another assistant . . . this time.

  “I’m happy to do whatever you need,” I promised, leaving aside the notion of my not being Jeremy’s assistant for the moment. I nodded a greeting at the other adults nearby, most of whom were clad in orange Jeremy’s Jump Start Foundation T-shirts with white stylized kangaroos screen-printed on their fronts.

  Before Andrew could offer me a volunteering suggestion, he glimpsed Liam. The CEO of Hambleton & Hart blanched. He stepped back in evident alarm. He tripped on a clod of grass. He yelped.

  Aristocratically, of course. But still. For a man who was powerful, wealthy, and (I’m assuming) respected, Andrew Davies didn’t exactly cut a dashing figure. In fact, if Jeremy Wright had had an anti-doppelganger, it would have been Andrew. They shared the same hair color, the same height and build . . . but where Jeremy had been charismatic and rough-hewn, Andrew was tentative and shambolic. He was obviously well-educated and intelligent, with a posh accent and expensive (if rumpled) preppy clothes. But his overall air of polite nervousness trumped all else.

  He seemed, more than anything, utterly harmless. Which, I figured, was all the more reason to suspect him of murdering Jeremy. After all, wasn’t it always the person you least suspected who turned out to be the gruesome, twisted killer?

  It was almost enough to make me step out of the way and let hulking Liam commit whatever violent “talking to him” intrusion he had in mind. As you might have guessed, I couldn’t do it.

  What if Andrew Davies genuinely were harmless?

  I stepped forward with my arms outstretched, ready to run interference between Liam and Hambleton & Hart’s CEO. But it turned out I didn’t need to. Before Liam ever reached us . . .

  “Liam! Liam!” All the kids abandoned the “vitality bar” station and swarmed the enormous personal trainer instead. They jumped up and down, waving their arms to get his attention. They dogged his footsteps like puppies. They laughed. “Liam! Hey!”

  In the center of the mêlée, Mr. No Treats beamed.

  He high-fived some kids and hugged others. He traded grins and laughed with joy. Amid those children of all ages, sexes, ethnic backgrounds, and family situations, Liam seemed happy.

  Our eyes met over the pint-size crowd. He grinned.

  His gaze swerved to Andrew Davies. Momentarily, Liam put on a scary face, then gave the CEO one of those “I’m watching you” gestures. He pointed from his eyes to Andrew’s terrified face.

  Andrew took another step back. “I didn’t think he’d be coming today,” he muttered, “after what happened to Jeremy.”

  He wasn’t pleased to see his onetime spokesperson’s personal trainer, either, I saw as I turned to reassure him.

  I didn’t know what I planned to say. I’ll protect you sounded ludicrous, but I honestly didn’t think Liam would go through me to get to Andrew Davies—no matter how much he objected to the “vitality bars” the CEO had been handing out.

  That’s when I remembered where I’d seen one of those “just 150 calories!” bars before. In Phoebe’s cardigan pocket.

  Maybe she’d attended one of Jeremy’s charity events and picked up one for herself. Maybe Hambleton & Hart had given Jeremy and Phoebe boxes full of their products as thank-yous. Maybe Amelja had purchased a package of “vitality bars” to help her power through clea
ning the Wrights’ immense town house and Phoebe had helped herself to one. Maybe it just didn’t matter.

  I was grasping at straws, I realized. But DC Mishra’s visit had left me feeling as though I were running out of time. If I was going to find Jeremy’s killer, I had to do it quickly.

  In that spirit . . . “Yes, about what happened to Jeremy,” I said in a low voice, picking up where Andrew had left off. “We’re putting together a memorial for him, of sorts, and I’m gathering remembrances from his friends and colleagues. I was wondering . . .” I rummaged in my handy crossbody bag and pulled out one of my Moleskine notebooks. “Would you care to share your thoughts?”

  Hey, if everyone thought I was Jeremy’s assistant, who was I to argue? Maybe I could use my inadvertent insider status.

  Children milled around us, hollering with glee. Someone brought out a soccer ball; Liam led the kids in an impromptu match farther out in the park. The adult volunteers seemed absorbed with the foundation’s shoe-donation station, a food bank offering boxes of Hambleton & Hart instant-pudding mixes, ready-bake cakes, and what appeared to be a new breakfast cereal range, plus a spot for swapping outgrown clothing and toys.

  Jeremy’s Foundation seemed to be doing good work.

  Andrew Davies, on the other hand, appeared to be hesitating over sharing reminiscences about Jeremy. I had to goose him.

  “It’s going to be my final task,” I confided in an even more circumspect voice. I sighed, trying to appear on the verge of being made redundant (being “unemployed,” to us Yanks). “I really want to do a good job with this. For Jeremy’s sake.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Andrew nearly tutted. For a fairly young man, he seemed preternaturally mature. “What do you need?”

  “Well, you know . . . any last remembrances of Jeremy would be good. Thoughts of his special qualities. Amusing anecdotes.”

  Now Andrew seemed petrified of me. He licked his lips, then shifted as he studied the distant soccer game. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m not especially gifted at amusing anecdotes. I’m more of an ‘embarrassing mishap’ sort of chap, actually.”