Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Yes, what about him?’ she said. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Good question. Apparently they’re running a match with the unidentified fibres and skin cells found in Katherine Sumner’s flat.’

  Laurie’s surprise and intrigue showed. ‘Why? What makes them think he was there?’ she said.

  ‘They had an anonymous tip-off.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It came our way when Max was talking to one of his contacts inside the Phraxos Group. I just made a couple of follow-up calls, and now you know as much as I do.’

  Laurie became very still. ‘So you are investigating Phraxos,’ she stated.

  He nodded. ‘Or one aspect of it.’

  Hardly able to contain her eagerness she said, ‘Was Tim Hendon involved with them? Has his name come up at all?’

  ‘No. I’d have told you if it had, but we haven’t exactly been looking for it, so don’t discount the possibility. It’s more the American angle that we’ve been taking, because by comparison Phraxos investments in the UK are small. In the US they’re enormous, and with US defence spending now at a record two hundred and forty-six billion, the Phraxos shareholders are getting very rich indeed.’

  ‘And how many of its directors are inside the Pentagon?’

  ‘None that we know of, but most of them have come from there, so they have all the right contacts.’

  Laurie picked up her wine. ‘Can I ask which aspect of Phraxos you’re investigating?’ she said.

  His eyes met hers as he seemed to debate his answer. She knew it wasn’t because he didn’t trust her, he was just deciding how safe it would be for her to know. ‘Arms to Africa. Sanctions-busting,’ he said finally. ‘It’s a very lucrative part of the world as far as weapons are concerned, and conflicts aren’t difficult to find, or even create.’

  Her eyes opened wide. ‘You believe they’re actually creating conflicts?’ she said, shocked, though she knew she probably shouldn’t be.

  ‘We’re becoming increasingly convinced of it. It’s a great way of guaranteeing a good customer base, to help along rebel causes, civil wars, political uprisings, military coups … There’s even evidence to say that they help raise the finance to arm the warring factions, money that ultimately ends up in their pockets. If you like, I’ll give you a copy of a report from the World Policy Institute, it’ll confirm all your worst nightmares about how America supplies weapons and military training to just about every corrupt regime or rebel cause you can think of. And how a goodly portion of the humanitarian aid that goes to those countries, ends up back in the US – and Britain and France – to purchase arms.’

  Knowing that this was Rachel’s worst nightmare coming true, as it would be anyone’s if they really paid attention to what was happening, Laurie said, ‘It’s inhuman. Insane.’

  ‘It’s trade. Big business,’ he corrected. ‘And since the end of the Cold War the military and arms industries have had to find other ways of justifying their existence and making their profits. Of course, they don’t have too much of a problem now, with everything else that’s going on, but then we could get into how all that really got started.’

  Laurie considered the unthinkable meaning of his words, but then realizing they were moving away from the real point of the discussion she said, ‘Going back to the body they found in St Tropez – what was his name? – Gustave Basim? Do you think there’s a chance that he and the Xavier Lachère Max mentioned in his email could be one and the same person?’

  He looked doubtful. ‘Given the dead man’s age, and background, it doesn’t seem likely,’ he answered, taking another mouthful of food. ‘Have you managed to find out anything at all about Lachère?’ he asked, after he’d swallowed.

  ‘Not a thing. We’re all drawing blanks.’ She looked down at her plate and wished she wasn’t finding it so hard to eat, but with their own unresolved problems ebbing and flowing through all they were discussing, it was hard to summon an appetite. ‘This Basim doesn’t seem to fit the profile of Katherine’s friends at all,’ she said, remaining on the safer ground of other people’s affairs. ‘Or not what I’ve managed to find out about him.’

  ‘Which leads you to think?’ he prompted.

  ‘That he could be a hired killer?’

  He tilted his head to one side as he considered the possibility. ‘Does he have any kind of record that might support that?’

  ‘Not exactly, but he has been questioned about links with GIA, the Algerian Islamic Group.’

  ‘So are you saying you think Katherine let him into the flat to do the deed, then when it was over they left together?’

  She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  He shrugged too. ‘Certainly Koehler would consider someone like Basim to be as disposable as Kleenex,’ he said, ‘so, if you’re right, maybe, as a precautionary measure, to stop the man blabbing should he ever feel the urge, Koehler arranged for him to be shot and flushed off into the harbour. After all, who would ever make a connection between the corpse of a Parisian low-life and a prominent British politician, or to a sophisticated American woman – or indeed to an exclusive organization like Phraxos? They probably never would have without the tip-off.’

  ‘So who gave the tip-off? Katherine Sumner?’

  ‘Why? If she was involved in the murder?’

  Laurie shook her head, and they continued to eat in silence for a while, each running with their own thoughts, until Laurie said, ‘Rachel’s hoping that the evidence of someone else being in the flat will stretch to the semen on the sheet. I must admit, I was beginning to think it might too, but it doesn’t seem very likely if Gustave Basim does turn out to be the mystery man, does it?’

  Elliot shook his head, then after topping up their glasses, he said, ‘Between you and me, my money’s on Tim Hendon for that. Everything points to it, and I haven’t heard anything yet that swivels the finger. When are the DNA results expected?’

  ‘You know how long they take.’

  He waited as the music changed, then, satisfied with the new track, said, ‘Now I have a question for you.’

  Instinctively she knew that it wasn’t going to be the question she wanted to hear.

  ‘How convinced are you that Rachel Hendon is totally genuine?’ he said.

  Swallowing her dismay, she said, ‘Ninety-nine per cent.’

  He smiled, for that was as certain as anyone in their field would ever be about anything.

  Feeling herself respond to the smile in a way that could so easily make her forget that any problems existed between them, she got to her feet and began loading the empty plates on to a tray. Tonight really wasn’t a good time to try opening a discussion on exactly where they were going with this relationship, so she’d just keep it bottled up, the way she usually did, and carry on pretending that everything was normal and fine.

  After carrying the tray through to the kitchen, she dumped it on a draining board then put a hand to her head as she tried to calm down. She was angrier with herself than with him, for she always managed to find an excuse to avoid the issues – he was too tired, he’d had a long journey, they were both too busy, maybe it was all in her head anyway. But it wasn’t all in her head, it was real, and she knew it, so she’d have to find the courage to bring it up sooner or later, because she just couldn’t go on hoping that it would all somehow work itself out, when it simply couldn’t. He didn’t love her, at least not the way she loved him, and that was that. Oh, he cared for her deeply enough, and enjoyed her company every bit as much as she did his, particularly on a professional level, but in their hearts they both knew that on a personal level he was only with her out of guilt, because he still considered himself responsible for Lysette’s suicide; so having deprived her of her twin sister, he couldn’t bring himself to deprive her of their relationship too, when he knew how much it meant to her.

  The very idea that pity should be his defining emotion was too humiliating for words, but she wasn’t going to think about it any more tonight, when s
he had no intention of discussing it, and when the Hendon case needed her full attention, for she had to decide, before she spoke to Rachel tomorrow, how she was to break the news about Gustave Basim.

  Picturing the way Rachel had looked when she’d left, so bewildered and afraid of losing her baby, she hardly wanted to call her at all, never mind burden her with anything more. But she had to, if for no other reason than to find out how she was now, and whether she’d changed her mind and decided to make the transfer. If she hadn’t, then Laurie was toying with the idea of persuading her to confide in someone local, for she certainly needed some kind of back-up down there, especially if she decided to hang on to the money. To her mind Chris Gallagher seemed the obvious choice, for he was known by everyone, and was extremely popular too, but Laurie couldn’t help feeling just a tinge of concern at the way he’d turned up in Rachel’s life now, when there had surely been so many other opportunities for them to meet.

  Starting as the telephone rang, she waited to see if Elliot would answer, then hearing his voice, she finished loading the dishwasher, turning her mind to the questions she was going to ask Robert Maxton when she met him tomorrow.

  ‘That was Rose,’ Elliot said, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later, carrying both glasses of wine. ‘She was confirming lunch on Friday with you and your mother.’

  ‘Actually, Mum’s not coming,’ she said, taking her glass. ‘But she and Dad are going to be here on Thursday night. Can you make it for dinner?’

  ‘I’ll check my diary,’ he answered. ‘It’s a busy week, I know that, so I would doubt it. In fact, I think I’m going to Stockholm on Thursday morning.’

  She nodded, then smiling past her disappointment she took a sip of wine and tried to think of something to say. She wondered if he was trying to think of something too, and felt utterly wretched that they should have reached the point where all they had to talk about were the stories they worked on.

  ‘Oh, by the way, I had a call from Murray today,’ she said, referring to his office manager. ‘It seems there’s some office space going in your building that he thinks I should take a look at.’

  He frowned as he said, ‘When’s Rose’s lease up in Chelsea?’

  ‘The end of this month, and since she’s off to Jakarta next week, it’s up to me to find somewhere soon. I had a look at the new building in Limehouse, just off Narrow Street, before I went to Cornwall. That was very promising.’

  ‘Good location,’ he commented. ‘What was the rent?’

  As she answered she could feel the frustration building up in her again, for she’d wanted him to show some enthusiasm for her moving the programme into the docklands building where he was based so that eventually, or even immediately, they might discuss joining forces, her and Rose running the TV side of things, him the newspapers, with a combined staff of researchers. But he obviously wasn’t going to encourage that, for the only interest he’d shown was in Narrow Street, which he himself had put her on to. Yet more evidence that their minds weren’t working in the same direction at all.

  ‘So, what’s happening in Stockholm?’ she asked, as he went to rinse his empty glass under the tap. She couldn’t have cared less what was happening in Stockholm: all she really wanted was for him to take her in his arms and tell her how much he’d missed her, and how he’d hardly been able to wait to hold her. But of course he didn’t, because he never did. He just started to answer the question, then the phone interrupted him and he went back into the sitting room to answer it.

  She was becoming so angry now that she actually wanted to hit him. They hadn’t been together since she’d flown over to join him in the States, four weeks ago, at which point she hadn’t seen him at all in over two months. To be fair, when she’d got there and suggested they snatch a few days in the Bahamas, he’d agreed right away, so in that instance, at least, she couldn’t accuse him of putting his work first. Besides, she could be every bit as focused when she got her teeth into a story, so it wasn’t the work she had a problem with. It was the fact that he hadn’t suggested the Bahamas himself, or anywhere else, just like he hadn’t attempted any more than a perfunctory kiss since she’d picked him up from the airport, and even now he didn’t seem to consider any kind of personal contact or even words to be necessary. So what more evidence did she need that she wasn’t anywhere close to the front of his mind, while he was always right there, at centre-stage in hers?

  It was probably because she was getting herself so wound up that it took her a while to register the music that had started to drift from the speakers and fill the apartment. When she did it was as though every ounce of hostility was draining from her body, for the sheer emotion that this opera could stir in her left little room for anything else. How did he always manage to do this? To make her love him more, when she was trying so hard to love him less. For it was to La Bohème that they’d first made love, in a candlelit garden, at Max Erwin’s impossibly romantic villa in western Mexico, just after they’d finished the Ashby story. And knowing he’d probably chosen it because he’d sensed her mood, and because this memory was so very special to them both, she could feel her throat tightening. She wanted nothing more now than to be in his arms, with his mouth and body pressed hard against hers, for it was only when they made love that the doubts and insecurities ceased to exist.

  Looking up as he came into the kitchen, she smiled shakily at the desire clouding his eyes. Then going towards him she raised her mouth to his, knowing she shouldn’t be this willing, but loving him as much as she did, all she could do was promise herself, yet again, that this really would be the last time.

  Though Gloria Sullivan wasn’t called to the film set until two, she’d made a point of arriving early in the hope of running into the journalist, Laurie Forbes, who she’d heard was meeting Robert Maxton at noon. Knowing how unlikely it was that the unit would break on schedule, Gloria had surmised, correctly as it turned out, that Ms Forbes would be kept hanging around for a while, so Gloria was going to take the opportunity to talk to this famous reporter.

  The shoot had now moved into one of the vast studios at Pinewood, on the outskirts of London, so it no longer had the warm, intimate feel that it had had when they’d been crammed into the theatre – at least that’s how it seemed to Gloria. For certain others, that didn’t appear to be the case at all. In fact, Stacey Greene and Robert Maxton were becoming so close these days that he’d actually had the nerve to tell Gloria that he and Stacey thought she was doing a marvellous job with her role. As if anyone gave a shit what Stacey Greene thought! Just who the hell did she think she was, linking her praise with the director’s, as though he was her damned mouthpiece and she was just too high and mighty to speak to a lowly fellow actor in person. Ugh! Such arrogance made Gloria want to throw up. OK, Stacey had helped her in the beginning, but hey, Stacey had been getting the extra rehearsals too, so how about she woke up to the fact that it was a reciprocal thing that they’d both benefited from, not just little newcomer Gloria. Then of course the minute Stacey felt she didn’t need any more private sessions, it had all been abandoned so fast it might have made Gloria’s head spin, if she’d even seen it coming. As it was, she’d been expected to accept the snub as though she were some snivelling little sycophant, who should just be grateful she’d ever been noticed at all. And it hadn’t helped, hearing one of the snidey make-up artists comment, ‘Gloria Icarus flew too close to the sun.’ As if Stacey Greene was the effing sun! Though the way the woman behaved, a person could be forgiven for thinking she was the whole frigging universe.

  But Stacey Greene was like that, everyone said so. With her, you could be in favour one moment, out the next, never knowing what you’d done to earn her disapproval, nor would you ever, because to a person’s face she was always as sugary dahling as ever, though, of course, without the flirtation and promise that had gone before. And that was exactly how it had happened with Gloria: one minute she was being lavished with coveted invitations – OK, one invitation �
� to the exclusive country home, the next she wasn’t even welcome in the damned dressing room. Well, screw her, Miss Naked-Horseback-Rider with lesbian tendencies! Let her find out now what it was like to have people sniggering behind her back, the way they’d sniggered behind Gloria’s after she’d made the grandiose mistake of boasting about her special relationship with Lady Muck. And that ridiculous acolyte who called himself a director could find out at the same time just what a pathetic joke he was making of himself, mooning about after her like a lovesick retard with respiratory problems, getting Ernesto Gomez to paint her portrait a dozen times over; writing her poems that he slipped to her when he thought no one was looking, and now, according to the grapevine, he was writing a new play, just for her. Poor Anna, was all Gloria could say, though frankly, if the man was going to behave like a prize perve with another woman, then she was probably better shot of him.

  Though Laurie had been to plenty of TV studios before, this was her first visit to a sound-stage, and so far she was rather enjoying it, for someone had set her up with her own chair, and a monitor, and every now and again Robert Maxton himself was coming over to explain what was happening on the set. At the moment Stacey Greene was playing a scene with Bryn Walker that was impressing the heck out of Laurie, for the way it looked on the monitor was exactly as though it was taking place on a forested riverbank in the dead of night, rather than in a breeze-block studio just after midday. The reason they were doing it this way, Robert had explained, was not only because it saved the cost of a night shoot, but because of the special effects that were going to be edited in later.

  Laurie hadn’t pressed him on that, for she’d known she probably wouldn’t understand it anyway, and besides she didn’t want to ruin it for when she went to see the finished version in the cinema. It could be the kind of arty film Elliot would enjoy, so maybe, if she played her cards right, she’d be able to wangle them an invite to the première. She probably wouldn’t still be with him by then but there was no reason for them not to remain friends, and anyway, after last night she was feeling slightly more confident that they might actually be able to work things out. Not that they’d discussed anything – heaven forfend that they should ever vocalize their feelings – but the fact that he’d seemed to recognize the need for some kind of romantic gesture was definitely a move in the right direction.