Making Hay

by Veronica Henry

  The moment Damien had set foot in Honeycote, he knew it was the perfect place for him and his daughter Anastasia. It was the last place anyone would look for him, a committed urban dweller, a penthouse prince. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d set foot in the countryside, but found he was rather looking forward to being part of a community. He imagined legions of villagers trooping to his door – apple-cheeked old ladies with tins of welcoming home-made shortbread, an absent-minded vicar touching him up for donations to the church roof fund (who would subsequently be speechless with the generosity of his cheque), comely young wenches offering to do his cleaning – until it occurred to him that none of them would actually be able to get to his door.

  For Honeycote Grove was a gated development nestling just outside the village: five luxury houses – or rather, ‘homes’ – contained within an eight-foot-high brick wall armed with discreet razor wire, remote-control gates, hidden cameras and security lighting, impenetrable to unwanted visitors. Each house stood in its own half-acre plot and was styled as a mini-castle, built out of authentic Cotswold stone with castellated roofs and pointy turrets and mullioned windows and studded oak doors. Inside, by contrast, they were the height of modernity, kitted out with the ultimate in gadgets. Every bedroom had an en suite with a power shower and spa bath, there was a study with a mezzanine library, fully geared up for working from home and bursting with the latest in telecommunication, and a kitchen that would gratify the most demanding chef. The garden was beautifully landscaped, already filled with mature trees and shrubs, with a fountain and a terrace and a built-in gas barbecue and floodlights and outdoor heaters. With each house came a share of five acres adjoining the estate, a swimming pool, a small gym and a tennis court. Damien had bought off plan, so he’d been able to choose all the paint finishes and the tiles and the curtains to his liking. And he knew just what he wanted. Damien always did.

  The pièce de résistance was Anastasia’s bedroom. It was every little girl’s dream, contained in the very top of the turret, and was painted in sugared almond shades of lilac and pink, with silver stars on the ceiling and a princess bed with white toile curtains all around, like Sleeping Beauty. He couldn’t wait till Sunday, when he was going to fetch her from his mother’s in Weston-super-Mare, so he could show her everything. It was all for her, after all. If it hadn’t been for Anastasia… She lit up what was otherwise a rather dark life. It was why he called her Star for short.

  He supposed that to an outsider, theirs was a peculiar set-up. A thirty-two-year-old entrepreneur, ensconced with his three-year-old daughter in the lap of luxury, in one of the most beautiful villages he’d ever seen. Yet they would be, essentially, prisoners in their own home. Paranoia was one of Damien’s weaknesses, even though he constantly told himself to chill out and relax. It was one of his favourite sayings: just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

  She couldn’t possibly know where they were. He’d covered his tracks very, very carefully. But you never knew with Nicole. He didn’t trust her an inch.

  As the car left the outskirts of Honeycote and sped towards the neighbouring town of Eldenbury, it occurred to Damien that he ought to fill Rick in. Not with all the gruesome details, of course. But just enough so he could be on his guard, make sure they weren’t being followed. And to let Damien know if he saw or heard anything suspicious. It was, after all, only a matter of time…

  Single fatherhood hadn’t been on Damien’s wish-list, but it had turned out to be the one thing that gave him true satisfaction. He often wondered who it was up there, moving the chess pieces around the board, when he’d met Nicole in Bristol four years before. She was the head waitress in a flashy restaurant he’d taken a business client to, and he’d been knocked sideways by her efficiency. It was notoriously difficult to get good staff who knew how to treat the clientele, and she handled it beautifully. He watched as the neighbouring table, a trio of braying PR guys, guzzled the best part of a bottle of wine priced at seventy-five pounds and then sent it back, claiming it was corked. She didn’t bat an eyelid. She took the bottle with charming apologies and without demur. As a result they went on to order an even more expensive bottle, and left her a huge tip. Damien was quietly impressed. He was changing direction, and thought she was the ideal figurehead for his next venture: a bar in Cheltenham, upmarket, no funny stuff. Nicole had got balls and beauty; the class and style needed to run it. She could go places under his direction. They could go places.

  When he slipped her his card and told her to give him a call, he was surprised when she did that very evening. He took her out to dinner to discuss her prospects; how they could help each other. They’d hardly touched the terms and conditions before they ended up in bed, and Damien realized he’d made a fatal error. He couldn’t employ her now, not when he’d fallen in love with her. He never, ever, mixed business with pleasure. It was his golden rule from the day he’d first got into the skin trade.

  He didn’t know at the time he’d been duped. Nicole had actually been sacked from her job that very afternoon, after failing a random drugs test by the militant company who owned the restaurant where she worked. She might look the part on the surface, but underneath she was a party animal, spiralling out of control with her insatiable hunger for sex, drugs and shopping, two of which Damien was willing and able to satisfy. The drugs he didn’t know about. He was surprisingly blind to her faults, dazzled by her beauty and magnetic personality, but then she was a mistress of deception.

  At first she’d made him happy. He never felt prouder than when they went out together. They made a stunning couple: he was fair, with a sheet of blond hair falling over his eyes that was cut by a top stylist every two weeks and conditioned every day; she had exquisite bone structure, flashing dark eyes and a mass of lustrous black curls. They were style icons, always dressed in the most cutting-edge designer clothing, never seen in the same thing twice; by the time everyone else had caught up with the latest must-have item, they were on to the next. They took last-minute deals and shopped in New York, to be sure that they were the leaders of the pack, that no one else could be seen in what they were wearing. They were big fish in the small pond that was Bristol, and it was, for a year or so, immensely gratifying.

  In time, though, Nicole turned out to be dangerously flawed: behind her immaculate facade was a bundle of neurotic hang-ups, an evil temper and a monstrous ego that was heightened by her drug abuse. Nothing Damien did for her was enough. She was like a vampire, preying on his pocket, his heart and his soul. The baby of her Irish family, she’d been spoilt and cosseted, indulged in her every whim, and she expected the same level of attention from Damien. Gradually, however, his patience wore thin, and he began to express irritation at the fact that she couldn’t even begin to keep their riverside apartment tidy, or get food in. When she refused one day point-blank to pick up his dry-cleaning, he lost his temper. Nicole had panicked, seen that she was in danger of losing her own personal cashpoint machine and realized that Damien had meant it when he’d told her to shape up or ship out. In the following few weeks, her housekeeping would have put Martha Stewart to shame. Damien came home to lovingly prepared (even if it was by supermarkets) meals, and he got the full benefit of the hundreds of pounds’ worth of Italian underwear he’d bought for her. The result of which was Nicole became pregnant. Damien had felt a growing sense of unease when she’d announced this over a particularly intimate supper (Waitrose duck à l’orange and lemon mousse) and couldn’t help feeling that he’d been hoodwinked. It was the oldest trick in the bloody book, after all.

  The wedding was lavish; a candlelit winter ceremony held at a country house hotel just outside Bristol. Nicole wore a white velvet dress trimmed with marabou at the neck and cuffs, cleverly cut to hide her bump but maximize her cleavage, a coronet of blood-red roses and ivy entwined in her curls. She looked the picture of fairy-tale innocence, Snow White or Rose Red. But Damien could tell, by the way that no one could qu
ite meet his eye, that the congregation held out little hope for the success of his marriage. He’d worn a green velvet frock coat and the Irish contingent had been horrified. It was bad luck to marry in green, they said. Damien often wondered what would have happened had he gone for the red silk Nehru jacket that had been his second choice.

  The remaining months of Nicole’s pregnancy were calm and trouble free. She still managed to spend money, but Damien felt it was all in a good cause as he watched the room put aside as the nursery fill with exquisite French babywear and the latest gadgets to make the new mother’s life a breeze.

  When Anastasia was born, he realized what love was. Sadly, Nicole didn’t feel the same bond, but almost seemed to resent the baby. She’d demanded a maternity nurse, followed by a nanny, and Damien put his foot down. What was the point, he’d demanded, when Nicole didn’t have anything else to do? A baby should be looked after by its own mother. The tantrums and hysterics were hideous, and in the end Nicole had effectively gone on strike, completely unable to face up to the responsibilities of motherhood. She let her mother look after Anastasia while she went out shopping, to the gym, to the nail bar, out partying and clubbing every night. Damien, weighted down with work, hadn’t been able to do much about it. He couldn’t stand Nicole’s mother, a self-centred, opinionated witch from County Cork, with dyed black hair and far too much cheap gold jewellery that Damien suspected he financed. His own mother was sweet-natured but seventy-six and crippled with arthritis. He’d moved her into a nice bungalow at Weston, but there was no way she could look after a tiny baby full-time, much as she would have loved to help. And much as he hated the idea of Kathleen O’Connor being in charge of his daughter, at least she was blood, which was more than a nanny would be. He’d read too many horror stories in the tabloids to trust Anastasia with an eighteen-year-old who had no loyalty but her pay cheque at the end of the week. And so the status quo had remained as it was, with him working all hours and Nicole pleasing herself, until Anastasia was nearly three.

  He’d come home unexpectedly early one evening to find a small party lolling about in his lounge as high as kites, drinking champagne. He recognized Sarita, a friend of Nicole’s who claimed to be a model, but who Damien was pretty sure was a high-class hooker. The other member of their little coterie confirmed his suspicions. It was Sebastian Chadwick, who fancied himself as a bit of a Mr Big in Bristol. An obnoxious individual who’d reaped none of the benefits but all of the disadvantages of a minor public school education and had never really grown up, Sebastian brown-nosed the city’s wealthy and successful, earning his place amongst them by selling recreational substances, which he delivered to their elegant Georgian town houses by courier. He charged handsomely for this service, but as he was saving his clients precious time and a risky trip to the dodgy side of town, no one seemed to mind. Deeply unattractive, being overweight and piggy pink, Sebastian notoriously spent most of his profits paying for slightly depraved sexual favours. Damien knew all of this. What he didn’t know, and was about to witness, was who he was paying for those sexual favours.

  The trio were so engrossed in their revelry they hadn’t even noticed him in the doorway. He watched as Nicole, eyes glittering with whatever Sebastian had pumped her full of, sashayed over to the sound system and flicked on Donna Summer, ‘Love to Love You, Baby’. Then she held out her hand for a partner. Damien expected Sebastian to lumber on to his little pig’s trotters but no – it was Sarita who took Nicole’s hand. Sarita who slid into her arms. He watched, horrified and entranced, as Sarita and Nicole proceeded to perform a double act for Sebastian. A professionally choreographed lesbian twosome. It was pretty impressive. Every man’s fantasy, allegedly. Damien might have enjoyed it if it hadn’t been his own wife in the spotlight, and he hadn’t been distracted by the repulsive sight of Sebastian fondling a rather pathetic little chipolata that poked out from amongst the folds of fat.

  He was shaken from his trance by the sound of a whimper further down the corridor. Anastasia! Anastasia had been in the house all along, asleep in her little bed, no doubt woken by the pounding, throbbing bass. Nicole would never hear her cry, as the baby monitor had been switched off. He’d crept into her room, gathered up a few of her belongings and a packet of nappies, and scooped her up in his arms. Before he left, he checked the monitor of the CCTV that was housed in the utility room off the hallway. Sick to his stomach, Damien had taken the videotape out of the closed circuit television that was installed throughout the apartment, knowing full well his wife’s sordid performance would have been recorded for posterity. He didn’t know if it would be permissible evidence in a court of law, but he was pretty sure he could make some use of it. He didn’t know if Nicole was doing what she was doing for cash or kicks, but it didn’t matter either way. She was an unfit mother.

  Damien had called Nicole an hour later from his mother’s house. She still hadn’t realized Anastasia was missing, taking her silence for sleep. He’d phoned her again at ten, to find her in a state of hysterically high paranoia, not even able to remember what arrangements she’d made for her daughter. Damien had taped that phone call as well. He’d need plenty of evidence if he was filing for custody.

  As soon as Nicole clocked that without custody she didn’t stand much chance of a decent settlement either, things had turned ugly. Astoundingly, she claimed undiagnosed post-natal depression as a defence for her behaviour, and pointed the finger at Damien for being unsympathetic to her plight, and indeed worsening it. Without her mother’s support, she declared, her situation would have been intolerable. Although now, of course, she was cured and ready to take on her responsibilities. And the best place for Anastasia was with her mother. Not with her father, who worked around the clock.

  Damien had been granted temporary custody, claiming that Nicole was unfit. The court case was looming, pending doctor’s reports. Damien knew that Nicole had enough tricks up her sleeve and enough dodgy contacts to be able to trump up a fake medical history. He also knew that she had enough knowledge of his business interests to be able to fight back, that it was going to descend into mutual mud-slinging.

  The whole incident made him take stock of his life. OK, so he’d made a massive amount of money out of what a pedant would call vice. He’d always justified it by telling himself that it would still go on even if he himself didn’t profit. And although he benefited from earnings that were verging on the immoral, he didn’t carry that through into his personal life. He’d always remained faithful to his girlfriends in the past. He’d never sampled the goods himself. In fact, he was bordering on puritanical. But now, that squeaky cleanness was going to have to go across the board.

  Basically, the further down the M5 you got, the more disreputable his business interests became. Cheltenham was bars and clubs, nothing seedy – yet. Gloucester was lap-dancing. And Bristol, his home town, was massage parlours, deep down and dirty. The bottom line was the massage parlours had to go. And the lap-dancing clubs, for good measure: they weren’t illegal, but they wouldn’t look too good in front of a judge. Anyway, he was feeling increasingly uneasy about them. Ever since he’d become a father, his conscience had begun pricking. Every time he auditioned a dancer, he couldn’t look them in the eye, knowing that somewhere they had a father just like him, someone who had had hopes and dreams for his daughter just like he had for Anastasia. The thought of her ending up writhing round a pole for the gratification of a load of dirty old men filled him with disgust. So how on earth could he expect someone else’s daughter to line his pockets?

  Added to this was his greatest fear: Anastasia not being invited round to anyone’s house for tea, because word had got out that her daddy traded in flesh. Naked, female flesh. It would only be a matter of time before he got found out, he was sure. Damien knew better than anyone how very, very small the world was. You only had to look at the playbacks of the CCTVs he had in his clubs to know – familiar faces popped up all the time, people whose worst nightmare would be news of the
ir visit to ‘Faster Pussycat’ or ‘Diamondlife’ getting out.

  So he’d started putting out feelers for a buyer and found one almost immediately: Marco Dinari, who had a variety of pasta and pizza restaurants scattered around Bristol. Marco and he began negotiations; they’d done business before, and trusted each other. It was just a question of arriving at a figure that was satisfactory to both of them.

  Meanwhile, he also decided that the dirty city was no place for Anastasia. No child should be brought up in an apartment, even if it was a luxury one. As the more salubrious and less incriminating of his business interests were in Cheltenham, which he intended to keep, he decided to settle in that area. He’d contacted all the local estate agents and demanded they find him a suitable home.

  So here they were in Honeycote; the quintessential English village that was to be their haven, the idyllic setting for their new life. Damien had got the keys two days before, and supervised the move of his furniture from Bristol. He’d deliberately omitted to leave a forwarding address; hadn’t even told Nicole he was moving. It would probably be weeks before she realized they’d flown the coop. She wasn’t really interested in her daughter, except as a meal ticket, so it would only be when she came calling for cash that the penny would drop. Damien smiled contentedly: life was going to be so much easier without her malevolent presence in close proximity…

  The car drove on into Eldenbury, a small market town on the Oxford to Evesham Road, which had originally sprung up from the profits of the local wool trade. It shared the golden glowing stone and shambolic, rather random architecture of Honeycote, but on a slightly larger scale: it boasted a decent-sized hotel, an off-licence, a deli, some decent shops, a small supermarket. And a train station with its magical link to London, just ninety minutes away.