by Wendy Holden
She quickened her pace and greeted him in her best seductive voice. He gazed at her, seemingly baffled, but she soldiered on.
‘Mr Greenleaf! Or can I call you Adam . . .’
‘I’ve got to go,’ Dylan gasped. His instinct, the first time he had met Angela, was that she was mad. And possibly dangerous. While there was no resemblance in looks, she had the same unhinged air as Beatrice. The contrast with the just-departed Nell was profound.
‘Didn’t realise you knew Nell that well,’ Angela beamed. ‘The way you were kissing her just then,’ she prompted, caustically.
‘I wasn’t kissing her,’ Dylan indignantly rebutted.
‘Could have fooled me.’ Angela maintained a mask of gay admonishment. But she really needed to get rid of Nell Simpson, and as soon as possible. Make her life such a misery that she’d have no option but to leave. The weddings department idea had misfired; as had the cottage. She would just have to think of something else.
As the conversation was not going well, and Dylan’s desire to get away from her was depressingly obvious, Angela sought to show herself in a better light. ‘I suppose you were visiting poor George Farley?’ she asked sweetly. ‘How is he, the dear?’
She saw a cloud pass over Dylan’s handsome face. ‘I was here with Dan, actually,’ he said.
Angela’s eyes bulged and she swayed on her heels, feeling, for a minute, the world spin about her.
What had happened to Dan had been the most tremendous shock. She had intended, when apprehending Caradoc at the theatre, only to expose his wife’s affair and spoil things for the lovers. Supplying the actor with a motive for murder had been the very last thing on her mind. She had never dreamed Caradoc would go so far or do such a stupid and dangerous thing.
She had bumped into him in the local Sainsbury’s, in the housewares aisle. Angela knew Caradoc only slightly, but it was clear even from this vague acquaintance that he had undergone a change for the worse.
Caradoc seemed to have gone quite mad. His short frame had quivered with a manic intensity and his eyes had blazed feverishly as he told her about the chocolates he had filled with lethal garden substances and given to Dan Parker.
The words ‘complete organ failure’ had almost caused Angela to drop her basket. She had wanted revenge, and to kill two birds with one stone. But not literally.
‘People recover from that, don’t they?’ she had croaked, through a suddenly dry throat.
‘Hopefully not,’ Caradoc snapped, stalking off to a newly vacated self-checkout till.
Now, as she looked at Dylan, she felt her face drain of blood. ‘How is Dan?’ she asked, trying to stop her voice from shaking.
‘That’s what I’m hoping to find out.’ Dylan was struck by Angela’s evident agitation; he had not realised she was a friend of Dan’s. The fact she cared was to her credit. ‘We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed,’ he added more gently.
Angela swallowed fiercely and turned away. There was a hot, unfamiliar sensation in her eyes, which she eventually recognised was tears.
She felt suddenly desperate for Dan to survive. He was a man she had been passionately attached to, and that he might be dying in hospital because of her was hideous. No, she had not actually administered the poison. But she had definitely pulled the lever that had started the deadly machine. She thought again of Caradoc’s crazed and burning stare by the bathroom sprays.
Angela was not usually much given to pondering the consequences of her actions, but the consequence of this one was too awful to ignore. And yet there was nothing she could do about it.
She flicked a glance towards the impassive block of the hospital building. Now she was going in there she felt, frankly, vulnerable. Here, she had no dominion. No one cared that she was Director of Human Resources for the Pemberton Estate. Her power, which seemed so great when she was behind her desk, was pitifully small and inconsequential compared to the power of life and death.
Nell hurried through the sea of cars in the hospital car park. She was completely disorientated and had no idea where she was going. Her main aim was to get away from Adam Greenleaf. He was dangerous; dangerously attractive. He’d burned her fingers once, and to let him do so again would be madness.
Her head was whirling and her heart galloped. Through the blood thundering in her head, she heard the sound of wheels.
‘Want a lift?’ Dylan asked. ‘Only, I’m going back to Chestlock and I can drop you at Edenville on the way.’
He hadn’t intended to say this. It just came out, as if some force other than himself was speaking. The same force had made him change direction when he saw her at the other end of the car park. The force was irresistible, or he would have resisted it.
Nell’s mouth opened and shut. Her first instinct was to say no, her second was to point out that Edenville was the other side of Chestlock and miles out of his way.
But something stronger than instinct was kicking in, opening her mouth and replying, ‘Yes, please.’
As she settled herself in the passenger seat he found himself looking at her smooth, pale knees below the hem of her summer dress. He was immediately aware of the state of the footwell: a flotsam of rubbish, leaves, dust and mud. What must she think?
Nell hadn’t noticed. She was staring out of the window at the passing scene – lamp-posts, kerbs, pubs, small roundabouts. And yet she took none of it in. Her entire being seemed concentrated on the long, strong hands twisting the steering wheel beside her. Hands whose touch she had felt already. She was suppressing with all her might the idea that she wanted to feel them again.
Dylan’s task was even harder. He had to drive along the road despite not really believing any more that he was in a car on a road. He felt strangely detached from reality but was, at the same time, hyper-aware of Nell’s every breath.
He was building up to seize the moment, the moment that might not come again. He had to say his piece. Make his peace. Apologise.
He decided to get straight to the point. Beating about the bush was not an option.
‘About that pub in Paddington,’ he began.
He heard her draw in a deep, angry breath. ‘I just thought you were so beautiful,’ he added hurriedly, ‘and I didn’t mean to, um, mislead you. But by the time I realised you thought I was someone else, it was too late.’
He glanced at her pleadingly. But the eyes that that met his were hard and disbelieving. ‘How can that be?’ Nell said coldly. ‘You even had a Dylan Eliot book on the table. It was as if you knew I’d be coming in with one.’
Dylan gripped the steering wheel in despair. He had hoped to avoid having to identify himself. But the past was like a roadblock. Whatever avenue he turned down, it reared in the distance. He saw that he could either allow it to halt him, or he could simply remove it. He could, quite obviously, no longer go round it.
Perhaps it was better to remove it, once and for all. He didn’t want to lie to her, especially not now she was looking at him with those beautiful, accusing blue eyes. But how, exactly, was he going to tell her? What could he say?
How about nothing, a small voice inside urged him. Love had cost him so much in the past. He had built a new carapace and was successfully hidden inside it. Why break out and reveal himself?
Because, he answered the voice, he couldn’t bear her thinking that he was a liar any more. Or that he had deliberately set out to humiliate her.
‘My ex-girlfriend burned my house down,’ he said abruptly.
Nell was confused. Why was he telling her this? ‘Like Dylan Eliot’s house burned down?’ They’d just been talking about the books. Was he drawing some parallel with the author?
Dylan took a deep breath. This was it. ‘Dylan Eliot,’ he began.
‘Yes?’ She looked doubtful. It was likely that she wouldn’t believe him. That she would t
hink he was mad.
Was it a risk worth taking? He didn’t have to tell her. He could stop here, on the edge, where it was still safe.
But he knew that he couldn’t. This was a pivotal moment. Not just in love, but in life. A crucial turning point. He was taking a risk, and it might all go wrong. But she had to know the truth. She was the sort of person with whom complete honesty was the only option.
‘Dylan Eliot is me.’
‘You? You’re joking.’
It was worse than even Rachel had thought. She had described him as peculiar, but he was far more than that, he was a liar, and a crazy one too. ‘I’d like to get out, please,’ Nell said.
He slowed down, then drew into a lay-by and stopped. He turned towards her from the steering wheel. ‘But just before you do,’ Dylan said, ‘there’s something else I’d like to tell you.’
There was something so broken and hopeless about his expression that Nell’s urge to run started to fade. Just at that moment, a faint tattoo from the windscreen announced the commencement of a sudden downpour. ‘OK,’ she said cautiously. They were at the side of a busy road, after all. She could still run, if she had to.
Dylan was frowning and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Where should he start? At the beginning. Where else?
‘I actually wanted to be a novelist, to start with,’ he said. ‘I used to write in my spare time, after work. It was all pretty simple then. One man, one laptop, one bedroom. But then I got published and all hell broke loose.’
Nell listened in astonishment, trying to take it all in. He hadn’t been pretending to be OutdoorsGuy, he had been pretending not to be a famous author. That was the first point.
The second was that the woman who had rushed in had been his French girlfriend. The third was that he had then ended their relationship. The fourth was that the girlfriend had burned his house down. And destroyed his book. The fifth was that he had spent many months recovering in hospital.
It was all so dramatic that it was hard to believe, but Nell knew it was true. Not just because it had been in the newspapers, either. She could see it in his eyes. They were full of anguish. The pain in them was raw, bleak – and so familiar. Did she not see it in her own mirror?
Her suspicion and doubt gave way to sympathy. He had suffered so much. Small wonder that he had lost faith in relationships. As she had herself.
It was striking how similar their stories were. Different in detail and degree, but in many ways the same. While her life hadn’t been in danger, and Joey hadn’t been as crazed as Beatrice, they had both, through no fault of their own, found themselves in terrible circumstances.
Although – the dreadful realisation struck – perhaps, in part, at least, what had happened to him was her fault? ‘If I hadn’t thought you were my internet date I’d never have spoken to you and she’d never have found us together, and . . .’
He reached over for her hand, to stop her. His touch was warm and sure. ‘Look, Beatrice was insane. It was probably only a matter of time.’
But Nell felt racked with guilt, remembering what she had yelled at him from the bedroom window. ‘I thought you ruined my life. But actually, I ruined yours.’
‘Stop it,’ Dylan said, squeezing her hand gently. ‘But now you mention it, just how exactly did I ruin yours?’
Nell raised her head, sniffed, took a deep breath and prepared to describe how the disastrous online date had driven her, still more disastrously, into the arms of Joey, the first non-virtual available man she had come across.
Then something occurred to her. ‘That pub. It started everything.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Meeting you there. Everything that happened to you happened after we met in that pub. And everything that happened to me did, too.’
‘O-K.’ He looked puzzled. ‘But what did happen to you?’
Nell hesitated. If what had happened to him was horrible and dramatic, what had happened to her was ridiculous and pathetic.
But Dylan had told her everything and she must do the same. ‘It was like this,’ she began.
Dylan listened. He said nothing for a few minutes after she had finished, during which Nell felt a miserable, sinking certainty that all her fears had been justified. He thought she was stupid. He would reject her, just like Joey had.
In fact, Dylan was imagining the lonely girl in the downstairs flat, penning her catalogue copy as all London went on around her. It twisted his heart. Just like himself, slaving over his novel as the waves pounded the cliffs. How similar they had been, he and Nell, and how vulnerable to predatory, careless types like Joey and Beatrice.
‘What an idiot,’ he said.
‘Me, you mean?’ Nell spoke resignedly.
Dylan snorted. ‘God, no. Him. If I’d been there, I’d have married you instead.’
A sharp excitement jabbed through Nell. Did he mean it? Of course not. He was just being chivalrous. But what a wonderful – and terrifying – thought.
‘Still want to get out?’ he asked her, a small smile twitching his wide mouth.
She shook her head and he started the engine. The metronome of the indicator struck up, the car nosed out of the lay-by.
They drove silently back to Edenville. Both of them, instinctively, seemed to realise that after such a tremendous mutual unburdening all that remained to be said was nothing.
Life was strange, Nell was thinking. She felt oddly calm. Terrible things had happened. But now both their sorry tales might have a happy ending. Where did they go from here, though?
‘I’ll be going to the hospital every night.’ Dylan broke the silence as they drew up outside Beggar’s Roost. ‘I could take you if you wanted.’
‘Yes, please,’ Nell said, in a bright, breathy tone of voice that wasn’t the one she intended to use.
‘Great,’ he said. She got out and he drove away. But just round the corner, where the village gave way to fields, he parked and got out, the sheep scattering in surprise and baa-ing in alarm as Dylan punched the air.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 49
‘Just had a rather interesting phone call,’ said Jason as, that same evening, Angela swept up to his managerial flap in the Edenville Arms.
‘That’s a first, then,’ said Angela witheringly. Jason recoiled, hurt. That was aggressive, even for her. Whatever was the matter?
As no apology was offered, Jason mentally picked himself up and dusted himself down. Angela was obviously upset about something.
‘What can I get for you?’ he asked, ushering the Director of Human Resources into Pumps.
‘Just an Aperol Spritz,’ Angela grumbled.
Jason raised a well-brushed eyebrow. ‘Cutting down on the alcohol, are we?’
Angela looked at him angrily but did not reveal that her doctor had advised this precaution. Or that she was going back for more tests. It was none of anyone else’s business.
‘Aperol Spritz then please, Ryan.’ Jason caught the eye of the handsome young barman. As Ryan started to clatter cluelessly about, Jason watched him lovingly. He was a terrible barman, but that wasn’t what he had been hired for. Jason wasn’t sure he would ever have the courage to admit, even to himself, exactly what Ryan had been hired for. As Ryan’s strong, young, festival-braceleted wrist mixed the drink in entirely the wrong proportions, the manager suppressed a frisson of longing.
Angela took the glass and downed it in one. ‘I needed that,’ she said, slamming the vessel back on the bar. ‘Another,’ she commanded Ryan, who paled behind his facial hair.
The prospect of sitting through one of Angela’s rages, sent Jason’s glance longingly towards the optics. ‘A double G and T for me, please, Ryan.’
He was rewarded by a thickly lashed and understanding wink. As the drink was handed over, their hands to
uched. The world spun around Jason for a moment; he felt that he might swoon.
Angela had marched over to a window table and plonked herself down. Jason floated over, still on a cloud.
‘Any news on Dan?’ he asked, hoping to cheer her up. Being the vengeful type, she must presumably get some satisfaction that the man who had scorned her had been cut down in his prime.
Angela didn’t comment. She couldn’t bear to think about Dan in the hospital any more than she could bear to think about what she herself had been told within its dread walls. All her fear, worry and anger were funnelled into what had happened outside it: the encounter with Adam Greenleaf and Nell Simpson. If only, Angela thought, she could conclusively get rid of that exasperating woman. Perhaps some particularly horrible new assignment, to some particularly unpleasant department . . .
It was, Jason thought, unusual for Angela to be this silent. He had pressed most of the customary buttons, but with no response. He tried again. He’d been saving the best until last. Angela was sure to welcome this piece of news.
‘I heard that Juliet Turner’s left Caradoc,’ he said. ‘Gone to live with her mother, apparently.’
He had expected exclamations and a barrage of excited questions; for a bright, spiteful flame to roar up in Angela’s eyes.
But her eyes – much less heavily mascaraed than usual, it seemed – remained expressionless and directed towards the window. The name of Caradoc sent alarm bells ringing through Angela, but none she was prepared to let Jason see. She decided to shut down this line of conversation as, sooner or later, by word or gesture, she might let slip that she knew more than she was willing to say.
‘I’m not interested,’ she said, to Jason’s absolute amazement. Never once, in his whole experience of her, had Angela failed to be interested in a piece of gossip. Let alone one of this magnitude. Something, clearly, was very wrong indeed.
