Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  The question of why he’d want that page, or his own letters, was one she’d address later, though it would help to know if Carla had ever told him about the page and where she’d found it. Since Avril wasn’t prepared to ask, at least not at this stage, she’d have to go with the assumption, for now, that Richard knew about both.

  Next, she was recalling the conversation Sonya had had with the storage people, the day they’d moved into the ménage. There had been a suggestion then of someone rummaging about in Carla’s container prior to everything being shipped out. And wasn’t it after taking everything out of storage that Carla had finally given up her search for Richard’s letters? So had Richard found them in the container? Or had he found them earlier at the cottage, and was looking for something else altogether amongst the items in storage? Of course, once again she was presuming it was him, but the further into this she went, the likelier it was becoming.

  Next, she recalled the day Carla was supposed to meet him at the Bluebird Café. Though they knew for a fact Carla had been there, whether Richard had actually shown up, only he knew. The significance of that particular mystery, and whether or not it was relevant, was maddeningly elusive, though Avril was convinced it mattered. Just like it mattered to know the truth about whether or not he’d ever been to Zanzibar, because the most curious part of that was that he’d tried to end his contact with Carla at the very same time as the contradiction arose. So did that mean he knew Paola and Jaffah were saying he’d never been there? Obviously Avril didn’t have an answer to that, and she had to admit that were it not for the stealing back of his own letters, and the presumed significance of the page in the thesis, then she might think he was backing off now because of John, whom he probably knew about through Rosa, who had more grapes on her vine than Bacchus. But even if John were the reason, it wasn’t answering the question of whether or not Richard had been in Zanzibar, when he was supposed to be in Kosovo.

  Why on earth he’d lie about it was totally beyond Avril, but the fact that the mystery existed was horribly, even grotesquely significant, if she really was reading this correctly. She hoped to God she wasn’t, but if he hadn’t been in Zanzibar, then the next question was, where the hell had he been? Obviously not with Chrissie, as she had been in Zanzibar, and though there was a chance he’d been telling the truth about Kosovo, checking to find out if he had would be nigh on impossible, when, as a freelancer for international news, he could have been on assignment for any of a thousand different sources. He might even have gone on spec. In fact, as far as Avril remembered, he’d gone to help a family out of some trouble, rather than to report on the war. Mighty convenient that, having his whereabouts so difficult to trace!

  So, running with the assumption that he hadn’t been in Kosovo either, Avril was left looking at the most stupefying picture of all, which had him unaccounted for at the time of Carla’s mother’s death. Even thinking that made her head spin. And OK, as leaps of imagination went, this one was Olympian, but the springboard of getting there was the page of a letter Carla had found, that he had so far avoided explaining. As the letter seemed to suggest that Valerie knew about his affair with Chrissie, had he gone down there to persuade her not to tell Carla? Had Valerie refused? Had they argued? Had the unthinkable then happened? Valerie had died by falling and hitting her head on a rock, but couldn’t the blow just as easily have been struck by a hand, holding the rock? OK, this was a bit of a Hollywood scenario, and she knew she was prone to them, so she was more than ready to ask why on earth he would go as far as killing Valerie in order to shut her up when Chrissie would already have been pregnant, meaning he had to have been planning to leave Carla anyway. Well, one answer was that people did the strangest things, and for the weirdest motives, which, though true, got her precisely nowhere.

  It seemed more likely that there was a missing piece to this puzzle that might just be contained in the letter Valerie had written. So what Avril was wondering was, if Carla, when asking Richard about the page she’d found, had unwittingly tipped him off that a letter existed, so that now he was searching for the rest of it. It would be one way of accounting for his little trip to the cottage, and could also explain the mystery chap who’d cropped up at the storage company. It didn’t explain the woman the kids and Maudie had seen, but that would no doubt come clear once the entire picture was complete. So going back to the letter, presumably he hadn’t found it in either place, because it was only now, several months later, that he was trying to sever contact. So did that mean he’d actually found the letter now, or was some new, and even more convoluted ruse of discovery about to make itself known?

  So many questions, with only surmises and suspicions for answers. And then there were the anomalies, like why take his own letters? And why initiate contact with Carla in the first place, if he hadn’t known about Valerie’s letter until Carla alerted him? As for the bizarre invitation to become godmother, Avril wasn’t even going to try to understand that. In fact, there was so much about all this that was inexplicable and alarming, to the point of actually being frightening, that she knew she had to discuss it with someone, if only to give it some kind of perspective.

  For the moment at least, mentioning anything to Carla was absolutely not an option, because if Valerie’s death did turn out to be an accident, as it said on the records, it would be unforgivable to put Carla through the doubt when there was no need. So maybe she should speak to Graham when she went down at the weekend. Not only was he exceptionally level-headed, he also had a mind that was possibly even superior to Richard’s, and a sort of credential as a detective. So he was obviously the one to go to, though getting him alone, without making Carla at the very least curious, wasn’t going to be easy.

  Sighing, Avril looked at the squiggles and squares she’d been doodling on a notepad, and wondered if she should go and speak to Richard himself. Considering what she was accusing him of, she was probably unbalanced even to think it, but if she could somehow persuade John to come with her … It would mean having to tell him everything that had been going on between Carla and Richard since they’d split up, and Carla definitely wouldn’t like that, but who else could Avril ask to go with her that she could trust to have Carla’s best interests at heart?

  Less than an hour later her dilemma was over, because when Carla called to tell her that Richard had just agreed to meet her, on Friday, the wait till the weekend to see Graham was no longer an option. Something significant must have happened to change Richard’s mind, and apart from a sudden willingness to give Carla the closure she needed, the only other scenario Avril could come up with was the unthinkable one of him trying to force the letter out of Carla, when Carla actually had no idea where it was. Of course she could be wrong about everything here, but one thing was for certain, she was no longer hesitant about picking up the phone to call John. Carla was seeing Richard on Friday evening, it was now Wednesday, so there was still plenty of time. This was presuming John was willing to accompany her on her visit to Richard. If he wasn’t, Avril had no idea what she would do, but her instincts were telling her that she had to see Richard before Carla did, so if John wouldn’t come, well, she guessed she’d just have to go alone.

  John was silent for a long, long time after Avril finished outlining her own reading of the subtext to the Carla and Richard story. His lean, handsome face was hard to read, but the fact that he hadn’t asked any questions hopefully meant that she’d succeeded in conveying the potential danger of allowing Carla to be alone with Richard. She wondered when he’d last spoken to Carla, and exactly where their relationship stood right now; in fact she was annoyed with herself for not finding out first. But whatever difficulties they were still facing, they surely wouldn’t have a bearing on John’s decision to become involved, not if he really thought there was a chance Carla could be harmed.

  ‘I understand everything you’re telling me,’ he said eventually, ‘and I can see why you’ve reached the conclusions you have, but you don’t really have
much to back them up, and to go crashing into a man’s house accusing him of something as serious as murder …’

  Avril’s spirits sank. He was right, of course, she was acting almost purely on instinct, and the rest didn’t really amount to much more than fanciful misgivings and prejudice against a man who’d hurt someone she cared for.

  ‘However,’ John said, ‘now you’ve told me all this, I can’t help being concerned too, and if anything were to happen to her as a result of seeing Richard …’

  Avril looked at him eagerly, certain he’d come up with the answer, though short of going round there and confronting Richard she couldn’t see what else to do. Nor, apparently, could he, though he clearly wasn’t advocating anything as heavy-handed as Avril had in mind.

  ‘Calling to make an appointment probably isn’t a good idea,’ he said, agreeing with her first observation. ‘We need to catch him off guard, but first we need to find out where he lives.’

  ‘Done,’ Avril told him. ‘I’m still holding Gus’s article over Rosa’s head, so she’s willing to dance to just about any tune I play right now, to keep it from going to print.’

  ‘OK. Then we need to decide exactly how we’re going to approach him. As the other man, it’s going to look extremely odd if I start trying to delve into his motives for keeping in touch with her …’

  ‘So let me do it. Really, I’m asking you to come for protection, just in case I’m right, so there’s no need for you to go making a fool of yourself, if that’s the way it turns out. In fact, if I thought the police would listen to me for more than a minute I’d go to them, but …’

  He was shaking his head. ‘They’d want a lot more to go on before they got involved,’ he assured her, picking up his mobile as it started to ring. ‘John Rossmore,’ he said into the mouthpiece.

  Avril watched as he turned slightly away, but since they were in an edit suite with all monitors and machines switched off, she didn’t have much choice but to listen.

  ‘Saturday’s fine,’ he said softly. ‘OK, at the cottage. I know. I miss you too.’ He smiled as he listened again, then ended the call with, ‘See you then.’ After putting the phone away he turned back to Avril. ‘That was Carla,’ he said.

  Avril smiled. ‘I guessed. So do I take it you’re going down there at the weekend?’

  ‘I’ve just been invited,’ he confirmed.

  ‘So she’s that sure she won’t have a change of heart about Richard,’ Avril commented, with relief.

  ‘It would seem so.’

  Her eyes were suffused with a teasing light as she said, ‘You really have fallen for her, haven’t you?’

  ‘It would seem so,’ he repeated. ‘But that’s for me to tell her, not you.’

  Avril drew a zip across her lips. ‘Sealed,’ she promised. ‘But now, back to Richard. Let’s work out A, when we’re going to go, and B, how we’re going to handle it.’

  ‘And C, who’s going to tell Carla if you’re right?’

  Avril’s eyes filled with dread. ‘Oh God, I hadn’t thought that far ahead,’ she muttered.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll tell her,’ he said, ‘but considering it’s her mother we’re talking about, and an ex-lover …’

  ‘I’ll be on hand too,’ Avril promised. ‘So will Graham, I’m sure. If it comes to it.’

  Carla was in the ménage’s kitchen preparing Eddie’s breakfast, when, hearing the front door open and close, she popped out to see who’d come in to the office so early. When she saw who it was her heart immediately responded, and because of the lopsided smile he was giving her, she smiled too.

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming in today,’ she said, then gasped and staggered as Eddie bounded past and threw himself bodily at John.

  ‘Actually, I was just passing,’ he said, stooping to fuss Eddie. ‘I’m due in the edit suite at eight.’

  Her eyes were dancing. ‘And you were passing, en route from Hampstead to Soho?’

  His expression matched hers, as, closing the distance between them, he said, ‘OK, the truth is, I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I’ve got time for one kiss, and then I have to go.’

  ‘Do you honestly believe we can stop at one kiss?’ she teased.

  ‘Ordinarily no, but as I just saw Hugo parking up outside, we don’t have much choice,’ and, pulling her to him, he pressed his mouth hungrily to hers.

  It felt so good to be back in his arms that it was almost impossible to let go, but when Hugo came in, a few minutes later, they were both at their desks. Mumbling a gruff good morning, Hugo went straight into the kitchen for coffee.

  ‘OK, I’ll have to go,’ John said, ‘I just want you to know that when you see Richard later, whatever the outcome, you can count on me to finish the series.’

  His irony wasn’t lost on her, as, smiling, she said, ‘I’m hoping I can count on you for a lot more than that. Starting tomorrow night.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he promised. ‘And you’ve got my mobile number, should you need to call?’

  ‘You know I have,’ she laughed.

  After he’d gone she returned to the kitchen, trying to shrug off the feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling her. In the end, unable to dispel it, she went upstairs to her studio and, calling his mobile, said, ‘Are you as worried about me seeing Richard as I think you are?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ he answered. ‘I don’t want him changing your mind about me.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Good. Then I won’t worry. What days are we casting next week?’

  ‘Monday and Tuesday.’

  ‘OK.’ There was a pause, then he said, ‘Listen, if you’re seeing Richard just to prove something to me …’

  ‘I hope I’ve already done that,’ she said. ‘And I’ll go on doing it. But there are things I want to straighten out with Richard, questions I want answered …’

  There was another brief moment before he said, ‘If things don’t go the way you’re expecting, if there’s anything … Believe me, I don’t want to interfere, but I care about you and I don’t want you to be hurt. Will you remember that, if this … Well, will you just remember it?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said softly. ‘And I care about you too. So let’s just get this out of the way, then maybe, when you and Karen are ready, Eddie and I can meet Lucas.’

  She could almost see the softening of his eyes, as he said, ‘He’ll like that. So will I.’

  Not until the middle of the afternoon did she try calling him again, but by then the edit session was over and his mobile was turned off, so accepting she’d have to wait until tomorrow to speak to him again, she finished up at the office and went upstairs to find Avril so that they could talk about her meeting with Richard tonight. But it seemed Avril had slipped out when she wasn’t looking, and as neither Felicia, nor Jeffrey, knew where she was, Carla had no choice but to resign herself to a lone session of psyching up for what might once have been a momentous, and thoroughly nerve-racking event. As it stood, she just wanted it over with, though she had to admit she was curious, and even a little excited to see him again. She knew Avril would probably disapprove of this, though grudgingly understand it, if her mobile weren’t flaming well switched off too!

  As John brought his Range Rover to a stop both he and Avril looked across the garden square to the house where Richard and Chrissie lived. It was much like the others in the terrace, three storeys of Regency splendour, with tall casement windows, a white frontage, black railings and a blue front door. A few wisps of smoke rose from the chimney, becoming quickly invisible in the grey mass of sky.

  ‘Let’s hope he’s in,’ Avril commented, looking at the light in a downstairs window.

  John didn’t answer. He’d spent a lot of time these past twenty-four hours going over everything Avril had told him, and now, though he was convinced they were doing the right thing in coming here, after looking at the situation from several other angles than the one Avril had taken, he wasn’t necessar
ily expecting the same kind of outcome as she was. However, for the time being he’d decided to keep his own counsel, but if he was right in his suspicions then Carla really did need protecting, though not necessarily in the way Avril thought.

  Avril turned to look at him. ‘I don’t feel quite so sure of myself now I’m here,’ she confessed.

  He switched off the engine, and removed the keys from the ignition. ‘Come on, let’s get it over with,’ he said.

  It was a bitterly cold day, with damp dripping from the barren trees, and a thick brown sludge cluttering the gutters. There was no-one around, the only sound coming from the distant traffic of Knightsbridge, then the gate hinge creaking as John pushed it open for Avril to go in ahead of him. At the top of the steps she lifted the heavy brass knocker and rapped three times.

  ‘I wonder if Chrissie’s at home?’ she said softly.

  Evidently someone was, as almost straight away they heard footsteps coming down the hall, then the door was opening and Chrissie was looking at them in growing surprise and confusion.

  ‘Hello, Chrissie,’ Avril said, her breath clouding the air as she punched her gloved hands together. ‘Do you remember me? Avril Hayden.’

  ‘Of course I remember you,’ Chrissie responded, her natural politeness struggling with a noticeable build-up of caution. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Avril replied. ‘Uh, this is John Rossmore.’

  Chrissie’s blue eyes looked anxiously into his. ‘Yes, I recognize you,’ she said.

  ‘Who is it, darling?’ Richard’s voice called from within.