Little Pink Taxi

by Marie Laval

‘What’s the matter, love?’ The woman glanced at her, then at Geoff, as she hurried inside.

  Rosalie pointed to the bed. ‘He moved!’

  The nurse proceeded to check the readings on the machines. She then pulled a pen out of her pocket, slipped Geoff’s file out of the folder at the foot of his bed and scribbled some notes on a chart.

  ‘His readings are normal, but his heart rate is slightly raised.’

  ‘Maybe he’s in pain, or he wants something.’

  The woman replaced the chart in the folder.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything to worry about – it’s probably good news, in fact. I’ll call the consultant so he can assess him straight away. You should go down to the cafeteria and get yourself something to eat.’

  It was almost lunchtime and the restaurant was full. Rosalie bought a pot of tea and an egg mayonnaise sandwich, and sat down at a small table near a window.

  She poured the tea, added some milk and stirred in a spoonful of sugar, and unwrapped the sandwich and bit into it. She put it down with a grimace. It tasted as unappetising as it looked. She pulled her mobile out of her handbag and switched it on to check for messages. There were two texts from Fiona about bookings for the afternoon. That was all.

  What did she expect? Marc must be too busy to get in touch today. She’d phoned his secretary in London to pass on Carl Fitzpatrick’s text, but Marc was at the funeral of his friend’s wife today. Then he would have meetings to attend and people to see – among them, no doubt, the clever and beautiful Kirsty.

  Did she really want to talk to him anyway? Reading the article in Newsweek had been the painful confirmation of everything she had thought of him when they’d first met. He belonged to another world, he had opposite values and priorities. He didn’t care who he hurt.

  And yet, the memory of his touch and kisses filled her with a yearning so strong it was almost unbearable, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the way he looked at her, the way he made love to her in the Crimson Room’s bed, as if she belonged to him and their hearts and souls were entwined forever.

  She lifted her cup to her lips and winced. She’d waited too long and now the tea was lukewarm. She forced it down anyway, and stared out of the window at the low, grey, snow-laden clouds filling the sky and dimming the daylight. She put her tray away, and went back up to Geoff’s room.

  The elevator pinged as it shook to a halt on the tenth floor and she walked down the long corridor, breathing in smells of medication and disinfectant. A different nurse was on duty at the desk. She asked her what the consultant had said about Geoff.

  The woman smiled. ‘Everything is following its course, Miss Heart, but he’s going to run more tests, so don’t stay too long.’

  Rosalie spent a few minutes at Geoff’s bedside, chatting about the weather, and Lorna’s visit to her sister, and hoping to trigger another reaction from him, but he did not move again.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said, before kissing his cheek. ‘Fiona booked a couple of rides for me this afternoon. I’ll come back tomorrow. And, Geoff, don’t worry, you’ll soon get better,’ she whispered, more to reassure herself than him.

  As she left the hospital, she picked up a couple who wanted to go to Inverness town centre, and after that she was busy all afternoon. As night fell, and despite Happy Baby Radio playing her favourite tunes and Fergus’s cheerful banter over the cab radio, she felt increasingly dispirited.

  ‘Are you sure you want to work tonight, lass? It’s St Andrew’s night,’ Fergus asked after she dropped her last customer at Aviemore golf club.

  It was St Andrew’s night, and she’d completely forgotten! In previous years, she had always spent the evening with Lorna, Geoff, Alice and Niall at the Four Winds’ ceilidh. There would be no celebration for her this year, and if Niall and Alice were going to the dance, they hadn’t invited her.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, lass,’ Fergus said. ‘Petersen wasn’t keen on you working at night and specifically instructed me not to take any bookings in the evenings.’

  She hissed an annoyed breath. ‘Well, he’s not here, is he, and I need to keep busy. What do you have for me?’

  It seemed most of Irlwick was out enjoying themselves at the Duke’s or the Stag’s Head or attending the ceilidh at the Four Winds Hotel that evening. Couples, groups of friends and families piled up in the back of the cab, laughing and chatting excitedly whilst she forced a smile and listened to their accounts of a great night out.

  Finally it was time to pick up her last clients of the evening at the Four Winds. It was late and there were only a few cars left in the car park. She drove to the front and checked the time. She was ten minutes early, so she switched off the engine, and reclined against the headrest and watched the last of the partygoers leave.

  A group of young men and women came out of the hotel and walked towards a large black four-wheel drive parked under a lamp post. She recognised Kian Armitage and Stacey, his girlfriend, and an older couple – Kian’s parents. Kian clicked the key fob, opened the door to the car, and got in, followed by Stacey and his parents.

  Rosalie sat up and wound her window down to get a better view of the car. Her mouth went dry. Her heart beat faster. With its tinted windows and radiator grid, it looked disturbingly familiar. She shook her head. No, she was mistaken. It couldn’t be the car that had chased after her on the forest road. There were so many black four-wheel drives around, and most looked the same. What’s more she was so scared that night she hadn’t taken a good look and would be quite unable to identify it.

  ‘Sorry we’re late!’ A man’s jovial voice boomed outside the cab.

  She forced a smile, looked at her next clients, and unlocked the back door. ‘Not at all. Hop in!’

  It was well past one in the morning when she told Fergus to lock up and go home, and she finally drove back to Raventhorn, and parked in the snowy courtyard in front of the castle. She was so tired her fingers shook as she unlocked the kitchen door and keyed in the code for the alarm. She stepped into the empty kitchen, pulled her pink hat off and unzipped her anorak, but instead of switching the lights on, she stood still and forlorn in the dark.

  All the emotions she had managed to keep at bay rose in a tidal wave of sorrow and despair, and once she started crying, she couldn’t stop. She cried over Geoff, over the loss of her home, over Marc and the wretched love she felt for him despite everything, and the mother she missed so much.

  Every time she thought there were no more tears to cry and the edge of her despair had dulled, fresh grief welled inside her. She cried until her chest and throat hurt, until she was hollow inside and her whole being had melted into nothingness, until all she could see before her was misery and hopelessness.

  At long last she dragged her feet out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and climbed to the first floor. She walked along the corridor and pushed the door to her mother’s bedroom open.

  Breathing the familiar scent, which the passing of time hadn’t totally erased, she switched on a side lamp and sat at her mother’s dressing table. Her fingers lingered over the perfume bottles, over the small make-up set that she knew consisted of powder, mascara and a tube of pale pink lipstick, and her mother’s jewellery box. Everything was exactly as her mother had left it that last summer evening, before she went out for her fateful walk. If she regularly dusted the room and put fresh flowers in a vase, Rosalie hadn’t moved anything, not even the book her mother had been reading the day she died. It was still on the bedside table, with her mother’s reading glasses neatly folded on top.

  Perhaps Lorna was right and it was time she sorted her mother’s things. Perhaps clearing the room wouldn’t be an act of betrayal after all. For the first time in four years, she realised that it didn’t matter if her mother’s wardrobe stood empty at last, or if the top of her dressing table was bare. She would never forget the sound of her voice or the feel of her loving embrace.

  She would make a start right now. Seize
d by a sudden burst of energy, she went back to the kitchen to get a roll of black bin liners, and started emptying the wardrobe, methodically sorting out the clothing in different piles – some for her to keep, others to send to the charity shop, and those that were too worn to be given away and could only be recycled. She paused every so often to bury her face in a jumper or a scarf to breathe in the sweet, floral scent her mother favoured.

  Soon piles of clothing towered on the bed and bulging bags lined the floor. Rosalie looked at the dark-coloured cardigans, baggy jumpers and long skirts that her mother had worn day in, day out. How strange such a beautiful woman had cared so little about her appearance, and had sought all her life to hide her gorgeous figure and blend into the background.

  When the wardrobe was empty, Rosalie turned her attention to the dressing table. The jewellery she would keep, the perfume too, but the make-up was out of date. She threw away the brushes and hair accessories as well. When the tabletop was bare, she pulled open the small drawers at the top of the dressing table.

  Immediately her heart tightened as she recognised the cards, paintings or ornaments she had made at school over the years for successive mother’s days, Christmas or Easter celebrations. It looked like her mother had kept every single thing she’d ever made. She was always sad that her mother had no photos or mementos of her own parents – both long dead in a house fire, she had said. She didn’t even have any photos of Rosalie as a baby, and had nothing to remind her of her life before Raventhorn.

  At the bottom of one drawer, she found a heart-shaped box painted in garish pink and red she had made for Valentine’s Day. She remembered exactly the day she’d given it to her mother. She must have been ten, and felt sad that unlike most of her friends at school, her mother had no husband or sweetheart to give her flowers or a card on Valentine’s Day. Lorna had taken her to Irlwick’s only craft shop to buy pink paint, sequins and feathers to decorate the box. Her mother had cried when she’d given it to her. She had hugged Rosalie tightly, kissed her forehead and promised she’d always keep it. The paint was chipped now, most of the sequins had fallen off and the feathers were ragged and stuck together.

  Rosalie lifted the lid carefully. Inside were more things she’d made, colourful beads and necklaces, a tiny paper doll with yellow wool for hair. A piece of paper was folded at the bottom. Pushing aside the other trinkets, Rosalie pulled it out, unfolded it. It was a photo of a young woman in a graduation gown, with her long brown hair loose on her shoulders and a little cap perched on her head. It was her mother, but as she’d never seen her before. She looked young, happy, and carefree. Next to her was a couple – the man in a dark grey suit and the woman in a smart summer dress. The family resemblance was so striking it had to be her mother’s parents. Rosalie’s grandparents.

  Rosalie turned the photo over. At the back was a handwritten inscription. ‘Graduation day, East London Poly, July 1987.’

  Rosalie glared at it.

  Her mother had lied. Why?

  She had claimed she had no memento of her parents and had always been vague about the place where she grew up. She hadn’t even mentioned ever going to university!

  Lorna might know. Rosalie would phone her at her sister’s in Norwich in the morning. For now she closed her fingers around the photo and got up. She would finish clearing out her mother’s things later.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘Your secretary said you were putting our New York project on hold because of Raventhorn. Is that right?’ Kirsty’s voice on the telephone was so sharp Marc winced.

  ‘Yes.’

  She let out an impatient sigh. ‘But why? At the dinner you missed at La Table de Jules, I told Ben Turner we were interested in merging some of our operations with his firm and he was very positive. This is a chance we can’t afford to miss.’

  Marc looked around the café, gestured to the garçon and ordered an espresso and a bottle of mineral water. He’d order a bite to eat later when his friend Cédric arrived. ‘Perhaps, but I think you should have waited until I actually gave you the go ahead before making plans.’

  ‘What on earth is going on, Marc?’ she asked, her voice more mellow this time. ‘I remind you that we are colleagues – and friends too, I hope. You’ve been very secretive these past few weeks. You’ve hardly told me what you’ve been doing in Scotland, or why you wanted to leave for Paris last night immediately after the funeral. I was hoping we would have a drink and discuss … you know … things.’

  Marc had been only too aware of Kirsty’s plans for the evening, and even if his secretary hadn’t passed on Rosalie’s message about Fitzpatrick wanting to meet in Paris, he would have made excuses not to return to London with her. Hell, his father was to blame for giving her the wrong idea, and leading her to believe that she’d be welcome into the Petersen empire, both as director and a daughter-in-law. Marc’s efforts to keep their relationship businesslike had failed miserably.

  At the same time he knew keeping her in the dark was unfair.

  ‘If you must know,’ he conceded, ‘Raventhorn is turning out to be a rather tricky investment and I needed to stay there a while to oversee things.’

  Kirsty laughed. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so preoccupied with that pile of old stones when you could delegate the whole thing to one of our office juniors. It’s not as if it’s going to bring the company a vast amount of money or publicity … or as if you want to keep it, is it?’

  He closed his eyes briefly. Keeping Raventhorn was something that had crossed his mind several times these past few days. He had dismissed the idea as ridiculous, but it kept coming back, persistent and strangely seductive.

  ‘No, of course I don’t want to keep it,’ he replied reluctantly.

  If he didn’t want to discuss Raventhorn with Kirsty just yet, he had to let her in on his plans for Love Taxis. At least she could set things in motion while he was in Paris.

  ‘Actually,’ he started, ‘there is something I’d like you to look at.’ He explained about his idea of setting up a subsidised bus company.

  ‘Could you get someone to make the preliminary enquiries and sort out the financing? I’ll deal with the details when I return in a few days.’

  Kirsty burst out laughing. ‘You’re having me on, right? You’re wasting your time – and mine – setting up a charitable bus company in the sticks to help a bunch of old ladies and a handful of mothers and toddlers?’

  He smiled. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Petersen Holdings has never done anything like this before. Let me remind you that we’re a business, not a charity.’

  His smile faded. ‘I don’t need reminding.’

  There was a short silence, before Kirsty spoke again. ‘Is it because of your father? Have you grown attached to the place because buying it was one of the last things he ever did?’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ And yet, he thought, perhaps there was some truth in what Kirsty was saying. Perhaps he needed to understand what had attracted his father to the Scottish estate.

  ‘Then has it got anything to do with this woman – Rosalie Heart?’

  He waited a few heartbeats before answering. Rosalie. He could see her in front of him, feel her warmth, her kindness. The way she had given herself to him.

  ‘Yes, it does have a lot to do with Rosalie,’ he said quietly.

  There was another short silence.

  ‘I see.’ Her tone became sharp and businesslike. ‘Very well. I will make enquiries into your little project, if that’s what you want. I’m not sure what your father had in mind when he purchased Raventhorn, but I bet it wasn’t running a charity bus company.’

  ‘Thank you. I appreciate your help.’

  ‘When are you coming back to London?’

  ‘I’m not sure. In two or three days. I have a few things to sort out in the office here first.’ He said goodbye, put the phone he’d just bought back into his pocket.

  The waiter brought his drinks over and he thanked him with a c
urt nod. He drank his espresso, absorbing the bustling atmosphere of Le Caillou, the café at the end of his street where he and his friends usually met when they were in Paris.

  ‘I’m late. Sorry.’

  Cédric stood in front of him, dressed as usual in his black leather jacket and matching leather trousers tucked into motorcycling boots, a black helmet under his arm.

  Marc smiled. ‘You’re always late.’

  ‘True.’ Cédric sat down.

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘Same as you.’ Cédric rubbed his facial stubble. ‘I need at least a litre of coffee after the week I’ve had.’

  Marc signalled to the garçon to bring two more espressos to their table and looked at his friend more closely. He hadn’t seen him for a couple of months, and Cédric did indeed look exhausted.

  ‘Too many late nights at the club?’ he asked. Cédric was a talented saxophone player and had gigs at a popular Parisian nightclub when he wasn’t chasing a scoop in a remote and dangerous part of the world.

  His friend sighed wearily. ‘I wish.’

  Marc frowned. ‘Any problems?’

  ‘You could say that. I’ve just spent a week with the Italian coastguards boarding ships full of half-starved people who had given everything they had, and more, to gangs of traffickers for the privilege of crossing the Mediterranean on a rusty, crowded ship. It’s been hard.’ He stared at a distant point, his fingers clenched into fists on the tabletop. ‘Real hard.’

  He shuddered and looked at Marc. ‘What about you? How are you bearing up? Have the Chinese authorities been in touch regarding the investigation into your father’s accident?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m waiting to hear from the lawyers, but the enquiry is coming to an end and I’ll soon be able to organise the funeral.’

  ‘I’m sorry, mate. Let me know if I can help in any way.’

  Marc nodded.

  ‘I have some information for you,’ Cédric said then. ‘I got in touch with my contact in London after getting your message and she unearthed quite a bit of info on McBride and a few other characters.’