Players

by Karen Swan

  ‘I can’t.’

  Mr Bracken looked down at his notes and took a sip of water. It was inconceivable that the royal obstetrician should be sitting before him here, up on these charges.

  ‘Did you see Miss Miller and Mr Hunter on their subsequent follow-ups?’

  ‘I did not. To my knowledge, Mr Fallon saw them for all their other appointments.’

  ‘So you did not perform the mid-term scan which identified the sex of the foetus?’

  ‘I did not, no.’

  ‘Is there any way you could have got hold of the results of the scan?’

  ‘Yes. All the films are held at the clinic. We don’t permit doctors to take films or notes off the premises, even for VIPs.’

  ‘And you didn’t happen upon them, or look for them yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you, Lord White. You may step back.’

  James got up from the single desk and moved back towards his seat, his eyes catching Cress’s as he did. He gave a small imperceptible nod.

  The panel shuffled their papers, and Cress began swearing in a chant under her breath. She dropped her head in her hands, trying to massage away the headache she’d had almost permanently since volunteering to testify. Ever since Tor had rung her two weeks ago and told her Anna’s news about James, she had known she’d have to step forward – even she, as unscrupulous as she was, couldn’t let James take the fall. But that she’d have to sit there and tell it all directly in front of Harry and Kate was enough to bring her out in hives.

  ‘The Council calls Mrs Cressida Pelling to step up, please.’

  Kate turned sharply in her seat, realizing too late why Cress was here.

  Cress kept her eyes dead ahead and walked to the desk in the middle of the floor.

  ‘Mrs Pelling. Could you tell the council why you are here today?’

  Cress gulped, keeping herself turned away slightly from Kate and Harry’s table. ‘Yes. Because I am the person who commissioned the photographs of Mr Hunter and Mrs Mar— I mean, Miss Miller going into the clinic.’

  She heard a gasp from behind her.

  ‘And why did you do that?’

  ‘To prove to my husband that I was not having an affair with Mr Hunter.’

  Mr Bracken – who clearly didn’t read the tabloids – looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Why did he think that you were?’

  ‘Well, there was an article in Tatler magazine in November which wrongly claimed that I was one of three other women supposedly having an affair with Mr Hunter. The newspapers picked it up and sparked a debate on the whole issue. I’m afraid my husband believed it, so I had to resort to finding evidence that would show him he was really having the affair with someone else.’

  ‘Mrs Pelling, what is your relationship with Mr Hunter?’

  ‘We work together. I’m his publisher.’

  ‘Well then, why would Mr Hunter go to such levels to try to destroy your marriage?’

  ‘Mr Hunter is no ordinary man, Mr Bracken. He is a global icon, used to being trailed by packs of paparazzi and living life on his terms. Contrary to the emphasis that he’s placing on privacy just now, Mr Hunter has a lot of fun manipulating the media for his amusement. The Tatler exposé was just one such example of that.’

  ‘And you felt the logical way for you to convince your husband of your fidelity was by splashing pictures of Miss Miller and Mr Hunter across the national press?’

  ‘My husband had stopped believing me. And when it came to choosing between protecting my marriage, or protecting the privacy of my publicity-hungry client, I was more than happy to play Mr Hunter – and Miss Miller – at their own game. The press weren’t going to leave me alone until they too had definitive proof that I wasn’t Harry’s lover.’

  ‘When you commissioned the photographer, did you know that Mr Hunter and Miss Miller were having a baby?’

  Cress coughed.

  ‘No. I didn’t even know they were having an affair. I just wanted the evidence that he was having the affair with someone else. I didn’t realize it was Kate.’

  She looked quickly at Kate, whose eyes were shining with tears.

  ‘The baby news was as much a surprise to me as it was to the rest of the nation.’

  ‘And how exactly did the photographs get into the public sector?’

  ‘I sold them to the Evening Standard, on the condition that they were put into the late edition on the 18th of November.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘Because Mr Hunter was leading a debate at the Oxford Union and as his publisher I had to attend. The press were going to go crazy seeing us both at the same event together since the Tatler story had broken. It was my opportunity to set the record straight once and for all.’

  ‘I see. And do you know how the details of the sex of Miss Miller and Mr Hunter’s baby came to be released?’

  Cress shook her head. ‘No. I’ve got no idea about that.’

  ‘No one approached you? You didn’t commission someone else to do some investigating?’ There was a note of sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘No. I had got what I needed with the photographs. My husband finally believed I wasn’t sleeping with Harry.’ For all the precious good it’s done me, she thought to herself. It wasn’t guilt that was breaking up their marriage. It was anger. They were still sleeping in separate bedrooms.

  ‘Do you know Lord White?’

  Cress looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes. He was my obstetrician.’

  ‘How many children do you have, Mrs Pelling?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘All under Lord White?’

  Cress couldn’t help crack a smile. Oh, for a little light relief. ‘After a manner of speaking, yes.’

  Mr Bracken frowned slightly as he realized his slip. ‘What age is your youngest child?’

  ‘My youngest is three now.’

  ‘But you’re still in contact with Lord White?’

  ‘Yes. We bump into each other quite regularly at various social events.’

  Mr Bracken stared at her, baffled by her complex personal life but impressed nonetheless by her courage.

  ‘Coming here today must put you in an awkward position with Mr Hunter.’

  That’s the understatement of the bloody century, Cress thought to herself.

  ‘Yes, it does. But I had to defend James. The claims by Harry and Kate are utter hogwash. James had nothing to do with the photographs – they were mine and I’ve got the photographer’s invoice and Evening Standard payment to prove it.’

  There was a pause. ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Pelling.’ He looked at his fellow board members. ‘Unless any of the members of the council have any questions for you . . . ?’ He looked up and down the table at the stern faces. They all shook their heads.

  ‘No, no. Then you may step down. Thank you for your time, Mrs Pelling.’

  Cress got down and walked back to the gallery, keeping her eyes well away from Harry and Kate, throwing a wink instead at James, who nodded in appreciation as she passed.

  She walked to the back of the room and opened the door. The press had been chucked outside by the security guards, and the hallway was now hospital-quiet. She looked quickly back at Kate and Harry. Their backs were ramrod straight. She could only imagine the looks on their faces.

  She didn’t want to hang around to find out. Quickly fishing her shades out of her bag, Cress left the building by a back door and strode out into the winter sunshine, marvelling at how good it felt to have done the right thing for once.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  ‘How did it go?’ Tor called down as she heard Cress get in. Mark was in New York until tomorrow, and she was sitting in a bubble bath in their en-suite, nursing a gigantic glass of red and not caring that she was getting black teeth. She’d been on tenterhooks waiting to hear from Cress.

  Cress came in and leant against the door frame. ‘You’re in love with him,’ she said, slowly.

  The water in the bath felt instantly chilly.<
br />
  ‘What?’ Tor managed.

  ‘When are you going to just admit it? When are you actually going to instigate a proper heart-to-heart conversation with me about it?’

  ‘I don’t know what on earth you’re . . .’

  ‘Let me see,’ Cress interrupted, kicking off her heels and perching on the edge of the loo. She poured herself an equally generous measure. Today’s virtue had earnt it. ‘I saw the way he looked when he found out Hugh had died and how he looked at you at the cricket, and I saw the way you looked when you saw him at my party and at the tennis and at the cricket. And you are lying in my bathtub looking like Long John Silver, completely wasted with nerves about the future of his illustrious career when you could have rung me and asked how it went, tomorrow, like any other concerned but detached friend.’

  Tor gawped like a guppy fish.

  ‘It’s clear as day that you’re potty about each other. I just can’t quite believe it took me so bloody long to realize it.’

  ‘You’re an absolute fantasist, is what you are,’ Tor huffed finally.

  ‘Don’t be coy with me, Victoria.’

  Tor fell silent again and pouted.

  ‘Have you kissed him?’

  Tor stayed silent and pouty.

  ‘Had a fumble?’

  Tor pouted harder.

  ‘Oh my God, you’ve bonked him!’

  Tor disappeared under the bubbles, only her glass of red still visible.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Cress shouted, so that Tor could hear her underwater, although frankly, Tor could have heard her in space, she was so loud. ‘You’ve slept with my official crush! Uuuuugh! It’s so not fair!’

  Her voice dropped, and after a couple of moments of silence (and because she couldn’t hold her breath any longer) Tor tentatively surfaced.

  ‘So was it fabulous?’ Cress giggled.

  Tor looked away. ‘Yes,’ she said sullenly, like a teenager.

  ‘So what happened? Why aren’t you together? And why am I having to drag it out of you?’

  ‘Oh, I wanted to tell you, Cress. I really did, but everything’s just been so complicated. I’ve felt so . . . guilty.’

  ‘You mean because of Hugh?’

  ‘More than you know,’ Tor said quietly, not able to meet her eyes.

  ‘Tor?’ Cress asked slowly.

  Tor swallowed hard. ‘The night of your party . . . we kissed . . .’

  ‘What – you and James . . . ?’

  Tor nodded. ‘Hugh saw us and stormed out. I got home and he was packing up.’ She stopped briefly. ‘He said he was going to move in with his mistress.’

  Cress dropped her glass on to the bath mat.

  ‘What?’ she screeched.

  ‘Yes, I know. It was a shock to me too.’

  ‘Do you know who she was?’

  ‘Her name’s Julia McIntyre.’

  ‘Shit – I know her! The rich divorcee, great boobs.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ Tor said lightly, wishing that wasn’t everyone’s first and abiding memory of her. ‘I’ve since found out he wasn’t actually going to her. He was going to the Lathams. He just said that to hurt me.’

  ‘But he was definitely having an affair?’

  Tor nodded.

  Cress tried to keep up. ‘I can’t believe you’ve kept this all to yourself,’ she said finally.

  ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to keep you out. I just felt completely ashamed. It made me feel like it wasn’t my right to grieve. He was someone else’s when he died. And I can’t get past the fact that he died because of my actions. Mine and James’s.’ She paused. ‘Well, James’s mainly. He was the one who kissed me.’

  Cress fell into silence. ‘But you kissed him back, right?’

  ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘Yours, of course. I’m just trying to establish the . . . God, I cannot believe Hugh was having an affair. I can’t believe he was capable of it. He always seemed so devoted . . . It just goes to show, doesn’t it? All men are capable of cheating. All of them.’

  Cress bit her lip. She knew she was driving Mark steadily towards Greta but she didn’t have a clue how to stop it. Years of anger and resentment and frustration at playing second fiddle in her life had finally bubbled over in Mark, and as much as she had been trying to convince him now of her new priorities, she was increasingly scared he had drifted too far out of reach. The Harry scandal had breached the trust between them, and her response to it – commissioning the photographs – had eroded his respect for her. Now more than ever he could never find out about the truth of her hold over Harry. She had realized, too late, how far she had fallen from being the woman he’d married.

  Tor drank some more wine, an eyebrow cocked. ‘Anything you want to talk about?’ she inquired.

  Cress froze. Tonight was about Tor’s secrets. ‘No.’ She paused, trying to regain her train of thought. ‘So all you guys did was kiss?’

  Tor nodded.

  ‘But Hugh was actually having a full-blown affair?’

  Tor nodded again, trying not to remember Hugh’s pornographic account of it all.

  ‘Well, then it seems to me you’re entitled to get your happiness where you can find it.’

  Tor looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘No, babe, sorry,’ Cress said crossly. ‘You know I adored Hugh, but if he was the one playing away, he was the one who jeopardized your marriage, not you. And what happened is totally fucking tragic, but you can’t shoulder the blame for it. You’ve more than paid your dues. It was a kiss, end of.’

  ‘Yes, but Cress, if James and I hadn’t kissed, Hugh wouldn’t have packed up and gone out again.’

  ‘And why did he have to do that, huh? He could have gone into the spare room – like most people do after a fight. He didn’t need to be so bloody dramatic and flounce off, saying he was going off to his mistress’s, and get behind the wheel of a car when he was completely pissed after a party. Did he? He didn’t need to do that!’

  Tor considered her friend’s words. She’d never thought about it like that before. Cress had a wise head on those tiny polished shoulders.

  ‘You’re just saying what I want to hear,’ Tor said, uncertainly.

  ‘No. I’m saying what you need to hear. You didn’t chuck him out, did you?’

  Tor shook her head vehemently. ‘No! I was desperate for him to stay.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Cress said, draining her glass. ‘So tell me what happened with James after the kiss?’

  ‘Well, then the next time I saw him was at the tennis when . . .’

  ‘When you knocked ten bells out of him. Fair do’s. Then what?’

  ‘Then the rest happened in Cornwall – after you left.’

  ‘Bugger! I knew I should have stayed.’

  ‘Why did you go? You never explained.’

  Cress waved a hand dismissively. ‘Harry driving me demented. Same old. Go on.’

  ‘Well, Kate found us in bed together. Unfortunately, just after she’d found out about Billy. She was livid with James but she really took it out on me too.’

  ‘Sleeping with the enemy?’

  Tor shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, that certainly explains a few things. I couldn’t work out why she was so hostile to all of us.’

  Tor sighed. ‘I think she thinks we’ve sided against her.’

  ‘So this afternoon won’t have helped.’

  Tor shook her head. ‘No. Worst fears confirmed, I’d think.’ She stared into her wine glass like it was a crystal ball. ‘I simply can’t believe that we’re so isolated from her.’

  ‘I can,’ Cress said quietly. ‘I reckon it’s exactly what Harry wants. To divide and conquer.’

  Tor frowned. ‘Why would he want to do that?’

  ‘To get at me.’

  Tor stared at Cress. ‘Cress, what exactly is going on with you two? It’s like you’re out to destroy each other. I don’t get it.’

  ‘Just as well, babe
. It’s complicated – and confidential. I can’t go into it.’

  Tor stared at her. She could tell from Cress’s face this was no mere jape.

  ‘You look pale.’

  Cress automatically massaged her brow. ‘Mmm, headache.’

  ‘Why aren’t I surprised?’

  ‘It’s just stress.’ Tor shook her head as Cress poured them each another glass. ‘This’ll help, though.’

  ‘So has he been exonerated?’

  ‘Not entirely. My evidence proves beyond doubt that he didn’t sell the photos, but while Harry has no proof that James leaked the scan information, James equally doesn’t have any proof that he didn’t. It’s such a high-profile case, they can’t risk getting it wrong. They’ve adjourned for two weeks while the committee makes its decision.’

  Tor nodded, still anxious.

  ‘Why don’t you ring him, offer him your support?’

  ‘Because I don’t think his pregnant girlfriend would be too impressed.’

  ‘Pregnant girlfriend?’

  ‘Amelia Abingdon?’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Yes, way! I told you that at the cricket.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Tor nodded.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Silence. ‘That’s a fly in the ointment then.’

  ‘Yes. It is rather, but there you go.’ Tor smiled sadly and they sat in silence for a few moments more.

  ‘Amelia Abingdon – really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘Well, it’ll never last. I bet he’s only with her because of the baby.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘And she’s only with him for the title.’

  ‘You don’t know that either.’

  ‘Well, there’s one thing I do know.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘That in spite of Hugh, and Kate and Monty, and Amelia and the baby, you both want to be with each other.’

  ‘Listen, I lost my husband and a best friend because of him. I’m not going to betray either of them or compromise my moral integrity just to have great sex and financial security for the rest of my life.’

  Cress stared at her. ‘No. That would be crazy,’ she said sardonically. ‘What does he take you for?’