“Harry, has something happened to you?” Adam asked. “You look completely different.”
I smiled and shook my head.
I wasn't going to tell him—not yet, anyhow. He wouldn't see it. We'd argue again, and I didn't want that. He had taken two days off work for me, and already I had put an enormous strain on him. He cared, and I needed that. I needed his support and his generosity—and the price of keeping those was that I couldn't tell him. I couldn't prove it, he wouldn't believe me—but I knew, I knew.
I waved my hands about. “It's beautiful,” I said simply. The truth, but avoiding the point. Adam looked puzzled, and then gazed around him. I had the impression he hadn't even noticed where he was.
Another gust sent ripples rolling through the grass.
“Yes. I suppose it is. Stunning.” He took a deep breath, sighed out. “Good for the soul, eh? More than I can say for that dickhead in Accounts I was talking to. Did I ever tell you about him?”
I laughed. “Only ten or twenty times, Ads—but one more won't hurt. Tell me on the way home.”
He grinned back, and unlocked the car.
*
When we reached the motorway, we settled into a comfortable cruise. Adam put the radio on, light classical music, Mozart or something.
“It's good to have you back, Harry,” he said. “Thought I'd lost you for a while there.” He raised a warning finger. “Don't bother with the health warning. I know we've still got a way to go, the value of friendships can go down as well as up, all that stuff. But seriously, Harry, seeing that little spark of the old you, that makes it all worth it.” He beamed at the road ahead.
“There's still stuff I need to do, Ads,” I said.
“I know. I'll help.”
So maybe it wouldn't end in confrontation after all/ Maybe he'd come to accept what I now knew. I settled back into the car's soft seat and smiled to myself. He'd find out in time.
As the car purred towards London, I closed my eyes and pictured her: her heels kicked back, her hair spreading, dappled by sunlit leaves, screaming happily in the air. And I promised her that I wouldn't rest until I knew the truth.
Adam dropped me at the end of my road. He brushed off my thanks, as usual. I watched his car purr away, and then strode purposefully towards home. I noticed someone was waiting when I was twenty yards away. At eighteen yards, I recognised her—and my elation vanished.
*
Sam Mandovini sat with her knees together and her feet spread, squinting through the last of the sunlight at the traffic. She didn't notice me until I was next to her. I said a guarded hello. She started, and then unfolded herself, dusting off her jeans.
“I've come to apologise,” she said, in a rush, “to see if I can help.”
Her eyes wouldn't quite meet mine. I was uneasy, but I couldn't really say no so I unlocked the door and gestured for her to go in.
I offered her a chair, and fiddled in the kitchen while the kettle boiled. As I worked, I tried to recapture the energy and clarity I had felt at Beachy Head. I failed, and irritation settled in. What the hell did she think she was doing? Not content with her performance yesterday, she was now ruining the remains of my week. I felt pressured and put-upon. I knew it was unfair to blame all of that on her, but she was there, and she was reminding me just how unpleasant my reality was at the moment. Whatever the reason for Verity's fall, she had fallen. She was gone for good.
“Black and strong,” I said gruffly. I dumped her mug by her elbow, and plonked myself opposite her ungraciously. She gave me a short smile. I didn't trust myself to talk, so I waited. Eventually she blew out heavily. “Look, I came round to say sorry, not to get the third degree. I know I was a louse at the studio. I didn't mean to be. It's just—”
“Paris,” I said flatly.
“Yes. Paris. But after you went I felt terrible. Just awful. I mean, Verity's had this horrid accident and all I could think about was a bloody fashion show. You must think I'm such a self-centred cow.”
Again I said nothing. After an uneasy moment, I heard her suck her teeth. “Okay, I probably deserved that. Look, Harry, I want to help. I mean, if you'll talk to me. There are things Verity and I talked about, which might help. About how she was feeling and stuff.” She paused briefly, and when she continued her voice was a little softer. “Harry, I'd really like to talk. I loved her too, you know. I don't know what the hell got into me. Please.”
“I'm amazed you've got the time to come and see me, with Paris just round the corner,” I said, and then winced. I'd been aiming for a jokey tone, but it came out savagely.
Sam's voice hardened. “Yeah, Harry. Good one. Whatever.” She stood.
I breathed in sharply. “Oh... Sam, I'm sorry. Really. I didn't mean that. I'm just a bit...”
Start again, Harry.
“Yes, let's talk. Fine. Please. And thanks for apologising.”
She smiled weakly and the silence stretched again.
“Look, Sam?” I continued, when it got awkward, “That Paris thing. How's it going?”
“Finished,” Sam said tonelessly. She sat again. “Cancelled.” She laughed without looking up from her cup. She swirled the coffee and then set it on the table, watching the whirlpool slow and come to rest.
“You cancelled it?”
She bit her lower lip and nodded. My surprise lasted only a moment. Then the guilt set in.
“Um, look, I hope it wasn't because o —”
Sam looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Oh! How sweet! No, Harry, it wasn't because of you.” She cupped her hands round the mug of coffee and hunched over it. “But you were right—who cares about Paris? Well, I did,” she smiled, “but I got home that night, and I started thinking... about Verity, about what had happened. I'd had this daft idea that somehow doing Paris was the best thing to do for her...” She shrugged in a doesn't-really-matter kind of way. I said nothing. “Look, Harry, there's something you've got to understand. I didn't mean to be a bitch yesterday, but I was completely freaked. And there's this fashion-luvvie thing I do. Normally it's me and Verity, we do it for a laugh. In our business you have to, you've got to keep up with the competition. And then the work and the fun get mixed up, and you find yourself doing it all the time, particularly when you're stressed. And with Verity gone, and then the whole Paris thing, I was pretty uptight. I shouldn't have let you come to the studio.”
She looked fragile and strong at the same time, defiant but vulnerable. She could almost have been a different woman. She wore black jeans, black ankle boots, and a white shirt hanging loose at the waist; her hands were half-lost under the unbuttoned cuffs. She wore no makeup, and it suited her. It softened her features. Her eyes seemed cool and thoughtful instead of the cold blue they had been at the studio; I wondered if she had been wearing tinted contacts. Her skin was clear, pale but not unhealthily so; her eyes creased when she talked, her hair was reassuringly less than perfect.
“What will you do?” I asked.
“No idea,” she murmured. It suddenly hit me that she was every bit as adrift as I was. “Nathan and Jean-Marie will have to go. No point now. I couldn't afford them, not on my own.”
“I'm sorry.”
“It happens. Nothing compared to Verity, is it?”
There was no arguing with that.
Sam took a swig of coffee and grimaced. “God, Harry, this is awful.”
I bridled. She looked at me and then laughed. “Can I make another?” She got up and busied herself at the sink, pouring out the old, rummaging for the coffee jar, refilling the kettle. “So, anyway, I cancelled Paris,” she called, as though it was a piece of idle chat.
“But you really wanted it, didn't you? Wasn't Paris going to be the big one?”
She leaned back against the kitchen units. She had a nice figure, I thought distractedly. “Not without Verity,” she said. “It was for her, really. My collection wasn't going to make any waves.”
“Well, maybe next time...”
The corners of her eyes tighten
ed into a hint of a smile. “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.”
The noise of the kettle built gradually to a roar, and we waited without talking. She made a fresh mug of coffee, but stayed leaning against the sink, cupping it against her chest.
“Oh. I nearly forgot...” She put down the mug and went back into the living room. She fished in her bag, and slid a key across the table towards me. I picked up her coffee and came over. The key was small, less than an inch long, with a hollow centre and a simple pattern of pegs, the kind of key you find in wardrobe or drawer locks.
“I found it with her things at the office,” Sam explained. “It doesn't fit anything there. I thought it might be something at her place.” She looked at it thoughtfully.
“She didn't do it, Sam. None of it makes sense.”
I explained about Beachy Head, and the mystery appointment at the pub. When I had finished, she contemplated her coffee for a long time before speaking.
“Harry, none of that means she didn't jump. It just means she didn't intend to when she went to the Head. She didn't go there to kill herself—but what if she went to meet someone at the pub, and something happened that... changed things?”
I shook my head vigorously. “I just don't think she'd kill herself. No way.”
Sam turned away and stared into space. “Verity was seeing a psychiatrist,” she said eventually.
That took a while to penetrate, because it was about the last thing I was expecting to hear. I think my mouth dropped open. I might even have drooled. I wouldn't have noticed.
“'She... a psych—but I thought...”
Sam stared philosophically into her cup. “... That she was happy? I thought she was too. She said she was. But she said this was different. Wouldn't tell me anything else, just made me swear I wouldn't tell. Doesn't seem much point in secrets now, though, does there?”
“Do you know who?”
Sam shook her head. We stared at each other for a beat, and then I got up and went into the sitting room to find Verity's Filofax.
A card was tucked inside the back pocket: “Kate Fullerton, Dip. Hyp. Psych. PHTA, Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy”—a phone number and a north London address. Strictest Confidence Assured.
I rang the number.
CHAPTER 11
KATE FULLERTON LIVED and worked in a flat in a high, square housing block with white paint peeling to grey. The doorway was in an alcove, up three wide grey-stained marble steps. The doors were wood, darkly varnished, also peeling. A brushed-chrome box, bent at one edge, had ranks of buttons for the sixty-odd flats in the block. I pressed number thirty-two, and then had to lean close to the speaker grille because the alcove was amplifying the din of the endless stream of cars. The sky was muddy blue, the streets glaring, and the fumes oppressive. Sam gazed out at the traffic, hugging a ridiculously small cardigan round her, though it wasn't cold.
I was glad she was there.
There were some rattles and a click from Kate Fullerton's intercom, then a voice said, “Hello?” loud enough to make the speaker howl.
“Hi. It's Harry Waddell,” I yelled, convinced that I would be inaudible against the traffic. “I called yesterday.”
“Fifth floor. Turn right out of the lift. Number thirty-two.” Which was obvious, because I'd just rung the bell.
We went up in a cramped metal lift with a lino floor. It wobbled as it set off. Sam gave me a tight little smile. Her arms were still wrapped round herself. She shuffled impatiently when the lift stopped and the doors took several seconds to open. The carpet in the corridor was a threadbare beige, patterned with a darker brown lattice. Number thirty-two was round two narrow corners. The door was ajar. I looked at Sam, raised my eyebrows. It felt as bad as going for a job interview. Nervously I pushed the door a foot or so open, and peeped in.
“Hello?”
“Come through,” a voice called back.
I followed it into a large square room, with an electric fire in a mean black grate, and metal mullions on the windows. There were glass ornaments on the green-tiled mantelpiece, books on every wall. The room smelt of paperbacks and burnt air from the fire's bars. There was a loosely stuffed three-piece suite, covered in what looked like worn green corduroy. One of the two armchairs was almost hidden behind the door. In it sat Kate Fullerton.
She was older than I had expected, perhaps sixty, with a print dress and thick tights and an astonishingly clear young voice. Her face was young too, despite the lines and thinning skin. It was the eyes, I suppose; they were mild and brown, unblinking, inquisitive and calm at once. They smiled at me in a friendly way, and I felt as though I was being assessed.
“Harry,” she said. Sam came in behind me, and Kate Fullerton looked at me with one eyebrow raised.
“Yes. And… um, this is Sam Mandovini. Sam, Ms Fullerton.”
“Kate, please.” She smiled warmly.
“Sam's a friend of Verity's,” I said. I glanced at Sam. “And mine,” I added. “To be honest, I was a little nervous about coming. Sam's my moral support.”
Kate Fullerton laughed. “Moral support, eh? Perfectly understandable. Why don't you both go into the kitchen and make yourselves a tea or coffee? Or there's herbals on the shelf above the kettle. I'll see you in a mo’.”
We filed along the book-lined corridors of her flat to a tiny kitchen. Sam had to stand in the doorway while I filled the kettle because there wasn't room for us both. The mugs were smoked glass, with a painfully sharp seam down the handle. Sam had a ginseng and something or other; I had an instant coffee, which tasted thin, powdery, and acidic all at once. The glass was too hot to hold.
We trooped back in. Kate Fullerton had not moved. Sam and I sat next to each other on the sofa and looked at her: I don't know quite what I was expecting her to say, since it was I who had wanted to talk to her, not the other way round, but there you go.
“Ms. Fullerton—”
At exactly the same time, she said, “Perhaps you—”
We both paused to let the other continue. Then I nodded at her to go first.
“I was going to say, perhaps you should tell me exactly what happened to Verity. And please call me Kate.” She smiled reassuringly. Sam, next to me, hugged her arms and leaned back into the sofa.
So I told her, filling in the detail I had skipped on the phone. I missed out the encounter with Karel—I felt degraded by it and I didn't want anyone to know—but I told her everything else. I described to her the when and the where, and how Verity had fallen and what state she was in now. I told her about my visit to the pub. I told Kate about Verity's debts, even about her fashion collection.
“Ah, yes,” Kate murmured gently. “ ‘Damaged Goods‚’ wasn't it? She mentioned that. I thought it was a good idea.”
I looked at Kate with new eyes. She didn't seem the type to go around wearing ripped plastic bags; she looked more comfortable in her green woollen tights. She raised an appraising eyebrow, and her eyes betrayed a moment's humour. “Not personal taste, I assure you. It was part of the psychotherapeutic process. In lay terms, I was encouraging her to get things out of her system. Go on.”
“Nothing more to tell. The police say suicide, and there's no proof otherwise. Except it feels wrong.”
“In what way?”
She did not move, she just kept looking at me mildly—but I swear that in her head she was taking out a notebook and pencil, licking the point ready for a new page. I was being processed. It pissed me off. “Look, I know Verity, all right? She wouldn't have gone anywhere near Beachy Head if you paid her. She was happy, for heaven's sake. I know she was seeing you, but she was happy. Okay, she was broke—but that's just Verity. There has to be some other explanation. I know her.”
The frustration showed. Sam did her best to reassure me. “Hey, Harry, it's all right. That's what we're here for, remember? Answers.” She put one hand over mine where it rested on my knee.
I took a deep breath. Kate Fullerton was watching me, her eyes sharp now, her express
ion still mild. Sam was right, of course.
“Sorry,” I conceded. “It's all such a shock. I can't make it make sense. We came here to ask if you could help us explain it.”
Kate pursed her lips, ever so slightly, and settled deeper into her chair. A clock ticked in the silence, light and fast—a small square alarm clock with a big metal winder, resting among the glassware on the mantelpiece like a living thing among the dead. Kate rested her arms on her chair's high arms.
“I do understand, Harry. But there's little I can tell you about Verity's problems, I'm afraid. It would be quite improper for me to divulge anything that she and I discussed in confidence.” She raised a hand to forestall my obvious reply. “I know she's no longer in a state to tell you herself, and maybe she would have. But she didn't, and I have to respect that. If you were the police, I might consider telling you—provided there were sufficient grounds. But a friend who's trying to come to terms with what has happened? I'm sorry, Harry. If that's what's you want, I can't do it.”
I stared at her, trying to fathom her unresponsive brown eyes, all placid sympathy with no sign of the person behind them. The room smelt faintly of damp old building and the clock's tick was becoming oppressive in the quiet. It was like a waiting room. Each hurried little tick lasted an age.
Sam gave my hand another squeeze. “Kate,” she said, “you did agree to see us, though, didn't you? If you weren't going to tell us anything, then why bother?”
Kate gave me a wintry smile. “I wanted to know what had happened, Sam. Verity stopped coming to see me a few weeks ago. She rang and cancelled on a few hours' notice. She hasn't come back. I am as concerned to understand what has happened as you are.” She looked back and forth between us and smiled again. This time her unblinking brown eyes seemed sorrowful. Kate Fullerton was baffling.
“So we're here for your benefit, are we?” I said curtly. “You have no intention of helping us, you just want to close her file.”
I stood. Sam didn't. “Harry, get a grip,” she said tiredly. She turned to Kate Fullerton, and said, “There's a ‘but‚’ somewhere, isn't there?”
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