Just one more item to add to the list of things that were falling apart in the house.
CHAPTER 16
IT WAS PROBABLY THE UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR TO say I was shocked at Angel’s duplicity. I never for one moment saw her as the deceitful little minx she clearly was. But maybe Angel didn’t know about me and Buzz and how, for that matter, would Selma describe me if she found out what I had got up to with Buzz?
But I still didn’t know how I was going to face Angel when she came home.
Home! I’d given her a home and look what she’d given me in return. I caught myself. I could see where this was going and I needed to snap out of it. At the very least didn’t I need to warn her what she might be dealing with if she got involved with Buzz? How long before he started knocking her about? She was so tiny, just like Selma. And Astrid McKenzie. Didn’t that make what he did to them twice as contemptible? Why couldn’t he pick on someone his own size? Like me.
Max Austin was right. I’d had a lucky escape.
After he’d gone, stumbling down the front steps bearing his pile of washing before him in a giant Harvey Nichols bag, I returned to my office in search of distraction. He had promised to keep me informed as to his progress in tracking down the mystery arsonist and I supposed I had to be content with that. I pulled up my transcripts of Selma’s tapes and began to read through them in the hope that they would take my mind away from the Angel problem. Okay, so I was procrastinating as usual, but in fact this was how I got things done. Displacement activity. Works every time. Do something else in place of the thing you don’t want to do and in time this very activity will come to the top of the list to replace another dreaded chore.
I began to jot down notes as to how to proceed with the book and I was feeling quite pleased with myself until I came to the bit where Selma declared she had no family left in the United States.
So who had she been visiting over Christmas? Why had she told me she’d gone to see her family? Where had she been? Why had she lied? Had she even gone to America? Could it be that she’d stayed here and just made it seem like she’d gone abroad? I tried to continue with her transcript but I kept coming back to the same thing until finally I acknowledged what was lurking at the back of my mind.
Selma could have been right here in London on New Year’s Eve. Selma was beaten up by Buzz. Selma was his wife. Selma had a few scores to settle. When it came to setting fire to the homes of Astrid McKenzie and Angel, Selma had a motive!
And Selma had tiny hands and feet—just like a child’s.
But if Selma knew about Buzz’s association with Astrid and Angel, did that mean she also knew about me? Somehow I didn’t think so. I would have seen it. Surely I would have seen it.
Of course, once I started fretting about Selma, telling myself I had let my imagination come up with an utterly preposterous scenario, I had to find something to do to take my mind off her.
I checked my e-mail and was immediately confronted with yet another of my problems. In amongst the attempts to sell me Viagra and help me increase the size of my penis there was a message from Cath. Subject: Ok. Let’s meet.
I had called her earlier in the day and left an impassioned message on her voice mail, imploring her to get in touch. It had never occurred to me that she might send me an e-mail.
Okay. Calm down. Let’s get together. See you in the Napoleon for a drink tonight at 7.
I looked at the little clock in the corner of my screen—it was 7:15. I shut down my computer, grabbed my bag and raced down the stairs and out the door. I could see Angel on the other side of the street coming home from Tesco. I ducked into the mews—Astrid McKenzie’s mews—until she’d passed and then sprinted along Blenheim Crescent onto Talbot Road. The Napoleon was a pub on the corner of Chepstow Road whose actual name was the Prince Bonaparte but for some reason we’d never called it that. It had a noisy bar and a large room in the back where they served surprisingly good food. I found Cath sitting at one of the tables in the back, nursing a Diet Coke. That was a good sign given what Tommy had said about her drinking problem. I picked up a warming glass of Shiraz at the bar and carried it over to her. I leaned across the table to kiss her hello and she moved her head away so I was left feeling totally stupid. I was tempted to snap at her What is your problem? but I restrained myself and sat down opposite her.
“Sorry I’m late, I only just got your e-mail.” I smiled. “It’s great to see you.”
She didn’t smile back. I was reminded of Bianca and her perpetual scowl whenever she saw me. “I thought you’d be chained to your desk,” she said. “I remember how you always used to check your e-mail all the time.” She sounded almost accusing.
“Well, yes, I am working,” I assured her. “I’m just beginning something, as a matter of fact. I’m ghosting a soap star’s book, Selma Walker and—”
“Yes, I know,” Cath interrupted me.
I was thrown. “How do you know? No one’s supposed to know.”
“I know a lot about what’s happening with you, Lee. You’ve been a naughty girl, haven’t you?”
“Well, don’t sound so triumphant,” I said, stalling, wondering what on earth she meant. “You were always the good girl and I always fucked up. Why should anything change?”
She smiled a little, not much but it was a start. “Selma Walker’s manager,” she said. “Are you ghosting his story too?”
Suddenly I got it. “Sergeant Cross?” She nodded. “Is he supposed to blab to you about the cases he’s working on?”
“No”—now she really smiled—“but he does. He told me about this fire in a summerhouse and that poor kid getting killed and then he told me about the woman who lived in the main house and how they’d found prints in her bedroom and the shed. He knows I like the gossipy stuff. He said they reckoned the woman was cheating on her boyfriend, which was a shame because he seemed like a really nice guy.”
“But you didn’t know it was me?”
“Not until much later. I asked him if he knew why you were there and I eventually got it out of him. So you’ve been giving Tommy the runaround?”
There was that familiar tone of disapproval in her voice. We’d only been sitting here five minutes and already I was beginning to feel defensive. Cath was always in the right. She always made me feel—I searched for the word—immoral and I resented it. Calm down, I told myself, don’t let her get to you.
“He had no right telling you about Buzz.” It sounded lame. “It’s none of your business.”
She looked a little sheepish. “I guess not,” she said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t stop to talk to you. It was a bit of a shock running into you like that. And I really was in a hurry.
“But it doesn’t explain why you wouldn’t talk to me at the station.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said slowly. “All I can tell you is that I thought I might have some pretty shattering news that I was in a hurry to share with Richie. Poor guy, he said he felt he was caught in the middle between us. He did tell me to call you but he knew we had issues and he was nervous. He didn’t know whether I’d want to talk to you. He didn’t know what the boundaries were.”
“Issues? You fall in love with my boyfriend and you can’t handle it and you walk out of my life and you call it an issue? So what are the boundaries, as you call them?”
Suddenly she leaned forward, reached across the table, and shook me by the shoulders.
“I’ll tell you if you really want to know,” her voice had risen to an anguished squeak and I flinched at her touch. She was pretty upset. “I’ll tell you what the boundaries are and then maybe you won’t overstep them all the damn time. You were always hard work, Lee. Did you know that? You were always testing me and to be perfectly honest with you, I’d begun to wonder if it was worth getting back in touch with you. I’d had time to stand back and think about you objectively. You were always so confident, arrogant almost, and yet so vulnerable and needy. You always wanted to play it both ways. You were so self
-contained, so much your own person, it was almost as if you didn’t need anyone else in your life. I felt flattered to be chosen as your friend but I was never really sure how I fitted into your life.”
Now she held my chin and turned my face to hers to check my reaction. I was stunned. Some kind of dam was bursting and I wondered if she’d been bottling this stuff up for years. No wonder she hadn’t called me before, she was probably terrified of what she would say to me. Well, now I’d forced it all out into the open. I had only myself to blame and there was nothing I could do but sit and listen to it. Something told me she wasn’t finished yet.
“You think I’ve stayed away from you because of how I felt about Tommy and you’re partly right. I adored Tommy. For his kindness, mostly. I’m a sucker for a kind, decent man. And now I’ve found one of my own. You’ll see, Richie is this great big benevolent bear and he’s so good to me, I can’t believe it. I don’t think I was ever actually in love with Tommy, I just couldn’t resist the combination of a good-looking man who was actually nice. And I couldn’t stand the way you treated him. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t just snap him up and marry him. Or at least I did understand—you’re attracted to the dark and dangerous type and Lord knows Tommy isn’t that—but I was so angry with you for hanging on to him like a dog in the manger. I wanted a Tommy type and it bugged me that you didn’t and yet you’d hooked one who was besotted with you.”
“Back up a bit,” I said. “I’m attracted to dark and dangerous types? Where’d you get that idea?”
“By being around you and watching you since we were twelve years old. Your eyes were always drawn to a black leather biker jacket whereas you could line me up a three-piece suit any day. You were always the adventurous one. I was always a little in awe of you. I was convinced one day you’d run away with a glamorous dark stranger so when you suddenly started seeing Tommy, I just didn’t get it. It was so unfair. I think I always secretly thought you ought to leave the Tommys of this world for those of us who really needed them.”
“I need Tommy,” I said, surprised to hear myself admit it.
“So what were you doing fucking Selma Walker’s manager?”
“Having fun.”
“You are impossible,” she said with what I thought was begrudging admiration. “I’m appalled at your behavior but I confess I want to hear all about it. You see, this is what I miss about you, Lee. You do things I never would and I get to live vicariously through you. You behave badly. You’re moody. You sulk. You’re arrogant. You say all the things I long to say and never have the guts to. You snare exactly the kind of man I want and then you cheat on him with the kind of man you want. You set out to have it all, you overstep all these boundaries I’ve been talking about, and you fucking get away with it. How do you do it?”
“Not this time,” I said. “It’s backfired on me.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I said.
You see, this is what I miss about you, Lee. Wasn’t that what she’d just said? Later, just when I was trying to go to sleep, just before the picture of the bloody body parts in the washing machine floated before my eyes, I knew I’d bring out Cath’s pent-up assessment of my character. I’d examine it for the brutal grains of truth I knew were in there. But right now I was going to hang on to the fact that she’d said she missed me. Because I’d missed her too. I’d missed having someone to confide in. Cath and I were so different—as she’d just pointed out with rather unexpected candor—but we complemented each other. And there was no denying that a shared history went a long way toward cementing a bond. It was something of a relief to be with someone who knew me so well, who wasn’t afraid to be honest with me, and I was intrigued by her sudden revelation that she had always been in awe of me.
“Look,” I said, “let me tell you what happened with Buzz. Stop me if you know it all already but I think you ought to hear my side of it.”
She shrugged. Okay.
“I met him when I went round to Selma Walker’s house for my first interview. I thought I was going to meet her. Of course, it turned out to be his house too because he was married to her but I didn’t know that at the time. No, really, I swear I didn’t know.” Cath’s expression said Pull the other one. “All I knew was he was her manager. She wasn’t there and it made perfect sense for him to interview me in her absence. It’s just that he interviewed me as a sexual partner instead of as a ghostwriter and I was so instantly attracted to him, I responded in like fashion and—what can I tell you?—I got the job.”
“What do you mean, you responded in like fashion? You fucked him?” Cath was incredulous.
“Not then. Cath, who do you think I am?” But the truth is I know I would have fucked him then if we’d got that far. “No, I ran into him later in Tesco and—”
Cath burst out laughing. “He ogled you over the biscuits, stalked you along the pet food, and finally threw you down in aisle four?”
“Shut up. I know it sounds hilarious but it’s turned into a nightmare. I’ve got myself into a real mess and I want your advice.”
“I’ll bet you do. Where was Tommy while all this was going on?”
“We weren’t speaking. It wasn’t serious, just one of the usual ongoing tiffs. He forgot to record a TV program I really wanted to see and I was fed up with him. You remember how it was between us?”
“I remember you were always so bossy. It was always about him doing things for you, not much of the other way around.”
My hackles went up and I started to lash back at her. Then I stopped. She was right. From where she stood it probably looked as if I never did anything for Tommy.
“We hadn’t had sex in months—we have now,” I added hastily when she leaned forward, “and frankly I suppose I was just ripe for exactly what you said earlier: an adventure with a dark handsome stranger. I fancied Buzz rotten.”
“Then you found out he was married to your new subject when it was too late?”
“Exactly. Do you watch Fraternity, Cath?”
“When I have the time. She’s an odd little creature, Selma Walker. Is she anything like her character?”
“The opposite.”
“How’s the book going?”
“I haven’t even started it properly yet. She’s dictating it on tapes and giving them to me and I’m listening to them and that’s where it’s all got nasty.”
“She’s found out about you and her old man?”
“Not that I know of. But she doesn’t want to do a regular autobiography, My Life as a Soap Opera Actress. She wants to do a book for battered women.”
“How bizarre. Do her publishers know? Is this the mess you’ve got yourself into? They’re expecting a juicy tell-all soap opera memoir and they’re not going to get it? Why ever would she want to write a book for battered women?”
So Richie hadn’t told her this part.
“Because she is one.”
Cath was pretty slow. She just stared at me blankly. It was only when I said, “A book for battered wives, Cath,” that the penny dropped.
“Good God! Has he—? You? Are you—?”
I shook my head. “I feel so stupid,” I told her. “I never guessed, not for a minute and I saw them together. They seemed fine. You’d never have thought there was anything wrong although when I first met her, I caught a glimpse of a bruise on her back. She said she’d fallen over in the kitchen. Of course, that’s probably exactly what happened but as a result of him knocking her down. I suppose I was so wrapped up in myself as usual, so busy fussing over whether she’d detect if there was anything between me and her husband, that I probably wouldn’t have noticed if he’d whacked her over the head right in front of me. He conned me into doing the book.” I told her how Buzz had witnessed Selma talking to Genevieve at the Ivy and then approached me without Selma knowing in order to seduce me so he could have access to the book’s content. “How could I be so blind? Cath, I don’t know what to do.”
“This is a first for yo
u, right?”
“A first?”
“Domestic abuse. You’ve never encountered it. I bet you thought it was a working-class thing. Man comes home from work, his dinner’s not on the table so he knocks the wife about.” Cath had a wry look on her face that I couldn’t quite read. “You thought you were safe from that sort of thing in your middle-class ivory tower?”
“Oh, no, of course not, I—”
“It’s a common misconception. And you are a bit of an innocent, Lee. You like the idea of a bit of edgy drama in your life but you want to be able to run back to your big fancy house when it suits you, where you feel all nice and safe.”
It always made me uncomfortable when Cath drew attention to the difference in our backgrounds mostly because while I felt guilty about my privileged life, like most people in my position, I did nothing about it.
“It’s not so safe, actually,” I pointed out. “We’ve had a murder in the back garden.”
“Lee, I’m not sneering at you. Honest. I’m just stating a fact. I’d probably be just like you if I’d lived in that house all my life. You are pretty blinkered but it’s part of who you are. Like I said, there’s an innocent quality. I used to be amazed at all the things in the world that passed you by. Women getting beaten up is something that happens all the time. All the time! We had a kid at school about a year ago who was getting knocked about and I got involved. His mother was the one taking the real beating and she brought charges against the boy’s father. Doesn’t often happen but she was pretty courageous.”
The expression on Cath’s face was very sad, as if the memory of what she’d witnessed had really shaken her.
“I had to give evidence,” she went on, “and after it was all over I began to investigate. I started asking around about domestic violence and talking to people, reading about it and I learned a lot. I could throw statistics at you that would terrify the life out of you. In this country alone fifty thousand women and children flee their homes every year to get away from domestic violence. In the States there’s a beating every nine seconds—”
How to Seduce a Ghost Page 24
