Last Resort

by Susan Lewis

  Marielle pounced on it. ‘Then don’t you think you should have thrown it away?’ she challenged. ‘Having stuff like that hanging around is dangerous and . . .’ She smirked. ‘Well, I think my point is proven, don’t you? It found its way into the magazine and that poor woman who was looking for guidance is now up on assault charges. And, if you ask me, it was you, Penny, who was responsible, because it was you who didn’t get rid of it.’

  Penny was shaking her head in amazement. ‘It’s hard to believe that someone could be so stupid,’ she said, a wave of tiredness sweeping over her. ‘You’re not even listening to what you’re saying, are you? You don’t even realize that with every word that comes out of your mouth you’re incriminating yourself further. Now, go and clear your desk. Take whatever belongs to you and get out.’

  Marielle was shaking her head. ‘David’s the boss here, Penny, not you. I’m not fired unless he says so.’

  ‘You’re fired, Marielle,’ Penny said, starting to unpack her briefcase. ‘Please remove yourself from these premises. You’ll be hearing from our lawyers in due course.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Marielle hissed. ‘I’m not going anywhere until David tells me. This is my magazine; I was the one who set it up, who found all the contributors, who—’

  ‘Are you completely stupid?’ Penny cried, rounding on her. ‘Do you seriously think David isn’t going to back me on this? Do you really believe he’ll—’

  ‘Why don’t we let David speak for himself?’ Marielle challenged.

  ‘David has other things to deal with right now,’ Penny snapped, ‘and your ridiculous attempt at sabotage is the last thing he needs. So if I were you I’d get myself out of here before he comes back.’

  To Penny’s amazement Marielle didn’t appear in the least bit fazed. ‘I can assure you that David will see things my way,’ she said. ‘Because, you see, Penny, there are things I know about David that David wouldn’t want the rest of the world to know.’

  Penny just stared at her. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Was that a blackmail threat I just heard?’

  Marielle shrugged. ‘Call it what you like, but I’m telling you, Penny, it’ll be your head that rolls over this not mine,’ and with a contemptuous toss of her hair she swept out of the office.

  Seconds later the door opened again and Pierre came in. ‘She’s impossible,’ Penny said, sinking into her chair. ‘She’s threatening to blackmail David over something or other if we fire her and right now I feel too damned tired to deal with it.’

  ‘Would you like me to take you home?’ he offered.

  ‘In a little while. I’d better check on things here first, make sure she doesn’t have any more nasty little surprises in store. Anyway, I honestly don’t see how we can avoid telling David.’

  ‘No, I don’t think we can,’ Pierre agreed. ‘I’ve just spoken to our lawyers. It seems the woman and her husband might accept some form of compensation—Penny, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Penny smiled, knowing full well she’d turned green. ‘I’m always like this after a long flight. Go on, you were saying . . . about compensation . . .’

  ‘Well, whatever the amount, David will have to sanction it,’ Pierre said. ‘Do you want to tell him what’s happened or do you want me to?’

  ‘Let me think about that,’ Penny answered. ‘I want to talk to Sammy . . .’

  ‘Do you know where she is?’ Pierre frowned.

  ‘Not at this precise moment, no. But I’ll find her. Meanwhile, what do you propose we do about Marielle? Is there anything serious she can threaten David with?’

  Pierre was shaking his head. ‘No, not really. He has a few things going on that he wouldn’t be too happy to have made public at this precise time, but it’ll all come out sooner or later, so Marielle won’t be able to do him much damage.’

  Penny found she was smiling. ‘So are you going to tell me what it is?’ she asked, knowing already he wouldn’t.

  ‘I expect David will tell you himself,’ he answered.

  Penny’s head went to one side. ‘How does Marielle know about it?’ she said, stung that David might have told Marielle and not her.

  ‘It is very likely that Marielle has found out through a man by the name of Robert Stirling.’

  ‘And who is Robert Stirling?’ Penny enquired.

  ‘Someone who will stop at nothing to ruin David. He’s here on the Coast at the moment and Marielle’s been seeing him.’

  ‘Has she indeed?’ Penny said. ‘I take it David knows that.’

  Pierre nodded.

  ‘So, what has David done to this Robert Stirling to have earned himself such an enemy? No, I know,’ she said, holding up a hand as Pierre started to answer, ‘David will tell me himself.’

  Pierre’s smile was weak.

  ‘Well, just so long as he isn’t getting us involved in anything dangerous or underhand,’ she said, stifling a yawn.

  ‘All David’s business dealings are straight down the line,’ Pierre retorted, obviously offended that Penny could think otherwise. ‘And that’s what’s getting to Stirling. He wants to hang something on David and he can’t find a single thing out of line. But he’s going to keep on looking until he does find something – which he won’t, but nothing will convince him of that – and Gabriella, David’s wife, is in a position to make things extremely difficult for David if she chooses.’

  ‘Then that suggests he does have something to hide,’ Penny pointed out.

  Pierre flushed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you don’t make the kind of money David’s made without doing the odd shady deal here and there. But whatever he’s done, he’s done with his eyes wide open and the law, only just in some cases it’s true, on his side. However, Gabriella could make things look a whole lot different if she wanted to.’

  ‘Sounds like a happy marriage,’ Penny commented.

  ‘It was once. As it stands now, she won’t see him and neither will she allow him to see his children.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she won’t believe that David is capable of keeping his hands off other women,’ Pierre answered with uncharacteristic bluntness.

  Well, I think I can understand that,’ Penny remarked drily, wondering if, in fact, Pierre’s answer was complete. ‘Anyway, are you telling me that she would seriously stitch up her own husband, the father of her children, for the sake of . . . For the sake of what?’ she asked him.

  ‘You’re a woman,’ Pierre countered. ‘Perhaps you’re in a better position to answer that.’

  Penny was shaking her head. ‘I’m too tired to get into that,’ she said, ‘so let’s change the subject. Remind me, what did we decide about Marielle?’

  ‘We didn’t. But my advice is we leave her where she is for the time being. David’ll probably want to deal with her himself.’

  Penny mulled that over for a moment. ‘OK,’ she said, wanting to slump over her desk and sleep for a week, ‘unless David says otherwise and providing we can sort out this mess before the press get hold of it, she stays.’ She looked up. ‘I take it that no one’s got wind of why this woman is up on assault charges yet?’ she said.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘Then let’s hope it stays that way. Now, give me a couple of hours, will you, then I’ll take you up on that offer of a lift home.’

  Later in the day, after taking a much needed siesta, Penny padded into Sammy’s bedroom in the hope of finding a clue to Sammy’s current whereabouts. To her dismay she saw a note waiting for her on the bed and, as she picked it up, more or less knowing what it contained, she could already feel the disappointment flooding her heart. ‘Dear darling, beautiful, wonderful, talented, best sister in the whole world,’ she read. ‘Sorry not to be here to welcome you home, but Stefan got this fantastic offer of a job skippering a boat in the Caribbean, so I’ve gone too. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know where exactly we’ll be. Meanwhile, keep smiling. Love Sammy. PS Sorry about all the shit over t
he column, but I expect you’ve already guessed what happened. The Bitch found the joke one I wrote a while back and put it through. Anyway, bury her, then spit on her grave for me. I’m enclosing a couple more columns to see you through till you find someone else. Love you hundreds and thousands, Sammy.’

  Stuffing the note in the pocket of her dressing gown, Penny wandered downstairs to the kitchen. The house felt horribly empty with both David and Sammy gone, and with the rain pattering against the windows and night approaching she was starting to feel quite lonely. Of course she had plenty of work to do, but right now, feeling so despondent about Sammy’s abrupt departure even though she’d been half-expecting it, she didn’t really have the heart to get down to it.

  Filling the kettle, she put it on to boil, then, having switched the phone off earlier, she went to check if there were any messages. There was just one, from David, welcoming her home, telling her how much she had been missed and asking her to call when she had a minute. The sound of his voice warmed her and made her smile. It would be nice to think she’d been missed as much as he was insisting, but she knew David too well: it was merely the sort of thing he’d say. Still, she wouldn’t mind talking to him right now; so, picking up the phone, she dialled Sylvia’s number, presuming that was where she would find him.

  A couple of minutes later she rang off, feeling slightly relieved that no one was in, for she’d momentarily forgotten about the problem with Marielle.

  Looking down at the answerphone again, she grimaced ruefully. It had been full of messages earlier, but none were from Christian. However, telephone calls were like buses, they never came when you were waiting for one – and she wished to God she could stop herself waiting for this one. Her heart tightened as she wondered if he had been arrested, or maybe got the deal he was seeking from the DA and handed himself in.

  To her surprise, when she called the Delaneys’ number she got a France Telecom recorded message telling her that the line had been discontinued.

  Frowning, she walked to the front door and peered through the darkness towards the Delaneys’ villa. She could see no lights through the trees, but maybe they had already shuttered up for the night.

  Dressing quickly she pulled on her coat and boots and went to investigate. She found the gates locked and in the fading light she could see that there were no cars in the drive. Nor was there any sign of Tilly, the dog, and no light was coming through the chinks in the shutters. The entire place was deserted and looked, she thought, as though it had been that way for a while.

  Chapter 14

  AS SOON AS David heard what had happened over the agony column he was on the next plane back to France. From the moment he arrived Penny sensed the change in him, but though he was snappish and aloof with her there was no question it was Marielle he was gunning for. Penny never did find out what passed between them; all she knew was that Marielle continued to strut about the place like Miss Fleet Street herself, giving orders, crushing egos and generally getting up everyone’s nose. She didn’t appear in the least bit bothered by the severe pressure they were under from the press to explain the advice that had been printed in their agony column. It was as though she had played no part in it at all.

  Fortunately no one seemed to have got wind of the fact that some unhappy, unstable woman had acted upon the advice and the handling of the woman and her husband was left to David to sort out. This he did, by parting with an unspecified sum of money on the condition that no mention of it ever reached the papers. To Penny’s surprise she received no reproach from David herself, when she’d expected him at the very least to have told her not to be so careless as to leave that sort of thing lying around in the future.

  In fact, over the next couple of weeks she didn’t have much contact with him at all. Thanks to her crazy schedule, with meetings and functions to attend all along the coast, they were rarely in the office at the same time and, when they were, there was enough to occupy them to keep them out of each other’s way. Not that she was actively striving to keep out of his way, but she had an uncanny feeling that he was deliberately avoiding her.

  It was strange, she was thinking to herself one evening while sitting at home working, the way David didn’t seem himself lately. Obviously Sylvia’s ill health was worrying him, but from her short conversation with Pierre Penny guessed that David’s other main preoccupation right now was saving his empire from this Stirling character. She’d meant to ask David about that, but since he hadn’t been particularly approachable lately and with so much else on her mind she’d decided to leave well alone. But it wasn’t the same around the office without David baiting her over something or other or strolling into her office and helping himself to a cup of coffee and sitting down for a chat. Was he mad at her for the way she’d turned him down that night, she wondered. But no, she couldn’t see David getting strung out over something like that. So what was it? Why was he so agitated and why was he deliberately avoiding her?

  For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together, she told herself sharply. She was on the verge of becoming paranoid about his aloofness lately and it had to stop. His problems were his own, had nothing at all to do with her and it was as much conceit as it was paranoia that she considered herself important enough for him to be worrying about when there was no doubt, from the little she had managed to glean, that it was his wife who was uppermost in his mind right now. Funny, she thought, how she could almost feel jealous of his wife, a woman she didn’t even know and probably never would. But knowing that Gabriella could affect David the way she was, that she could have such a hold over his life and cause him the pain she did by denying him the right to see his sons, made Penny want to reach out to him in a way that suprised her.

  She hadn’t seen it before, maybe because she hadn’t allowed herself to, but now she was sitting here thinking about it she realized that a real friendship – unacknowledged, maybe, but none the less a friendship – had developed between them; and friends, at least in Penny’s book, should talk to each other about things that were troubling them. Or maybe the friendship was just in her imagination, for there was no denying that lately David had quite definitely been shutting her out of his life.

  And here comes the paranoia again, she admonished herself wearily. And wasn’t she only concentrating on that particular fear because she didn’t even want to think about what else was bothering her? There was still no sign of the Delaneys, the shop had been closed down and she’d just found out that day that the house next door was now for let. No one seemed to know where the Delaneys had gone or even if they were still in France.

  The mystery of it was troubling her for reasons she wasn’t in the least bit proud of, for vanishing into thin air the way they had had left her feeling strangely spurned, as though maybe she had done or said something, without even realizing it, that had driven them away. If she was right about that, then it could only mean that Christian had decided she wasn’t to be trusted . . . As the thought pushed a horrible sinking feeling into her heart she could only thank God that no one knew how she was fixating on a man she had barely even met, and when, just to think of it, turned her hot with embarrassment.

  The next few issues of Nuance hit the stands, one of them bearing a glorious colour photograph of Princess Caroline on the cover and, inside, the exclusive interview she had given Penny. Sales were on the up and the chance of an interview with Luke Pleasance, the ageing rock star who was making something of a comeback, had arisen – no doubt another of David’s contacts, Penny thought – which meant she’d have to go over to New York. Well, that didn’t matter, there were plenty of other things she could find to do in New York. Besides, it wasn’t until the beginning of December and it was now still only the end of October.

  David, like the rest of the world, it seemed, had done another of his disappearing acts, but although, on the whole, things were running pretty smoothly, Penny had to admit, as she strolled into the production office to find out what Marielle and Mario, the advertising dir
ector, were screaming about, that she much preferred it when David was around.

  As usual Marielle and Mario were fighting over a right-hand page and Penny was in the midst of refereeing, when Brigitte told her she was putting a call through to her office.

  ‘He said it was personal,’ she explained as Penny looked at her curiously.

  Penny’s heart flipped. ‘Is it David?’ she asked, surprised by how much she wanted to hear his voice.

  Brigitte shook her head. ‘He didn’t give his name.’

  It was all Penny could do to stop herself running back to her desk. Of course by now she was thinking, hoping, it would be Christian Mureau, but, to her surprise, it was Wally Delaney.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said in answer to his enquiry. ‘How are you? Or maybe I should ask where are you?’

  ‘Living over in Vallauris now,’ he barked. ‘Settled in nicely. Bigger house. More room for Tilly to run around.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ Penny said, a dozen questions gathering on the tip of her tongue which dignity made her bite back. ‘And how’s Esther?’

  ‘Yes, yes, on splendid form,’ he answered. ‘Got to ask if you like the ballet.’

  Penny blinked as she frowned. ‘The ballet?’ she said. ‘Yes, as it so happens, I love it. Why?’

  ‘Got to ask if you want to go tomorrow night,’ he replied. ‘American ballet company. In Cannes. My employer wants to know if you want to go with him.’

  Penny sat down hard in her chair, her mind reeling with the shock of it. ‘Well, yes,’ she said, stunned by the fact that it was Wally who was calling her, when he’d always been so dead set against her and Christian meeting. ‘I’d love to go. Uh . . .’

  ‘Righto, then.’

  ‘Wally, before you go,’ she said, ‘why didn’t he call me himself?’

  ‘On his way down from Paris. Call you later or tomorrow, he said. Don’t want you to think I approve, because I don’t,’ he told her sharply. ‘Remember that,’ and the line went dead.

  Penny looked at the receiver and suddenly started to laugh. To hell with him and his approval! She and Christian were going to meet at last and as far as she was concerned that was all that mattered.