by Syd Moore
It wasn’t till we got to the third drink that the conversation turned to our reason for coming.
‘We haven’t really discussed Eden’s papers,’ I remarked, holding my wine to the fading sun. It smelled of fruit and the lost promise of holidays with Josh. But it was OK. I found, if I searched inside, only a smidgen of guilt. True, I still felt it nonetheless but it wasn’t as stifling as it had been before. In fact, I was almost enjoying myself. ‘Why did Tobias Fitch even have to mention his proposed engagement to Olivia Sparrow?’
Andrew was sitting back in his metal chair watching the river. The tension in his neck, apparent in my room, had eased out of him. ‘Customary at the time. If the Help got married, where would the spouse live? Was there a space in the household? If not, what then would the married couple do?’
I found that ridiculous. The woman was loaded. ‘Olivia could have made room, surely. I wonder why she said no?’
Andrew made a face. ‘You’re joking aren’t you? a) Sarah Grey dabbled with herbs and medicines. That would have been viewed with great contempt by someone of Lady Olivia’s views. She was Low Church. That sort of thing was akin to heresy. b) In terms of status, Sarah would have been a huge come down for Tobias. It sounds like his mistress favoured him. She may have even believed him to be the Brigadier’s son, though of course she could never admit to that. But she certainly wouldn’t want him throwing his life away on some ill-thought-of daughter of a linen draper. It would have been social suicide.’
He sank his lips into the frothy head of a Belgian beer, and licked them. ‘c) It would have brought an element of disgrace to Olivia’s household. She was the boss: devout, upright. The Lady of the Manor. She had made a huge effort to bring morality to the people of Leigh.’
I paused to take a sip from my glass. Its alcohol content was joyously coursing through my veins. ‘This anonymous friend who was going to help them elope, the go-between, who have you got in the frame for that?’
‘I don’t know. There’s very little written about Tobias. Your guess is as good as mine. It could have been another servant or it might have been someone from within Leigh society. Although Tobias’ position was fairly lowly, he wouldn’t have been able to advance anyone. But his closeness to the Lady of the Manor may have been seen as an opening to that household and her circle …’ He set his glass back on the table. ‘That might have been attractive in the long run.’
‘To whom?’
‘I’m hoping we’re going to find out tomorrow.’ He turned to me, the fading light catching his eyes, bringing out their depth. Small flicks of amber swirled within them. We were close now, physically. I could smell the faint aroma of pine combined with the base note of his own male skin. It was a heady perfume. But ogling blokes wasn’t my style and might prove a bit of a turn-off for a former vicar.
‘Tobias,’ I said, alert to the slight slur of the ‘s’. Then realized I didn’t know what I was going to say. As nice as this giddiness felt, if I didn’t consume something solid soon I’d start swaying, which although I was feeling brazen, wasn’t a good look in the trendy part of town, whether anyone knew me or not. ‘Can I suggest we get something to eat? I’m about to tip over the edge of sober.’
Andrew laughed. ‘We’re on holiday. Enjoy it.’
He’d been on the beer while I’d downed more than a half bottle of wine. I paid up before my resolve dwindled.
We walked around for a while, unable to decide what kind of cuisine we fancied. In the end Andrew forced the issue and we took a table at an open-air fish restaurant. I couldn’t tell whether the place was full of locals or tourists, but the crowd dining there seemed very stylish and laid back and soon Andrew and I had eased ourselves into our chairs, ordered our meals and bottle of wine, and were happily watching people stroll by.
We played a game as we ate, trying to decide the names and relationships of those who caught our attention.
‘Gloria,’ said Andrew, indicating a buxom blonde of about twenty-five arm-in-arm with a swarthy middle-aged fat guy. ‘Russian. Formerly a lap dancer. Now rescued by Marco. Celebrating their anniversary.’
‘Which one?’
‘Six weeks,’ he said, with a glint in his eye.
I giggled like a teenager. The food hadn’t done much to soak up the alcohol. ‘If the folks at school could hear you now.’
He smiled and leant closer. ‘What would they say?’
‘They’d think you were human after all.’
He honked out a bray-like laugh. The booze was getting to him, too. ‘Well, I might show them that side of me. If only I could extract the management chip from my main-frame.’
Now it was my turn to snigger. He was getting funnier and funnier. ‘Shall we walk on and get an after dinner liqueur?’
The vodka bar we found ourselves in had a kind of literary vintage style. Lit by large 1950s standard lamps, poems and newspaper cuttings we couldn’t translate were pasted all over its walls. Comfy over-stuffed armchairs were scattered here and there, seating a distinctly bookish crowd. It was, it had to be said, a lucky find: it was romantic.
We staggered through the main bar down a narrow corridor into a smaller but less crowded salon. A couple of men in suits laughed at a joke as we passed them. One of them reeled backwards, chuckling away. Unsteady on my feet now, I was about to collide with him. Expertly Andrew slipped his hand into my fingers and pulled me closer to him. Obstacle avoided, I went to release his hand but then stopped for a second and thought about it. I liked it. And Andrew didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let go of me.
Installing ourselves at a round table at the back of the room, Andrew called the waitress over and ordered us two chilli vodkas.
I leant towards him across the table, and propped my face in my hands. His eyes were shining and a couple of drops of perspiration dotted his forehead, but aside from that he oozed confidence and charm. Only a dopiness in his smile indicated a certain level of inebriation. He stuck his elbows on the table and mirrored my pose, and for a moment we just sort of sat there, gazing at each other, not saying a single word.
‘Who’d have thought?’ Andrew said at last.
I sighed loudly, dislodging a lock of hair, which fell across my face.
‘You and me,’ he continued, and reached over and tucked the rogue strands behind my ear. ‘Here,’ he said, letting his hand rest at the back of my head. ‘In Antwerp. After all these years.’
‘What do you mean? Years?’ I pulled a face.
He grinned. ‘I mean months.’
I swallowed and scowled. ‘You said “years”.’
My brow tensed into a frown.
‘Oh yes, you’re doing it again, Sarah Grey.’ His voice had become soft and husky. His shoulders came nearer still. With his free hand he ran his finger over the profile of my nose, down across my lips. I forgot my apprehension and surrendered to the electric touch of his skin on my face. ‘Enchanting, charming. I believe you’ve put a spell on me.’
It was overwhelming. All those months, years without a lover’s touch. I’d forgotten what it was like. Dormant desire erupted within, spreading ripples to the surface of my skin.
So I did what any woman in that situation would do. I reached for his chin and brought him closer.
Then I kissed him.
It was a long, lingering first kiss: breath-stopping, head-spinning, brimful months of longing. We tumbled into each other, his tongue finding mine, licking, probing, gasping, oblivious to the world outside of our table.
Until the waitress coughed and plonked two vodkas noisily on the table.
Andrew paid her and turned back to me. ‘Oops,’ he said, to the large shot glasses. ‘I’d forgotten about you.’
‘Me too,’ I stretched my hand across the table and took his. ‘Come on, let’s down them and go back to the hotel.’
Neither of us mentioned what we were doing, or spoke a single word from the moment we tottered into my room until the end of our lovemaking.
There was no need. We communicated with our bodies and fingers and lips, touching, teasing. When he came inside me, the first time, he held my face and looked into my eyes. The involuntary arch of my back snatched my gaze from his briefly, but when I came back to him, I hit a feeling I couldn’t describe – a sense of absolute rightness, of belonging.
The opposite of loneliness.
It was like I’d come home.
As the first light of dawn seeped between the blinds, he said, ‘One of us is going to have to resign.’
The rock of his body was behind mine, tensed and meaty against my more wobbly flesh. ‘I know,’ I said, and kissed his forearm. It retained his tan.
And it was wrapped around me.
My stomach lurched with another spasm of desire.
‘I have some money,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of maybe going back to finish what I started up North.’
‘You mean the biography of Eden?’
‘Yes. This should be chronicled. Not just his story, but Sarah’s too. Don’t you think?’
‘I do, I do,’ I said, wriggling out of his grip and turning to face him. I stroked the curve of his right cheek. ‘Does that mean you’d go back to Scotland?’
His eyes sought mine. ‘Would you mind?’
I exhaled loudly. ‘Of course I’d bloody mind! I don’t want you to run away just as I’ve …’
He stopped me with a kiss. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. No, I’d have to visit a couple of times to sort through things but I can order what I need through the libraries.’
‘So you don’t have to move?’
‘No. I don’t.’
‘Good.’
‘I just love it when you flip out. You get this startled look in your eyes and your nose wrinkles up. It’s really cute. You don’t realize you’re doing it but it’s driven me mad a couple of times way back when I had you in my office.’
‘Mmm. Now that’s a thought.’
‘Don’t start thinking about that, you foul temptress. I’ll still be your boss for the next three months.’
‘That sounds like I could have a lot of fun with you then.’
‘We can have a lot of fun now, don’t you think?’ And he kissed me again.
When I next woke the small hand was almost touching eleven. I rolled over and found that I was alone. The dryness in my mouth bordered on painful. I crept out of bed and stole over to the bathroom expecting to find Andrew in there. It was empty.
I guessed he must have gone back to his room. I jumped in the shower for a few minutes, towelled, threw some clothes on, grabbed my bag and went down the corridor to find him, humming some silly love song that’d been going round my head since I awoke.
The door of his room was half ajar, the sound of a vacuum cleaner coming from within. I pushed it to and found a chambermaid cleaning. She turned off the hoover when she saw me, and cocked her head enquiringly, a small questioning smile on her lips.
‘Er,’ I stumbled through my ‘O’ Level French. ‘L’homme est ici?’
She shook her head. ‘Non. Il est parti.’
‘Departed?’ My brow creased into an instant frown, and I looked around the room.
‘Oui. Departed.’
I straightened up. ‘Really? Où? Where?’
She shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know,’ with a nonchalance that suggested I should leave the room and let her get on.
I turned back into the corridor and wandered to the stairs unsure of where to go. What had he done? Where had he gone?
A half-thought that had been growing at the back of my mind zoomed into sudden focus. If you can trust him.
Surely, he wouldn’t leave me like this? Not after last night. Or maybe, a little voice whispered, especially after last night.
He’d got what he’d wanted. Maybe it was all fair in a godless universe? Perhaps without God anything went.
No, I thought firmly. Andrew McWhittard was a good man. Upstanding, caring. A decent man with a tragic past.
Or was he indeed? I only had his word that the story he had told me, his connection to the investigation, was true. To all intents and purposes, he was a man without a past. I had met no friends, heard of no acquaintances since he turned up at St John’s last year. No one had.
It suddenly hit me that I knew very little about the man I had slept with last night. The man in whom I had placed my trust and shared my secrets.
A ripple of fear convulsed my stomach as panic began to set in. What if he had gone to Tobias without me? I didn’t have Mr Fitch’s address. Andrew had been circumspect about it when I’d asked to see it.
But why would he do that?
To steal the key to the mystery for himself.
The research he’d done was solid and true. The man had been studying Sarah Grey and her confessor, for sure. The facts tallied with my own investigations. And he wanted to write a book.
The bastard.
I had reached the foot of the stairs now, and marched across the lobby and through the revolving doors. I had given it all away! I should have remembered my initial repugnance, my early gut reaction to him. Even Sarah had warned me but I had been seduced by the man.
Outside on the street I stopped for a moment. Where was I to go? Across the road stood a bus stop. I dodged between the traffic and squeezed past a couple waiting to scour the map on the timetable.
My heart was still pounding when I heard my name. ‘Sarah!’
Andrew was standing outside the hotel waving a map in his hand, a black leather satchel over his shoulder.
His eyebrows arched quizzically as he crossed to me. ‘What are you doing?’
I tried to keep my face calm and my tone casual. ‘I’m just checking out the buses. What are you doing?’
He sent me a funny look. ‘The bus we need is up the street and round the corner.’ Then he leant down and slipped his hand under my chin, cupping my face. ‘You all right?’
I pulled his hand down and stepped away from him, still uncertain. ‘Where were you? I went to your room. The maid said you’d departed.’
‘I tried to wake you earlier but you were out for the count. So I showered then headed back to get changed. The maid turned up to do the room so I nipped out to a bakery and got these.’ He waved two freshly wrapped baguettes at me. ‘I figured we would miss breakfast. I got you cheese and salad. Sorry, couldn’t remember if you’re a veggie or not.’ His grin had assumed a confused, sheepish quality. To be fair, he looked clueless. Or he was doing a bloody good impression of it.
Either was possible. But I was coming round to him.
I pouted a bit and wasn’t going to say anything, but like I said, I blurt. ‘I thought you’d checked out. Or gone ahead. Left me.’
He laughed, and then realizing I meant it, took my hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘Why on earth would you think that? I’m crazy about you. You must know that by now?’
I looked up into his face. It was shining and glossy with a thin layer of perspiration. ‘You’re sweating,’ was all I said.
‘It’s hot. And I’m excited. Come on, it’s time for us to go.’
I let him tug me into his stride and tried to shrug off the doubt that had wrapped me like a shroud. I didn’t want it to ruin the day.
The number eight bus dropped us off, just after one o’clock, in a small suburban square. We followed Andrew’s map to a nineteenth-century red-bricked building that stood five storeys high. On the journey there, he had gabbled on about the first time he had found Tobias Fitch, the thrill of it, and how he had whooped like a dog in the stern Scottish library. Privately I thought this irritating and self-indulgent and didn’t say much. But in the end his excitement was contagious and I found myself squeezing his hand as we stood up for our stop and he told me he couldn’t believe that we would meet Tobias at last. I noted his use of ‘we’ rather than ‘I’. Maybe I was paranoid.
Shuttered windows were decorated with flower boxes bursting with a variety of brightly coloured plants i
n full bloom. The old iron outer doors to the vestibule were wide open. Andrew suggested it would be better if it was me who rang the bell. I took a breath and pressed the green rectangular button beside a neat printed label for the Fitches’ residence.
After a few seconds the intercom buzzed. Without asking who we were a wheezy male voice told us to take the elevator to the fourth floor.
The lift, set into the stairwell, was a wobbly 1970s contraption, which quivered arbitrarily on its torturously slow ascent. With barely enough room for two adults, I took the opportunity to press against Andrew’s chest, overcome by a flush of anxiety.
Not about Andrew, though that hadn’t disappeared al together. Another thought had bubbled up. What if Tobias Fitch had lost his wits? What if he had nothing new to tell us and we had come all this way for nothing? All this way when I should probably be spending what little time I may have left with my son.
The hangover was kicking in and bringing more hurtling, barely repressed fears.
I’d pushed the memory of Doctor Cook’s last consultation into the far recesses of my brain. The events of yesterday and this morning had distracted me, but now I was tired and tremulous. I felt I could cry at any moment.
Andrew read my expression. ‘You OK? It’ll be fine.’ He took my hand and raised it to his lips again. It was a touching gesture. ‘I promise.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m here.’
It was what I needed right then and I surrendered to his strength and buried my head in his chest. He was there for me. Or was that wishful thinking?
The lift came to a shuddering halt and we moved down the landing to a painted white door half ajar at the end of the corridor.
A man in his late sixties, wearing a sports shirt and jeans, stood in the doorway. He extended his hand to me. ‘Sarah Grey? My father is delighted to meet you.’
I shook his hand, slightly thrown by the odd greeting, which was repeated to Andrew, and we were shown through a tiny hall into a bright, high-ceilinged room with three windows that faced onto the street. It served the purpose of both living room and diner and was elegantly furnished in old wood. A couple of sofas were arranged around an empty fireplace and an ancient looking television. Pine panels adorned the walls behind framed pastel watercolours and cheesy family photographs.
