by Liz Fielding
Gus must have known.
Everyone must have known and she suddenly felt sick. Her whole world was falling apart as she realized what a fool she had been. He had lied to her. Lied with his body when he made love to her. Lied even about why he was at The Ark. This was no clandestine visit. There had been no meetings.
She had planned to walk away with a smile and a careless wave so that this would always be a lovely memory for both of them. Memory! In a week he wouldn’t even remember who she was while she wouldn’t be able to forget. And this feeling, this sick feeling of betrayal was how it was going to be tomorrow. Forever.
She turned away from him to dash away a stupid tear as the boat began to turn into a small cove and slowed. ‘Why are we stopping?’
‘I asked Gus to lay on a picnic for us. We’ll have the cove to ourselves.
‘When do you want me to pick you up, Jack?’ he called.
‘About four?’ Jack suggested and without waiting for an answer jumped over the side of the boat. He smiled up at Melanie, offering a hand. ‘I believe this might be the world’s most perfect spot for a picnic. What do you think of it?’
She looked at the tiny cove, its perfect crescent of white sand cradled by tumbled boulders and palm trees. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. And it was. Heartbreakingly beautiful. And because her mind was numb, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she let him lift her out of the boat.
‘Everything’s waiting for you,’ Gus promised. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘He’s going to leave us here? Alone?’
Jack laughed at her concern. ‘What’s the matter, sweetheart? You don’t think I’m going to suddenly turn into the big bag wolf after all and gobble you up?’
‘You’ve already done that,’ she said, slightly disturbed by a sudden air of purpose about him. Something that reminded her of the man she had run into in a travel agent’s doorway. ‘Why did you bring me here?’ she demanded.
‘Because...’ He turned her to him, his hands resting lighting on her shoulders as they stood ankle deep in the surf. ‘The last few days have been wonderful, Melanie, but before we go home we need to talk.’
‘What about? About the lies you’ve told me?’ No! No! This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Play it cool, Mel. Be a lady. To hell with that! ‘To tell me thanks, it’s been great and let’s do it on this great beach just for old times sake? Forget it!’ She turned and splashed blindly through the surf, breaking into a run as he reached for her.
‘Melanie, for heaven’s sake, what on earth brought this on?’
She clenched her fists, stared at the sky. Wasn’t it obvious? ‘You have lied to me, haven’t you? You’ve been here before. And whatever you’re doing here now, it certainly isn’t sussing out some slimy takeover of The Ark.’
‘No. It isn’t,’ he agreed. ‘But-’
‘But what?’
Jack’s eyes darkened. ‘But you’ve lied too.’
She glared at him. ‘I have never told you a lie.’
‘Maybe not directly. But not telling the truth comes a pretty close second in my book.’ He lifted the collar of the linen shirt she was wearing to check the label. ‘The designer clothes you wear aren’t borrowed, are they? They fit as if they’ve been made for you, which they undoubtedly have. You don’t have to work as a cleaner.’
‘I haven’t had any complaints.’
‘I didn’t say you were bad at it. Only that you don’t have to do it. And who produced that very professional business plan for the co-operative?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Finally, the clincher, you told Mrs Graham that you lived at the same address as a man called Richard Latham. But you don’t.’
‘You checked up on me!’
‘Your sudden change in appearance was unnerving. Especially when I remembered where we’d met before. I saw you talking to Latham.’
‘Richard? What on earth has he got to do with anything?’
She was standing beneath a shelter thatched with palm fronds on an exquisite horseshoe beach. There were sun loungers, cushions, towels. A huge cold box. Snorkelling equipment, even. Everything they could possibly need to enjoy the day together. One last day that might have been as perfect as all the others they had shared. And they were having a row. She sat down suddenly.
‘You wanted to talk, Jack. I think perhaps you’d better get what you wanted to say off your chest.’
He made a move to sit beside her, but she jerked away and he took the other lounger. Sat facing her.
‘Last year Gus was in trouble. Real trouble, unlike the fake bother I cooked up for the benefit of Greg Tamblin.’ He saw her frown, but could have sworn she didn’t know the name. ‘The bank was threatening to cut their losses and sell their stake to a holiday chain that were making interested noises. I persuaded them to sell it to me instead. I think it was money well spent, don’t you?’
‘You helped him? Last year? But what are you doing here now?’
‘Ah, well, sweetheart, one good turn deserves another. This time he’s helping me.’
‘How?’ He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to coat her with sun cream and then made love with her and swim naked with her in the cove, but she was sitting rigid as a board, half-turned from him, refusing to meet his eyes. ‘How?’ she insisted. Then, ‘Tell me about Gus.’
‘Gus is a man with a vision. When he inherited this island it was derelict. The farms were deserted, the buildings falling down. With the sweat of his brow he’s turned it into something special. Local people are coming back because there’s work and land. Visitors love it because it’s not commercial. It’s beginning to turn around, start to pay back for all the time, money and love he’s put into it, but it takes time, too long for the bank. When they finally twigged to the fact that he wasn’t going to turn it into the mass tourist resort they had fondly imagined, they decided to pull the plug. Like you, Melanie, I couldn’t bear to see him lose it.’
‘So why are you here now?’
‘I rather think you know that, Mel.’
She looked round at him. ‘Me? I thought you were here to carve the guy up. It’s why I told-’ She stopped.
‘Told who, Melanie?’ This was the last thing he’d wanted. He’d planned a quiet day together when he could tell her everything. In his own way. His own time. But she’d been on edge from the moment she woke and something had finally snapped. ‘The only person you’ve rung since you’ve been on this island is Paddy,’ he said. ‘Or did you get her to pass a message onto Richard Latham? I suppose it would have been easy enough, since you all work for the same charming lady.’
‘Richard?’ She frowned. ‘Why do you keep bringing up Richard Latham?’
‘Because you know him.’
‘Of course I know him. We worked together years ago in Australia. But what on earth has he got to do with this? And why the hell have you been checking up on my telephone calls?’
‘Call. You have only made one call. To Paddy. Were you checking up on me? Making sure that I’d carried out my promise?’
‘No. I knew you had. But...’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, God, this sounds so silly now.’
Silly?
‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’
‘I wanted to get a message to the gossip page at the Courier and I didn’t have their number so I called Paddy and asked her to pass it on.’
‘The Courier?’
‘You remember what I said about publicity? For The Ark?’ He waited. ‘Well I saw someone here. Someone I knew they’d be interested in. I thought, if I passed it on, The Ark would get a mention.’
‘That wasn’t very kind. People come here for privacy.’
‘Oh, they’d already gone by the time I called. They just stopped overnight at the marina. I didn’t want to be any part of what you were doing here, Jack. What you told me you were doing. I thought I could help Gus without anybody knowing.’
He opened the picnic box, extracted a couple of sodas and opened them before ha
nding one to her. ‘It was a kind thought, but unnecessary. The Courier have already run a story on The Ark in the last few days.’
‘Oh, well...’ She shrugged. ‘It was just a thought. Every little helps.’
‘Maybe you should hear the full story before you make up your mind about that.’ And he explained about Greg Tamblin and Richard Latham’s plan to make a fortune from insider trading. ‘When I realized what they were up to I laid a trap, but I didn’t want it to be too obvious. If it had been too easy they might have smelt a rat. So when they were in too deep to pull back without losing money, Gus helped me set The Ark up as another target. I let them discover it was just a red herring so that they would feel very clever at spotting the blind, and wouldn’t notice the real trap until it was sprung.’ He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, staring at the sand.
‘So, how does that affect me?’
He looked up. ‘Mike Palmer, my CEO, had already informed the Courier diary page of my plans to come here with Caroline. But Caroline was famously going to New York and gossip pages being what they are I didn’t want any speculation of the wrong kind. So Mike called again and said there had been a change of partners.’
‘You mean it was in the paper? About us coming here together?’
‘Yes.’ He saw her face. ‘Mike said you would kill me.’
She shook her head. ‘It can’t be helped, you weren’t to know - but I can’t believe that Richard could be so devious. He came to your flat once, when I was working there. I thought he was behaving oddly.’
‘Why? What did he do?’
‘Nothing much. But just coming to the flat was odd. I thought he was checking up on me. Making sure I was actually working. We had a bet you see, that I couldn’t stick it a month.’
‘A bet?’
‘Five hundred pounds to him if I couldn’t take it. The same to charity if I won.’
Five hundred pounds? To charity?
‘I told him to get lost and he came over all contrite and carried the rubbish down for me.’ She groaned. ‘That was what he came for wasn’t it. To check out your rubbish.’
‘He wouldn’t have needed to come to the flat. I made sure he found everything he wanted at the office.’
‘Maybe he thought that was too easy.’ She frowned. ‘He’s in real trouble isn’t he? Why? Why would he do that?’
‘After his father’s company was taken over I was called in to sort the place out. It was a mess. Out of date equipment. Top heavy management. Richard was supposed to stay on the board to keep the family connection but he was so obstructive that the new company decided he was more trouble than he was worth.’
‘And then his father had a heart attack.’
‘The heart attack came before the takeover, Mel. In fact it provoked it.’
‘So he lied right from the beginning,’ she said. ‘Looking for sympathy rather than taking responsibility.’
‘That sounds about right.’
‘And this man Tamblin? Is he the journalist whose cuttings you keep?’
‘Yes. I caught him insider trading a few years back. Instead of exposing him I suggested he find some less tempting form of work. It was a mistake. He used his contacts to get into financial journalism and has been on my back ever since. And now he’s up to his old tricks again, using Richard.’
‘I think it’s possible that Richard is using him, Jack.’ He waited. ‘He’s enormously likeable, bags of charm when he’s getting his own way. But he’s manipulative, too. I’ve seen him pull some strokes with the director when we worked on the same soap, just for a bet, just to prove he could make people do things.’
And she’d let him do it to her, Melanie realized.
He’d known about the post-party clean up. She’d told him about Jack’s call to the office and he must have realized immediately what that meant; why Mrs Graham was so eager to give her a job.
‘I’d forgotten how he liked to do that,’ she said. Then she looked up. ‘But if he held a grudge you should warn your office. You think you’ve been fooling him all this time, but it’s quite possible he’s been fooling you.’ She stood up. ‘Look, do we have to wait for Gus? Isn’t there some other way we can get back?’
‘Not unless you fancy a long, hot hike. Besides, we’re only half way through this session of true confessions. ‘It’s your turn.’
‘I told you, Jack. I was working for a bet. I didn’t know anything about Richard’s plans. And I certainly didn’t tell him I was coming here with you.’
‘If he reads the Courier he knows now.’
‘Well that’s hardly my fault.’ She wrapped her shirt around her a little tighter as the wind began to rise, kicking the sand up from the beach.
‘Will it cause you problems?’ She glanced at him. ‘I had assumed that you were an out-of-work actress who might welcome a little publicity. But you’re clearly something else entirely.’
‘Not entirely. I am an actress and I’m not working. But out of choice, not misfortune.’
‘I should know who you are, shouldn’t I? That’s why you changed your appearance. Who are you, Melanie?’
‘We’ve already covered my life history, Jack. I wasn’t lying about that. I’ve done some television, a West End play. I’m not offended because you haven’t seen me in anything. Tell me about your life,’ she said, eager to change the subject.
‘Oh, you know. The usual story. School. University. The City.’
‘And marriage.’ If they were clearing the decks, they might as well make a good job of it.
‘And marriage,’ he repeated, but he was no longer paying attention. Instead he was staring out to sea.
Melanie turned to see what had caught his attention, shading her eyes from a sun that was suddenly brassier, angrier.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stood up. ‘But it’s getting very dark over there. I think we might be in for a storm.’
As if to confirm what he said, the wind caught at her hair as she rose beside him and she put up her hands to hold it back from her face. For a moment they stood together, watching the darkening edge of the sky where the front seemed to be coming lower and closer at an alarming rate. ‘Will Gus come back for us?’ Melanie said, grabbing hold of Jack’s shirt as a sudden gust buffeted them and she staggered against him.
‘It’s too late for that, Mel. We’re going to have to make a run for it.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE wind hit the beach like a rocket, tearing the thatched shelter to shreds and tossing the sun loungers aside, streaming out the palm fronds as it came after them. The rain hit before they were half way up the shallow rise behind the beach as they battled to breast it and make the lee. Great drenching sheets of the stuff that ran down their faces, leaving them gasping for air.
By instinct, Melanie had grabbed her bag as she ran, but now it was filling with water, weighing her down and Jack grabbed it. ‘Is there anything important in here?’ he shouted above the almost unimaginable noise. She shook her head and he dumped it. It was immediately caught by the wind and bowled away, spilling its contents as it went. Jack caught her hand, hauling her after him.
She stumbled along the path, barely able to keep up as her canvas shoes too began to fill with water, weighing her down.
Behind the hill, the wind was less of a problem, but it still sucked the breath from them and the rain made breathing doubly difficult. After a few hundred yards they were both struggling for air and Jack stopped while Melanie clung to him for a moment.
‘There’s an old sugar mill up here somewhere. If we can get there, we can get out of this.’
‘It won’t blow down?’
‘It’s stood a lot worse than this in its time.’ He leaned back. ‘Ready?’ But she was staring out at the grey and angry sea. Beau and Diana were somewhere out there. And she was remembering another storm, just as sudden, that had killed her mother. ‘Melanie?’
‘Yes. Come on, let’s go.’
; Ten minutes later then almost fell into the old stone sugar mill and it seemed to take forever, battling against the wind to close the door behind them. Eventually it was done and they leaned back against it, their chests heaving in unison as they recovered their breath. ‘The next time you decide to take me on a picnic,’ Melanie gasped out, ‘think again.’
‘I’ll do better than that. The next time you suggest we spend the day in bed, I won’t argue.’ Then he straightened and looked about him. ‘But in the meantime we’d better make ourselves comfortable.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re shivering,’ he said, taking her into his arms.
‘So are you. I can’t believe how the temperature’s dropped.’
‘We might be able to make a fire.’
‘And send out smoke signals so that someone will come and find us?’
‘Not while this wind is blowing.’
Melanie crossed to the old stone chimney. ‘There’s plenty of kindling and wood, but nothing to light it with.’ She rubbed at her arms. ‘I suppose you could try rubbing two sticks together.’
‘You’ve obviously never tried to light a fire that way.’ He reached up to a shelf where there was an old candle stuck in a jar and his hand dislodged a box of matches. ‘I suspect we’ve stumbled on a lover’s tryst,’ he said, looking around. There was a rug on the floor, an old sofa draped in a clean white sheet with a couple of bright cushions.
‘Thank heavens for lovers,’ she said, as he lit the candle and began to pile up small scraps of wood shavings, then bigger pieces of dry kindling and when it was well alight began to place small logs carefully over it.
‘Why don’t you get out of those wet clothes,’ he advised. ‘Wrap yourself in that sheet and you’ll soon warm up.’
Melanie didn’t need a second invitation, peeling of her sodden clothes and draping them near the fire. ‘This is big enough for two of us,’ she said, sitting on the sofa. ‘Come on. Your clothes will soon dry.’
Jack made up the fire and then peeled off his t-shirt and shorts before joining her on the sofa and tucking the other end of the sheet about him. ‘Now we wait.’
