A Vintage Affair (25 page)

‘Oh …’

‘But I knew that it couldn’t be true. I know Roxanne can be annoying, in the way that teenagers often are, but she would never do anything like
that
.’ He ran a finger under his collar. ‘Anyway, the school phoned me and said that Clara and her parents were maintaining that Roxy had stolen this wretched bracelet. I was incensed. I said that I would not have my daughter being falsely accused. But the headmistress behaved …
outrageously
.’ As Miles said that I saw a vein at his left temple jump.

‘In what way?’

‘In the bias she showed. She refused to accept Roxy’s version of events.’

‘Which was … what?’

Miles sighed. ‘As I said, Roxanne and Clara had been very good friends. They constantly borrowed each other’s things in the way that girls of that age do. I saw it when Clara stayed with us at Easter,’ Miles went on. ‘She came down to breakfast one morning dressed entirely in clothes that were Roxy’s, with Roxy’s jewellery – and vice versa. The girls did it the whole time – they thought it was fun.’

‘So… you mean that Roxy
had
the bracelet?’

Miles had flushed. ‘It turned up in her drawer – but the point is, she hadn’t
stolen
it. I mean, why would she need to take anything from
anyone
when she has so much of her own? She explained that Clara had
lent
her the bracelet, that Clara had some of
her
jewellery – which she did – and that they swapped their things all the time. That should have been the
end
of it.’ Miles sighed. ‘But the Wycliffes were determined to make something of it. They were vile.’ He heaved a bitter sigh.

‘What did they do?’

Miles drew in his breath then slowly released it. ‘They threatened to call the police. So I had no choice but to make a counter threat of my own that I would start libel proceedings against them if they didn’t stop defaming my daughter.’

‘And the school?’

Miles’ mouth had become a straight line. ‘They sided with the Wycliffes – no doubt because the man’s donating half a million towards their new theatre. It was… nauseating. So … I took Roxy away. The moment she’d taken her last GCSE, I was waiting there to drive her home. It was
my
decision for her to leave that school.’

Miles had another sip of water. And I was just
wondering what to say when the waiter came to take our plates. By the time he’d gone and then quickly come back with our main courses, Miles was less agitated, the unpleasantness at Roxy’s old school receding, then seemingly forgotten. To lift the atmosphere further, I chatted to him about the play a bit more. Then Miles got the bill. ‘I drove here, by the way,’ he said. ‘Which means that I can take you home.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I can take you home to your home,’ Miles said. ‘Or, if you like, to mine.’ He looked into my face, seeking my reaction. ‘I can lend you a tee-shirt again,’ he added quietly, ‘and I can give you a toothbrush. Roxy has a hairdryer, if you need one. She’s at a party tonight, in the Cotswolds.’ So that explained why he hadn’t had twenty calls from her on his mobile. ‘I’m going to collect her tomorrow afternoon. So I thought that you and I could spend the morning together, then have lunch somewhere.’ We stood up. ‘How does that sound, Phoebe?’

The maître d’ was handing us our coats. ‘It sounds … lovely.’

Miles smiled at me. ‘Good.’

As we drove through South London with Mozart’s clarinet concerto on the CD player I felt happy to be going back with Miles. As he pulled up outside his house I glanced at the front garden, which was prettily landscaped with low box hedging enclosed by a wrought-iron fence. Miles unlocked the door and we stepped into a wide hallway with high ceilings, panelled walls and black-and-white marble floor tiles that had been polished to a watery shine.

As Miles took my coat I glimpsed a large dining room with oxblood walls and a long mahogany table. Now I followed him down the hall to the kitchen with its hand-painted units and granite worktops that glittered darkly under the spotlights that spangled the ceiling. Through the French windows I could just make out an expanse of tree-fringed lawn rolling away into the gloom.

Miles took a bottle of Evian out of the American fridge then we went up the wide staircase to the first floor. His bedroom was decorated in yellow, with a big en-suite bathroom with a free-standing iron bath and a fireplace. I got undressed in here. ‘Could I have that toothbrush?’ I called out.

Miles came into the bathroom, gave my naked form an appreciative glance, then opened a cupboard in which I could see bottles of shampoo and bubble bath. ‘Now where is it?’ he murmured. ‘Roxy’s always looking for things in here … Ah – got it.’ He handed me a new brush. ‘And what about a tee-shirt? I can get you one.’ He lifted my hair and kissed the back of my neck, then my shoulder. ‘If you think you’ll need one.’

I turned to him, and slid my arms round his waist. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I won’t.’

We woke late. As I glanced at the clock on the bedside table next to me I felt Miles’ arms encircle me, cupping my breasts.

‘You’re lovely, Phoebe,’ he murmured. ‘I think I’m falling in love with you.’ He kissed me then placed my hands above my head, and made love to me again …

‘You could swim in this bath,’ I said a while later as I soaked in it. Miles poured in some more bubble bath
then got in with me, lying behind me while I lay against his chest in an island of foam.

After a few minutes he picked up my hand and examined it. ‘Your fingertips are wrinkling.’ He kissed each one. ‘Time to get dry.’ We both stepped out then Miles picked up a soft white bath sheet from the bale on the bathroom stool and wrapped it round me. We cleaned our teeth then he took the toothbrush from me and put it in the holder with his. ‘Keep it in there,’ he said.

‘My hair.’ I touched it. ‘Could I borrow a dryer?’

Miles wrapped a towel round his waist. ‘Come with me.’

We crossed the landing, the early autumn sunshine flooding through the floor-to-ceiling sash windows. As I looked up I saw a beautiful portrait of Roxy hanging on the far wall.

‘That’s Ellen,’ Miles explained as we paused in front of it. ‘I commissioned it for our engagement. She was twenty-three.’

‘Roxy’s so like her,’ I said. ‘Although …’ I looked at Miles. ‘She has your nose – and your chin.’ I stroked it with the back of my hand. ‘And is this where you lived with Ellen?’

‘No.’ Miles opened a bedroom door with
Roxanne
on it in pink letters. ‘We lived in Fulham, but after she died I wanted to move – I couldn’t cope with the constant reminders. And I’d been invited to a dinner party at this house and had loved it; so when it came up for sale not long afterwards the owners offered me first refusal. Now …’

Roxy’s room was huge, thickly carpeted in white, with a white four-poster crowned with a pink-and-gold
damask canopy. There was a white dressing table on which were an array of expensive face creams and body lotions and several different-sized bottles of J’adore. In front of the pink and gold curtained windows was a chaise longue in pale pink brocade and on a low table beside it were perhaps two dozen glossy magazines, their covers gleaming icily.

I noticed a doll’s house on a side table – a Georgian townhouse with a gleaming black front door and floor-to-ceiling sash windows. ‘It’s just like this house,’ I said.

‘It
is
this house,’ Miles explained. ‘It’s an exact copy of it.’ He opened the front and we peered inside. ‘Every detail is correct, right down to the chandeliers, the working shutters, and the brass doorknobs.’ I gazed at the replica of the claw-footed iron bath in which I’d just soaked. ‘I gave it to Roxy for her seventh birthday,’ I heard Miles say. ‘I thought it would help to make her feel more at home – she still plays with it.’ He straightened up. ‘Anyway … come through here …’ Now we were in her dressing room. ‘This is where she keeps her hairdryer.’ He nodded at a white table on which was an arsenal of hairdressing appliances. ‘I’ll go and make breakfast.’

‘I won’t be long.’

I sat at Roxy’s hairdressing station, with its professional hairdryer and its smoothing irons and curling tongs and carousel of heated rollers, and its paddle brushes, combs and slides. As I quickly blow dried my hair I looked at all the clothes on the rails which ran around the three walls. There must have been a hundred dresses and suits. To my left was a brick red Gucci suede coat that I recognised from last year’s spring collection. In front of me I
could see a Matthew Williamson satin trouser suit and a Hussein Chalayan cocktail dress. There were four or five skiing outfits and at least eight long dresses bagged up in muslin protectors. Ranged beneath the clothes was a chrome rack on which were around sixty pairs of shoes and boots. Along one wall were a number of sisal baskets containing perhaps three dozen bags.

By my feet was a copy of this month’s
Vogue
. I picked it up and it fell open at a fashion spread, half the garments in which had been marked with heart-shaped pink Post-its. A Ralph Lauren baby blue silk ball gown costing
£
2,100 had a pink heart next to it; as did a Zac Posen one-shouldered black dress. A Roberto Cavalli hot pink mini dress at
£
1,595 had been similarly earmarked with
Check Sienna Fenwick’s not getting this
scribbled on the heart in large, round letters. A Christian Lacroix couture ‘stained glass’ silk evening gown had also been stickied. It cost
£
3,600.
By special order only
, Roxy had written. I shook my head as I wondered which of these creations Roxanne was destined to possess.

I turned off the hairdryer, putting it back exactly where I’d found it. As I walked back through her bedroom I paused to shut the front of the doll’s house which Miles had left ajar. As I did so I looked inside it again and now noticed in the sitting room two dolls – a daddy doll in a brown suit and next to him on the sofa a little girl doll in a pink-and-white gingham pinafore.

Now I went back to Miles’ bedroom, got dressed and made up, retrieved my earrings from the green saucer on the bathroom mantelpiece, then followed the scent of coffee downstairs.

Miles was standing at the breakfast bar with a tray of toast and marmalade.

‘The kitchen’s lovely,’ I said glancing around. ‘But it’s different from the one in the doll’s house.’

Miles depressed the plunger on the cafetiere. ‘I had it done up last year – not least because I wanted a professional wine store.’ He nodded to my left and I glanced at the store with its two large fridges and its floor-to-ceiling bespoke wooden racks for red wine. He picked up the tray. ‘We’ll have some Chante le Merle sometime, as you like it.’

On the wall by the French windows was a photo montage with a dozen or so snaps of Roxy skiing, riding, mountain biking and playing tennis. There was a photo of her smiling in front of Table Mountain, and another of her standing on top of Ayers Rock.

‘Roxy’s incredibly lucky,’ I said as I looked at a photo of her fishing from the back of a yacht in what looked like the Caribbean. ‘For a girl of her age she’s done so much – and, as you said, she
has
so much.’

Miles sighed. ‘Probably
too
much.’ I didn’t reply. ‘But Roxy’s my only child and she means the world to me – plus she’s all I have of Ellen.’ His voice had caught. ‘I just want her to be as happy as possible.’

‘Of course,’ I murmured.
Elle est son tendon d’Achille
. Is this what Cecile had meant? Simply that Miles spoilt Roxy?

As we stood on the terrace I gazed at the long, wide lawn fringed on both sides by undulating beds of herbaceous plants and shrubs. Miles put the tray on the wrought-iron table. ‘You wouldn’t get the newspaper, would you? It’ll be outside the front door.’

While he poured the coffee I went and picked up
The
Sunday Times
and carried it back out to the garden. As we sat having our breakfast in the soft autumn sunshine Miles read the main section while I flicked through Style. Then I unfolded the business section to take out the News Review, and as I did so I saw the heading PHOENIX falls. I looked at the half-page article. It had picked up on the
Black & Green
story, repeating the allegation of fraud. Except that there was a photo of Keith Brown’s girlfriend, captioned
KELLY MARKS: BLEW THE WHISTLE
. So
she
was the source?

The article alleged that Brown had once drunkenly bragged to his girlfriend about the way he had planned and carried out the fraud; he’d blamed it on a dis gruntled employee who, it turned out, had false I.D, and who had disappeared after the fire, presumably to evade justice. The police had circulated a photo-fit, but the man had never been traced and was still classified as a missing person. Brown, euphoric after securing some huge property deal, had foolishly boasted to Kelly Marks that not only had the man never existed, but he himself had started the blaze. Two weeks ago she had decided ‘after searching her conscience’ to reveal this to the
Black
& Green
. The article had a quote from Matt saying that, although he couldn’t comment on his sources, he stood by every word that his newspaper had printed on the matter.

‘How extraordinary,’ I breathed.

‘What is?’ I passed Miles the article and he quickly read it. ‘I know about this case,’ he said. ‘A barrister friend defended the insurance company against Brown’s claim. He said he never believed Brown’s story, but as
it wasn’t possible to disprove, Star Alliance were forced to pay up. Brown obviously thought he’d got away with it – and then he was careless.’

‘It did cross my mind that it might be his girlfriend.’ I told Miles about their unhappy visit to Village Vintage. ‘But I dismissed the idea – why
would
she shop him, given that he was her employer as well as her boyfriend?’

Miles shrugged. ‘Revenge. Brown was probably two-timing her – that’s the usual scenario – or he was trying to dump her and she found out. Or maybe he’d promised her a promotion then given it to someone else. Her motive will come out in the wash.’

I suddenly remembered what Kelly Marks had said when she’d paid for the dress: