Close My Eyes (31 page)

I switch off the phone again and look round to find Lorcan gazing thoughtfully at me. ‘Let’s take a break,’ he says.

I stand up. Outside the sun is streaming across the treetops.

‘We could go for a drive?’ he suggests. ‘See if we see anything that might explain what Art’s doing here . . . you know, anything connected with the area.’

I nod and we set off. Lorcan drives slowly along the country roads. There’s another inn – the Princess Alice – just a couple of hundred yards away from the Wardingham Arms.
Otherwise, there’s nothing for almost a mile in every direction, save for a couple of farmhouses set back from the road.

We drive on, into a small village where we get out and wander about. We go to a café and order sandwiches. I check my phone again. More messages from Art. This time I don’t listen
to them. I call Bernard, as arranged. He reports that Art has spent the whole day so far in the office.

I come off the phone and rest my head in my hands.

‘What do we do now?’ I moan. ‘We’re not getting anywhere and Art
knows
I think he’s lying to me, so if he’s got tracks to cover up, he’ll be
covering them up right now.’

I close my eyes, despair weighing down on me.

‘We should go back to the inn and talk to the staff there again,’ Lorcan says.

‘What’s the point?’ I sigh. ‘I don’t think the landlord was lying to us. Art comes on a regular basis. He stays in his room. Period. We don’t even know what
we’re looking for.’

Lorcan looks up from his sandwich.

‘So what are you saying?’ he says. ‘D’you want to give up?’

I fold my arms and look out of the café window. Outside the sky is clouding over. The air – so light and sunny before – now seems grey and oppressive. A few drops of rain
spatter the pavement. I feel irritated. I almost itch with it.

‘Of course I don’t bloody want to give up. What’s your problem, only interested when there’s some drama to get caught up in?’

‘Hey, I’m doing my best to help you here.’ Lorcan shoves his plate across the table and sits back in his chair.

There’s a tense silence.

‘I never asked for your help,’ I snap. I know I’m being rude, but I can’t stop myself. ‘You offered. Anyway, you said you had nothing better to do.’

Lorcan looks up. He half smiles. ‘Doesn’t sound very chivalrous when you put it like that.’

I shrug, his smile disarming me. ‘I’m not looking for chivalry.’ The rain is falling harder now, drizzling down the window beside us. For some reason I find this soothing. I
reach over and put my hand on Lorcan’s arm. ‘I’m sorry I snapped. I couldn’t do this without you. It’s just . . .’ My voice wobbles under the swell of my
emotions. ‘This whole thing . . . I feel like I’m going insane.’

Lorcan nods but he doesn’t speak. The silence builds between us. My mind goes back to Hen’s suggestion that Lorcan could have faked the CCTV footage, and to Morgan’s earlier
accusation.

Like a wolf who’s picked out a sacrificial lamb.

‘So why
are
you helping me?’ I keep my voice carefully cool and calm.

Lorcan looks up. We look at each other for a long moment.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says at last.

‘What for?’ I hold my breath.

The rain lashes harder against the window. It makes the street outside blurry. I wait, watching him . . .

‘There’s something I need to tell you.’ Lorcan says slowly. ‘Two things, actually. The first is that I called the girl I’ve been seeing in Ireland . . . I did it
last night, after you’d gone to sleep. I told her we were over.’

‘Oh.’ I can feel my face reddening.

He reaches for my hand. His voice is low and intense. ‘Okay, listen to me. I finished with Hayley because once I met you I realized that she was never the right person. Not that I ever
thought she was . . .’ He tails off.

My heart hammers in my chest. What’s he saying? That leaving her is something to do with me?

‘Christ, I’m shite at this.’ Lorcan lets go of my hand. He shifts awkwardly in his seat, looking uncharacteristically unsure of himself. ‘I wanted to tell you that before
I went on to tell you the other thing.’

‘What other thing?’ I say, my heart racing.

‘You know the information you’ve been told about me?’ Lorcan says. ‘The information about what happened at Loxley Benson . . .’

‘You mean sleeping with that client’s wife?’

He nods. His face is tight with tension.

‘Look, it was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.’

‘No, it’s important,’ Lorcan says. ‘I want you to know the truth.’

‘The truth about what?’

‘That night,’ he says. ‘That night fourteen years ago.’

I wait, watching him.

‘I slept with a lot of women in my early twenties but then . . . so do most men, if they get the chance, wouldn’t you say?’ Lorcan says. ‘I’m not trying to justify
everything I did. There were quite a few older women, married women who . . . anyway, that doesn’t matter now.’ He breathes out, a heavy sigh. ‘When I met you, the night of the
party, I was angry at the way my . . . my history at Loxley Benson was all anyone saw when they looked at me.’

‘What d’you mean?’ I say. ‘Nobody mentioned that, except Kyle and Art, and I
made
them tell me.’

‘No.’ Lorcan shakes his head slowly. ‘Back when it happened, Art told everyone and they haven’t forgotten. It was a public disgrace. He made a scapegoat of me just so he
could keep that client.’

‘But—’ I want to tell him it was his own fault for sleeping with someone else’s wife. ‘But Art said you threatened Loxley Benson’s survival. You
couldn’t seriously expect him to stand by and do nothing. Anyway, you told me you were ready to leave before it happened.’

‘No, it’s not like you think,’ he says. ‘It’s not like Art said.’ He lets out another deep sigh. ‘I’m trying to explain . . . why I came back the
next day after we had the take-out. The truth is I left that Swiss Army knife behind on purpose. I wanted to annoy Art by turning up out of the blue and seeing you . . . I wanted to get back at
him.’

‘Get back at him?’ I don’t understand what he’s saying. ‘Get back at Art for firing you when you wanted to leave anyway? When Loxley Benson would have gone under if
that client had taken his business away?’

Lorcan lowers his voice. ‘I did want to leave and Loxley Benson would have gone under. That’s all true. But you’re missing the point. You see . . .’ He pauses, fixing me
with his intense gaze. The sights and sounds of the café fade to nothing. ‘It wasn’t me that slept with the client’s wife.’

‘What?’ My head spins.

‘It was Art,’ Lorcan says.

‘
Art?
’ I draw in my breath sharply. ‘
Art
slept with the client’s wife.’

‘Yes.’

I sit back, trying to absorb this information. It all happened before I met Art, of course. I knew he’d had other girlfriends. There were a few short-term relationships during his teens,
then a girl called Emma at university. Art has never said that much about any of them. He’s certainly never told me he slept with anyone who was married. I look up at Lorcan, tense with
suspicion.

‘So what happened?’

Lorcan leans forward, lowering his voice further. ‘The four of us were out. The client, his wife, Art and me. She was coming on to both of us whenever her husband went to the bar or the
bathroom. I know it sounds bad, but Art and I were both single. All four of us were drunk. It just
happened
.’

‘How?’

‘You want the details?’ Lorcan’s eyes widen. ‘Okay. We all ended up back at the client’s house. The husband fell asleep on the sofa. The wife was all over us. I
think she was after some sort of threesome, but I wasn’t interested. She was too drunk and too needy . . . plus, no way was I ending up in bed with a man.’ He gives a wry, weary laugh.
‘So . . . I went home. Art stayed. He left after they shagged, but the husband found Art’s watch in the bed later on the next day, when his wife was out.’

My hand flies to my mouth. I’m remembering the first date Art and I ever went on. I’d teased him because he seemed such a focused guy and yet he’d had to keep asking me what
the time was. I’d only been joking, but Art was really insistent that he normally had a watch. That he’d lost his just a few weeks earlier and wasn’t used to being without it. I
remember asking him how he’d lost it and him saying, with a blush, that he’d left it somewhere he should never have gone in the first place. That’s why I bought him a new watch
for his birthday the following March.

‘What happened next?’ I say.

‘The client called his wife . . . accused her . . . told her to come home. On the way she told Art and Art gave me money to take the rap.’

‘Art
paid
you to say it was you? So he could pretend to fire you and make the client believe he’d dealt with you and keep the business?’

‘Of course he did. It was ruthless and controlling and very, very Art. He had to grovel to the client, but it worked. I left, and Loxley Benson kept the client and the rest is
history.’

I realize I’m chewing on my nail and take my finger out of my mouth. I can so clearly recall Art telling me about Lorcan’s betrayal. He’d sounded totally convincing. And yet,
it was a lie.
Another
lie. I feel sick at the thought of my past with Art – a past built on deceptions and cover-ups. I thought I could trust him. I thought we were on solid ground.
And he has taken all that away from me.

There is nothing left that I can be sure of.

‘I didn’t let it bother me for a long time,’ Lorcan explains. ‘As you’ve pointed out, I wanted to leave the company anyway, but the truth is I should never have let
Art make up that story and I should never have taken his money. When I saw him again I could see that, after all this time, he almost believed his own version of events. He certainly didn’t
feel bad about what happened. I was angry and I wanted to get close to you to get back at him.’

My pulse thuds in my throat as Lorcan curls his fingers over my hand.

‘I’m telling you this because I want to be honest,’ he says. ‘That’s how this started – why I offered to help you in the first place. I wasn’t humouring
you exactly, but I didn’t really think there was the slightest chance Beth could still be alive until we heard Rodriguez talking about his money.’

I stare at him.

‘But that’s not how I feel now. Once I spent some time with you, I . . . it was different . . .’

I nod, feeling numb. Lorcan releases my hand as the waitress bustles over to remove our plates. I gaze out of the window again. It’s misty from the rain. Lorcan rubs a patch of glass clear
with the back of his hand. We sit in silence together for a few moments. Then Lorcan clears his throat.

‘So . . . d’you want anything else to eat or will we go back to the inn?’ he says quietly.

‘Let’s go back.’

We pay, then wander back to the car in silence.

My mind’s going over what’s just happened . . . what is happening. Everything Lorcan has just told me adds up to yet another accusation against Art. And yet that’s not why he
told me . . . he told me because he cares what I think of him, because . . .

I stare out of the window. I don’t want to face this.

The rain has slowed to a soft drizzle by the time we pull up at the Wardingham Arms, the clouds darkening the sky so much that I’m startled when I check the time and discover it’s
only just gone four.

I’m hoping the landlord will have been replaced by another member of staff, but he’s still there, smoothing down his comb-flicking her hair back over as we approach. We nod at him,
but we don’t speak until we’re inside our room. My heart races as Lorcan stands in front of me.

He puts his hand on my arm. His touch burns.

‘Gen?’

I shake my head. I know he’s asking how I feel . . . what I want . . .

‘Okay.’ He smiles. ‘I’ll go and book another room.’

A beat passes. I don’t know what to think about anything. I’m tired and I’m stressed. Lorcan smiles again and walks out.

I sink onto the bed and look around the room. The inn is old and the floor slopes downwards towards the bathroom. It’s clean and it’s tasteful. Nothing sleazy. It strikes me again
that I am sitting on the bed Art used.

A few minutes later, Lorcan’s back.

‘I’m booked in two doors down,’ he says. ‘Want to see?’

Silently, I follow him along to his room. I walk inside. It’s similar to mine, but with everything set out in mirror-image reversal.

Lorcan folds me into a hug. I lean my head against his chest. I can feel his heart beating. I look up and he leans down. A soft kiss that brushes my lips. Sweet. My breath catches in my throat.
Another kiss. Deeper. This time desire shoots through me.

Desire and fear.

I pull away. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘Okay.’ Lorcan breathes out. ‘Okay.’

I don’t know what to do. My heart is pounding and panic fills my whole body. ‘I . . . it just isn’t . . . I’m not . . .’

‘It’s fine.’ He says, but his voice isn’t entirely steady. ‘It’s absolutely fine.’

I turn and walk out. I’ll go back to my room. I’ll sit still until my heart stops hammering. I’ll have a drink.

I reach the door of my room. I stop. Look back along the corridor.

I don’t want to be on my own. I don’t want to calm down.

I don’t want a drink.

I walk slowly back along the corridor. Knock on the door.

I can hear him cross the room. He opens the door.

I smile. He raises his eyebrows. I cross to the window, place my hands on the sill and peer out over the back garden. It’s raining hard now. One of the lights at the side of the building
has switched on and is casting a dim glow over the damp tarmac path.

I turn around.

He’s staring at me, hungry and tender.

I turn around again, gazing out at the darkness, the lights. My heart’s thudding.

His hand brushes up my arm. I shiver. He takes my hair and pulls it back, holding it away from my neck. Then he bends – I can see his reflection in the window – and he kisses the
side of my neck. I feel his tongue and his mouth and his teeth, just light touches, radiating through me, making my breath shudder.