Good at Games (6 page)

Oh Lord, not the chief constable!

“Myfanwy. Er, Myfanwy Shufflebottom,” said Suzy. She made alarmed eyes at Harry, who shrugged and sat back, looking sorry for her.

“OK, now, you just listen to me. Every morning I take my dog for a run across the Downs. He probably covers three miles. And every evening I take him out on another run, this time for maybe four or five miles. But during the day, I do have to work, and because my dog is an Irish wolfhound, he enjoys as much exercise a day as he can lay his paws on. Which is why,
Ms.
Shufflebottom, I pay a dog walker to visit him at lunchtime and take him out for an hour.” He paused, then concluded, “Furthermore, I do not have a fat backside.”

“What can I say?” said Suzy. “I apologize. From the heart of my shuffly bottom.”

The male voice drawled, “I should think so too.”

And then he hung up.

Suzy listened in disbelief to the dial tone. “He hung up.”

“Surely not,” said Harry with a grin.

“Who was he?”

But Harry, clearly enjoying himself, simply shrugged.

Suzy found the number of the last call received and pressed Return. It was picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Who
are
you?”

She heard him laugh. “A dog lover, Ms. Shufflebottom. Or perhaps I could call you Myfanwy?”

Her fingers tightened around the phone.

“Look, I'll tell you my real name if you'll tell me yours.”

More laughter. For heaven's sake, thought Suzy indignantly, how irritating was it when people
did
that?

“This is rather like the dormouse saying to the elephant, ‘I won't step on you if you won't step on me,'” said the man on the other end of the phone. “You see, I already know who you are.”

Suzy's ear was tingling. She was loving every second of this. The smart thing to do now, of course, would be to hang up. Ha! That would show him what kind of—

“Bastard!” wailed Suzy, staring at the phone in disbelief.

Startled, Lucille said, “What?”

“He hung up again! He bloody hung up on me before I could hang up on him! That is
so
unfair.” She swung around to Harry, who was trying hard to keep a straight face. “Was it your boss?”

“No, thank God.” Harry exchanged an amused glance with Lucille. “It was my brother, Leo.”

Lucille refused their offer of a lift home; she had her bike with her. Harry and Suzy, waving good-bye, watched her pedal off into the night with her pineapple hairdo bobbing and her guitar strapped to her back.

“She's very independent,” said Suzy.

“Oh yes.”

“I feel like the new owner of a puppy from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. Desperate for her to like me. Do you think she does?”

Harry shrugged, then smiled.

“I don't know. Lucille's wary, but she's no puppy. Give her time.” He slid his arm around Suzy's shoulders as they headed for the car. “If it's any comfort, I like you.” He gave her a quick squeeze. “A lot.”

* * *

They pulled up, less than ten minutes later, outside Suzy's apartment. Eyeing the rakishly parked Rolls, Harry said, “Couldn't you just sell it and buy a Porsche?”

Suzy loved her Rolls because nobody expected her to drive one. When you were twenty-four, with tumbling tortoiseshell hair, long legs, and breasts that frankly shouted “Hello, boys!” you conformed to a certain stereotype. People automatically pictured you driving some sporty little number, something sleek and curvy and with a propensity for getting its top off.

But that had never been her dream. When, barefoot and abandoned, she had first been rescued by Jaz from the hard shoulder of the highway all those years ago—well, six years ago, though it seemed more like fifty—he had asked her what her favorite car was, and she had told him. And six months later, on her nineteenth birthday, he had bought her the Rolls.

It had been love at first sight. Plus, of course, it had lasted a lot longer than the marriage.

“When I have to pay to leave my car in a parking space,” Suzy told Harry, “I like to get my money's worth.”

“Right, well, early start tomorrow. I'd better make a move.” He revved the engine slightly and glanced at his watch.

Suzy, who hated it when men pulled up outside her apartment and switched off the ignition, was impressed.

“OK. So, do I get a good-night kiss?”

Harry leaned across and kissed her briefly on the cheek. Then he smiled. Oh, that heartbreaking smile!

“Have you enjoyed yourself tonight?”

“So-so,” said Suzy. “Average.
Comme ci, comme ça.
” She paused. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”

“Better not.”

“Fine.” Suzy approved of this too. She liked it when they said no. So long as she knew they wanted to really. Saying no because they actually
didn't
want to…well, that would have been the pits.

As she reached for the door handle, Jaz's front door swung open. Jaz, wearing only a pair of jeans, whistled through his teeth, gazed into the distance, and called out, “Cat, hey, cat, come on in now, puss puss puss.”

“Your ex-husband,” Harry remarked.

“Er, yes.” The ex-husband who didn't even
have
a cat.

Jaz peered across at the car, did an oh-so-surprised double take—good job he'd never yearned to be an actor, thought Suzy—and shouted across, “Hey, Suze, is that you? Coming over for a drink?”

“A drink? I thought he didn't drink.” Harry sounded startled.

“He doesn't. I do.” Suzy knew exactly what Jaz was up to.

“Hey, come on,” said Jaz. “It's early. Just one drink.”

“Are you and he still…?”

“No,” said Suzy, “we're not.”

“Both of you,” Jaz called out easily. “I meant both of you.”

“Do you want to?” said Suzy.

Harry hesitated, then shrugged. Casually.

“OK. Why not?”

Suzy smiled to herself. It worked every time. Nobody turned down the opportunity to meet Jaz.

“The bad news is,” she told Harry, “you'll have to meet Celeste too.”

* * *

Celeste, Jaz's girlfriend, was the bane of Suzy's life. With her short white-blond hair, huge china-blue eyes, and dinky size-six figure, she had that irritating Barbie-doll look about her—and an even more irritating habit of constantly reminding other people how dinky and fragile she was.

Suzy, who
liked
being a long-legged, curvy size twelve, was tired of Celeste's endless derogatory comments regarding her weight. She couldn't understand what Jaz—who in the past had always had such excellent taste in women—possibly saw in her.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. She did know. Because Celeste had a trump card she played to the hilt. She might spend her life bitching about Fee and Suzy, and she might teeter around in fluffy mules with completely ludicrous satin bows in her hair, but she was also—cue that card!—a recovering alcoholic, just like Jaz.

And Jaz had apparently convinced himself that Celeste had saved his life. Now, as far as he was concerned, she was his talisman, his lucky charm.

When actually, as Suzy so often pointed out to him, Celeste was nothing but amazingly self-centered, a gold digger, and a total pain in the neck.

* * *

“We met at an AA meeting,” Celeste told Harry, as if he didn't already know. The whole planet, Suzy thought wearily, must have heard this story by now. “I just walked in, and there was Jaz. Not that I even recognized him at the time, I was in such a state. I'd only been sober for a couple of days. I was going through hell. After the meeting, I just broke down and cried in the street—I was
that
close to running into the nearest pub. But Jaz saw me crying and came over. He got me through the crisis.” She nodded for emphasis, and the massive pink bow on top of her head bobbed around like a pair of rabbit's ears. “We talked all night. It was like there was this incredible
connection
between us. I mean, Jaz had been sober for almost four months, but he was still struggling too. If it hadn't been for him, I know I'd have started drinking again. And he feels the same way about me. We supported each other, Harry, d'you see? Whenever one of us weakened, the other had to be strong. And we did it, didn't we, darling?” Her wide blue gaze fixed lovingly on Jaz. “We saved each other's lives.”

It was the loving look that got Suzy most of all. Whenever she saw it—which was, sadly,
often
—she had an overwhelming urge to stick two fingers in her mouth and make loud gagging noises. Why was it that other women could see through Celeste in a flash, yet men fell for her nauseating charms every time?

Lucille wouldn't be taken in for a moment
, Suzy thought with pride.
If she were here now, she'd see Celeste for the celebrity-hungry bimbo she is.
She watched Harry falling for her nonsense hook, line, and sinker—oh well, he was a
man
; what could you expect?—and topped off her wineglass from the bottle of Pouilly-Fumé Jaz had opened for her.

Harry, needless to say, had taken the diplomatic route and settled for coffee.

“Don't worry about Suzy. She does it on purpose,” Celeste told Harry as the neck of the bottle clunked against Suzy's glass. “She loves to goad us. I think it must give her a cheap thrill.”

“Pouilly-Fumé?” Suzy raised an eyebrow. “Hardly cheap.”

In Celeste's favor, at least there was no pretense, no shilly-shallying around. Since she made no secret of her disdain for Suzy, they were free to taunt each other with abandon. Suzy enjoyed these insult-flinging sessions immensely; she just wished Jaz wouldn't roar with laughter at the pair of them and call them his double act.

“Anyway,” she went on, “after being married to Jaz for two years, I deserve a few thrills. And why shouldn't I have a drink? We don't
all
have to suffer for the rest of our lives, do we, just because you two are on the wagon?”

“If someone were about to throw themselves off the Suspension Bridge,” Celeste said to Harry, “she'd help them over the barrier.”

“This is the real world,” said Suzy. “People do drink. You either lock yourselves away from temptation or get used to it.”

“She has no idea.” Celeste gave Harry's arm a consoling pat. “Take no notice. It's sheer ignorance.”

“Oh, this is good.” Suzy seized on this with glee. “You're the one who thinks Tuesday is spelled with a
ch
and I'm the one who's ignorant!
Plus
,” she went on, “if Jaz doesn't want his guests drinking in front of him, why does he keep alcohol in the house?”

Harry's head was swiveling between Suzy and Celeste like a one-man Wimbledon audience. Jaz, standing in front of the fireplace, grinned broadly and let them get on with it.

“You should try giving the drink a rest yourself,” Celeste told Suzy. “All that extra weight would just drop off you, I'm sure.”

“What a coincidence, I was just thinking the same thing,” Suzy retaliated sweetly, “about you and mascara.”

Because Celeste went through gallons of the stuff.
Gallons
.

Harry, leaping gamely into the breach like the good police officer he was, said, “So, Celeste, do you work?”

“Me? Heavens, no!” Celeste laughed prettily. “Being Jaz's girlfriend is a full-time job.”

“In other words,” said Suzy, “she's bone idle.”

Even Jaz couldn't let this pass.

“You mean unlike you,” he commented drily, “who worked like a
Trojan
throughout our marriage.”

“That was different,” Suzy shot back. “You were drunk all the time! You
needed
looking after.”

“And you were Florence Nightingale?” Celeste turned to her in triumph. “From what I've heard, all you ever did was eat chocolate and go shopping. Although frankly, I'm amazed you could ever find clothes big enough to fit you.”

Harry coughed loudly and began to look alarmed.

“Don't worry,” Jaz reassured him. “They're always like this. So where did you two go tonight?”

Clearly relieved to hear a sane voice, Harry said, “The Pineapple Bar.”

“To see Lucille,” Suzy chimed in. “She was working there.”

“Really? Doing what?”

“Bartender,” Harry said swiftly.

“I suppose she drinks as well.” Celeste sounded pitying. “I don't know. I just wish people could realize there's more to life.”

“Like wrapping ribbons around their heads and trying to pass themselves off as boxes of chocolates?” said Suzy. “Actually, she walks dogs too. Who knows—if I ask her nicely, maybe she'll take you out.”

“I just feel so sorry for her.” Celeste fluttered her eyelashes sympathetically at Harry, then shrugged and sipped her lukewarm coffee. “Imagine the disappointment of meeting your long-lost sister for the first time and discovering it's
you
.”

“I didn't realize you two hated each other that much,” said Harry, when the front door had closed behind them.

“Oh, we don't
hate
each other.” Suzy flapped her hand dismissively. She and Celeste loved to goad each other, but the great thing was that neither of them ever took offense. “I just wish Jaz could have found himself someone…better.”

Harry looked doubtful. “Are you still in love with him?”

“No!”

“Sure?”

Honestly
, thought Suzy,
what's the matter with people? Why do they always think that?

“Of course I'm sure,” she said patiently. “And before you ask the next question, no, I am
not
jealous of Celeste.”

Harry considered this for a couple of seconds.

“OK, maybe not. But is Celeste jealous of you?”

They had reached his car. Suzy turned to face him, her mouth tilting—gosh, all by itself!—up toward his.

“You sound like Columbo,” she murmured. “And nobody's even been murdered.”

“Hmmm.” Reaching toward her, Harry carefully lifted a tendril of dark blond hair out of her eyes. “Yet.”

* * *

Jaz knew her too well. He had left the door unlocked.

“Well?” said Suzy, bursting back into the drawing room. “What d'you think?”

“It shouldn't matter what we think,” Jaz told her. “It's what you think that counts.”

“Except I can't always be trusted to get it right,” said Suzy, “on account of me having such terrible taste in men. I mean, look who I once married.”

Jaz laughed. Celeste, picking idly at the silver nail polish on her toes, said, “I thought he was OK. Cute.”

“
Cute?
” Suzy gazed at her in horror. “That's a nice thing to say about a puppy. It's a
terrible
thing to call a grown man.”

Celeste shrugged and tried again. “OK, he's good looking in a pretty kind of way. Like the guy in that movie we saw on TV the other night.” She gave Jaz a nudge. “Really old movie…ooh, what was his name? He played a fairground worker, and you told me his friend in the movie used to be in some band.”

“
That'll Be the Day.
David Essex,” said Jaz, not quite daring to meet Suzy's eye.

Innocently, Suzy said, “So the friend who used to be in some band was…Ringo Starr?”

“That's the one!” Celeste nodded happily.

“And this band he used to be in. Was it by any chance the Beatles?”

“Right again! Honestly, you're like a total nerd, aren't you, when it comes to old music?” Celeste's tone was admiring. “It's almost as if you're forty-six, not twenty-six.”

“I'm twenty-four,” said Suzy.

“Oops, sorry. I don't know why I always think you're older. Must be the clothes.” Celeste shrugged. “Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Harry looks like the other one, the cute one. That David Wessex.”

Back to cute again. Terrific. Suzy turned impatiently to Jaz for support.

“So how about you?”

“Well, some people
have
said I'm cute.” Jaz grinned and stopped teasing her. “OK. The truth? He seems like a nice bloke. But…”

Holding her breath, Suzy watched him wiggle his hand in a noncommittal fashion.

“You don't think he's for me? Is that what you're saying?” she demanded indignantly. “For heaven's sake, you couldn't be more wrong! He's
perfect
.”

Jaz gave her a quizzical look. “Really?”

“Really.”

“In that case, fine.”

He wasn't going to argue with her, Suzy realized.

Time to go home.

* * *

She had lied, of course. Harry wasn't perfect.

But he was
almost
perfect.
Say 90 percent
, thought Suzy, gazing up at the darkened bedroom ceiling.
Which, these days, is frankly about as good as it gets.

Oh, it was no good. She couldn't sleep. Rolling over onto her side, she flicked on the bedside light and grabbed the TV remote control. This was one of those tired body, racing brain scenarios—Suzy knew from experience—that meant she didn't have a hope in hell of getting to sleep.

Something was bothering her.

And that something was the missing 10 percent.

The crucial 10 percent, preventing Harry Fitzallan from being perfect.

And the reason it was bothering her so much, Suzy realized, was that she didn't have a clue what could possibly
be
lacking.

Crikey, didn't Harry have it all? Good looks? Great body? Intelligence? Wit? Charm?

So why,
why
did she keep finding herself secretly wishing that he could be a little bit more…a bit more
something
?

It was no good; her mind remained blank. Harry was certainly missing something, but she didn't know what. Sincerely hoping it wasn't his willy, Suzy aimed the remote at the TV and flicked through a few cable channels.

MTV was showing one of Jaz's old videos, featuring him playing live in concert at the Birmingham NEC.
When had that been? Five years ago? While we were together
, thought Suzy,
because I was there at that concert. And while Jaz was downing at least two bottles of Stolichnaya a day, judging by the look of him.

The camera spun into dizzying close-up, and the next moment, Jaz's heavily lidded brown eyes filled the screen. Amazingly, despite the fact that he was clearly struggling to focus and needed to hang on to the mike stand for support, he was still giving a mesmerizing performance. Inebriated he might be, Suzy observed, but the star quality was still there.

That was the thing about Jaz, of course. He'd always had charisma by the bucketload. How else would he have gotten away with it for so long?

The camera panned back again. As the climax to the song approached, Jaz ripped off his loose white shirt. Lithe and bare-chested, wearing only dark blue leather trousers now, he moved to the very front of the stage. The audience, going wild, reached out to him. Jaz paused, tossing his sweat-drenched blond hair out of his eyes. He held up one arm, smiled that trademark lopsided smile of his and—

“Oh, sod off.” Still annoyed with him, Suzy pressed a button on the remote with an executioner's relish. Bloody Jaz, why should she watch him anyway, when he'd just been so mean to her? And how dare he criticize Harry, she thought indignantly, when he refused to take any notice of her opinion of Celeste?

After zapping her way through a couple of dozen more channels, Suzy settled finally for a documentary on face-lifts, in which a scary woman with skin like stretched plastic wrap was whining, “The thing is, I simply can't bear the thought of losing my looks.”

But the TV couldn't hold Suzy's attention. OK, maybe Jaz hadn't actually criticized Harry in so many words, but the implication had been there all the same.

That she Could Do Better.

Honestly, what a nerve.

Then again
, thought Suzy,
what else are we meant to expect from someone like Jaz? Someone who finally cleans up his act, kicks the booze, turns into the kind of brilliant human being you'd always wished he could be while you'd been married to him…and then goes and bloody wastes it all on someone as ridiculous and utterly pointless as Celeste?

Suzy switched off the TV, closed her eyes, and mentally ran through the list of appointments she had lined up for tomorrow.

Then she smiled to herself, wondering what Harry would have to say if she told him that sometimes she daydreamed about sleeping with Jaz and accidentally on purpose letting Celeste find out.

Not because she wanted to sleep with Jaz, particularly.

Just for fun.

It was only a harmless fantasy, after all. You were allowed to do things like that in your fantasies.

For a start, it would wipe the kittenish, look-who-I've-got, aren't-I-clever smile off Celeste's face and put an end to all that unbearable smugness.

And second, Jaz had always been pretty spectacular in bed, even when he was plastered. If he was that good drunk, Suzy had often pondered, what in heaven's name was he like when he was sober?

Well, you couldn't help wondering, could you?

* * *

The Lennoxes were both out at work all day. Eager to sell their five-bedroomed detached house on Mariner's Drive as quickly as possible, they had handed the spare keys over to Suzy and assured her that she was free to show prospective buyers around whenever she liked.

“Smart front door,” Mrs. Lacey-Jones noted with approval when they pulled up outside the house in Suzy's Rolls.

“Very.” Suzy nodded too, glad that the Lennoxes had taken her advice. The first rule of house selling was still to repaint your front door. Preferably a glossy dark blue. And polish up any brass hardware. Because first impressions count, and people decide whether they're interested in a property within half a second of clapping eyes on it.

Rather like when you clap eyes on a new man.

Inside, their footsteps echoed across the polished oak floor. Colonel Lacey-Jones strode about in his equally glossy brogues with his hands clasped behind his back. His military mustache twitched with approval at the sight of the garden through the drawing room windows. Mrs. Lacey-Jones, who also had a hint of a military mustache, not to mention a bottom every bit as broad and tweedy as her husband's, said, “Jolly nice decor.” She ran a hand over the Georgian writing desk to her left. “You can tell the house belongs to a good family.”

“Oh, yes, and they're absolutely charming,” lied Suzy. Stuck up and patronizing, more like. Still, sensing that Mrs. Lacey-Jones would be impressed, she said, “Esther Lennox is the head of the WI.”

“Really? Oh, but I've
met
her!” Mrs. Lacey-Jones, clearly delighted, bustled up the stairs after her husband. “Marvelous, marvelous woman! Now look at this wooden paneling, Herbert. Excellent. Ah, now which bedroom would this be?”

Having reached the first door along the landing, her hand was already grasping the doorknob.

“Actually, it's a bathroom.” Suzy consulted her list of details. “South facing, large and sunny, free-standing bath, you're going to just love it—”

“AAARGH!” screamed Mrs. Lacey-Jones as the door swung open.

“Call the police!” Colonel Lacey-Jones bellowed, pushing past her and grabbing the nearest weapon at hand, which happened to be an onyx-handled lavatory brush. “Go on, Daphne, dial 999—I won't let them get away!”

“Oh my God,” moaned the girl in the bath, covered in goose bumps and trembling with fear. “Don't do it. Please don't call the police…”

As she shook, the chains wrapped around her wrists and ankles rattled against the sides of the enamel bath. The man in there with her scrambled to his feet and reared up like a grizzly bear, causing Mrs. Lacey-Jones's pale eyes to bulge almost out of her head.

“What the fuck's going
on
here?” he roared.

Having recognized the girl from the formal graduation photograph in pride of place on the mantelpiece downstairs, Suzy smiled brightly and said, “We'll probably look back one day and laugh about this.”

Colonel Lacey-Jones, lavatory brush still held menacingly aloft, turned and gave her an incredulous stare.

“Well,” Suzy amended, “maybe not quite yet.”