The Best of Times (24 page)

But … God. If he did … Not that she kept any, ever. She simply bought it when she wanted it. Which wasn’t very often. Even so …

Abi suddenly felt very sick; she made the bathroom only just in time. Afterwards she stood in the shower for what felt like hours, then came out and lay down on the bed.

Later, trying to calm her whirling, heaving fear, she thought that there was no way she was going to tell Jonathan that William had called and spoken to Laura. Let him dig his own grave on that one. Funny that Laura hadn’t mentioned it yet. She was obviously cooler than Abi had realised. Waiting for Jonathan to trip himself up. Clever, really. Very clever. Perhaps she had misjudged her.

• • •

“Emma. There’s something really important I want to say …”

“Yes, Luke?”

“The thing is, I haven’t said it before, because I wasn’t sure. I’ve never said it to anyone, matter of fact …”

She put her fork down. This was … well, very … well …

“I … I love you, babe. I really do.”

“Oh, Luke …” She felt tears in her eyes: joyful, wonderful tears.

“Hey,” he said, “hey, the idea was to make you happy.”

“Sorry. I am. Terribly.” She hoped her mascara wasn’t running.

“Thing is, it’s taken me a while to realise, but I was talking to Mum the other night, and …”

He was worryingly devoted to his mum; any girlfriend was in danger of taking second place.

“Yes?”

“And she said it was obvious to her—she’d never heard me talk like that before—and she said I should tell you …”

Good old mum; if she’d walked in then, Emma would have hugged her. She must stop thinking harsh things about her.

“Oh, Luke …”

“Yeah. So … well, that’s about it, really.”

She was silent, realised he was looking slightly embarrassed, less his usual confident self.

“That’s wonderful,” she said, “absolutely wonderful.”

“Good. Now, there is something else …” He raised his fingers, signalled to the waiter.

“Could you bring that package over, please? The one I asked you to keep at the desk?”

“Certainly, sir.”

She sat in an agony of suspense. Package? What would be in a package? A … a …
No, Emma, not that. Surely not that. Not yet, not—

The waiter put the package down in front of Luke; it was blue, that glorious, soft turquoise blue, with that wonderful, wonderful white ribbon—Tiffany! A package from Tiffany. What came from Tiffany? Well, lots of things, but—

Luke handed it to her. “Go on,” he said. “Open it.”

Her hands shaking, she untied the bow; inside the bag was a box. A quite small box. With another white ribbon.

She undid the second bow, took the lid off the box, pulled out the small blue pouch. What was it; what could it be, if not—

“Oh, Luke, that’s so lovely! Wonderful. Oh, Luke. Oh, my God!”

She was fighting to keep her voice enthusiastic, not to betray the sliver of disappointment that … well, that was undeniably there.
Emma, Emma, he loves you; that’s enough—anything else would be too much now; don’t be ridiculous
. And how could any girl be disappointed, getting a gold Paloma Picasso heart on a chain—and not just plain gold, but the one with a diamond set in it. God, it must have cost a fortune; he must really, really care about her. Never mind it wasn’t a ring; it was absolutely gorgeous …

“I love it,” she said, smiling, leaning over to kiss him. “I really love it; thank you so much, Luke. Here, help me put it on …”

“Good. I thought you’d like it. Now you have to wear that all the time, Emma, OK, so you think of me all the time. Even when I’m away.”

“Of course I will,” she said, and she was crying now. “I promise, Luke, I really do. I couldn’t bear to take it off anyway, not ever … Oh, dear, I must go to the loo again; my makeup’ll be all smudgy and …”

It wasn’t until she had repaired her makeup, put on some more perfume, combed her hair, and admired the necklace that she realised she hadn’t told Luke that she loved him too. Well, plenty of time for that later. Maybe when they were in bed …

CHAPTER 18

Mary had begun to despair by Saturday evening of ever hearing from Russell again, as the hours went by with no word, no message of any sort … She found it extremely painful that he had apparently made no effort to find her; it seemed to display a lack of true devotion. The crash had been in all the papers, and you had only to turn on the news on that first morning to see graphic pictures of the pileup, the lorry
straddling the motorway, the ambulances and police cars and the helicopter. How could Russell have missed all that?

And then the nurse had come over to her bed, with the message, at six o’clock.

“From a gentleman, Mary; he sounded like an American. He said to give you his … his special love. He was called Mr. Mackenzie. That mean anything to you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mary, “oh, my goodness, it does.”

“And he’s coming to see you in the morning.”

And Mary had flown up into some unreachable, untouchable place of happiness and felt she would never, ever come down again.

And then on Sunday morning the flowers arrived: a vast bouquet of red roses.

“My word,” the nurse said, “St. Valentine’s Day’s come late this year. I don’t know what I’m going to put them in, Mary; I haven’t got a vase big enough for half of them.”

“You don’t have to,” said Mary. “Look, they’re in water already. Can I … can I have the card, please?”

“For my beloved Little Sparrow,” it said. “Get very well, very soon. Russell.”

Mary burst into tears.

• • •

And then there he was, walking across the ward, smiling, his brilliant blue eyes fixed on her, and he really didn’t look so very different, still so handsome and so slim and tall, and the years rolled away, and they were young again, standing together in Parliament Square, and she had known she was falling in love; and it was all she could do not to leap out of bed and run into his arms.

Only it wasn’t necessary, for he half ran to her instead, and when he reached her he took her hand and kissed it, and she simply felt warm and safe and absolutely happy. This was love, then, as they had
known it all those years ago; and they had much to do, in whatever time was left to them, to see to it and nurture it and allow it to come into its own.

• • •

The police, or rather the CIU, called Jonathan on Sunday to discuss when they might talk to him.

“Just a quick call, Mr. Gilliatt, to arrange a time; the sooner the better, while it’s all still fresh in your mind.”

“Yes, of course. Although I should tell you a lot of it is rather a blur.”

“That’s all right, sir. Just tell us what you can and we’ll worry about the rest.”

They’d settled finally on Tuesday evening, at six thirty.

He’d slept horribly badly again, and he was sitting in the conservatory just before supper, trying to read the Sunday papers, when Laura walked in with a bottle of white wine and a bowl of olives.

Her voice was at its sweetest; the coolness of the past twenty-four hours or so seemed to have passed.

“I thought we’d earned this,” she said, smiling at him. “Well, I certainly have. Bit of a day, with the children and so on.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, darling; been no use to you at all. I’m feeling much better now; I’ll be back on course tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“Um …” This was it; he had to do it—had to broach the subject of the police interview … “Just one thing, darling. The police are coming here on Tuesday evening. To talk to me about the accident. About six thirty. Will you be around?”

“Of course. In fact, I’d like to sit in on it, if you don’t mind.”

A thud of fear hit him.

“Well, darling, I don’t mind, of course. But they might feel differently. Protocol and all that.”

“I can’t see why. Anyway, if they don’t want me there, they can tell
me and I’ll go away. When you say talk to you, what exactly does that mean?”

“Well, I presume they’re gathering evidence about how it happened exactly, what I saw—”

“Yes, I see. And how do you think it happened?”

The coolness had returned.

“Well … it’s so hard to say. Everyone was driving in a very orderly way; no one was speeding. And then suddenly, out of the blue, this lorry swerved and I suppose skidded, and went through the barrier. It had just rained, of course, and—”

“I see. So where were you in all this? In front of him, at his side?”

“Laura, what is this, a rehearsal for Tuesday?”

“Don’t be ridiculous; I could have lost you! Of course I want to know everything.”

“Sorry, yes, of course you do. Well, I was more or less beside the lorry. On the inside lane. There was an old car immediately in front of me, which presumably just drove on, and in front of the lorry a sports car of some kind, an E-Type, I think, that disappeared too. There really was no apparent reason for the lorry to do what it did. I thought he might have had a blowout, but I looked and his tyres were all intact. Anyway, I found myself—and that was what it was like, finding myself; I certainly don’t remember getting there—stopped at an angle on the hard shoulder. About a hundred yards ahead of him, I suppose. It was all bloody scary.”

“Of course. Terrifying. And then you involved yourself, helping all those people. That was so good of you, Jonathan; they were lucky you were there.”

“Well, one does one’s bit. I think I helped, yes. Hope so. Er … Laura … there is one thing I hadn’t told you before—silly, really, so unimportant, but it might come out in this interview thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well, I … wasn’t alone in the car.”

He was sweating.

“Had you given someone a lift?”

“Well, sort of. Someone I met at the conference. A woman. Very nice, needed a lift to Reading, had a problem with her car …” He must remember to tell Abi that; God, it was getting so complicated.

“Well, that was kind of you. Maybe another reason to cut down to the M
4
. If she had to get to Reading …”

“No, no, I mentioned it, that I’d decided to go that way, at the end of the morning session, and she asked me if I could give her a lift.”

“I see. She was a doctor, was she?”

“No, no, she worked for the PR company. Who were covering the conference. She … worked with a photographer, got everyone’s names and details, that sort of thing. Anyway, it’s just that she was in the car, and of course when the police were taking names and addresses, they took hers, so … yes, she’s bound to be mentioned. I just thought I should tell you, so you wouldn’t be … be … well … surprised, that’s all. Especially if you’re going to be sitting in on the interview. Which I would love, actually. Not the nicest thing to have to recall in great detail.”

“No. Well, that’s very considerate of you, darling. Thank you for telling me.” She leaned back in her chair, took a sip of wine, smiled at him very sweetly. He allowed himself to relax just slightly.

“Tell me, Jonathan. Would that have been … Abi? By any chance? Was that this woman’s name?”

• • •

It would have helped, of course, if he hadn’t spilt his wine. He was very aware of Laura watching him while he mopped rather ineffectually at the tray with his handkerchief and the paper napkins she had brought out, and that she had that new, cool, slightly distant expression on her face. Finally he sat back in his chair and managed to smile at her.

“Sorry, darling. What a mess.”

“You could say that,” she said, and there was an edge to her voice that was unmissable.

“Anyway … yes, Abi, that was her name. Abi Scott. How … how did you know that?”

“A very nice young man rang up, said he’d been there on Friday, and that this … Abi … had given him her phone to look after. I’m not sure why. She went off without it, and yours was one of the names on it, so he rang. He said none of the other names meant anything to him, but he did recognise yours because she’d been with you, had mentioned you. He was very charming, and very diffident about bothering me and so on.”

“Yes, I see. Well, that was nice of him. Er … when did he call?”

“Yesterday afternoon. While you were asleep.”

“You should have told me.”