Trick of the Dark (37 page)

The other women left the restaurant before Charlie and Maria, nodding a polite greeting in passing as one does to fellow guests in a small hotel. 'They seem friendly,' Maria said. 'Maybe they'll be in the bar afterwards.'

'I'm not sure I want another drink,' Charlie said.

'I thought the point of us being here was for you to interrogate any passing islander?' Maria's voice was teasing. 'Or have you rediscovered a better reason for whisking your beloved off to romantic hotels?'

The idea of making love with Maria while Lisa was in the same building was impossible, Charlie realised. 'I think you've had the best of me,' she said. 'And you're right, of course. I shouldn't forget why we're here.' She drained her wine. 'Come on then, let's go and see if the bar staff were out of nappies when Jay and Kathy were here.'

The bar was a cosy room at the far end of the hall. Lisa and the other woman were sitting near the door, as far from the bar as possible. As they walked in, Lisa turned the full blaze of her eyes on Maria. 'Hi,' she said. 'Can I persuade you to join us for a drink? It seems silly to sit on opposite sides of the room.'

Before Charlie could refuse, Maria had already accepted the invitation. 'Thanks. I'm Maria, by the way, and this is Charlie.'

Lisa gave Charlie a welcoming smile, inclining her head. 'I'm Lisa. And this is Nadia.'

Nadia waggled her fingers at them. 'This is cool,' she said.

'Let me go and get some drinks,' Charlie muttered. 'What can I get you?'

'We're both drinking red wine.'

'I might as well get a bottle, then,' Charlie said, heading for the bar. There was nobody in sight, but a notice next to a bell push instructed her to press for service. She couldn't decide whether bewilderment or fear had the upper hand. Before anyone could respond to the bell, Lisa appeared at her side.

'I told Maria I'd help you choose,' she said.

'Are you fucking her?' It was out before Charlie could stop herself. Low and harsh, bitter and brutal.

'I could ask you the same question,' Lisa said. 'And it would be just as meaningless. We both know sex can mean everything or nothing. And we both know whatever is happening between us, it's about a lot more than sex. Smile, Charlie, Maria can probably read your body language at a hundred yards.'

Just then, the young man from reception arrived behind the bar. He grinned and said, 'Tonight I am the jack of all. What can I get you ladies?'

'We'd like a bottle of red. A Shiraz or something similar,' Charlie said.

'We like something fruity and chewy,' Lisa said with as much innuendo as a seventies comedian.

The barman blushed. 'I'll see what I can do,' he said, disappearing again.

'Why are you here?' Charlie said. 'And why are you pretending you've no idea who I am?'

Lisa smiled, her eyes sparkling with amusement. 'Relax, Charlie. You already played the incognito trick on me, remember? I thought it might be fun to turn the tables. And I wanted to see you. Is that so bad of me?'

Charlie felt herself softening. If Lisa's feelings were anything like her own, it made perfect sense. She could imagine doing the same thing. 'No,' she said. 'I just wish you'd given me some warning.'

'That would have taken all the fun out of it.'

'It's not a game, Lisa. Maria's here. How do you think she's going to feel down the line if I leave her for you and she remembers this weekend? She's going to feel humiliated.'

Serious now, Lisa nodded. 'You're right. I'm sorry. But I couldn't help myself. I know this is going to sound a little strange. But you know what I really wanted?'

'No, I don't. Because what is happening to me now is so out of my experience.' Charlie forced a smile in Maria's direction.

'I wanted to see what you're like when you're not with me,' Lisa said. 'I wanted to see the sides of you that I would never see otherwise. If I'm going to be with someone I want to make an informed decision.'

Charlie's reply was sabotaged by the reappearance of the barman with a bottle of Wolf Blass Shiraz. 'That'll do fine,' Charlie said. 'Charge it to my room.'

He reached for a corkscrew and set about the bottle. 'So I wanted to see you with Maria and I wanted to see how you chased your crazy chimera,' Lisa said.

'By "crazy chimera", are you referring to yourself or to Jay?'

'Oh, Charlie,' Lisa said reproachfully. 'Jay, of course. I wanted to try to understand why it's got such a grip on you.'

'Because I think Corinna's right.' Charlie shook her head at the barman. 'Just pour, I'm sure it's fine.'

'You see, that's what I don't get,' Lisa said. 'Why are you investing so much of yourself in this? It's going nowhere, but it's obsessing you and it's not where you should be focusing your energy.'

'What should I be focusing on?' Charlie said, responding to the flirtatiousness in Lisa's voice.

'Something that has the potential to go somewhere, of course.' Lisa smiled. 'I could offer some suggestions?'

Charlie could feel a blush climbing her neck. 'How can you be so sure it's going nowhere?'

Lisa's smile grew mischievous. 'Because you'd have told me if you were getting somewhere. You couldn't help it. You want to impress me, so you'd have told me.' She picked up the first two glasses and started to turn away.

'Not necessarily,' Charlie said. 'I think you're forgetting how wedded I am to the notion of confidentiality. I'm a medical doctor, it's an article of faith for me. And I've worked with the police enough to understand the importance of holding information close.'

'I still think you'd tell me,' Lisa said as Charlie signed for the wine and picked up the other glasses.

'Maybe you don't know me quite as well as you think you do, then.' And with a smile, Charlie walked past Lisa and headed for Maria.

3

P
lugging back into that shocking surge of emotion had unleashed a flood of words. Producing this memoir had hardly been a struggle for Jay, but now she was writing with the brakes off, she was unstoppable. Of course, most of it would end up on the cutting-room floor, but there was something liberating about letting it spill. Just so long as it never made it out into the wild. She'd have to be careful with this. She was saving it directly to a memory stick rather than the hard drive; the memory stick itself would have to go into the safe-deposit box that was so secret it didn't even feature in her will. When she died, the contents would stay in limbo for ever.

Jay stood up and put herself through the sequence of stretches her osteopath had devised for her. The legacy of that terrible day on Skye had to be combated both emotionally and physically. Hence the osteopathy and the hypnotherapy. Luckily she had enough on her hypnotherapist to protect anything unguarded that might come out of her mouth while she was in an altered state. There was nothing quite like Mutually Assured Destruction to keep the power in a relationship balanced, whether it was personal or professional.

She rubbed some almond oil into her hands, enjoying the aromas of the essential oils of rosemary and black pepper she'd infused it with. She thought back to that afternoon in Oxford and how the minutes had dragged. Recalled the irresistible urge to share this extraordinary experience in spite of herself. As if she'd had a premonition of what might happen. Of what had happened.

Ten minutes before nine, I slipped down the back stairs of the Sackville Building and into the night garden.There was no one in sight. The conference attendees were drinking in the Lady Hortensia Sinclair Room or sitting out on the front lawn. The looming bulk of Magnusson Hall cut the wedding off from view. I moved into the shadows and flitted down the narrow avenue of plane trees that led to the meadow. Just before I emerged, I stopped and checked it out. There were a few dozen cars parked on the far side of the grass but they all seemed to be empty.

I stepped clear of the shadows and walked down the river bank to the dilapidated remains of the boathouse where Jess Edwards had met her end. More memories from the distant past surfaced, every bit as complicated as my memories of the Newsam family. After Jess's death, the college decided to set up a fund for a new, larger boathouse. Now, the Edwards boathouse graces the main stretch of the Isis alongside the older, richer colleges. Left empty, the old boathouse has mouldered to the point where it's caving in on itself like a decayed tooth. That night, I could see that the roof beam sagged hopelessly, the windows were long broken and the side walls bowed like the hull of a galleon. The collapsing structure hunched behind a paling fence that would have taken a determined squatter all of five minutes to penetrate.

I skirted the boathouse and found a small clearing a few yards wide between the fence and the spiked berberis hedge that marked the end of St Scholastika's domain. I'd brought a light wrap with me in the forlorn hope that the night might turn chilly, and I spread it over the ground. Not because it was damp, but because a bride shouldn't have grass stains on her dress. I leaned against a tree and waited, wondering if she would have changed her mind. Somewhere down the river, ducks splashed and cackled. I heard the heavy beat of a heron's wings, then the last wittering cries of the birds.

I didn't hear Magda approach, but she was right on time. In the beginnings of twilight, everything about her was heightened, as if someone had adjusted the contrast control of a TV. She'd changed into her going-away outfit, a simple dress of midnight blue silk with a full skirt. She'd taken off her hat and unpinned her hair, and it cascaded over her shoulders in gleaming waves the colour of pound coins whose initial brassiness has been blunted in the hand. The fading of bright sunshine brightened the blue light of her eyes and deepened the matt gold of her skin. Magda took a couple of steps towards me and smiled. 'You came,' she said quietly.

I shrugged away from the tree. 'It would be hard to break a promise made to you.'

'I think I've made a seriously bad mistake,' Magda said, taking another couple of steps forward.

It wasn't what I wanted to hear. I swallowed the lump that had lodged in my throat. 'I'll go, then.'

Magda shook her head and put a hand on my arm. Where the flesh touched felt like the burn of ice. 'Not about meeting you. About marrying Philip.'

Our eyes stared hungrily at each other. At that moment, the words didn't matter. Magda could have recited 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and it would have mattered as much or as little. All I was aware of was her touch, her face, her scent. Something was exploding inside my head and I couldn't make sense of anything except Magda's closeness. Knowing it was the most dangerous thing I'd ever done, I leaned into her and kissed her.

I thought we were never going to be able to stop. When we finally broke free, we were both trembling, our breathing ragged and noisy. 'Oh dear,' Magda gasped.

'I didn't mean . . .' I stuttered. 'I didn't mean that to happen.'

Magda touched my cheek with her fingertips, making my skin tingle. 'You'd have had to leave the country to prevent it.'

'Come and sit down,' I said, my voice thick and rough, like I'd never heard it before. 'We need to talk, Magda.'

We sat carefully on the wrap, side by side, my arm round her shoulders, hers round my waist. 'This didn't just come out of nowhere,' Magda said.

'It did for me.'

I could sense her smile. With her free hand, Magda fiddled in the evening bag slung across her body. She came up with a packet of Gitanes and a lighter then fumbled a cigarette out. She offered it to me but I shook my head. She gave a little shrug and lit it. The familiar aromatic smell hit me like a time machine. I hadn't smoked French cigarettes for ten years, but the taste was as familiar as my morning blend of coffee beans.

'Smoking's bad for you.' I was only half-teasing. Already I didn't want bad things to happen to Magda.

'I save them for special occasions. You remember these?' she asked. There was no need for a reply. 'You had no idea, did you? I worshipped the ground you walked on. When you and Mum went to the pub, I used to struggle to stay awake till you got home so I could sneak halfway down the stairs just to listen to your voice. I used to try and persuade Dad to take Mum out for the evening, so you would come and babysit. You were my first major crush.'

I took a deep breath, inhaling the second-hand tobacco taste. 'You're right. I had no idea. Eight years is a huge gulf at that age. I'm sorry, Maggot, I never noticed. I thought we just got on really well.'

'Which we did, of course. But I was crazy about you. If I was meeting Mum at Schollie's, I'd always try to get there early and hope that I'd see you. Then, suddenly, you were gone. One day you were part of the family, the next day you were anathema.'

'What did she tell you?' I really wanted to know.

'Patrick said you'd come to the door and Mum had told you a lie to make you go away.' Unconsciously, Magda had slipped straight into the dialect of childhood. 'I asked Mum what was going on and she said that she didn't want you in her home. She said she'd found something out about you and it meant you couldn't come to the house any more. I asked what you'd done that was so terrible, and she got all bad-tempered and said I'd just have to take her word for it.'