Читать книгу Playing Dead - Jessie Keane - Страница 25

Chapter 19

Cara was shopping, as she often was, when the man with the scarf hiding the lower part of his face came up to her.

‘Cara Mancini?’ he asked, his voice muffled.

Cara was both startled and puzzled. How did he know her? He sounded English. And why the hell was he wearing a thick knitted scarf on a summer’s day? He looked cloak-and-dagger, like a spy in one of the old movies. Now she wished she’d had Fredo come in with her today, but she hated his guts, hated him anywhere near her; she hadn’t wanted him trailing after her.

‘You’re married to Rocco Mancini, that’s right?’ he said, and she was struck now by how attractive his clear grey eyes were, how thick and glossy his chestnut-coloured hair. But the scarf . . .?

He saw her looking at it.

‘Neuralgia,’ he said, patting it. ‘I’m a martyr to it, sadly. I’m an old friend of Rocco’s. Can we go somewhere and talk for a moment?’

Cara suppressed an impatient sigh. She didn’t want to sit somewhere with this weirdo and talk about the cheating yellow-bellied shit she was married to.

‘Look, I’m sorry, but I really have to go.’ She was moving past him, moving away.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘Please,’ he said desperately. With fumbling fingers – two of them were no more than stumps, she noticed in horror – he pushed the scarf aside.

‘Oh my God,’ whispered Cara as she saw the puckered purple slits on either side of his mouth.

She pulled back, revolted. And then she thought, oh shit, it’s him. It’s Frances Ducane, that actor Fredo cut up, Rocco’s lover.

All the blood left her face and she felt as if she was going to faint. He’d found out she’d instigated that. He knew she’d set Fredo on him. She started to pull away, to flee. He was going to hurt her, scar her too. She’d been through so much, had to tolerate Fredo pawing at her, sliming over her, and for what? Now it was all backfiring on her, it was all going bad. She opened her mouth to scream, but she was so terrified that she couldn’t even draw breath.

‘Please don’t go,’ said Frances, and something in his voice arrested her, made her freeze to the spot. She looked into his eyes, which were brimming over with tears.

‘You see what he did to me?’ he sobbed. ‘You see what that son of a bitch Rocco had someone do, just because he’d had enough of me?’

Cara took a breath as his words sank in. He didn’t think she was responsible; he was blaming Rocco.

Cara gulped in air, composed herself, tried to get her racketing heartbeat back under control.

‘How could he have done anything so awful?’ she demanded. ‘Look, there’s a café over there. Let’s go get a drink, and you can tell me all about it . . .’