Читать книгу A Few Little Lies - Sue Welfare - Страница 7

2

Lawrence Rawlings looked out of the window in his study. He could hear the bells of All Saints ringing in The Close. The panelled room was sparsely furnished with elegant pieces of antique furniture, so familiar that Lawrence barely noticed them. Nothing was out of place, which was how he preferred it. The spring sunlight picked out his distinctive features and then moved on to the family photographs and paintings on the wall, echoes of his past and present. Arms folded behind his back, he stretched up onto his toes. He didn’t turn round as the door opened, nor when the man he had invited settled himself into the chair on the far side of the ornate mahogany desk.

‘My family have lived in this house for seven generations,’ Lawrence said, in a voice that barely rose above a whisper – he could almost have been talking to himself. ‘We have been merchants, mayors, councillors, pillars of the establishment – centre stage in Fairbeach’s long and illustrious history.’

Behind him the man shuffled the chair closer to the desk. Lawrence paused.

‘I want you to find out everything you can about this young woman who calls herself Catiana Moran. Her real name is Lillian Bliss. I don’t need to explain the need for discretion. I want everything you can get your hands on. Is that perfectly clear?’

His guest made a noise, a low guttural sound that may or may not have been an answer.

‘There is an envelope on the desk with what details I already have, and your first cheque,’ continued Lawrence.

There were two magpies cavorting on the lawn near the orchard. One hopped up onto a low branch amongst the blossoms. Two for joy. Lawrence allowed himself a thin smile.

‘You know, my father planted that apple tree on the day I was born.’

His silent companion coughed. Lawrence Rawlings slipped his hands into the pockets of his tweed jacket and fingered the business card the man had sent with his brochure. ‘I think that will be all for the time being. I expect to hear from you soon. I’d like to make it clear that I am not used to this kind of thing; you are the first private detective I have ever felt the need to engage. Your card says Safeguard Associates. What should I call you?’

‘Milo,’ said his visitor. ‘Just call me Milo.’

When the door closed behind his visitor, Lawrence carefully opened the window and took his garden gun from the umbrella stand.

‘One for sorrow,’ he said wryly, closing one eye and taking aim. The 4.10 cracked out across the still morning. There was a flurry of feathers, black and white on the dewy grass. In The Close the five-minute bell rang. Lawrence checked his watch – he would just have time to get to Communion with his daughter Sarah, Calvin and the girls, if he hurried.

In her flat in Gunners Terrace, Dora was spooning tuna chunks onto a saucer, while something vaguely musical rattled around inside the radio. Oscar insisted she work faster, his thoughts so loud that she glared at him furiously.

‘Pack it in, I hear you, I hear you. Talk to the guys who decided tuna should be sold in second-hand submarines, it’s knackered my tin opener.’

The cat narrowed his eyes and his thoughts became unrepeatable.

Sunday mornings were quiet. Once a month Dora put flowers on an unmarked grave and then went for a girls-only lunch at Sheila’s, while her brother-in-law and their two children went fishing. On the draining board, in a milk bottle, stood a single cream rose: a fitting floral tribute.

From the office she heard the sound of the phone and hurried to get to it before the answering machine cut in.

At the far end of the line Calvin Roberts chuckled.

‘Morning, Dora. Got your message. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I’m glad you liked Catiana. I got the page proofs for One Hundred and One Hot Nights yesterday. Would you mind if I popped round for a few minutes and dropped them off?’

Dora sighed. ‘Six days shalt thou labour, Calvin. Surely a good High Church boy like you has got that tattooed somewhere significant. Haven’t you got a regular Sunday morning assignation with the Almighty?’

Calvin snorted. ‘It’s the wife who’s the God-botherer, Dora, not me. I’m firmly aligned with Mammon, and trust me she’s not tattooed, I would have noticed. So, what shall we say? Ten minutes?’

Dora sighed. ‘Calvin. It’s Sunday. I’m just about to go out for lunch.’

‘Don’t tell me – roast chicken with Sheila?’ said Calvin flatly. ‘I bet you can hardly wait.’

Dora rolled her eyes heavenwards. Calvin definitely knew too much about her private life.

‘Ten minutes,’ she said, and hung up.

Dora heard the doorbell ring just after she’d convinced herself Calvin wasn’t coming after all. She pressed the security button and was about to call him up when she heard another voice over the speaker – a low, throaty chuckle alongside Calvin’s cheerful greeting.

‘Have you got someone with you?’ Dora demanded, as the downstairs door opened: She waited apprehensively in the hall. Calvin, cigar in hand, pushed open the landing door. Just ahead of him, nestled in the crook of his arm, was Catiana Moran. She was wearing a pair of navy pedal pushers, cream high-heeled mules and a matching angora sweater, all wrapped around in a fake-fur jacket.

There was a peculiar time-defying moment when Dora stared at Catiana and Catiana stared back.

Catiana nibbled her beautifully painted lips. ‘Hello, Mrs Hall,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Calvin steered the girl into the hall before Dora had chance to reply or protest.

‘Dora, may I present Miss Lillian Bliss or, should I say. Miss Catiana Moran.’

Dora shook the girl’s hand, knowing full well she had her mouth open but feeling completely powerless to close it. Finally, she forced a smile and in a tight, uneven voice suggested they might be more comfortable in the sitting room.

As Lillian shimmied through the door, Dora beaded Calvin and with a curled finger invited him to follow her into the kitchen. Still smiling he did as he was told.

‘I’ve got your page proofs. One Hundred and One Hot Nights, straight off the press,’ he said, clutching a padded envelope in front of his rotund little belly like a shield. Dora pushed the door to behind him.

‘Page proofs?’ she hissed.

Calvin took a healthy chug on his cigar and shrugged. ‘Lillian said she’d like to see where you worked, give her a sense of her life, her background.’

Dora stared at him. ‘Her background? What background? She doesn’t have a background, Calvin. She’s a model. You wind her up, pay her her money and send her home. We hired her so that I could keep my background to myself –’ Dora knew she was fast running out of words, they were all jammed up behind by a little scarlet flare of indignation.

Behind them Lillian pushed the kitchen door open.

‘Sorry, Mrs Hall,’ she said tentatively, peering into the room. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything, I just wondered if I could use your loo?’

Before Dora could answer, Calvin smiled. ‘Sure thing, sweetheart. It’s the second door on the right. Dora was just saying how nice it was to meet you. She was about to put the kettle on.’

Dora groaned and Lillian slipped away, tip-tapping in her mules across the lino.

‘Sweetheart?’ Dora hissed.

Calvin shrugged. ‘She’s a nice girl. She just wanted to come up and see where you worked. It’ll make her more real, more convincing – like method acting.’

Dora slammed the kettle under the taps. ‘We’re talking about a model signing a few books here, Calvin, not Brando.’

Calvin pouted. ‘Actually, that’s what I wanted to discuss.’

Dora had a sense of foreboding. ‘Sorry?’

Calvin dropped the envelope onto the kitchen table. ‘My phone’s been ringing off the hook since Lillian did the Steve Morley show. Regional TV want her to do a late-night slot on the Tuesday arts programme.’ He paused. ‘We just need another script. I’ve put the questions in there, they faxed them through first thing this morning.’

Dora threw two bags into the teapot.

‘Another script,’ she repeated. ‘When are they going to record the programme?’

Calvin puffed out his cheeks. ‘It’s going out live on Tuesday night.’

Dora was about to speak but Calvin hurried on.

‘Lillian’s a natural, Dora, she learns really quickly, all she needs to swing it is your script.’

Dora licked her lips. ‘I see. So when do you need this work of literary genius?’

Calvin smiled. ‘By tomorrow afternoon. Won’t be a problem, will it?’

It was not the easiest social event Dora had ever hosted. Lillian Bliss perched on the edge of the settee, looking around, taking in everything with her bottle-blue eyes, unsure quite what to say. Calvin hid behind a cloud of cigar smoke and Dora played mother.

‘Do you live locally?’ she asked, trying to fill the choking silence.

Lillian smiled. ‘I do now. I’ve just got a new flat.’

From the corner of her eye Dora noticed Calvin wince slightly, and played the advantage.

‘Really,’ she said, handing the girl a cup of tea. ‘That’s nice. Whereabouts?’

Lillian simpered in the general direction of Calvin Roberts. ‘Calvin’s found me a really nice place down by the river. One of those new warehouse conversions?’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘It’s funny, me getting a nice place like that and you living here …’ She stopped, and glanced round the room, blushing furiously. ‘Well, it is small, isn’t it? Not like I imagined at all, really. Not that it’s not nice, I mean, I’m not saying …’ She stopped dead, tripping over her own embarrassment, then took a deep breath and started again. ‘I saw a film about this famous American writer once, she’d got this big house on the beach. And a little fluffy white dog. Calvin said …’

Calvin coughed theatrically before Lillian got a chance to share what it was he’d said. He tugged at his waistcoat.

‘Er, right, I think we ought to be going now. Maybe Dora could just show you her office and then we can get on our way.’

Dora suppressed a smile and picked at the cat’s hairs on the arm of the chair.

Lillian pouted. ‘I haven’t finished my tea yet. Bunny,’ she protested in a little-girl-lost voice.

Calvin waved her to her feet. ‘Don’t worry about the tea,’ he said briskly. ‘Let’s look at the office. We’ll get some lunch on the way home.’

Lillian beamed. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said enthusiastically and turned her piranha smile on Dora. ‘I wanted to know where I write all that stuff. That’s why I wanted to come.’ She stopped and buffed her smile up. ‘And to meet you, of course.’

Dora lifted an eyebrow and stared pointedly at Calvin, who coughed again.

‘Come on then,’ he blustered. ‘We’ll take a look at the office and then we’ll be off.’

There was barely room for two in the office. Dora hung back while Lillian looked around, running a painted fingernail over the books and shelves. Calvin stood in the doorway.

Dora grinned at him. ‘Bunny, eh?’ she whispered in an undertone.

‘She’s just naturally affectionate,’ hissed her agent.

Dora suppressed a smile. ‘You surprise me.’

Satisfied, Lillian looked up. ‘Okay, all done,’ she said cheerfully. She glanced at Dora. ‘Calvin said you were going out to lunch, would you like to come with us?’

Dora felt Calvin bristle. She smiled and shook her head. ‘That’s really very kind, Lillian, but no thanks, actually I’ve been invited to my sister’s.’

‘We could drop you off on the way,’ continued Lillian. ‘It wouldn’t be any trouble, would it. Bunny?’

In spite of herself, Dora felt a rush of affection for her alter ego. She shook her head again, Calvin shuffling uncomfortably beside her.

‘That’s very nice of you, Lillian, but it’s not far and I enjoy the walk.’

At the top of the stairs, Lillian thanked her for tea, buttoned up her jacket and was gone. Calvin adjusted his crombie.

‘Nice girl,’ he said, teeth closing on his cigar.

Dora grinned. ‘I hope you’ve got a licence.’

‘Uh?’

‘Dangerous animals act, you’re supposed to apply for a licence.’

Calvin snorted. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to be dropped off anywhere?’

Dora shook her head. ‘No thanks, Calvin, just make sure, between the pair of you, you don’t drop me in it.’

Calvin squared his shoulders. ‘Have I ever let you down?’ he murmured and lifted a hand in farewell.

Dora didn’t feel he deserved an answer.

On a corner plot in the newly, dismally developed Harvest Meadows, Sheila was already busy in the kitchen, slipping a tray of gold-tinted roast potatoes back into the oven.

Dora hung her coat in the hall cupboard. ‘Everyone out?’

Sheila wiped the steam from her glasses.

‘Uh huh. You’re late. Have you taken your shoes off? That Axminster’s new. Lunch will be ready in half an hour.’ She peered at Dora. ‘I don’t know how you stay so slim, all the rubbish you eat. Doesn’t seem right. I only have to look at a cream cake and I put on half a stone.’ Sheila tugged her apron down over her ample hips. ‘Is that the dress we got from Marks?’

After the cool sharp air outside, the kitchen seemed uncomfortably hot. Dora glanced round at Sheila’s immaculate work surfaces, and sighed. ‘It was the only thing I’d got left that was clean. I’ve had company this morning –’ And on reflection the company had left her with a disturbing sense of unease.

Sheila was oblivious, setting out gleaming cups and saucers on a doily-covered tray.

‘You ought to take more care of yourself. I’ve told you I’ll come and give you a hand with your housework if you like; two fifty an hour. Cash of course.’

Dora grinned. ‘Pinkerton’s going rate?’

Sheila shook her head and wiped up an imaginary sugar spill. ‘Never heard of them. An agency, are they?’

‘It was a joke. Can I help you with anything?’

Sheila sniffed. ‘It’s all done now. You didn’t come through the Milburn Estate again, did you?’ she demanded, arranging bourbons on a small silver plate.

‘Never miss.’ Dora leant over and prised a broken biscuit from the crinkly red plastic packaging before Sheila could consign it to the swingbin. ‘It’s a really pretty walk through those new little designer houses round the back. They’ve landscaped the parking bays now. Weeping willows and red hot pokers, very Sunday supplement.’

‘It’s sick. You didn’t put flowers down again?’

‘A single cream rose.’

Sheila sighed. ‘People talk, you know.’

‘It seems very fitting to mark the place where my husband died.’

‘That would be all very well if he was dead.’

Dora crunched the biscuit, hoovering wayward crumbs into her mouth with her tongue. ‘He might as well be. I like to mark the spot where our marriage finally passed away.’ She lifted her hands to add dramatic emphasis. ‘One final, fatal collision between magnolia and sage-green emulsion that changed two lives irrevocably.’

Sheila pursed her lips and picked up the tray. ‘Sick.’

‘I’m much happier now.’

‘People do not get divorced over emulsion.’

‘It was the final straw.’

Sheila sniffed. ‘Twenty years.’

‘Do we always have to talk about this? You always bring it up, it’s over, gone, dead.’

Sheila stood to one side while Dora opened the sitting-room door for her. ‘Talking about dead. Did you see they’re having Jack Rees’ funeral next week? Taken their time to get it organised. I suppose it’s getting all those bigwigs down here. It’s all over the Gazette. They did a special pull-out bit. You’d think he was royalty, the fuss they’re making.’ She took a newspaper out of the magazine rack. ‘I kept it for you.’

Dora stared down again at the familiar stranger’s face. Jack Rees was a local legend, a heroic tribal warrior woven into the fabric of Fairbeach history. She scanned the article – he’d been in his sixties. The report said it was his heart.

A small pain formed in her chest which she recognised as grief. It took her by surprise, though she knew the pain wasn’t personal, but an abstract, unexpected sense of loss for the passing of someone of worth.

The pain, mixed with her earlier unease, made her feel faint. She stood very, very still, aware of Sheila’s voice like a distant echo over the roar of the wind. The sitting room suddenly seemed as if it were a bright patchwork quilt of colours and light, all sewn together by Sheila’s insistent running-stitch voice.

Sheila rearranged the tray on a coffee table and picked up the newspaper, glancing over the same front page, talking all the time. She stepped closer, into sharp focus, every last stitch of her best Sunday dress and her best Sunday face caught in a spotlight’s glare in Dora’s mind. Sheila, Calvin and Lillian Bliss were just too much for anyone on a quiet Sunday morning. She suddenly felt sick.

‘… I used to see him in town sometimes in that big car of his.’ Sheila leant forward to pick up her reading glasses, her tone cruelly derisive. ‘Coronary it says here, too much fancy living, if you ask me, “found dead on Saturday morning in his home in Parkway by his housekeeper.” The rest is all stuff about how much he will be missed …’ Sheila flicked the glasses off the bridge of her nose and dropped the paper back onto the coffee table. ‘Well, I won’t miss him. They’re all the same if you ask me. Out for what they can get, all of them.’ She sniffed again. ‘Housekeeper, I ask you –’

Dora smiled, trying not to let Sheila infuriate her; it was an uphill struggle.

Sheila peered at her. ‘What are you looking at?’

Dora forced another smile. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she said quickly, suddenly dizzy. ‘Would you mind if I gave lunch a miss today?’

Sheila grimaced. ‘You might have rung and said something. Do you want me to call a taxi? You’ve gone really white.’

Dora shook her head. ‘No, no. I think the fresh air might do me good.’

Sheila fetched her coat and shoes, lips pressed tight together with a mixture of concern and pique. From the kitchen came the hot, greasy smells of lunch cooking. It was all Dora could do to stop herself from retching. Slipping on her coat, she smiled unsteadily.

‘I’ll ring you later when I get home.’

Sheila nodded, shaking Dora into her coat as if she were a child. ‘Hormones,’ she observed sagely, ‘that’s what I put it down to, it’s your age. I should go home and have a nice rest if I were you, put your feet up. Are you sure you don’t want me to ring you a cab?’

Dora shook her head and let herself out.

Outside spring had painted everything with great daubs of sunlight and impressionist daffodils. Dora smiled and pulled her coat tighter. Whatever it was, the pain had gone. She cut through the garages, back towards the town centre.

‘Would-you-like-to-tell-us-a-little-bit-about-your background?’ Safely back at her flat, Dora read aloud, typing in the words as she recited them. Relieved to be excused the ritual of Sheila’s Sunday lunch, she took a bite out of a sandwich, and scanned the rest of the questions scheduled for Catiana’s interview. Sunday afternoon, away from Sheila’s pink paper napkins, and everywhere was blessedly quiet. Dora stretched, lifted her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose, and then reread Calvin’s fax.

The Fenland Arts production team certainly hadn’t stretched themselves, but then again maybe Calvin had warned them off. Dora stared up at the ceiling, screwing up her nose as she tried to get a fix on Catiana Moran’s fictitious origins.

‘I did think about being a nun,’ she typed slowly, searching for a punchline. ‘But …’

‘… But I look awful in black. And those house rules –’ Catiana Moran rolled her eyes heavenwards. On the TV screen, she ran her tongue around her beautifully painted mouth.

Dora shifted Oscar off her lap and lit another cigarette before turning up the volume on her ageing TV. Lillian Bliss was good – just give her the words and she delivered them with faultless comic timing. Dora glanced down at the draft copy of the script, following the lines she had written with her finger.

On screen, Rodney Grey from ‘Fenland Arts Tonight’, reclining in his black leather chair, laughed. His amused expression couldn’t quite hide his disdain. It was obvious he thought the interview was beneath him.

‘So when did you start writing seriously? Most people would like to know whether you’re writing from personal experience. In your latest book …’

On the set, Lillian was waiting for her next cue. The interviewer, still talking, touched the microphone in his ear and smiled wolfishly. For some reason the gesture and his expression made Dora shiver. She sensed something was happening but wasn’t sure what it was.

Rodney Grey leaned forward onto his elbows, turning a pen slowly between his long fingers.

‘Why don’t you tell us the truth. Miss Moran? I mean, this stuff you churn out is hardly great literature, is it? It’s upmarket porn. Cheap titillation for the masses –’

Dora tensed; that wasn’t in the script. Lillian pouted and stared at him blankly. He hadn’t fed her the cue line. She was completely lost.

The interviewer’s smile hardened. ‘Well?’ He slapped the front of the novel on the little table between them. ‘How can you justify this kind of cheap smut?’

Dora leapt off the sofa. ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed impotently at the TV. Oscar took the hint and scrambled for cover.

Lillian Bliss gnawed at her lip – there seemed to be an agonising, bottomless silence. After a few seconds, Lillian leant forward, eyes glittering, and very, very slowly the camera followed.

‘You horrible stuck-up little bastard. I knew you didn’t like me the minute I laid eyes on you,’ she snapped with suprising venom. ‘I wasn’t taken in by all that smarming round me in the dressing room – if I spoke with a plum in my mouth it would be different, wouldn’t it? Have you ever read one of the Catiana Moran books? Just because they’re dirty you think they can’t be any good. The latest one’s brilliant –’

Dora stared open-mouthed at the TV. She was stunned. She couldn’t have said it better herself.

Lillian Bliss took a deep breath. ‘I got into writing because I wanted to, and they say write about what you know – so I did.’ Lillian reached across the carefully arranged coffee table and plucked the novel out of Grey’s hands. ‘I’ve got this horrible poky little flat in Fairbeach, above the shoe shop in Gunners Terrace …’

Dora felt her colour draining. ‘No,’ she said to the girl on camera, as it moved in for a close-up. Lillian’s face filled the screen, her bottle-blue eyes locked fast on Rodney Grey.

‘You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to do to make ends meet. You’re all the same, you lot. There was this bloke, just like you, he was. Got a degree, talked all la-di-da. I’ll think of his name in a minute. He liked me to –’

‘No,’ Dora repeated more forcefully, barely able to watch.

Rodney Grey’s face was a picture. He glanced at the clipboard on his lap and, with remarkable presence of mind, began to speak.

‘So, Catiana, why don’t you tell us all about this new promotion tour of yours?’ he asked quickly, reverting to the script, stretching the words in front of Lillian like a trip wire.

Lillian looked up at him, blinked, gathered herself together, and cheerfully recited Dora’s answer as if nothing had happened.

Dora, who suddenly realised she hadn’t taken a breath for a very long time, let out a long, throaty sob.

‘Oh, my God,’ she murmured and slumped back onto the sofa.

Dora hurried into the office and banged in Calvin’s home number. In the sitting room, the credits for ‘Fenland Arts Tonight’ were rolling slowly up the screen. Behind them, Rodney Grey and Lillian Bliss were reduced to razor-sharp silhouettes.

Calvin picked up the phone on the second ring. Dora stared blankly at the TV, and realised she didn’t know what she wanted to say, or at least, didn’t know what she wanted to say first. There were so many things, the words clumped together in her throat in a log jam.

Calvin was ahead of her. ‘Hello, Dora, I was just going to ring you. Don’t worry–’

‘Don’t worry?’ Her voice sounded like fingernails on glass.

‘I know exactly what you’re going to say.’

‘You do? Well, in that case I don’t need to tell you I’ve just torn up our contract, do I? Or that thanks to you and your little friend, every pervert in East Anglia – including my sister – now knows where I live, or that …’

‘Whoa, whoa,’ soothed Calvin. ‘Your sister doesn’t watch the arts programmes, she told me …’

‘Calvin! Your protegée has just announced my address to the nation.’

Calvin coughed uncomfortably. ‘Not the nation, Dora, just East Anglia.’ He puffed thoughtfully. ‘Late Tuesday night? Good film on BBC2? God, hardly anybody’s watching. Look, I’m sorry. What else can I say? That bastard Grey set her up. He tricked her.’

‘What’s to trick?’ Dora hissed. ‘That girl is dangerous. She called Rodney Grey a horrible little bastard, on TV, to his face –’ As she said it she giggled, which surprised both of them. Hysteria, it had to be.

Whatever it was, Calvin suddenly choked and then drew in a long snorting breath.

‘I know,’ he chuckled. ‘Brilliant, wasn’t it? I mean, the guy’s such a complete and utter prick. Did you see his face when she started to tell him about the man with the degree?’ He was wheezing now, almost unable to breathe for laughing.

‘Stop it, Calvin, this isn’t funny. This really won’t do, you’ve got to talk to her,’ Dora snapped. ‘I live here. Muzzle her.’

‘I will, I will,’ Calvin giggled, and hung up.

The phone rang before Dora had a chance to turn around. She bit her lip and picked it up on the third ring.

‘Hello,’ said Sheila. ‘That writer woman you like is on the telly. I just caught the end bit – were you watching it?’

Dora groaned, wondering how much of Lillian’s interview Sheila had seen. Taking a deep breath, she jerked the phone plug out of the wall.