Deep Blue Sea (8 page)

8

Thailand suited Rachel, Diana could tell that immediately. Standing on the strange banana-shaped boat, her younger sister seemed spotlit by the sun, highlighting a body that looked slim and toned, her dark hair slicked back, her skin glistening with beads of silvery seawater.
She just looks so . . . alive
, thought Diana, with a spike of envy, as the boat bumped gently against the pier and the driver cut the engine. Her heartbeat slowed as her sister came closer and closer, her features sharpening until Diana could make out her expression of anxious bemusement.

‘Hello,’ said Diana. She put one foot in front of the other and propelled herself to the end of the jetty, where Rachel stepped off the boat barefoot. ‘Have you been swimming?’

It was the only thing she could think of. On the twelve-hour flight to Bangkok, she’d agonised over what she would say to her sister after four years of silence, rehearsing over and over again her first words, hoping to come up with something clever and grand. But standing here, she just felt mute and stupid. She took a deep breath and swallowed warm, clammy air. What could you say to a woman you had effectively banished, to whom your last words had been hateful and angry?

‘Free-diving,’ said Rachel finally. She wasn’t smiling; in fact there was no trace of emotion on her face.

‘Free-diving? What’s that?’

‘Going as far under the sea as you can without an oxygen tank.’

‘Oh, like pearl divers?’

‘But without the pearls,’ said the man from the boat, but Rachel shot him a look and he walked on ahead of them up the pier.

‘Why are you here?’ asked Rachel when he was out of earshot. She said it quite neutrally, but Diana recognised a tiny flicker of anxiety. Rachel always put a brave face on any difficult situation, but Diana knew her too well to miss her signs of fear.

‘I . . . I just want to talk. There’s no one else I can talk to.’

It sounded lame, Diana knew that. But it was the truth, and it was the reason why she had flown halfway around the world. Rachel probably hated her guts. Diana herself had spent months, years blaming her sister for the problems in her marriage. But right now, Rachel was the only person she wanted to talk to.

‘Do you mind if I change first?’ said Rachel. ‘There’s a café just there.’ She pointed down the beach to a bamboo-covered shack with tables on the sand.

Diana walked over and ordered a Sprite, sitting under an umbrella and slipping her sandals off as her sister disappeared into a wood-slatted shower cubicle. She was tired and anxious herself, but the view of the sea soothed her. She had been to Thailand before – to a luxury villa on Phuket that came with the biggest infinity pool she had ever seen and a massage team that had dispensed the most exquisite four-hands massage. But this place was something else. Raw, luscious and uncommercialised. Julian had always been so proud of his architect-designed office, with its white carpets and its view over the city, the Shard, the London Eye and beyond. He had called it ‘the most incredible office with the most incredible view in the world’, but right now, looking at the bone-white sand and the jade ocean beyond, Diana thought that he had miscalculated.

Her sister had landed on her feet, she told herself with a trace of bitterness. The taxi driver had driven her from the ferry arrivals straight to the Giles-Miller Diving School office in Sairee village, and had refused to take a fare after Diana had told him that Rachel was her sister. ‘Rachel Miller, she good people,’ he had said in halting English. She had been even more surprised when she had met a tanned, sexy man in the office – apparently the Giles part of the partnership – whose eyes had opened like saucers when Diana had said her name and asked where she could find Rachel. The protective way he had spoken about her sister had made Diana wonder what the exact nature of their relationship was. If Giles was her personal as well as professional partner, then Rachel was even luckier than she’d thought.

‘Are you alone?’

Diana looked up, startled. She had been so lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed Rachel approach.

‘Yes, I came on my own,’ she said.

‘Where’s Charlie?’

‘Mum and Adam took him back to school last night.’

‘Boarding school?’

‘Harrow.’

‘Figures,’ said Rachel, pulling up a chair, but only perching on the edge, as though she might jump up and run at any moment. ‘Do the rest of the family know where you are right now?’

Diana stopped a frown. She had left Hanley Park before the Denvers had arrived, leaving Sylvia and Adam to cover for her.

‘They know I’ve come to see you. They weren’t exactly thrilled about it.’

Rachel just nodded. Diana didn’t doubt that her sister felt awkward, but she could still be fearsome, formidable, even when she was cornered.

‘Is business good? I believe you have a diving school.’

Their words were brittle. That easy familiarity that had always existed between them had completely disappeared.

‘Business is great.’ Rachel nodded. ‘We train three hundred PADI-certified divers a year and we’re gearing up to expand, open up a whole resort.’ She tilted her head. ‘But you didn’t come here to run a credit check on me, did you?’

‘No, look, Rach . . .’ Diana began, but her sister had turned to speak to a waiter, rolling off long sentences in fluent Thai. Evidently she’d said something funny, because the waiter beamed as he scuttled back to the shack.

‘What’s so amusing?’

‘I told him you were a tourist, so to go easy on the chillies.’ A trace of a smile pulled at her lips. ‘I guessed you’d be hungry; haven’t been long-haul in a while, but I don’t remember aeroplane food being that exciting, even in first class. That okay?’

Diana felt her shoulders relax. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be as difficult as she’d thought.

‘Look, Diana, I’m so sorry about Julian.’

Diana blinked hard, unable to get any words out.

‘I thought it was better that I stayed away from the funeral,’ continued Rachel. ‘Even though I wasn’t there, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about you.’

‘I know.’

‘Did you get my letter?’

‘You wrote to me?’

‘You know me: I work better in print.’ Rachel grimaced. ‘Or perhaps not . . .’

Diana felt a sudden overwhelming desire to tell her sister everything, although not without some trepidation. Back in Britain she had been convinced that helping her out was the very least Rachel could do. But now she was here, was it right to ask her to give up her pocket of Paradise, to return home to investigate a crime that wasn’t even really a crime? To help her with her grief? To find answers Diana wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear?

She owes you
, she reminded herself.

‘I need your help,’ she said finally. She almost felt a physical pain just saying it. She had spent years hating her sister. In those insomniac hours and days after Julian’s death, she had pinpointed the exact moment when her dream life with her husband had started to sour. And it was when her sister had chosen her career over her family by running a four-page exposé on Julian’s extramarital affair. ‘I want you to find out why Julian killed himself.’

Rachel jerked back. ‘Isn’t that what the inquest is for?’

‘The inquest is to find out what happened – I already know that. I want to find out
why
it happened.’

Rachel stared at her for a long moment.

‘Why me?’

‘Because you were the best at what you did.’

‘Di, I wasn’t exactly—’

‘It wasn’t a compliment,’ said Diana flatly. ‘As a journalist, you were unscrupulous, underhand and completely unprincipled.’

‘That’s not entirely fair,’ Rachel said, averting her eyes.

Diana leant forward. ‘Yes, Rachel, it is. You almost destroyed my life for the sake of a story.’

Her sister glanced up. She was picking her nails, a habit she had kept from her teenage years; it was her only tell that she was nervous or upset.

‘You’ve come an awful long way just to insult me.’

‘I didn’t come to insult you,’ replied Diana. ‘I’m just being honest; I want a journalist who has what it takes to get to the bottom of a story, who has the stomach for a fight. And that person is you. You stop at nothing; nobody knows that better than me. And I need you to find out why he did it.’

She could feel tears beginning to prick at her eyes, but she was glad that she had finished her speech.

Rachel just sat there, staring at her
. Oh God
, thought Diana,
I’ve pushed her too far. Been too heavy-handed. I’ve come all this way and I’ve screwed it up
.

Then slowly her sister reached across the table and put her tanned hand on top of Diana’s. Rachel could be stubborn, dogmatic, unyielding. But right now, as the sun set in long golden ribbons behind her, she looked truly remorseful.

‘I’m sorry, Di,’ she said. ‘I really am. I shouldn’t have . . . done what I did.’

Diana could only nod.
She could still remember the moment she had realised her life was going to fall apart; it was as if someone had taken a photograph. She had just returned to their Notting Hill home from a morning yoga class when the telephone on the stand by the stairs had rung. It was a reporter from the
Post
asking if she had any comment on the story they were running the next day. Julian was having an affair, they said. They had pictures, an interview with the young woman, shots of the pair of them leaving a hotel. Diana had actually been calm, coolly declining to comment. Because she just didn’t believe it. For roughly sixty seconds, she had utter, unshakeable faith in her husband. Sixty seconds, because the moment she put the phone down, it rang again – and there was Julian, his voice shaking, saying that it had meant nothing, that Diana was the only woman he had ever loved: all the clichés. And she had just stood there in the hallway, the receiver held loosely in her hand, knowing that things couldn’t get any worse.

Julian had called the lawyers. Diana had called her sister. Rachel was associate editor of the newspaper, for goodness’ sake. Surely she had the power to stop the story?

But she didn’t answer her calls. Or return her messages. Finally Diana had gone round to the
Post
’s Docklands office and cornered her as she had left the building.

It’s out of my hands
, was all she could say. Out of her hands that she had destroyed Diana’s marriage, humiliated the family, humiliated Julian.

She could feel her hands trembling despite the heat.

‘I didn’t try to stop the story,’ said Rachel quietly, letting Diana’s hand go. ‘I don’t know why. Ambition, wanting to be accepted, greed.’

‘You could have tried . . .’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’ Diana had heard her excuses before. ‘It was a great story for the
Post
. They were always going to run it, regardless of what I said or did. I had no real power. But yes, I should have done what I could to stop it. For that I’ll always, always be sorry.’

Diana’s eyes narrowed. How could she just say
I’m sorry
and expect everything to be all right again?

‘That world I lived in, it’s vicious and selfish and completely unconcerned with anything except getting the story,’ added Rachel.

‘Which is why I am here talking to you,’ replied Diana. She had injected obvious ice into her voice, wanting her sister to be under no illusions that she was enjoying this reunion. ‘All I am asking is for you to do what you do so well. I want you to stop at nothing – nothing – until you find out the truth about Julian.’

‘But I’ve changed,’ said Rachel. She noticed that her hand had clenched into a fist on the table. ‘I’ve changed and that’s why I can’t help you. Not in the way you want.’ Her voice softened. ‘This is my home now, and this is who I am. I deal with wetsuits, boats and the sea, and I spend my days making people happy, as far as I can. That selfish, ruthless reporter is dead, Di. I want to help you, but if you want to investigate Julian’s death, then talk to the police. Hire a private detective. I can give you names. I’ll support you all the way, and if you need a break from England, then you can come and stay with me. This place heals people. There are worse things you can do than come to Thailand for a little while.’

‘I don’t want to stay a minute longer with you than I have to.’ Diana disliked the feelings that were coursing through her. Hatred, anger, frustration. This was her sister and she loved her.
Had
loved her until Rachel had betrayed her. It had been the betrayal, almost as much as her exposé of Julian, that Diana had never been able to get over, that had made her feelings run so deep.

‘You owe me, Rachel,’ she said fiercely. ‘You almost destroyed my marriage, and now I’m asking for something to make up for that.’

It was a minute before either of them spoke. The waiter came with two sweet-smelling curries and, detecting an atmosphere between the sisters, hurried away again.

‘Why do
you
think he did it?’ said Rachel.

Diana inhaled the scent of her curry, picking out the lemon grass and coconut, and somehow it soothed her like a balm.

‘I don’t know. I genuinely haven’t got a clue,’ she replied more calmly.

‘But were there problems? In Julian’s life, I mean?’

Diana lifted an eyebrow. ‘You mean in our marriage, don’t you? You’d love me to say yes, wouldn’t you?’

‘Not at all. Quite the opposite.’

‘You think our marriage had problems. And yes, your newspaper story exposed the fact that it did. But we worked on it, we mended it. We were happy, I think.’

‘What about work?’

‘Everything seemed fine. No major upheavals in the company, anyway. I’d have heard.’

Rachel nodded, her face serious. Diana knew that look; her sister was thinking, turning over the possibilities – and she was fairly sure that Rachel’s mind was already racing ahead. She was smart like that. Rachel never took anything at face value; she saw conspiracy everywhere, especially after she had begun working in Fleet Street. She always said there were so many stories of corruption and manipulation going on behind the scenes, stories that for legal or political reasons they couldn’t print, that the only logical response was to assume everything was dirty.