Gold Diggers (39 page)

Something was in the air. Erin could feel it. Most of the time she was privy to all of Adam’s business affairs, but over the last few days she was feeling increasingly excluded from what was going on. Adam’s door was closed most of the time: people were in and out and she could hear a lot of raised voices coming from his office. There had been several long meetings and lunch dates with someone called Claudia Falcon; Erin had googled her and found out she was a prominent securities banker.

Erin had assumed she knew everything about Adam’s business, but she was obviously mistaken. She only knew what Adam
allowed
her to know. Feeling frustrated and highly curious, she carried on with her emails, straining her ears for any more snippets of conversation. She knew that whatever was going on behind those closed doors was clearly either very good or very bad, and she was desperate to know which.

Sebastian Cavendish hadn’t wanted to be buried. He had told his wife, many months before his death, that he hated the idea of his expensively maintained body rotting away
beneath the surface of the soil. Against the staunch wishes of his family, who wanted him to be buried in the village church where the Cavendishes still owned a Grade I listed manor house and were treated like local royalty, Karin had carried out Sebastian’s wishes. He had been cremated, his ashes strewn in the grounds of his parents’ house, and a David Linley-designed bench had been placed in a quiet corner of Holland Park where Sebastian used to go to read his papers.

It was hard to believe that was only a year ago, thought Karin, resting her elbow on the open window of her car as she drove towards Holland Park. Today was the first anniversary of Sebastian’s death and yet, honestly, she struggled to remember what life was like with him in it. Her new life with Adam was so true and sure and established, it had snuffed out all memories of a time before he existed.

Perhaps today would feel different, she thought. It was 11 a.m., and the morning skies were soft and hazy, promising another warm day. She parked the car in a metered bay on Addison Road and walked towards the park. She saw a old man, a neighbour who she recognized, and they nodded. His eyes looked apologetic. He clearly knew who she was. The tragic, beautiful widow who had lost her husband in a boating accident and had moved out of the area within months of it happening.

As Karin walked into the park towards Sebastian’s bench, she recognized another familiar figure moving towards it from another direction. Karin’s first instinct was retreat, but she could see she had been spotted.

Dammit, that’s all I need today
, thought Karin, as she drew level with a cool, smartly dressed blonde. She was about forty, but looked good on it, thanks to her elegant, regal bone structure. Helen Cavendish, Sebastian’s sister. It had been her husband Matthew’s business partner who took out
the charter of the
Zeus
every August, and thus Helen had been a guest aboard the yacht the night of Sebastian’s death.

For a second the air was filled with awkwardness, and then Karin gave a small smile. She had not seen Helen for many months. There was little love lost between them. Helen had been the ringleader of the argument over the burial and Karin also felt sure that Helen felt bitter about not receiving a penny from Sebastian’s estate. It was hardly Karin’s fault that there was nothing left to give after Seb’s debts; she had been lucky that the house was in her name.

‘Karin. It’s been a long time,’ said Helen quietly, holding her handbag in front of her like a shield.

‘I’m surprised to see you here,’ replied Karin, taking a seat on the bench. ‘After all, you did disagree with the idea of this.’

‘Well. There’s not much else to remember him by now, is there?’

Karin shrugged. ‘We can still remember though.’

Helen sat down next to Karin, perching on the edge of the wood as if she feared her coat becoming dirty from it.

‘Yes, we can.’ Her words were clipped, her expression sour.

‘Is there a problem, Helen?’ asked Karin.

Helen looked at Karin and paused before replying. ‘Matthew and I are divorcing.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ replied Karin.

Helen gave a small snort. ‘Are you, Karin? He told me what happened in Turkey the night Sebastian died.’

Helen’s remarks were like a bomb blast from nowhere. Karin had a flashback to a memory she had long tried to forget. For a second she thought about denying everything, but from the cold look on Helen’s face, it was clear that she knew the truth.

‘Helen, I don’t know what Matthew’s told you—’

‘He told me that after Seb took the tender back to the yacht, you tried to seduce my husband.’ Her tone was flat and without accusation.

‘Matthew seduced
me
,’ Karin replied softly, ‘but I don’t suppose it really matters, does it?’

‘No, it doesn’t. He doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. But what does matter is what happened to my brother that night,’ said Helen, looking far off into the distance.

Karin knew what she was implying; exactly the same thing all those society gossips had said.

‘Helen, it was an awful accident,’ said Karin. ‘No one knows how or why, but we just have to accept that.’

Helen glared at her, her eyes full of accusation. ‘You and Matthew slipped back to the boat. Why didn’t you tell the police?’

Karin sighed. ‘Because I was with your husband. There was enough hurt without bringing all that up.’

‘Matthew gave you your alibi, didn’t he?’ continued Helen. ‘He said he saw you dancing on the dance floor all evening,’ she snorted. ‘Bloody liar. Truth was you were both having sex together back in the cabin.’

‘Helen, please.’

Helen swivelled round, her lips in a tight line, her eyes pooled with anger. ‘Matthew came back to the club before we had noticed he was missing. You, on the other hand, remained on the yacht. What happened, Karin? What happened to Sebastian?’

Karin could feel frustration and anger rising. ‘Okay, look. It’s true,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘But when I got back to our cabin it was empty!’ She took a breath to compose herself. ‘I didn’t know where he was.’

A small white dog had trotted up to them and was sniffing around their feet. A warm breeze had picked up and rustled through the trees.

‘Things have turned right around for you this year, haven’t they, Karin?’ said Helen coolly.

Karin looked at her hands. ‘In the last six months, yes, I suppose they have.’

‘Your new boyfriend is very rich. I suspect he has a yacht of his own.’ Karin sat up.

‘What are you suggesting, Helen?’

Helen rose slowly and slung her handbag over her shoulder. ‘You know exactly what I’m suggesting, Karin. I’m watching you.’

Helen put two fingers to her lips, kissed them, and then put them down on the arm of the bench. ‘Goodbye, Seb. I miss you,’ she whispered, and walked off into the park.

Karin folded her arms in front of her, her eyes watching Helen go, but her mind completely lost in thought.

Whoever said modelling was glamorous, thought Summer groggily, leaning her head against the window of the people carrier as she watched the north Norfolk coast slip by, a blur of fields, cottages and grey sky. It was 6.30 a.m. and she was on her way to her next modelling assignment. Well, modelling-stroke-acting, she corrected herself. She actually knew very little about the job ahead of her, except it was a video-shoot for DHP Records’ bright new hope. The record executive who had booked her, a middle-aged cockney man called Phil Harrison, had been unusually vague about the details of the shoot, which had sent Summer’s imagination into overdrive – what if it was someone really big like Justin Timberlake? Knowing her luck, it would Cliff Richard.

The people carrier dropped her off on the edge of a wide, dark, sandy stretch of beach and she walked over to a small herd of trailers on the edge of the sands.

‘Ah, here she is, looking gorgeous,’ smiled Phil Harrison. Phil had clearly dressed for the season not the weather and looked faintly ridiculous in a long shearling coat and a pair of flip-flops.

‘Fucking freezing, isn’t it?’ he said, glancing at a giant
watch around his chubby wrist. ‘You’d never believe it was August, wouldja?’

Summer smiled sympathetically. ‘Is there anywhere I can grab a coffee?’ she asked.

‘Go ahead, darlin’,’ he said, jerking a thumb towards a trailer. ‘Talent’s not here yet, but that’ll give you time to meet the director and go through my vision for the video.’

Phil put an overfamiliar hand on Summer’s shoulder. ‘To give you a heads-up, I’m thinking Helen Christensen in Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” video, know what I mean? I’m thinking you, running along the sand, gagging for it. I’m thinking bleak, moody, sexy. I need to see sex, Summer. Show me sex.’

‘I think you mean
Helena
Christensen, Mr Harrison,’ said Summer icily and moved towards the trailer, knowing it was going to be a long day ahead of them.

In the six months since Charlie McDonald had last seen Summer Sinclair, he had become the next big thing in the record industry and he was miserable. While on the surface it was every schoolboy’s dream to be groomed as the next platinum-selling rock artist, he couldn’t help but feel as if his identity had been hijacked, and that he was being taken places he didn’t really want to go to. Sure, he loved the attention and the limos and the interviews, but was it really him?

Everything about him had changed, he thought mournfully, catching a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror of the black Mercedes that was transporting him to the video-shoot. That DHP Records had insisted he get rid of his band was painful enough, but when they had cut his hair, brought in a stylist and a personal trainer to revamp his image, and had even changed his name to CJ, he was beginning to wonder why they signed him in the first place.

The car slowed as it reached the edge of Brancaster Beach
and Charlie felt a little jolt of nerves in the pit of his stomach. When his manager Rob had started talking about a video featuring a sexy girl for his debut single ‘Smile’, Charlie only had one girl in mind for the job. Summer Sinclair. After their night at the Monarch, it had taken him months to get over her. The process was helped along by the stream of groupies, music PRs and female rock journalists who suddenly seemed to find him irresistible. And, while Charlie had not been a monk, when he had seen the Karenza advert plastered all over London, he had realized that he had to see her again.

There was a slight salty breeze, a weak early morning sun beginning to crack through the folds of steel-grey clouds as Charlie walked across the sand to the trailer where Summer was sitting reading a book.

‘Ah, Summer, meet CJ,’ said Sean Clarkson, the video director gruffly, impatient to start filming. ‘CJ, meet Summer. You two are in love, now can we all get to our places?’

Summer looked up, squinting in the early morning sun at the incredibly good-looking man in front of her. For a split second she did not recognize him: his hair was shorter, darker; stubble sat around his jaw; his blue jeans and loose white shirt screamed sexy Texan cowboy, not clean-cut groom.

‘Charlie? Charlie! What the hell are you doing here?’ laughed Summer as Sean rolled his eyes and vanished into the trailer.

Charlie smiled bashfully. ‘I’m the talent, allegedly.’

‘I had no idea it was you,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You’ve done brilliantly. I didn’t even know you’d got a record deal. I feel an idiot.’

‘You weren’t to know. My debut single hasn’t even been released yet and can you believe my management want to call me CJ,’ he winced.

‘The record company seem so excited about you. Gosh. This is great. And what a coincidence.’

Charlie looked embarrassed. ‘Well, I could lie and say this is an incredible coincidence, but when the record company said they wanted a gorgeous model for the video, I said I knew just the girl.’

She slapped his arm playfully. ‘You just wanted to see me in a meringue again.’

‘Maybe I just wanted to see you,’ he said softly.

Summer felt her heart flip and felt instantly guilty. She was in a relationship with Adam. She shouldn’t be looking at other men. ‘You never phoned,’ she said softly. ‘And things are a bit different now.’

Charlie looked puzzled. ‘Well no, I didn’t phone because I lost your number, but I did come round to see you.’

Summer looked at Charlie, confused. ‘Sorry? When did you …? Where?’

‘I came to see you at your flat. But your mum said you weren’t there. Didn’t she tell you what happened?’

Summer frowned. ‘No, she didn’t. Perhaps you better had.’

‘Darling, everything I do is in your best interests,’ said Molly, sitting back on the sofa and examining her teeth in a silver compact mirror. Summer had only just arrived home from the Norfolk shoot when Molly had breezed in to show her the results of a Wimpole Street teeth-whitening session. Summer hated confrontation at the best of times – especially with her mother – but she was so angry at Molly’s meddling that, for once, she couldn’t keep it in.

On the journey back from Norfolk, Summer had tried to rationalize why Molly had lied to Charlie McDonald, but there was no obvious, acceptable explanation, and it incensed Summer even more that her mother was showing no signs of remorse.

‘You lied to me and you lied to Charlie McDonald,’ said Summer with irritation. ‘How could lying be in my best interests? You had no right to send him away and tell him I had a boyfriend. He’s a great guy.’ The force of Summer’s feelings surprised her.

‘Oh, I had every right,’ said Molly, coolly snapping her compact shut and looking at Summer with disdain.

‘When a third-rate male model turns up at your house and starts sniffing around, a mother has to act. I mean, honestly Summer, he was so unkempt that at first I thought he was homeless.’

‘You weren’t to know he was about to get a million-pound record deal,’ replied Summer sarcastically.

‘Hmm, that was unfortunate, yes. But things have worked out for the best, haven’t they?’ said Molly. ‘If you’d have started a relationship with this Charlie, Adam Gold would have slipped through the net. This boy’s record deal might sound like a lot of money, but, believe me, once he’s paid his record company back for tours and videos, there’s not that much left over.’

Summer laughed incredulously. ‘It’s always about money with you, isn’t it? But you’re missing the point as usual, mother. It’s not about who’s better off, or even who I prefer.’

‘Then what the hell is it about?’ snapped Molly.

‘It’s about the fact that you lied to me, mother. It’s about you interfering in my life and trying to manipulate my choices and decisions.’

The night with Ricardo Lantis suddenly slipped into Summer’s head, and she tried to blot it out immediately. There was no point making this conversation any more complicated than it needed to be, but it gave her added resolve to be strong.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Summer, I’m only trying to do the best for you, it’s all I ever do. What do you want from me?’

‘I want my life back, mother. I don’t want you interfering in it again.’

Molly stood up suddenly, her eyes flashing and angry. ‘Don’t talk to me about interfering,’ she yelled.

Summer recoiled in surprise and fear.

‘You are the one who has interfered in my life since the day you were born. I could have had everything without you. The brilliant career, the rich husband; but how could I, with
you
hanging around?’

At first Summer was too shocked to speak. The unspoken resentment that Summer had felt underpinning their life together had finally surfaced, was finally out in the open.

‘Don’t, mother, please,’ cried Summer.

‘Even when I found someone, you had to poke your nose in and spoil it for me, didn’t you?’ said Molly, looking at her daughter sourly. ‘You and Graham bloody Daniels deceived me perfectly, didn’t you, with your filthy little goings-on. I devote my life to you and that’s how you repaid me? Think about that before you start accusing me of meddling in your life.’

‘Stop it, stop it!’ screamed Summer, sinking to the floor sobbing. ‘Stop it, stop it!’ she repeated over and over again, her hands over her ears, her eyes tightly shut. Without another word Molly left the flat.