In Denial (29 page)

‘
I’m sorry,’ Annabelle said, regaining her composure, ‘but I’m sure you understand because most women would.’

‘
Of course I do.’

‘
Do you ride?’ Annabelle asked suddenly.

‘
Er, I have ridden and when I was younger quite a lot, but I’m not a regular now. It’s a question of time.’

‘
Of course.’ Annabelle fussed over a drop of milk on the table before asking, ‘I know this is a bit personal, but would you mind telling me why you decided to become a minister? As far as I can see you had a lot of prejudice to overcome, starting with a male dominated profession and finishing with the very people you’re there to support.’

Gabrielle smiled. ‘It’s a question I’ve been asked on numerous occasions and I’d be pleased to tell you.’

The two women talked for another hour, stopping only momentarily to enjoy the soup Annabelle had promised. Eventually Gabrielle felt that she had justified her existence.

‘
The soup was lovely, thank you.’

‘
A pleasure, my dear. The children and Hilary have become rather used to my homemade soups so it’s good to get an honest opinion.’ She paused. ‘And thank you for telling me all about yourself. You’re such an attractive young woman and with that figure you could have chosen any career you wanted, so the dedication you’ve described is no surprise. You put me to shame.’

‘
Not at all, Annabelle,’ said Gabrielle, feeling a little embarrassed. ‘To each his own. We are the people we are and -’

‘
Don’t spoil it, Gabrielle! Although you have my utmost admiration and respect, let me just sit and think that behind the collar and crucifix is a closeted passion and if the right man were to come along ... well, who knows?’ she asked, smiling.

Gabrielle returned her smile, still embarrassed by the other woman’s directness. She wondered if Annabelle was ready to listen to the reason why she was here. ‘As you’re so sure that Jeremy could not harm another human being, do you feel the same about Adam?’

The smile left Annabelle’s face. ‘I’d like to think I do, yes. As I said, he absolutely doted on Lucinda and to such an extent he’d have forgiven any transgression, unlike me with Jeremy. So, no, deep down I’d like to think that he, like Jeremy, could not, even in a moment of utter rage, have lifted a finger to harm Lucinda and certainly not the children.’ Annabelle looked deeply into Gabrielle’s eyes. ‘No, something a lot more sinister, a lot more shocking was responsible for their deaths. I think if the police were to look in the right place they would be equally shocked by what they found.’

‘
And where is the right place, Annabelle?’

Annabelle lifted her eyes from Gabrielle to the ceiling. ‘I don’t think I ever want to know,’ she replied in a whisper.

*  *  *

The journey went reasonably well until Gabrielle saw the brake lights coming on ahead of her. She was on the M5 having just passed Exit 13 for Stroud. She decided there must be an accident ahead because the traffic had been too light for it to be anything else. She worked her way into the inside lane and settled in behind a large blue BMW.

She had let her mind wander freely as she left Ashbourne and headed for the M6. She liked Annabelle but the more the two women talked the more Gabrielle realised just how apparent it must have been that from the outset Annabelle and Jeremy were not suited. She could never provide him with the sexual excitement and the challenge he obviously thrived on and he would never give her the intellectual stimulation she needed. Gabrielle was sorry she did not meet Hilary; she was sure he was an adorable man who worshipped Annabelle the way Adam had adored Lucinda.

Gabrielle did not believe Annabelle would even have alluded to a relationship between Jeremy and Lucinda if there had not been any truth in it, but even so, Gabrielle was surprised. She had conjured up this image of a beautiful and devoted wife and mother who lived for her husband and children. Adam had not even hinted at any impropriety in his marriage to Lucinda that might give reason for restlessness for either of them. He had painted an idyllic picture. Gabrielle wondered if she could draw any real conclusions from what she’d been told.

She wished she could go back to when Jeremy was telling her about sitting next to Lucinda at a dinner party when she’d been so worried about Patrick possibly being in a criminal gang in Hong Kong. Dinner party? It was, from what Annabelle told her, more likely to have been pillow talk. How could a man sleep with his best friend’s wife? The fact that Annabelle had slept with a slime ball like Jeremy Jacobs was even more deplorable.

In many ways Gabrielle was pleased Annabelle had told her about her ex-husband and Lucinda. She had to conclude that Adam did know about what had been going on, and after the murders he had every reason to be thoroughly depressed. But like Annabelle with Jeremy, Gabrielle could not believe Adam was capable of harming anybody and especially his own children. No, Annabelle was right, both men may have had motives but neither was capable of acting on them.

Or were they?

*  *  *

As Gabrielle’s car came to a halt on the M5 and she could see the queue of traffic stretching ahead for at least a mile, Adam was enjoying another very hot shower in anticipation of his meeting with Leila.

He was nervous.

Nervous was perhaps an understatement; he was anxious.

Even during his days at university he had not gone out with a single female on his own. He had many admirers and it was not for lack of open invitations. Many who were rebuffed assumed he was a closeted homosexual and eventually, with great disappointment, left him alone. Whenever he did go out it was in a group, sometimes just a small group but it was always in a group. He had not slept with anybody else other than Lucinda. He had not kissed, touched, caressed, cried or laughed with, argued, made up with or loved any woman other than Lucinda. To all intents and purposes, he was a virgin. He had not wanted anybody but Lucinda. He never wanted anyone else’s mind or body other than Lucinda’s.

The inevitable comments, polite at first, were thrown his way. ‘What’s the matter with you, Adam, are you some kind of weirdo?’, ‘You’re not gay are you, Adam?’, ‘For fuck’s sake Adam, there are girls out there gagging for it and they want it from you, what the fuck’s the matter with you?’ He had never told anybody why because he’d never felt the need. It was none of their business. All Adam knew was that Lucinda was the only woman he ever wanted. When he and Lucinda met after his graduation he had seen some of his friends looking; he had seen them going to find the others and pointing; he had seen some of the girls who had made obvious offers, nudging each other and wondering who this mystery oriental girl might be. Adam had not cared and Lucinda had not known there was anything to be aware of other than the fact that at last they were together again.

But now, sixteen years later, Adam was very apprehensive.

He was nearly thirty-six years old and he was apprehensive because he was going to have dinner with a woman who, from what he had heard and seen so far, would make him the envy of most other men.

As he towelled himself dry he didn’t stop to think why he was singled out at the airport. As he walked naked across to the window and marvelled at the panorama of Hong Kong Island across the other side of Victoria Harbour, he did not stop to think he was in any kind of danger. His brother Patrick had crossed his mind several occasions over the years but a lot more recently, and especially as the aircraft drew inexorably closer to his first home, Patrick was on his mind more and more.

When he first lived with the Yongs, Adam was oblivious to any animosity his adoption might generate. Being unaware at that young age of the enormity of losing his own parents, his innocence also protected him to a great extent from the problems that went with his adoptive father’s obligation to his biological father. But it was during his and Lucinda’s tenth birthday party that he became aware of Patrick’s true feelings towards him. Adam believed he had given his brother no cause to feel the way he did, but when he was banished to school in the UK he gave any lingering ill feeling little thought. Years later he remembered discussing with Lucinda Patrick’s decision to stay in Hong Kong when his mother and father came to the UK. Lucinda told him their father was secretly very happy and proud that his son stayed so he could carry on the family tradition where it really belonged.

When the time came for Joseph, Christina and Lucinda to leave Hong Kong, Patrick was well established as a junior reporter with the Kowloon Times. He was well thought of and the contacts his father spoke to believed Patrick showed great promise. When he did not travel to the UK for Lucinda’s and Adam’s wedding, Adam revisited his relationship with his brother, but his father and Lucinda used all the excuses in the book to explain Patrick’s non-attendance. Christina, Adam remembered, said little, but her silence spoke a thousand words. During the intervening years all Adam heard about Patrick was from his parents and sometimes from Lucinda. If he were being honest with himself as well as them, he had reached the stage where he couldn’t care less about his brother.

At his family’s funeral Adam couldn’t even remember whether Patrick was there or not but doubted he was. Once again, he had no reason to concern himself with or try to excuse his brother’s disrespect for his sister. The subject was never discussed after the funerals.

But now Adam was back on what he considered home territory, he wondered if he should try to contact Patrick. As he stood at the window looking out over the harbour the memories flooded back to him as did the tears that had forsaken him for so long. He sensed that Lucinda and the children were standing there with him.

*  *  *

At last the traffic began to move.

Being at a standstill had given Gabrielle even more time to think, which wasn’t what she really wanted to do. To think was to reason and if she reasoned she might start acting rationally, and Annabelle’s suggestion that she return to Loch Lomond would become the logical option. But she didn’t want to be logical: she understood, or she thought she understood, why she had taken time off to start what was turning into a wild goose chase, and the more she heard from the people she spoke to, the more she felt she was too embroiled in what might have happened and what could happen, to back down now. What she did know was that Adam Harrison had had an even greater effect on her than she first thought.

Adam, the murders and the personalities she had met were like a magnet, pulling her deeper and deeper into an intrigue she seemed powerless to escape.

Going to Ashbourne initially was the obvious thing to do because that was where she expected to find Adam. Jeremy Jacobs and his behaviour as well as his theories were forced upon her in more ways than one. Her visit to the police station was a gamble which had sort of paid off in that she left believing she knew more than when she went in, but at the same time a question mark had been placed over Jeremy’s, and more importantly, Adam’s involvement in the murders.

And then there was Annabelle.

Annabelle had a far greater effect on Gabrielle than any of the others. She was so genuine, so honest and yet, Gabrielle hoped, so misguided. She had to be wrong about Adam. Could she also be wrong about Lucinda and Jeremy? There had been nothing in anything Adam did or said that made Gabrielle feel in the slightest bit wary: she would have staked her life on his innocence. She believed she was a very good judge of character because it was a trait that went with the job. And to date none of her conclusions had been proved wrong.

As the traffic began to move, Gabrielle’s thoughts were muddled as they darted from one possibility to another. Accelerating in unison with the rest of the vehicles around her, she knew she had to concentrate.

Which turning off the M5 did she want? No, she wanted the M4 east and then Junction 18.

‘
Shit!’ Gabrielle shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Why am I doing any of this?’

Why was she not back in the sleepy hollow of Loch Lomond wondering about next Sunday’s sermon? Why wasn’t she hoping that when she went to see Mrs McKenzie she could persuade her to at least talk to her pregnant and unmarried eighteen-year old daughter again?

Why couldn’t she just go back to being normal?

*  *  *

She was sitting waiting for Adam in one of the chairs in the lobby.

She was not out of place with the opulence of her surroundings; if anything she added to it.

He had chosen to use the stairs rather than the lift. As he turned the last corner he saw her; she was watching the lifts and she looked as nervous as he felt. She had a small brocade evening bag in her hands and was twisting it round and round.

Adam hesitated.

He could always change his mind. He could go back to his room and ask for a message to be given to her.

Why him?

She looked absolutely stunning and he was not alone in his admiration. Her long jet black hair was piled on top of her head and as she turned to look at something that caught her attention, Adam glimpsed the tortoiseshell comb that held her hair in place. Her neck was long and slender, just like the rest of her. She was wearing an old-fashioned cheongsam, green and blue with a high collar and a tantalising split in the skirt running almost to the top of her thigh.