More Than You Know (89 page)

“Scarlett,” he said, his voice very quiet, “it is too late. We can’t go back now.”

“Even for Emmie?”

“It’s for Emmie I’m doing all this.”

“Matt! You’re not doing it for Emmie; you’re doing it for that bloody great ego of yours.”

“That’s an unbelievably filthy thing to say. Jesus, I can’t believe this. I was going to ask you if you’d speak up for me in court; I can see there’s no future in that one …”

“No, there isn’t.” She struggled to keep calm. “Matt,” she said, very quietly. “Divorce Eliza if you must. But … this custody thing, it’s so awful; it has to hurt Emmie, much, much more than the divorce. Can’t you find some way round that?”

“Of course not,” he said, and he sounded genuinely astonished. “I told you, it needs to be settled; we have to sort something out.”

“In this way? This hideous, public, mud-slinging way? With every sordid detail thrashed out in court, possibly reported in the papers—”

“Of course it won’t be reported in the papers!”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Exactly the sort of thing people like reading about over their cornflakes, two high-profile, self-centred adults fighting over an innocent little girl who loves both of you so much. It will be horrible for her, vile.”

“She won’t know about it, not the bad stuff; you don’t know what you’re fucking talking about, Scarlett—”

“Please don’t swear at me. I just don’t understand how you can be putting Emmie through this. She’s the completely innocent party—that’s the phrase, isn’t it?—and you’re just making her a pawn in this hideous game of revenge you’re playing—”

“It is not revenge,” he said, and his voice was icily, terrifyingly calm. “I want her to be safe, I want to see that she’s properly looked after and safe—”

“No! You don’t! You want to win her, and win this horrible fight,
and you know something, Matt, win or lose you’ve lost anyway, because you’re ruining her life for her.”

“You are totally out of order,” he said, standing up, “and I’m going.”

“Good. And don’t come back.”

Matt drove rather carefully home. He’d had at least one too many whiskies. The house was in darkness, apart from a light in the study.

He went in very quietly, opened the door of the study; Eliza was asleep on the sofa with the TV on. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt; her face in repose looked younger, more vulnerable. He stood looking down at her, and it hurt, even that, seeing her as she had been, when they were happy. Happy and hopeful. He had removed all the pictures of her from his desk, for the same reason. He just couldn’t bear to look at the past. At the happiness.

She woke up suddenly and saw him, and just for a moment she stayed there, held in what had been, her eyes soft, pleased to see him. And then she was back, back in the present, and so was he, and she turned away from him, standing up, walking to the door.

“You all right?” he said, and then: “How’s Emmie?”

“We’re both fine,” she said. “Please excuse me. I want to go up to bed.”

“Fine. But at some point, we have to have a conversation about Summercourt. I wonder if it will be possible for you to pay me your share of the value, which would now be something in the region of fifty thousand pounds.”

“Matt, you know perfectly well I couldn’t give you five thousand. Or five pounds, probably.”

“Right. Well, in that case, I shall have to buy your share. When the divorce is final.”

“I will never let you do that,” she said, “never.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to. You signed up to it. I’ll find the agreement if you like; I have a copy in my desk.”

“Matt, you can’t do that, take Summercourt away from me; it’s not yours; it belongs to our family.”

“Well, unfortunately your family was unable to afford it. Oh, don’t
worry; I’d buy your mother a nice little cottage nearby. So that she could stay in touch with her friends. But I’m very seriously considering selling the place.”

“Selling it! Matt, you couldn’t,” she said, and her voice was little more than a whisper. “You couldn’t sell Summercourt, even to hurt me.”

He said nothing; she sighed heavily.

“I’m going up to bed,” she said. “I’ve had enough.”

He watched her as she went up the stairs, a skinny, almost childish figure, and that was like the past again too, and he closed his eyes against the pain and sat down in the study, on the sofa where she had been, and fought down the grief.

The love they had felt for each other, so strong, so joyful, so good, was gone; it had died; they had killed it between them, and there was no hope for it, no hope of bringing it back, of reviving it, and all that he had left now was Emmie, and no matter what it cost, he was going to keep her to himself.

“Eliza Shaw, Toby Gilmour.”

“How do you do?” said Eliza.

“How do you do,” said Toby Gilmour. His voice was at once clipped and quite deep; it would be liable to sound impatient, that voice, she thought.

He was tall and dark and extremely slim, with brilliant dark eyes and heavy dark eyebrows, and a smile that came and went so fleetingly that it would have been easy to miss it. She would have put his age at early forties.

He was dressed very well—was she ever going to stop thinking clothes mattered so much?—in a beautifully tailored dark grey suit, a slightly surprising pink-and-white-striped shirt, and, even more surprisingly, Gucci loafers rather than the obligatory lace-ups. Clearly he too thought clothes mattered. Absurdly that seemed a point in his favour.

They sat down at Philip Gordon’s low table and Toby Gilmour started immediately spreading notes and papers across it; he had good hands, she noticed then, and on his wrist was a very beautiful, classic gold Cartier watch, clearly decades old, and the cuffs of his shirt were fastened with heavy gold plain cuff links.

“All well with you, Toby?” Phillip asked.

“Yes, yes, fine, thank you. Busy, of course. Tristram keeps us up to the mark. But that’s good.”

“Indeed,” said Philip, and then, turning to Eliza: “Tristram Selbourne is the senior QC in Mr. Gilmour’s chambers.”

“Oh,” said Eliza, “oh, yes, I see.”
For God’s sake
, she thought,
say something half-intelligent; you sound completely witless
. And managed, “What a wonderful name.”

“Yes, isn’t it? It’s said if it hadn’t been his real name he would have made it up,” said Toby Gilmour, and she felt immediately silly. “Now, if we could just review your case so far …”

Concentrate, Eliza; for heaven’s sake, concentrate. This is your future at stake, not some garden party
. And he was obviously not keen on small talk …

“So I think that’s about the size of it,” said Philip Gordon half an hour later. “Any questions for us, Toby?”

“A few, yes. Do we have a date for the preliminary hearing?”

“I got it just this morning. I haven’t had time to tell you yet, Eliza. A fortnight’s time. Eliza, all right with you? Your husband can make it.”

“Oh … yes, of course. It will have to be, won’t it?”

“Not absolutely essential, but wise,” said Toby Gilmour briskly. He managed a fleeting smile. “Now, Mrs. Shaw—”

“Please call me Eliza. ‘Mrs. Shaw’ makes me feel old.”

“Eliza, then. Now, you’re not defending your adultery, I see.”

“No.”

“Probably wise, under the circumstances. And that makes the custody case at least a little more clear-cut. Now, your witnesses—you have, let’s see … well, your mother, not too good; I mean, I’m sure she’s a delightful woman—”

“She is, actually, yes,” said Eliza defensively.

“I’m sorry. I was going on to say that a mother is not an ideal defence witness. As you must see. A tendency towards bias.”

“Well … yes.”

“Now, your friend Mariella Crespi. Tell me about her. What does she do?”

“She lives in Milan. She’s married to a very rich man; she … she doesn’t do a lot; she’s a sort of … of society lady; she just hit the best-dressed
list.” She stopped, aware that Mariella didn’t sound hugely impressive. “She knows everything that really took place in Milan, how I was looking after Emmie properly, how she was never left with strangers, not the pack of lies my husband claims.”

“And she’d come over here for the case?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Good. Then there’s your nanny, Miss Grant.”

“Yes.”

“Is she quite articulate?”

“Yes,” said Eliza, irritated by this slur on the nanny class. “Very.”

“Well, they aren’t always. Now, Mr. Gordon has a couple of medical people, your gynaecologist and a psychotherapist, both with queries against them. Have you spoken to them?”

“My gynaecologist has agreed.”

“And the psychotherapist?”

“I’ve decided I don’t want to call her,” said Eliza. “I … I told her a lot of things I’d be embarrassed about, really very … very personal stuff.”

“Mrs. Shaw—Eliza.” The dark eyes were expressionless as he looked at her. “This whole thing is going to get very personal. I think you have to be prepared for it. It’s a dirty business, what you’re getting into—”

“I didn’t get into it,” said Eliza quickly. “It’s all Matt’s—my husband’s choosing.”

“Of course. But … but I would like you to reconsider calling your psychotherapist. It might be of great benefit to your case—”

“I really don’t want to,” said Eliza flatly.

“Well, we can come back to her if need be,” he said. “Anyone else?”

“I’m hoping to get a couple of friends, mothers from Emmie’s school, to say I’m a good mother. But—” She stopped.

“They’re perfectly happy until you tell them they’ll have to appear in court? Then they panic?”

“Yes. I did have one friend, who I know would have done it, spoken up for me; she knew me right through the whole awful thing with the baby …”

“But?”

“I’ve lost touch with her,” said Eliza, realising how feeble this sounded.

Her one really good friend. So good that she had no idea where she lived or what her phone number was …

“What about your colleagues at work?”

“Well … Jeremy Northcott—he’s the boss of my agency, very establishment—he would speak for me; we’ve known each other forever, since I was … well, since I was very young. In fact, at one point I nearly became engaged to him. Only I’d met Matt—” She stopped. “Is that bad or good?”

“Clearly it was bad for Mr. Northcott,” said Philip Gordon, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

“No, I meant his being a witness. Bit biased, that sort of thing. Like my mother. Anyway, he was in Milan as well; he helped me get back to Emmie after the fog, so that would be another person in my favor …”

“Any others? At the agency?”

“I’m afraid they’re all a bit … a bit unreliable. You know, their lives are one long party; they—” She broke off. What if they asked Rob to be a witness, and it emerged that she smoked dope with him? God, was there no end to all this …?

“Perhaps you could try to find someone who might be, shall we say, sober enough to speak up for you.” Toby Gilmour looked at her as if he was finding her rather unsatisfactory. She was being hopeless; then she remembered that she was the client, and therefore paying, and met his eyes very directly.

“I’m absolutely confident I can,” she said.

“Good.” He looked down at his notes, paused, and said, “Mrs. Shaw”—he seemed to be having trouble with “Eliza”—“forgive me for asking this, but was there ever any violence in your marriage?”

She had been wondering when someone would ask her.

“Yes,” she said, “yes, there was. Emotional violence, plenty of it. And verbal. Horrible rows, endless fights.”

There was a silence, then: “But nothing physical? That was all?”

“It was quite enough,” said Eliza. “Believe me.”

There. She hadn’t lied. She had told nothing but the truth. Not the whole truth, perhaps. But it seemed to have worked. She was glad to
have done that. It was a sort of run-through if she was ever asked in court. Because she still couldn’t bear to admit it. Not yet. Maybe if it made all the difference between keeping Emmie and losing her. But not yet … it was too horrible, too ugly …

“Very well,” said Toby Gilmour, “I think that’s all for now. Thank you. I’ll start preparing my brief.” He didn’t smile. He didn’t look at all happy.