Paternoster (24 page)

‘Who is Isabel?’

‘What?’

‘I heard you talking, Eden. You introduced yourself as Isabel. Now are you going to tell me why, or are you going to leave me to make up my own ideas? Because believe me, I already have some, and they’re not flattering.’

His face was pinched and white with anger and hurt.

‘Whatever it is you think you know, that’s not it,’ she said, at last.

‘You tell me now what’s going on, or I’m leaving.’

He meant it. She rose from the bed and went over to him, and held his arms, looking up at him. He didn’t respond. His face was choked with emotion.

‘I mean it, Eden.’

She had lost Molly, her old life, her friends, her family; lost everything for her job. It wasn’t a conscious sacrifice. It wasn’t willingly made. She was damned if that old life would force her to relinquish Aidan, too.

‘Sit down. No, come on, sit down.’ He perched on the end of the bed, stiff and reluctant. She slid the box over to him.

‘Take a look inside.’

He frowned at her then opened the lid and lifted out the mobile phones, the SIM cards, the virgin SIM cards and lined them up on the bed. ‘What’s this?’

‘I have a different identity for each phone. I swap the SIM cards around, use some of them only once, so I can’t be traced. I sometimes use a phone once and then dump it so I can’t be tracked.’

He glanced up at her, his eyes dark and afraid. ‘Are you in trouble?’

She gave a short humourless laugh. ‘I’m in deep trouble. Aidan, if I tell you why, I’ll be putting myself at risk, and I might be risking you, too. So walk away now, before it’s too late.’

He got up and left the room. She packed the phone and SIM cards back into the box, her hands trembling. That was that, then. She heard Aidan clattering about in the kitchen for a few moments, then he reappeared holding two glasses of wine.

‘I’ve turned down the oven,’ he said, handing her a glass of wine. He sat down and swung his legs up on to the bed.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture so tender it almost made her sob. ‘I’m sure.’

‘I meant it about the danger.’

‘Tell me.’

Eden took a deep glug of the wine, then stretched her legs out beside him. Side by side, she told him the story.

‘Years ago I worked in Customs and Excise, not doing VAT or checking for dodgy fags, but working undercover. I infiltrated a gang that was bringing in arms to the UK. They didn’t just do arms, obviously, like most of those gangs they also handled drugs, and human traffic. I worked undercover with them for two years. A big arms consignment was due to come in and I’d tipped off the authorities, but somehow the gang leader found out.’ She tried to take a drink of wine, but it caught the back of her throat and she choked. ‘He knew it was me, God knows how, and he tried to kill me.’

A slash across each arm, a cut across each thigh, a stab in the stomach.

‘Those scars I’ve got,’ she started.

‘You told me that you fell through a window.’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t. He … cut me.’

‘My God, Eden!’ Aidan’s face twisted with shock.

‘I was rescued just in time.’
Little Jimmy saved your life
. ‘I testified against the gang. They heard in court who I worked for, that I was undercover, and that I’d duped them and got them all arrested. They got huge prison sentences.’

‘Good.’

She sipped her wine, her hands juddering so much she missed her lips and wine trickled down her chin. She wiped it away with her palm. ‘I couldn’t carry on working undercover: I’d been busted, and to be honest I wasn’t in great physical or mental shape after what happened.’ Aidan squeezed her hand. ‘I didn’t want to stay in the office checking VAT returns, so I left the service. I was put under the witness protection programme: I got a new start, but I had to leave my old life behind. All of it.’

She paused.
How are Mum and Dad?
She’d asked Miranda. Been told,
I don’t know and I can’t find out. You know the rules
. Her parents. They’d been told she was dead, died as part of a security operation. Heroic, brave, given this shred to comfort them in their grief. She wondered who they’d buried in her place – someone without a name, unmourned – or if they’d clustered at a yawning grave and sobbed while a box of stones was lowered into the earth.

She continued, ‘I came to Cheltenham and set up as a professional investigator. It’s what I’ve been trained to do.’

‘So that time when I locked myself out of my flat,’ Aidan said, recalling an incident early on in their relationship, ‘and you managed to get the door open in seconds, that was your training?’

‘You need better locks on your door,’ Eden said, trying to lighten things. She wanted to weep, reliving it all again now.

Aidan turned to face her. ‘So what’s the trouble that you’re in?’

She sucked in a deep breath, feeling broken and afraid. ‘One of the gang members has been released: an unsafe conviction, apparently. And the gang’s boss has connections on the outside. He had someone killed.’

Aidan gaped at her in horror. ‘Are you in danger?’

I’ll catch up with you
. No point frightening him. There was nothing Aidan could do if Hammond was determined to get her. ‘I have to be careful,’ she said. ‘And so do you. You can’t tell anyone what I’ve just told you.’

He was staring at her, his eyes searching her face as if he’d never seen her before. Eventually he spoke. ‘Is Eden Grey your real name?’

‘It is now.’

It is now
. How could she be so calm? Just blithely tell him that she used to work undercover and someone tried to kill her. That she isn’t who he thought she was, that the past few months together had been a lie. He didn’t know who or what she was any more. Everything he thought he knew about her tilted.

He swung his legs off the bed. ‘I’d better check on dinner,’ he said, with false brightness. He had to get out of there; his head was spinning. The world had shifted and he didn’t know anything anymore. ‘Don’t want burnt offerings.’

How well do you know her
? Lisa’s mocking tone, asking him whether Eden had brothers and sisters, where she went to university. Was anything Eden had told him true?

He lifted the pot out of the oven, gave it a stir, licked the spoon and added a squidge of juice from a jar of red jalapeno peppers. Tasted again. The sauce was too spicy now. Bugger it, it’d have to do.

Does she carry a gun
? Blasted Lisa. Asking all the right questions. Was there a gun in Eden’s flat? Eden, or whatever her name was. All those times he’d spoken her name, liking the feel of it on his tongue. Aidan and Eden, the rhythm of their names, corresponding. All of it lies. She wasn’t Eden, she was … who? He didn’t know her at all.

He tipped rice into a sieve and rinsed it under the tap, his mind whirling. From the bedroom came the buzz of the hairdryer. Eden carrying on as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t pulled the pin from a hand grenade and tossed it into his life.

He thunked the rice into another pan and topped it up with water. Foraging in the drawer for a fresh wooden spoon, his hands met cold metal. Hidden at the back of the drawer, behind the nutmeg grater and the salad servers that were so clunky they were inoperable, was a set of keys. He drew them out, casting a glance behind him. The hairdryer droned on.

The keys squatted in the palm of his hand. One key to open the main door, one for the door in the sitting room that opened on to a small balcony, one for the front door to Eden’s flat. A blue plastic tag bent on the ring. He stared at the keys for a long moment, then closed his fist over them and slid them into his pocket.

Rachel came out of the spa feeling queasy. The waters tasted revolting, like the smell of rotten eggs and ordure, and she couldn’t wait to get back to Mrs Bedwin’s and guzzle down a pint of porter to take the taste away. Not that the waters were doing her any good. The sore that had started as a small spot on her neck was growing, and more sores had appeared on her scalp. Fortunately she could hide them with her hair for now, but she dreaded waking each morning and discovering a new one had erupted overnight.

So, each day she traipsed to the spa, paid her penny, and drank a pint of the disgusting water amongst the gout-ridden, the coughers of blood, the faint and weary, and the frankly mad.

As she hurried away from the porticoes of the spa, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure ahead of her. Her heart leapt. Darby Roach! For a moment she considered rushing after him, calling his name, then hesitated. Their last meeting still rankled. How he’d tossed her out on to the street, how she’d lost her home, her gowns, her possessions and her little maid, Kitty.

Darby Roach in Cheltenham. His health ruined after losing his father’s money? Or had that life of dissipation finally caught up with him? She knew Darby, and knew that whatever his disease, he’d seek out the local cat house. They’d be face to face eventually and she braced herself for their first interview.

She didn’t have long to wait. Darby Roach and a couple of cronies swaggered into the seraglio the next day. Rachel cringed at the surprise on Darby’s face when he recognised her.

‘Rachel!’ he cried. ‘You’re here in Cheltenham! I knew you’d fall on your feet.’

‘Darby,’ she said, coolly, pouring him a glass of wine.

‘I’ll choose you,’ he announced, gallantly, ‘for old times’ sake.’ He turned to his chums. ‘But you should take a turn, too. I’ve had her myself, I know she’ll see you have a good time. In fact, Rachel was my own special darling for a while. That’s how accomplished she is.’

He chortled and dug the friends in the ribs. The other whores looked at Rachel with interest. Now they knew she’d been thrown over by this prancing booby. Humiliation scorched her.

‘This way, sir,’ she said, scraping together every shred of dignity she could muster.

Mrs Bedwin, sucking her gums with avarice, pounced as they left the room. ‘That’ll be two guineas, sir,’ she said, her hand cupped. He opened his pocket book and withdrew a five-pound note.

Rachel cringed as he said, mockingly, ‘Two whole guineas, eh?’ and knew he was scorning how far her price had dropped. Mrs Dukes had never sold her for less than five.

As her foot touched the first stair, Mrs Bedwin said loudly, ‘And it’s two guineas for the wine.’

Her mortification was complete. Silently she led Darby to the boudoir and yanked his coat from his shoulders.

‘This cost a pretty penny,’ she remarked, noting the scarlet silk lining and the braided buttonholes on his coat.

‘Yes, I had a stroke of luck,’ Darby said, sitting to pull off his boots. His feet stank and his stockings were wet with sweat. She wrinkled her nose as she tugged them off his feet.

Darby continued, ‘Quite a stroke of luck: my father died.’

She glanced up at him, unsure how to respond.

‘He’d paid off all my debts and was keeping me on a tight leash. Couldn’t even have my horse. The old man was incandescent with fury over that spot of trouble I had. You remember?’

She remembered. A moment’s notice to leave her home, leave all her jewels, her gowns, her beautiful furniture. Leave Darby forever, because he’d lost a fortune at a card game.

‘My debts were all paid off, then he died and I inherited the title and the estate. I mortgaged the estate and I was back in business.’ He grinned at her. ‘Change of luck just like that.’ He snapped his fingers.

A change of luck. Wasn’t it just.

‘How did your father die?’ she asked.

‘Broken heart. Not me, well, not all me. My sisters died of the smallpox, one after another. All gone within a month. It killed my father, especially when Lizzy died. He adored Lizzy.’ Darby puffed out his cheeks. ‘But it meant the money that had been set aside for their dowries was back in the family coffers. I’ve only got mother left to support now. She’s moved into the Dower House, and to be honest, she’s so upset about father’s death and the girls, that I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes to meet them soon.’

Rachel could think of nothing to say. She thought of her own mother, dead ten years ago now. If her mother had lived, she wouldn’t be here, at Mrs Bedwin’s, haunted by the shadow of the thief-taker.

‘Still, it’s an ill wind, as they say,’ Darby added, breezily. ‘So I’m here on a spot of business. Made some money at cards. I used to do card tricks at school. Kept the boys off me and I made a few shillings. Turned those skills to good use.’

‘Cheating?’ Rachel said.

Darby grinned. ‘Sleight of hand.’

He pulled his shirt over his head. ‘There’s a fellow here, Ellison, into property. That’s where the money is, you know, building the new town. He’s got it all sewn up. If you’re not part of his circle, you get nowhere.’

Darby flopped on to the bed. ‘Come to me, sweet Rachel. How I’ve missed you.’

She joined him. ‘Do you, Darby? Do you miss our old home together?’

‘Oh, I do, my angel,’ he said, nuzzling her neck.

‘We could make a new one, just like the old one. You could visit and we’d be together again, with our funny little maid Kitty to look after us.’

Darby barked with laughter. ‘Kitty? That wretch? She’s long gone.’

Rachel stilled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She stole from me, when she left the house. Took some silver and some of the jewellery I’d bought you. Bangles and rings and such like. Quite a haul.’

Rachel bit the inside of her cheek. The girl had learned some tricks from her, it seemed. But not all of the missing jewellery was pinched by Kitty; she’d made off with some of it herself. Good job, too, or she’d have been in the gutter and probably dead by now.

‘I soon found out what was missing and sent the thief-taker after her,’ Darby continued. ‘She wasn’t hard to find. Stupid girl still had a silver carving set and some rings on her when he caught her.’

Rachel’s throat was dry. ‘What happened to her?’