Perfect Strangers (2 page)

He felt the Russian’s strong hand on his shoulder again as they walked into the yard.

‘I want you to start making arrangements to transfer the money to a friend of mine,’ said Uri.

His heart was beating faster now. He hadn’t risen so high in the business world without being able to read people, and Uri’s manner was hostile, the squeezing fingers cruel. Yes, he was a brute, a gangster, but until today he had been respectful, jovial even. Something was wrong.

‘Well, that might take a while,’ he said. ‘I have to contact someone. He might be difficult to reach. I just need a little more time.’

Uri’s grip tightened.

‘You don’t have the money? Don’t tell me it’s like the rest of your empire.
A mirage
.’

‘Of course I have the money.’

‘Then I want it. Including the interest.’

‘What interest?’ he asked nervously.

Uri laughed.

‘We’ve heard you talking about how much money you have stashed away. Under the circumstances, I think the price of my protection just went up.’

He cursed himself. Sometimes he let his mouth run away with him. He had a fan club inside the facility, convicts who idolised him for what he had done, and sometimes it was hard not to bask in their worship and boast about his achievements.

‘Okay, so let’s talk,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even. ‘I just need to make a few phone calls. Give me some time.’

Uri had steered him past the baseball field, behind the bleachers out near the fence. A quiet part of the yard. The gun towers could see them – but would the guards be looking? It was a warm day, and a bead of sweat had begun to trail from his hairline down the back of his prison shirt. But despite the heat, he had gone suddenly cold.

Uri’s dark eyes were full of menace. ‘No more time. I want that money,’ he said, moving his hand slowly up the base of his neck. ‘I want it now.’

He felt his blood pumping in his ears, and his vision began to swim.

By the time the guards spotted him, he was dead.

1

She closed the bathroom door and locked it behind her. Her heart was beating hard and she felt sick to her stomach. Sitting down on the edge of the bath, she squeezed the bridge of her nose.
Don’t let me cry, not in front of these people
.

Since the scandal twelve months ago, Sophie Ellis had discovered reserves of strength that she didn’t know she had. But today it was taking every ounce of it not to break down in front of all the gawkers. They were all out there in the living room and the kitchen, eating their canapés and judging her, their oh-so-sympathetic words of condolence loaded with hidden meaning.

‘How are you coping?’ they’d said after the service. Meaning: how can you afford this funeral after your father ruined the family?

‘It was so sudden, a heart attack with no warning,’ which meant: you should have seen it coming. And ‘Shame Charles couldn’t make it,’ which was really code for: look at how your friends have abandoned you now you’ve lost all your money.

Well, she wasn’t going to give them another reason to pity her, she thought, breathing deeply to steady herself. The people on the other side of that door knew enough about her family life. They’d read about it, gossiped about it, held the Ellis family’s misfortune up as a mirror against their own lives and given thanks, with barely disguised
Schadenfreude
, that it hadn’t happened to them. And now Sophie wanted to keep something hidden – her pain at losing her father, the one man she knew would always love her – and she couldn’t.

Smoothing down her black pencil skirt, she fumbled in her make-up bag for some concealer and looked in the mirror. Her skin was pale and her amber eyes had lost their sparkle. No wonder: the last few days had been a strange limbo. She hadn’t slept properly either; despite wanting to numb the pain with sleep, it just hadn’t come.

Behind her, on the wall, she could see a collection of family photographs in sleek black frames. It was like her whole life flashing before her. Peter Ellis, proud and weather-beaten on his little sailing boat,
Iona
. Sophie and her parents, tanned and happy in Barbados, rosy-cheeked and smiling in Klosters. They had been wealthy, yes. But what did money matter when her father was gone? She could win the lottery tomorrow but never get that life back.

Sophie had adored her father and he had loved and indulged her in return. There had been the zippy BMW as her eighteenth birthday present, the Chelsea flat at twenty-one. Peter had even supported her when she had dropped out of university to take up modelling. When that hadn’t quite worked out – someone should have told her
before
she had given up college that she just wasn’t that photogenic – along with all her other career ideas, Daddy had stepped into the breach with a generous allowance in return for some event planning at his City accountancy firm. He had always been there for her, always.

‘We’ll get through this,’ he’d told her with his quiet certainty. ‘Nothing matters as long as we’ve got each other.’

She let out a sob, covering her mouth with her hand. It just wasn’t fair.

‘Sophie? Are you in there? Is everything okay?’

She could hear the brusque rap of knuckles on the bathroom door.

‘Hold on, I’ll be right out.’

She took one last look in the mirror, then unlocked the door. Her best friend Francesca was waiting for her, solemn but sleek in a charcoal trouser suit, accessorised by a black dahlia in the buttonhole and a diamond the size of a quail’s egg glinting on her ring finger. Not so long ago, people would comment that she and Francesca looked like sisters. They had their hair dyed the same honey blonde at Richard Ward’s salon in Sloane Square. The same racehorse physique, slim and long-legged, the same glowing, tanned skin. The
Evening Standard
magazine had even run a feature on them a couple of years earlier. ‘Chelsea Girls!’ the headline had screamed, before outlining their carbon-copy CVs: a little modelling, a spot of party planning. Five per cent work, ninety-five per cent pleasure.

Her life was quite different from her friend’s now.

‘There you are. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

‘I’ve just been freshening up.’

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ queried Francesca. ‘You do look a little pale.’

‘Well, it’s my father’s funeral. I thought I’d go easy on the Fake Bake this morning,’ she said, attempting a smile.

She took a fortifying glass of wine from a passing waiter as they walked into the living room. It was packed with people from the golf club, people from Daddy’s sailing club, people from Mummy’s Cobham circuit, their plates piled high with sandwiches, their glasses filled with wine. Half of them were studiously trying to avoid Sophie’s gaze, the others shooting her doe-eyed looks of pity.

‘Come on, Fran, show us the ring.’

Sophie spun around to see Megan and Sarah, her housemates from her flat in Chelsea. Francesca had just become engaged to Charles, a friend of Sophie’s ex-boyfriend Will, and her friends were anxious to hear about it.

Francesca held up her hand to display the rock. Her happiness and self-confidence were quite dazzling, thought Sophie, feeling herself shrink into the shadows. Megan and Sarah squealed.

‘It’s enormous, Fran. What is it, five carats?’

Sarah reverently stretched out one finger to touch it as if it were magic.

‘Six, I think,’ said Fran thoughtfully. ‘Flawless. Pear-cut. He got it just right, although God knows I dropped enough hints.’

‘Don’t they say that men have to spend two months’ wages on their fiancée’s engagement ring?’ Sarah looked up, her eyes wide. ‘He must be earning a fortune.’

‘Charlie’s doing okay,’ Francesca smiled.

‘Although I’ve heard that the bonuses have been cut this year,’ added Sarah. ‘Bloody Americans, they had to get greedy and screw it up for the rest of us, didn’t they?’

Sophie didn’t want to get into a discussion about finance or greed at her father’s wake.

‘So where did he propose, Fran?’ she asked, trying to change the subject.

Her friend launched into an expansive description of her ‘super-romantic’ weekend at an exclusive country-house hotel: two days of spa, sex and Michelin-starred dinners. It sounded very much like the weekends Sophie used to spend with Will, all except the six-carat ring at the end of it. Not that she wanted to think about
him
today, either.

‘When he took me out into the rose garden at midnight,’ continued Francesca, ‘then produced a Cartier box, I couldn’t believe it.’

‘I’m really happy for you,’ said Sophie honestly.

‘Well, obviously you’re all invited,’ said Francesca. ‘We were thinking a winter wedding in the sun.’

‘Where did you have in mind?’ asked Megan.

‘I want the Turks and Caicos. I’m not bothered about a church wedding and I never wanted to wear a big puffy meringue dress.’

‘The Aman resort out there would be just perfect,’ said Sarah.

‘I know, I’ve already made enquiries,’ smiled Francesca.

‘Then I’d better start saving,’ said Sophie, making a quick mental note of how much it was all going to cost her. The hen night – or more likely weekend – was bound to be somewhere splashy, the wedding gift list registered at Harrods or Thomas Goode.

‘Soph, Charlie is paying for all the accommodation, so you’ll only have to find the air fare.’ There was a slight air of superiority mixed in with the familiar pitying tone but Sophie chose to ignore it. Francesca had her faults, but at least she was here, and she appreciated the gesture.

‘And if that’s a problem, I’m sure we can sort something out. Someone must be flying private. I’ll ask around, see if you could cadge a lift . . .’

Sophie raised her hand to stop her. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll manage. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

And she meant it. She didn’t care how much it was going to cost her. She didn’t care if Will was going to be there with a new pedigree girlfriend. She didn’t care if she had to go without food for a week, if that was what it took. For one weekend she was going to get her old life back, no matter what it cost her.

It wasn’t until three o’clock that the last of the mourners left. The catering staff bustled about clearing away the half-empty wine glasses and stiffening sandwiches. Sophie found her mother standing alone in the conservatory at the back of the house, staring out into the garden. Julia Ellis had always been what people called a handsome woman; not beautiful, exactly, but striking, with high cheekbones and a long, elegant frame. She had certainly been the one to turn heads at the black tie dinners over the years. But today she looked ten years older, the lines around her mouth seemed more pinched and her eyes were rimmed pink.

She turned around to give her daughter the slightest of smiles.

‘It went as well as could be expected,’ she said coolly.

‘I think so,’ said Sophie reassuringly. ‘People weren’t exactly here to enjoy themselves. But it was a decent turnout.’

Julia snorted. ‘I see the Derricks, the Smyths, even the bloody Fosters stayed away – Annabel Foster has never had a migraine in her life and yet she develops one this morning,
I don’t think so
.’

Sophie kept silent.

‘Look, this place is a mess,’ said Julia, turning to face the kitchen. She began collecting glasses of warm white wine and taking them to the sink. Growing up, Sophie had never known Julia to lift a finger around Wade House, their eight-bedroom Arts and Crafts house in one of the most fragrant parts of Surrey. But since the army of home help had disappeared, she had grudgingly taken on the role of housewife. Not that her efforts had stopped the house from falling into slow disrepair. Without the cleaners, the decorators, the interior designers and landscape gardeners, Wade House was wilting. Damp patches had appeared in dark corners, once white walls looked smeared and grey. The lawns were limp and untidy, while the pond, once a clear sheet of turquoise water, was covered in a thick crust of moss. It was a high-maintenance house that needed money to be spent on it – and money was one thing they didn’t have.

Yet Julia had refused to sell it. Even when the golf club memberships had to be sacrificed, the weekly shop switched from Waitrose to the closest branch of Lidl. Sophie knew that by holding on to the house, Julia Ellis was holding on to the past, but the time had come to let go.

‘Mum, don’t you think we should talk about what we’re going to do now?’ she asked as she helped to clear up.

Julia didn’t appear to hear her, thrusting the glasses into the soapy water, oblivious to the white suds that were spilling up the front of her good black dress.

‘I hear Francesca is getting married,’ she said. ‘To a friend of Will’s, I believe.’

‘Charlie Watson. They met at Will’s birthday party last year.’

‘I’d thought Will might have come along today,’ said Julia casually.

‘Why would he?’

‘Because you went out with him for long enough. He always got on with your father.’

‘Mum, I haven’t spoken to Will in six months.’

Julia gave a small, hard laugh. ‘I suppose you’re right. Why should he be any different to anyone else?’

When the Ellis family had received the news that Peter’s investments had gone seriously wrong, Will Lewis hadn’t ended his relationship with Sophie immediately. No, instead he had taken her out for a slap-up meal at Hakkasan. Afterwards, in bed, he had held her, stroked her hair, reassured her that nothing would change. For a short time she had believed him. But over the weeks he began to see her less and less. Like the fallout from the scandal, the repossession of the cars, the fading of Wade House, it took time to crumble.

When he finally told her, three weeks after her twenty-sixth birthday, that he was too busy to sustain a committed relationship, Sophie had accepted it as an inevitability. No one wanted anything to do with the Ellises any more. It was as if their poverty was catching.

Julia put the glass she was holding down on the counter-top and turned to look at her daughter.

‘Isn’t it about time you got yourself a nice man?’

By nice, she meant rich. Julia had always judged Sophie’s boyfriends by their jobs, their prospects, their backgrounds, and had always impressed on her daughter the importance of a
good marriage
. Will had been a particularly great catch in her eyes. An Eton-educated investment banker who had bought a duplex in Chelsea with his bonus, he had been perfect husband material and she had been more devastated than Sophie when their relationship had ended.