Pleasure and a Calling (30 page)

‘He said that?’

‘He said all sorts of things. He said he’d wanted to be a sportsman but had now found his true vocation, meaning God, as it turned out. He was going to be a priest or a vicar.’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘He sent a card to my mother, a year or two later, to say where he was. The card came to me eventually.’

‘Have you been talking to him? About what happened?’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you don’t believe in forgiveness.’

But maybe she did. I wondered why she hadn’t troubled the police with the story of Marrineau.

She was silent for a time, watching me like a cornered animal. Then, abruptly, she said, ‘What do you expect? You’re swimming in success with your bloody business and money and we’ve got nothing. And we took you in. Your father was a mess. And you ate up our energy and time. My mother stuck her neck out for you. And that child …’ She paused. ‘I suffered too, you know. I never saw
my
father at all. I don’t even know if he’s still alive. And now look at me!’

‘Did my father kill himself?’

‘I’ve really no idea. You gave him enough reason to.’

I went for my pocket and she flinched, her eyes defiant.

I smiled at her attempt to provoke me. I told her she could have the money – that I would have given it to her anyway. I unfolded the banker’s draft and handed it to her. I said there would be one like it for her every month. Suddenly she was in tears. She wouldn’t look at me. Just turned her back and wept. We didn’t speak again. Perhaps we never will.

I rang the office from a service area when I got close to town. Wendy assured me that no one had called and no one had left a
message. I picked up a takeaway sandwich and coffee and drove on. I arrived back at my flat just after six. The fairground lights were blazing on the Common and music was pumping into the air. I parked the car. Groups of schoolchildren were making their way up the hill, eating candyfloss. I paused on the step to my flat. Call it sixth sense – or just hard-earned intuition – but I knew, even before I’d pushed open the door and ventured in, that someone was already there.

‘S
URPRISE
!’ Z
OE WAS SITTING
on the arm of my couch, short skirt, her legs crossed. Her eyes were shining. She was smiling. Was she drunk? One glance told me she had already made herself too much at home to ignore.

‘Good God, Zoe, what on earth do you think you’re doing?’

‘I
love
your keys,’ she said. ‘I
love
them. I hope you don’t still use them all. I know how you do it. I’ve seen you. I’ve watched you getting them cut. How do you think
I
got in here? It took me ages to work things out but I’ve learned from the master.’ She beamed at me. ‘You’re naughty. A naughty magpie. You have my jewelled mirror from Thailand. How did you get it? From my flat, of course. So here I am, getting you back. That’s fair.’

Behind her, my collection drawers were safe and locked. But some files were out, along with scattered photographs and rough notes I hadn’t written up. My innards were churning.

‘Listen, Zoe—’

‘No-no-no-no-no-no-no, it’s fine, it’s fine,’ she was saying.

I now saw that she was wearing Sharp’s watch.

‘Yes – and you have Douglas’s watch too!’ she said. ‘Poor
Douglas. But didn’t you say to those policemen that you’d never set eyes on him?’

‘Douglas?’ I said.

She gave me a knowing look. ‘Ha … Mr Sharp, of course. Don’t worry. I won’t tell them. It will be our secret.’

‘What? Why do you think it’s Mr Sharp’s watch?’

‘Because I bought it for him, of course! I wish I hadn’t. He was bad news, though I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’ She looked round in sudden puzzlement. ‘This is weird. Why don’t you have a bed?’

‘You bought it for him? You knew him?’

‘Ah, I can see what you’re doing. You’re being all, what is it … chivalrous. Oh, Mr Heming, you were right
there
– in the office when we came in. He kissed me right in front of the window. You saw us.’

‘Who? When?’

‘Ages ago. Last year. And then you followed us to the bowling alley. Did you think I didn’t see you? You’re so sweet, but aren’t you in big trouble? What happened, Mr Heming? No, let me tell you.’

Clearly she was raving. Except … except that it was true. I
had
followed her once. Maybe once or twice, with a man. Certainly no more than three times. Back to her place. Last year, maybe the year before. That was Sharp? Could it have been?

‘Wait,’ Zoe said. She was at the table and turning my laptop towards me. ‘You can try to deny it, but look – it’s right here on your memory stick. You filmed it at Warninck’s on one of their authors’ nights. Here’s Douglas, here’s me. And some of our book group. And here’s his wife, who he’d forgotten to mention he hadn’t left after all. And a bit later on is some other poor woman he leapt on the minute I’d dumped him, who was
no doubt soon at it with him in the back of that huge car he has, in the woods. Oh he loves that. In the car. They were together in the restaurant. Did you really think I cared about him? Is that what you were thinking when you sat us right across the room from him and that poor mousy woman from the library, the two lovebirds sitting there like a couple of teenagers? Were you trying to rub my nose into it? I forgive you, of course. I know you were trying to avenge me. Or you thought I loved him. Or something. Seriously, if you were jealous of him, no need. He made a fool of me. He was despicable. But I never loved him. It was always, always you.’

She seemed almost delighted with herself. I was dazed by it. It was dreamlike. I remembered what Mrs Sharp had said about the anonymous note she had received. ‘Was it you who sent his wife the photograph of Sharp in an embrace with the other woman—’

‘In an embrace!’ She laughed. ‘You are funny. But, oh God. I truly wish I hadn’t done that. That’s what set it all off. That’s why she went for him. When I heard, I was sick with guilt. I couldn’t tell anyone. Do you remember? I had to take time off. I had to ask the doctor for some soothers. You know what your trouble is?’ she asked suddenly.

My mind was trying to think how it would end. I couldn’t be – I
refused
to be – seen like this. I wanted her to stop talking, but I was afraid of what might happen when she did.

‘You’re too nice,’ she continued. ‘Wanting to help everyone. I can see you walking right into the middle of the Sharps’ fight, or rather when she’d already hit him with something. A baseball bat. Or, no, wait … it was next morning, wasn’t it? OK, obviously it must have all flared up again, and Mrs Sharp was in a state when you arrived, and you could see it was an accident, or that she hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. You
always
see the best
in people! And you thought, what about the Cooksons’ place? Because obviously she couldn’t move him on her own. But why didn’t you think what might happen next?’ She shook her head. Oh boy. ‘And you really oughtn’t have gone to see her
quite
so often afterwards. No wonder the police want to talk to you every five minutes.’

She stopped to take a sip from a glass that seemed to materialize from nowhere and I saw now that there was a bottle on the floor, three-quarters gone.

‘What’s happening here, Zoe? What are we doing exactly?’

She stood up now and came over to me. She was wearing scent. She looked into my eyes and kissed me full on the lips.

‘We are sorting you out, of course,’ she said.

We had dinner and champagne at the Two Swans, which wasn’t my idea of a relaxing evening. As usual, Zoe did most of the talking and drinking. I can’t remember what we ate. She said nothing of what she had seen at my flat, which was unnerving. I do remember she had sweet ideas of how she could help more at the agency. How she could take on more of my workload. I was too good to my staff; there must be some cost savings to be made or more tricks to maximize profits.

‘And yet,’ I said at one point, ‘we are the most successful agency in the district. We must be doing something right.’

Exactly, she told me. Imagine how much more successful it could be if we really pulled together!

Despite myself, I was touched by her concern. The truth was, of course – and she wasn’t to know this – I already had more money than I needed, and I already had the business running in the friendly, ungrasping way that tended to get me where I wanted to be.

Yet in every way she wanted to ‘help’.

‘The problem is, we give far too much away,’ she was saying in the taxi back to her flat.

‘You’re right of course,’ I said. ‘I must think about that.’

‘You’re
too
nice.’

‘Indeed I am.’

‘Oh, William …’

Things progressed, though progress was not the word.

Together we would make a great team, she insisted as we snuggled beneath her duvet after a bout of self-consciously energetic sex. And if the police continued to cause a fuss with regard to my whereabouts on the morning in question, she said, the plan now was that I would simply confess our secret relationship. For her part, Zoe would back me up, since she hadn’t been in the office that morning anyway. It was simple: I had gone back to her place. We had made love. Yes, I would admit that I should have gone back to the office, but I just couldn’t keep my hands off Zoe for five minutes. That’s how crazy we were for each other, though obviously it had to be kept from the rest of the team until such time as we made it official, so to speak.

‘Official?’

She nuzzled into my shoulder. ‘Just kidding,’ she said, though of course she wasn’t.

At the office she brushed her fingers against mine when our paths crossed, just as she had during our earlier, ill-advised romance. At one point she brought a single chocolate heart from the upmarket gift store in the precinct and laid it on my desk beside my coffee.

For now I had to stay focused. I spent the next two nights with Zoe. I told her I wouldn’t be around at the weekend, explaining
that I had to drive out to Norfolk to speak to my cousin about an aspect of family finance. Zoe made a glum face.

‘You know what they say about absence,’ I said.

She consoled herself by stroking my hair while asking long searching questions about my family. I replied with equally long mendacious answers. I did have one question for her, of course.

‘Zoe, do you think I might borrow your binoculars tomorrow? I seem to have lost mine somewhere.’

‘Actually, come to think of it, so have I,’ she said. ‘In fact I don’t think I’ve seen them in ages.’

On Friday, while she was busy at the office, gaily plotting a hike in our rates or cuts to our benefit packages for first-time buyers, I drove to her flat and let myself in. I made use of her laptop. I thought about the tiny dimensions of her two rooms. I opened and closed doors. I had brought my tool roll and a bag of dusters. At the risk of impugning the weaker sex in a single sweeping observation, I do think women living on their own can often take their eye off the ball when it comes to the greasier end of essential household maintenance. Zoe’s broom cupboard, for example, contained a particularly ancient Dreadnought floor-standing boiler. Judging by its patina of grime I doubted it had been serviced in years, if ever. I unwrapped my tools and got to work adjusting the burner pressures. The Mark II in particular had proved reliable down the years for accidentally asphyxiating homeowners while they watched TV. If the flame turned yellow, carbon would block up the heat exchanger, eventually releasing enough carbon monoxide to down an elephant. The appliance notably lacked a fresh-air inlet, which meant it needed to take oxygen from the room. Which meant that, first, I had to go round checking all the ventilators, removing the plastic covers and folding a fresh new duster into each. Finally I swept my work areas
for stray screws and debris and packed away my tools. If there was any pleasure in this, it was merely that of a job well done, if that’s not too perverse.

In the evening we bought an Indian takeaway and settled in front of a martial arts film drinking wine until I made excuses about having to hit the road early in the morning. Which was not wholly a lie.