Some Day I'll Find You (30 page)

James – Nice 4673. Villa Raphael, 24 Rue de Palmes, Nice
.

She would use the phone in the kitchen. Douglas had already left for work when she came down from their bedroom, but she felt more comfortable making the call from here, not
the lounge. She wasn’t sure why. She told herself she didn’t want Sophia blundering in while she was on the phone. The kitchen had already been serviced – it was the maid’s
first port of call in the mornings – and Stella was even now outside on the terrace with Maxine. Diana could hear the tutor’s voice drifting through the open kitchen windows.
‘
Non, non, Stella, encore, s’il te plaît
,’ and heard her daughter dutifully repeating an exercise in tenses. It was the future that tended to confuse her. Diana
smiled ruefully to herself. Like mother, like daughter.

She poured herself a cup of coffee from the electric pot that Sophia had filled before leaving the kitchen, and sat down at the bleached wooden table. She was fully awake now, and realised she
had a lot to think about.

Foremost was Stella.

Diana had married Douglas principally for her daughter’s sake. She knew Douglas understood and accepted this. He had once said to her: ‘I treasure Stella because I fully realise that
if it were not for her, I wouldn’t have you.’

Yesterday, James had said he wanted to see his daughter. What did he mean? Just ‘see’ her – a glimpse from a safe distance – or actually meet her, talk with her?

Diana shook her head, almost violently. ‘Impossible,’ she muttered aloud. ‘Impossible.’

How to explain to Stella the very fact of her father being alive? It couldn’t be done, at least not without being brutally frank. James was a deserter and – Diana realised this with
a little jolt – he was technically still on the run. If the authorities in England discovered he was still alive, he’d be a wanted man.

A fine father for a young daughter to be introduced to, out of the blue.

Granted, James had only learned of Stella’s existence yesterday. But if he had made the effort to get in touch once he’d settled in Nice, he would have known years ago that he had a
daughter. Back then, perhaps something could have been worked out. Now, it was simply too late.

Stella had grown up believing her father died a war hero. She slept with his photograph by her bed. To tell her the truth now would be unbelievably cruel. And of course, there was no question of
introducing her to James under the pretence that he was someone else. The child would recognise him at once from the photograph. He had barely changed over the last eleven years.

Even if she could see some way to bring Stella and her father together, there was Douglas to consider. He would have to be included in any arrangement.

Diana knew with complete certainty that Douglas would be appalled at the arrival of this fugitive in their midst; a man who had lived under so many false identities that even James himself
probably couldn’t remember them all.

Then there was the whole question of the validity of her second marriage. Was she technically a bigamist? She pushed the thought away.

To Douglas, Stella’s father would be a criminal. And he’d be right. James must be breaking multiple French laws, masquerading as he was on forged papers. But if he went home to
England, anything could happen. What if someone recognised him? One of his former RAF comrades, for example? The game would be up: James would almost certainly be arrested for desertion and, if he
was using a false identity, fraud too.

Then a new fear came to her. It occurred to Diana that Douglas might turn James in to the authorities. She wouldn’t put it past him. Of course, he was a man of scrupulous morality:
he’d genuinely believe it was his duty to make sure justice was served. But he’d also do it because he felt threatened by the reappearance of his wife’s glamorous first husband.
He would conceal the motive behind a screen of Calvinist moral rectitude, but they’d both know the truth.

Which was a very good reason not to tell Douglas anything at all about this. She couldn’t compromise James’s safety.

‘
Why
can’t I?’ Again, Diana had spoken aloud. She considered the question. It was a good one, and she lit a cigarette, the better to think it through.

James had been remarkably honest with her, she decided. He had admitted murdering a man, and making off with a small fortune. He had confessed freely to living completely illegally here in
France. He had trusted her to listen with an open mind to his reasons for deserting, and for not coming home after the war. He had placed his fate in her hands.

He had trusted her.

And she, Diana now realised, had been honest with him. She had meant it when she told him that in war, she thought every man had his limits. James had been pushed very, very hard. He clearly
hadn’t plotted to desert. He had, in fact, gone down fighting. Literally. He’d destroyed three enemy aircraft before a terrifying ambush and encounter with violent death. It was the
second such ordeal for him – he’d almost been killed over Dunkirk, his plane so badly shot up it had to be scrapped.

He hadn’t gone AWOL after that first brush with death, had he? And on the day they got married and he and John were summoned back to their base, he’d gone without a murmur.

Running away later that same day after such a traumatic experience had been an instinctive, animal response to extreme circumstances. And by the time he’d established himself in Nice,
there was no road back. The die was cast.

But he was still James –
her
James. He might have a new name – she realised with a slight shock that she had no idea what it was – but he was just the same as on the
day he’d married her: charming, full of zest for life. Incredibly, he had even made her laugh despite everything.

And – she had to admit this to herself – she was hugely attracted to him. She tingled slightly when she recalled one of her recent dreams about the two of them. Those hands . . .

She decided that she was simply going to have to see him again. But the moment the thought occurred, fear and anxiety instantly followed. The consequences of discovery were appalling. The
repercussions on her marriage to Douglas, to begin with. What would the effect be on Stella, if her mother’s secret came out? And what would her own parents think of her?

Diana was so immersed in her thoughts she didn’t realise the phone was ringing until Stella rushed past her and snatched the receiver from its cradle.

‘Hello? I mean
bonjour
,’ she said, looking at her mother with raised eyebrows. ‘
Qui est là?
’ Stella paused a moment before saying: ‘Oh,
hello! No, don’t start talking in French, I’m getting quite enough of that from Maxine, thank you very much. By the way, you realise you forgot your hat this morning, don’t you?
You left it on the hall table, I came running out after you with it but you’d driven off. Yes . . . she’s here. Yes, I think so, although she seems to have gone a bit deaf.’

Stella held out the phone to her mother. ‘It’s Douglas. He wants to know how you’re feeling.’

Diana took the receiver. ‘Hello?’

Douglas’s deep Highland brogue burred down the line. ‘Hello, darling . . . Stella says you’re feeling better. What’s all this about being deaf?’

‘Oh, she’s just trying to be funny. I’m fine. Thanks for letting me sleep in this morning.’

‘Yes, well . . . now look, Diana, I’ve just been doing some ringing around here in Nice, speaking to my wine people. I have to tell you that I think this Peter chap of yours might be
. . . well, not quite as advertised. A wrong ’un.’

Diana’s heart hammered. Had she and James been seen at the Negresco? What on earth had Douglas discovered?

She tried to keep her tone neutral. ‘Really
?
In what way?’

‘Well, it turns out I was right. There
is
no British chap trading in Provençal wine, or any other kind of wine, here in Nice. Apart from me, that is. The last fellow packed
up a couple of years ago when he retired, and he wasn’t even English. He was from Scotland, too.’

Diana’s heart slowed. She managed to keep the relief from her voice. ‘I see. So you mean he was telling me a story?’

‘Yes, it looks like it, and one has to ask oneself why, Diana. I’ve told you before what Nice is like: it’s a nest of vipers. You’ve got the Italian Mafia, the local
gangsters and the smugglers too. They’re all mixed in together, and the police are hopelessly corrupt. There are only a few of us trading legally and above-board. This Peter chap may be mixed
up in something; in fact, he probably is. I don’t want you seeing him again.’

Diana controlled a spurt of anger. This was one of the prices she paid for her marriage to Douglas; every now and then, he felt he had the right to tell her what or what not to do – for
her own good, of course. It made her feel as if she were one of his possessions, something that had been bought and paid for.

She swallowed hard before replying. ‘Of course, Douglas. You’re quite right. I’ll steer clear if I see him again.’

‘Good . . . Well . . .See that you do. Are you going out today?’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But, do you know? Now I think I shall.’

James, so gifted at lying to others, was always brutally honest with himself. Now, sitting on the balcony of his apartment on a street just behind the Promenade des Anglais, he
sipped his orange juice in the morning sunshine and reflected on the extraordinary events of the day before. He was trying to evaluate the situation and work out how to turn it to his advantage.
Sentiment or misplaced romanticism had no place in his thoughts.

He had always known he would see Diana again; for some reason it had been an abiding certainty for years. But when it had actually happened . . . he shook his head slightly. It had taken all of
his self-control not to step back into the taxi and tell the cabbie to drive away. For a few moments he had been completely at a loss as to what to do or say.

Now he offered himself congratulations on the speed with which he had recovered his poise. And on his decision to tell Diana the truth about his life since the day he was shot down. Well, most
of the truth. The business of the bedridden woman in the doctor’s house . . . that had ended rather differently from the way he had described it.

If only the old girl hadn’t opened her eyes as he was taking the pillow from under her head, he would have left her unharmed, really he would. But he’d seen immediately from her
expression that she’d emerged from her earlier confusion and now realised there was a stranger in the room – one she could probably later describe to the police.

He didn’t know if she recognised his RAF uniform as such, but it was a chance he just couldn’t take. His only emotion as he smothered her was irritation that his escape from the
house was being delayed.

Diana would want to know how he was supporting himself here in Nice, and in such style. His apartment was one of the most expensive in the city; he’d bought it outright for cash and
furnished it beautifully. Somewhat to his surprise, James discovered he had an eye for antiques, and the apartment’s spacious drawing room and four bedrooms looked more suitable for a titled
Grimaldi in nearby Monaco than an ex-RAF fighter pilot on the run.

He decided to tell her he dealt in antiques. He had enough knowledge and genuine interest in the subject to get away with that for a fair while; certainly long enough for him to execute the plan
that was beginning to form in his mind as the morning traffic surged four floors beneath his sunny terrace.

James’s thoughts were interrupted by his maid. ‘Telephone,
monsieur
.’

‘Thanks, Roberta.’ He walked into the
salon
and picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’

‘Did you get it?’

‘No. I was . . . diverted.’

‘Will you get it today?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have until the end of the month to get it all. That is our agreement.’

James hung up without speaking again and went back onto the balcony. He was going to have to move fast.

It was clear from the little that Diana had told him already about her marriage to – Dougal? Donald? He was damned if he could remember. Anyway, whatever he was called, the man was
obviously seriously rich. Diana had spoken of what sounded like a mansion in Kensington, and –
Douglas
, that was it – Douglas plainly had the means to buy their second home
down here in France.

And, of course, to buy himself a beautiful wife too. James’s intuition told him that theirs was not exactly a love-match. Diana made him sound more like a father-figure than a husband.
James guessed that she’d probably married the man as much for Stella’s sake as for her own.

Stella. He was curious about her. He had no intention of assuming any kind of responsibility for the kid – Douglas was on the hook for that – and had no desire to get to know her,
even if that turned out to be possible, which he seriously doubted. But he’d quite like to take a look at her. Something told him she might come in useful; a wild card he perhaps could find a
way of playing.

His thoughts moved back to Diana. She had clearly been in a state of shock for most of the time they were together. But he could tell that she found him attractive; in the periods where
she’d relaxed, her expressions revealed that. He’d kept his voice low and that had obliged her to lean forwards, and she’d done so unhesitatingly. When he touched her cheek he
felt her give a little start; he could feel the sexual tension vibrating within her.

Talking Diana into bed was going to be the easiest part of the equation.

It was the other business that was going to be tricky.

And he had barely a week.

Hélène and Armand kept an anxious watch for Diana all morning, but there was no sign of her. By lunchtime it was obvious she wasn’t coming to the
flower-market, and Hélène joined the café-owner at one of his tables. The pair were despondent.

‘How can we get word to her, Armand?’ Hélène asked, stirring the large bowl of milky coffee he had brought her. ‘We even don’t know where she
lives.’