Staying at Daisy's (34 page)

Hector had been loitering at the far end of the High Street for some time. The moment the taxi came into view, he knew it was Maggie and his shoulders involuntarily straightened. Right, this was it. The moment of truth. He was either about to make the most monumental pillock of himself or…

Never mind that. She was back and he had to see her. The taxi pulled up outside the cottage, Maggie stepped out and Hector’s heart turned over. If he was honest, he’d spent the last two years being a pillock—it had just taken him until now to figure it out.

‘Maggie,’ he shouted as she searched in her bag for the front door key. The taxi drove off and she looked up at him, sunglasses perched on her head keeping her tousled blonde hair off her face. Not tousled as in artfully-arranged-for-a-glossy-magazine. Maggie’s hair was naturally tousled because she never remembered to brush it.

‘Hector.’ Her manner was guarded; she was wondering why he was rushing over like this, accosting her in broad daylight in the street.

‘I need to see you.’ Hector ground to a halt six feet away from her. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to get back. We have to talk.’

‘About what?’

Unable to stop himself, Hector blurted out, ‘Did you sleep with him?’

Silence. Maggie stared at him, then at the small gaggle of camera-wielding tourists making their way past on the opposite side of the street.

‘Why?’ she managed at last. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

‘It’s got everything to do with me! It
matters
.’

‘Sshh. Will you keep your voice down?’

‘I will not,’ Hector practically bawled. ‘I don’t care if the whole village hears me.’

Startled, Maggie turned and jammed her key into the front door. Hector might not care, but she certainly did. And how dare he insinuate that while it was fine for him to sleep with someone else, she shouldn’t be allowed to do the same?

‘You’d better come in.’ Pointedly she added, ‘Where’s Paula?’

‘I don’t know. Getting her nails done… I don’t
care
.’ Hector waved a dismissive arm in the direction of the hotel. When he’d last seen her, Paula had been awaiting a visit from some manicurist. As far as she was concerned, he was playing golf this afternoon. ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded now. ‘I said we need to talk.’

‘Just checking the machine.’ Maggie had headed on through to the kitchen. He watched as she opened the front of the washer-dryer, pulled out a white lamb’s wool sweater, and lovingly ran her hands over its pristine softness.

‘Look at that,’ she marveled.

‘Put it down.’ Hector was on the verge of losing his patience. ‘None of this would ever have happened if you’d let me buy you a new machine when I offered.’

Maggie carefully hung the sweater over the back of a chair. ‘Why are you being like this?’

‘Because I love you,’ Hector bellowed in exasperation. ‘I love you, and I can’t stand to think of you being with that man!’

Maggie stared at him. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘Do I look as if I’m joking? Maggie, you have to know the truth. For some time now, this arrangement of ours… God, I’ve
hated
it. Not the sex,’ Hector hastily amended. ‘Of course I didn’t hate the sex. But paying for it… well, it just made me feel…’

‘Hector—’

‘No, let me finish. I wanted more,’ he said urgently. ‘I realized I had feelings for you, but I also knew you were only doing it for the money. If I didn’t pay you, you wouldn’t sleep with me anymore. And I couldn’t give you up, I just
couldn’t
.’ Hector shook his head. ‘I looked forward to seeing you more than you’ll ever know. I used to count the hours—’

‘Until Paula came along,’ Maggie said unsteadily. Had he really counted the hours?

‘I wanted a proper relationship, one that was open and above board. Is that too much to ask?’ Hector’s eyes registered despair. ‘It’s no good, though. I realize that now. Paula isn’t the one for me. She’s not my kind of woman.’ He waited, then said flatly, ‘You are.’

‘Is this really happening?’ Maggie was in a daze.

‘It’s really happening. I’m telling you how I feel,’ said Hector. ‘Of course the rest’s up to you. I’m putting myself well and truly on the line here. All I know is that you like me enough to sleep with me for money. But I don’t want to be your… client anymore. I want to see you properly. So, do you think you could handle that, or am I making a complete idiot of myself here?’ He shuddered and straightened his shirt collar. ‘If I am, just tell me. I can handle it.’

‘Oh!’ For the first time in a long time, Maggie was lost for words. She knew she should be interrupting by now, putting him out of his misery, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. What if she’d somehow misunderstood him? What if her brain was sneakily
willing
her to believe he was saying what she thought he’d just said?

‘Right,’ Hector announced, quite masterfully under the circumstances. ‘I’ve said my piece. Now it’s your turn.’

‘I-I…’ God, I’m hopeless.

‘Yes? Or no?’ His tone was terse.

Panicked, Maggie squeaked, ‘Yes!’ before he could walk out on her. Then, clutching her sunglasses, she stammered, ‘Wh-what have I just agreed to?’

‘You and me.’ Hector risked a half-smile. ‘Giving it a go. Without money changing hands. Are you sure you’re OK with that?’

Maggie swallowed. ‘Yes.’ It came out less frantically this time.

Encouraged, Hector took a step towards her. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I’m finishing with Paula tonight. Is that OK with you?’

What a question.

‘Yes,’ whispered Maggie.

‘I’ve already told you I love you. But this thing with whatsisname, the repairman. Will you promise me you won’t see him again?’

‘There is no thing. There never was any
thing
.’ Unbelievably touched by the fact that he had been jealous, Maggie had to clear her throat at this point. Reaching out to him she reiterated, ‘Nothing happened. He slept on the sofa.’

Relief was etched on Hector’s lined face as clearly as if she’d scribbled all over it with felt-tip.

‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly.’

‘I bet he wanted to.’

Maggie surveyed him with amusement. ‘Oh well, goes without saying, of course he wanted to.’ Under the circumstances, she felt a trace of smugness was allowed.

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Hector’s voice softened, his hand moving up to stroke her hair. ‘You’re a beautiful woman.’

‘But I turned him down,’ said Maggie.

‘Why?’

‘Because he wasn’t you.’

Hector’s arms folded round her. His kiss felt like coming home. Finally Maggie pulled away, just a fraction.

‘I never wanted your money.’ She blinked back tears of joy. ‘I only took it so you’d carry on coming to see me.’

Hector kissed her again, hard. Gruffly he said, ‘We’ve been a couple of idiots.’

‘Look on the bright side.’ Maggie broke into a smile. ‘We’ve got some catching up to do.’

‘Excellent thought. And no time like the present,’ murmured Hector.

‘But what about Tara? She could be back any time now.’

Hector shook his head and grinned at her. ‘Who cares?’

***

‘Oh shit,’ Tara hissed, torn between horror and delight. ‘They’re coming upstairs!’

‘This is fantastic,’ whispered Josh, behind her in the bedroom doorway. ‘It’s going to be like
This Is Your Life
.’

He was shaking with silent laughter. Typical man. Tara turned and gave him a thump. In return, he shoved her out onto the tiny landing.

‘Oof,’ gasped Tara, bouncing off the opposite wall.

‘Oh, good grief,’ she heard Maggie shriek from halfway up the stairs. ‘What was
that
?’

Ah well, here goes…

‘Don’t panic,’ Tara hastily assured them. ‘It’s only me. Well,’ she amended, grabbing Josh’s arm and yanking him out onto the landing with her, ‘it’s only
us
.’

The next moment Maggie, closely followed by Hector, came into view.

‘I don’t believe this.’ Maggie’s hands flew to her mouth in horror. ‘Have you two been up here
all this time
?’

‘Well, I’m not Peter Pan.’ Tara gave her a pitying look. ‘I didn’t fly in through the bedroom window.’

‘And I’m not Tinkerbell,’ added Josh.

Maggie was cyclamen-pink. Mortified, she gasped, ‘Were you… um, listening to us?’

‘I wasn’t,’ said Josh. ‘I had my fingers in my ears. But Tara was,’ he went on helpfully, wincing as she whacked him again.

‘We weren’t
trying
to listen,’ Tara protested. ‘It was impossible not to. You weren’t exactly keeping your voices down.’

Maggie said faintly, ‘So you heard everything.’

‘Pretty much.’ Tara was still having a hard time believing what they
had
heard. She was stunned. Imagine, Maggie and Hector…

Maggie
and
Hector
, for crying out loud!

But amazingly, whereas the thought of Maggie and Dino spending last night together and getting intimate had outraged her, this even more astounding scenario wasn’t unsettling her at all. Despite the fact that she was obviously still in shock, Tara realized she could handle this quite easily. There was even a touch of admiration in there somewhere.

Looking helpless, Maggie said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Bloody hell, what is going on here?’ Hector exploded. ‘You are
not
sorry, OK? Neither of us is sorry. In fact we’re very, very happy, and nothing you or anyone else says is going to change that.’

All this time, Tara marveled. Honestly, it just went to show you couldn’t trust anyone, not even a spinsterish middle-aged cushion-making aunt.

‘
How
long did you say this has been going on?’ Maggie hadn’t said it at all, but Tara was longing to know.

Proudly, Hector put his arm round Maggie’s shoulders. ‘Two years.
Over
two years.’

Maggie had finally stopped blushing; even her throat was back to its normal color. Hector’s confidence was catching.

‘Two years and four months,’ she told Tara.

‘By the way,’ Hector counter-attacked, ‘what were you two doing upstairs?’

‘Tara was telling me she’s thinking of redecorating her room.’ Innocently Josh indicated his lime-green sweater. ‘She wanted to see how this color would look on the walls.’

Biting her lip hard, Tara struggled to keep a straight face.

‘Two years and four months. And all this time he was paying you? Actually
paying
you?’

‘Let me tell you, she was worth every penny.’ Lovingly, Hector squeezed Maggie’s arm.

‘I hope you’re not going to give me a lecture,’ Maggie said bravely.

‘Bugger the lecture, I think it’s a fantastic idea! In fact,’ Tara gave Josh a nudge, ‘I think I might give it a go myself.’

***

‘Dad, I need to see you.’ Daisy darted out of her office, catching Hector as he was heading up to his apartment.

Hector, giving up with good grace, turned and said, ‘Thought you might.’

Daisy wished his eyes didn’t have to be so twinkly. She really wasn’t looking forward to doing this. What if he thought she was embroidering the truth simply because she didn’t like Paula?

And she wasn’t, she honestly wasn’t. More than anything else in the world she wanted Hector to be happy.

‘So Tara rang you,’ he announced as she closed the office door behind him.

‘Tara? Why would Tara ring me?’ Oh, stop it, stop looking so
cheerful
.

‘Never mind,’ said Hector. ‘Now, what’s this about?’

Here we go, thought Daisy. Whatever Hector decided, she wasn’t going to argue with him. He just deserved to know he was involved with the kind of woman who would kick a small dog like a football.

Feeling terrible, she told him about the night of the fire and Clarissa’s run-in with Paula.

Hector listened patiently. When she had finished, he said, ‘You never did like her much, did you?’

Daisy squirmed. ‘Well, no. But that’s not why I’m telling you.’

‘I know.’ He nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment. ‘D’you like Maggie?’

‘Who?’ Completely wrong-footed, Daisy said in bewilderment, ‘You mean Tara’s Maggie?’

‘That’s the one.’

What in heaven’s name was he on about? What kind of question was that? Indignantly Daisy said, ‘Of course I like Maggie!’

Rising from his seat to leave, Hector replied with a smile of satisfaction, ‘Good.’

‘Excuse me,
what
did you just say?’

Paula stared at Hector in disbelief. One minute she’d been happily chatting on the phone to her agent whilst admiring her just-manicured apricot-pink fingernails. Then, in the space of less than thirty seconds, Hector had burst into her suite and announced that their relationship was over.

For a few moments she’d actually waited for him to deliver the punch line and start laughing, so convinced was she that it was a joke.

But Hector was showing no sign of amusement, and there didn’t appear to be a punch line in sight.

‘No hard feelings,’ Hector said calmly. ‘It was fun while it lasted.’ Although, now he came to think about it, this wasn’t altogether true. Paula never had been much of a one for fun. Still, it sounded good.

‘You’re
finishing
with me?’ Paula’s mouth narrowed to a hard line. This had never happened to her before. Throughout her life, she had always been the one who did the finishing. For Christ’s sake, she was Paula Penhaligon!

‘I think it’s run its course, don’t you?’ Hector’s hands were in his trouser pockets, his stance casual. As if they were discussing a restaurant that had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

‘This is outrageous,’ Paula exploded. ‘You must be out of your mind!’

‘You kicked Clarissa.’

‘
What?
’

‘Dev Tyzack’s dog. The night of the fire.’

Now she knew he was deranged. ‘You’re saying it’s over between us because I kicked a
dog
?’

Hector said, ‘Isn’t that reason enough?’ Then he hesitated. The sooner this was over, the better for all concerned. ‘OK, it’s not the main reason. There is someone else.’

‘You’re lying.’ Paula’s glossy apricot nails dug into her palms. ‘How
can
there be someone else? We’re always together—you haven’t had time to see someone else!’

Hector shook his head. ‘She’s someone I’ve known for a long time. A lovely lady. She lives here in the village.’

‘I don’t believe this.’ He was actually finishing with her for some other woman? The nerve of it! Her eyes like shards of steel, Paula hissed, ‘Who is she?’

Relax. No more secrets. Everything out in the open.

‘Her name’s Maggie. She’s Tara’s aunt.’

Oh no,
no
, this was too much. Not half an hour ago Paula had been flicking through the newspaper, reading the story of the repairman held hostage and studying the accompanying photograph. It was, she’d discovered, the same woman whom she’d last seen bedraggled and sprawled on all fours in the snow with a smashed bottle of wine at her feet.

‘She wears a parka!’

‘So do I,’ said Hector.

Enraged, Paula picked up a glass ashtray and hurled it at him. Even more infuriatingly, it missed and bounced off the wall. ‘You bastard,’ she screeched at Hector. ‘Just fucking
get out
.’

***

Almost there, almost there. Feeling like a private detective, Daisy double-checked the name of the road and took a deep breath. Yesterday, looking up the address on the computer in her office, she had jumped a mile when the door had been flung open by Pam. Prickling with guilt and convinced she’d been found out, Daisy had sent the mouse scooting across her desk and yelped, ‘What d’you want?’

Of course that had been Pam’s cue to exclaim, ‘You’ll never guess what’s just happened. Paula Penhaligon’s gone!’

Which had been a double relief.

Paula, it transpired, had called Barney up to her suite to collect her packed bags. She had then stormed out of the hotel and into a waiting car without so much as a goodbye. Nor had she left Barney a tip.

Daisy was just glad Pam hadn’t come bursting into the office to accuse her of looking up Dev’s address because she fancied him rotten.

But like a song you hear on the radio and can’t get out of your head, Daisy had been haunted by Pam and Brenda’s remarks. If Dev was only pretending that his house had been wrecked in order to move into the hotel, could it be possible that he was doing it because he did have, as Brenda put it, a soft spot for her? It sounded completely mad, but Daisy couldn’t rest until she knew. She also knew she couldn’t ask Dev.

Which was why she was here now, turning into Garrick Avenue. And since it was a simple enough mission, there was absolutely no need to be nervous. Dev lived at number 15, further down on the left. All she had to do was drive past the house and see if there were any decorators’ vans parked outside. Painters and decorators invariably used vans advertising their company name. One little van, that was all she needed to put Brenda’s ridiculously far-fetched theory out of her mind for good.

Slowly Daisy drove the entire length of the broad, tree-lined street.

She turned at the end and drove back again.

Apart from a smart green and white one delivering food from a delicatessen to number 38, there were no vans.

Oh shit. Daisy’s mouth was dry, her stomach squirming like a nest of snakes. She’d kind of guessed, of course, that Dev found her attractive—he’d never made an effort to hide it. But for an apparently normal man to lie through his teeth and move into a hotel that quite frankly wasn’t cheap, purely in order to be near someone he liked—well, wasn’t that the tiniest bit sinister? Dev didn’t seem like an obsessed stalker but he might just be brilliant at hiding it.

Unsettled by this creepy thought, Daisy stopped the car. It was only four o’clock; the decorators should still be here. She’d been so sure she’d find a van in the road.

OK, be sensible now. Maybe Dev was using a decorator who for some reason didn’t own a van. She’d come this far, she may as well take a closer look. If she wandered casually past the house she might catch a glimpse of a strange man in paint-splashed overalls through one of the windows. Since she’d left Dev back at the hotel it would even be safe to ring the doorbell and see if a painter type answered it.

And then? Well, pretend to be a Jehovah’s Witness, obviously, and pray he’d slam the door in her face.

But when she rang the bell, there was no response. Nobody, painterly or otherwise, came to answer the door. Daisy tried again.

Still nothing.

She moved to one of the front windows. With the sun bouncing off the glass it was hard to see inside, but there certainly didn’t appear to be any stepladders and paint pots cluttering the place up. By cupping her hands around her eyes and pressing her nose to the window she was able to make out a Georgian dining table and chairs in the center of the room, a rather grand marble fireplace and several nicely framed paintings hung on walls papered with—

‘Daisy?’

So engrossed in the act of snooping that she hadn’t even heard the car pulling up, Daisy banged her nose painfully against the glass and jack-knifed round.

Bottle-green, that was the color of Dev’s dining room wallpaper.

Feeling pretty white-with-a-hint-of-green herself, Daisy waved feebly at Dev in the driver’s seat.

This was, officially, An Embarrassing Moment.

‘Um… hi.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you doing here?’

Daisy winced. She’d been so hoping he wouldn’t ask that question. Her brain, scrambling hamster-style for some kind of answer, was spectacularly failing to come up with one. Unless she could manage to convince Dev that in her spare time she actually
was
a door-knocking Jehovah’s Witness.

While she dithered, Dev reversed into a tight space. Annoyingly, he did it in about two seconds flat without even hitting the curb or the car behind.

‘Well?’ he said, when he reached Daisy.

Mentally she psyched herself up. Sometimes, when you couldn’t think of a single convincing lie, you just had to resort to the truth.

OK, Mr Expert-Reverser, let’s see you get out of this one.

‘I wondered how your decorating was coming along.’

‘You asked me that the other day.’ Dev waited. ‘I told you, it’s almost finished.’

Despite the fact that he clearly didn’t believe her, Daisy persisted brightly, ‘Can I see the house?’

‘Why?’

Oh sod it, may as well come clean. ‘Because someone recently told me that they didn’t think your house was being redecorated. In fact, they thought there’d probably never been any burst pipes and flooding in the first place.’

‘Really?’ The corners of his mouth flickered for a moment. ‘And am I allowed to ask what made them think that?’

Not wanting to implicate Pam and Brenda, Daisy waved an arm at the parked cars lining the street. ‘Where are your decorators?’

‘Finished early today,’ said Dev. ‘They’re off to some bachelor party in Cheltenham.’

Was this a lie?

‘So can I see what they’ve been doing?’

He hesitated.

He
was
lying!

‘OK,’ Dev said at last. ‘If it’ll make you happy.’

Daisy watched him fit the key into the lock. Her heart began to beat faster.

As the front door swung open she was instantly struck by…