The First Cut (22 page)

When he left there was nothing to distract the two women and Nicky stared awkwardly at the floor. ‘Come, come, sit down,’ Liz said, pulling out a chair. ‘So. You been busy?’ Liz was looking at her accusingly.

Nicky gave a small laugh. ‘No, but I’ve got some time off,’ she lied.

‘And on a roasting hot day you came all the way to south London to see me.’

Nicky smiled and acknowledged the dig. ‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’

Liz leaned back against the kitchen cupboards and kicked distractedly at a door with a stubborn hinge that wouldn’t close. ‘Well, start at the beginning. That’s usually best.’

‘What was Greg like when he was younger?’

‘Greg?’ Liz looked surprised and uncomfortable. ‘That’s a funny question. Why do you want to know?’ There was a hint of steel there, a suspicion.

Lies always work best when they’re based on truth, Nicky decided. ‘Well, to be totally honest, Greg and I are having difficulties in our marriage and I thought that maybe if I knew more about his past I could . . . use it to help us.’

Nicky saw Liz looking keenly at her. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Really I am. Believe me, I know how difficult it is to keep a marriage on track. You’re lucky you don’t have children – that makes it ten times worse.’ Nicky shifted awkwardly in her chair. ‘Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean that!’ Yes, you did, thought Nicky; that’s exactly what you meant. There was an awkward silence. ‘What problems are you having, if you don’t mind me asking?’

Embarrassed, Nicky traced her finger through the burned crumbs on the table. ‘Oh I don’t know, Liz, he just seems so different now we’re married. He’s so distant . . . cut off from me, somehow.’

Liz let out a theatrical sigh. ‘I think he’s scared. After what he’s been through, it’s no surprise.’

‘Maybe he needs to have more counselling, but he won’t go. It’s an argument I’ve lost.’

‘He can be very stubborn.’

‘So . . . prior to Grace?’

‘Grace . . .’ Liz paused and took out a ham studded with cloves from the fridge. She picked up a boning knife and began to cut slices from it. ‘Well, there were lots of women – you know Greg!’

Nicky nodded. Grace had said as much.

‘Grace was young and fun and attractive, but she had more to her than that too. She wasn’t just a pretty PR dolly or someone who dabbled in the art market, yet with all her doting dad’s money behind her she could well have been.’ Liz was talking as if Nicky had never known Grace, but she stayed silent and listened. Nicky could well see how that kind of girl made Liz spit. ‘She had a bit of grit to her.’ She paused and picked a clove from the back of the ham.

‘She was very driven,’ Nicky added.

‘I guess she was. He was very happy with her, I really believe that. He’s a different man now. She changed him, she brought out his ambition, gave him the funds and the drive to succeed. She carried him along, so to speak, and after she’d gone, he never stopped.’

‘What about before Grace?’

‘Oh. God, I can’t remember their names. There was never a break in the women. There was a homeopath and then a dancer. I think he left her for the mad one.’

Nicky sighed. ‘He’s a man who makes sure he has hold of the next vine before he lets go of the first, so to speak.’

Liz smiled, picking up a slice of ham from the plate. ‘Like Tarzan, swinging through the jungle, vine to vine,’ she said playfully, shaking the slice of ham to and fro in front of her face.

‘At least I’m not a jumper,’ Nicky added. She was thinking about her own love history, how she had always prided herself on not lining up a boyfriend to replace one she had tired of. She was strong enough to live life alone if needs be.

‘So he told you about that?’ Liz was staring at her intently, the piece of ham dangling in front of her mouth.

Nicky waved her hand to play for time. Told her what exactly? ‘Yeah, he told me all about that.’

Liz let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God. I told him he had to tell you. Relationships can’t survive secrets like that. It would have sent him mad.’ Nicky’s mouth was dry. She’d only wanted to score some small petty victory over Liz and suddenly she was staring at a chasm of secrets. ‘When did he tell you?’

Nicky hesitated and made a split-second decision. ‘Quite recently.’

‘I’d take that as a very good sign. He always swore to me that no one else was ever going to find out. If he’s opening up to you, it’s a sign of great progress. Even Mum and Dad don’t know and he never told Grace.’

‘Why didn’t he tell them?’

‘I think he felt a failure, in Dad’s eyes in particular. He thought that maybe they’d think it was somehow his fault. He would have been such a great dad.’

Nicky felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. She fought to stay nonchalant. ‘Yes, a lot of what ifs. How old would the child be now?’

‘Oh, about ten, I guess.’

Nicky shook her head, reeling. ‘Was she very different from Grace?’

‘Francesca?’ Nicky nodded, though she had no idea who Francesca was. ‘Well, she was another blonde, of course. God, my brother’s such a cliché, love him as I do. They’ve all been blondes. You’ve all been blondes! I didn’t meet her very often.’ Liz popped the ham into her mouth. She gave Nicky a sly grin. ‘I don’t think any of them liked me. I was Greg’s big, loud, older sister. I don’t do the kowtowing to the young blondes very well.’

‘You’ve certainly never kowtowed to me, and for that I’m eternally grateful.’

Liz finally revealed a smile Nicky took to be genuine. It softened her face and made her look almost maternal. ‘To be honest, I thought he got together with Grace too soon. She looked like Francesca and I wondered if that was the overriding reason they were together. But I do think they were in love, desperately in love.’

Nicky was leaning forward, hanging on Liz’s every word. She realized that even though she was married to Greg, she knew very little about his romantic history. A baby. Greg nearly became a father. She didn’t know who Greg had dated or when. The past was filled with Grace, the agony of her; she was impossible to move beyond, and there had been precious little room for anyone else. Now Liz, unwittingly, was revealing another life before Grace, with a drama and heartache all its own. It was like she was reading chapters of Greg’s life, the pages finally opening and divulging how he became the man she married; the man who could keep secrets so totally from her.

‘To suffer like that, it’s bound to affect him. He’s become so safety-conscious, so superstitious! He tells me that he never stays anywhere but the ground floor now! I mean, honestly!’

Nicky played along. ‘He makes me turn off every fuse in the fuse box when I change a light bulb.’

‘There! Told you!’ They both laughed.

‘You love your brother very much, don’t you?’

Liz gave up pulling delicate strips off the ham; she cut a thick chunk and began chewing vigorously. ‘More than ham itself.’

They both giggled, a sound Nicky had never heard from Liz before. There was a softer side under the harried and efficient social worker and single mother. Maybe Liz could be an ally in the work that needed to be done to understand Greg. ‘Where’s Francesca now?’

Liz slapped her piece of ham back on the worktop and folded her arms. She stared at Nicky, her eyes narrowed. Nicky swallowed. Something had just gone wrong. Silence filled the kitchen. When Liz spoke again her voice was flinty. ‘You little bitch. He didn’t tell you any of it, did he?’ Nicky opened her mouth but could think of nothing to say. She found she was shrinking back against the chair as Liz took a step across the kitchen. ‘You’re out of your depth, little girl. You’ll drown if you go any further.’

Nicky got out of her chair fast and grabbed her bag. Their chat was obviously at an end. As Nicky fled down the corridor Liz called out again. ‘Ignorance is bliss, Nicky. Keep it that way.’

Liz felt the walls of the house shudder as the front door banged shut into its warped-wood frame. She walked down the corridor and checked up the stairs. Dan’s bedroom door was closed. There had been no witness, but she was still angry at herself for getting caught out in such a basic way, and after she’d kept her counsel so efficiently over the years. But then that was her all over, Liz felt: covering up others’ mistakes, repairing those who were broken, doing the difficult, unseen work that was never recognized. There would be no televised, black-tie gala for her work, she knew. Her back was never going to be slapped, her ears would never ring with fatuous applause. She walked stiffly back into the kitchen, picked up another piece of ham and stared at it, the fat running through the meat like veins in marble. They were like mistakes winding through a life; you could try to cut them out but traces of them always remained. She dropped it back on the plate, her appetite gone, and picked up the phone. She jabbed at the speed dial and left a terse message. ‘You need to look out. She’s on to you.’

T
roy had given a false name and pulled out some fake ID when the policeman got round to interviewing him after the ambulance had taken Nicky to hospital. Various scenarios had churned through his mind. He’d watched the officer taking down all his details. Seen in black and white he didn’t want his name associated with this in any way, however tangentially. A squad car had driven off down the lane to the big house, the two uniforms, having got the garbled story off Nicky, looking as apprehensive as if they were hunting down Jaws.

He would have asked questions, tried to get extra information, but he could tell this lot knew even less than he did. Struan seen off by a poshie! If he wasn’t brown bread he’d have been embarrassed. Struan had made the fundamental error Troy himself had never made: he’d underestimated his opponent. He guessed Struan hadn’t anticipated the aggressive butchery of a man on the ropes in his own property. But Struan’s casual approach now presented Troy with a problem. Things had suddenly become a lot harder, the stakes a lot higher. There was a trail to find if you dug far enough; there was always a trail. Troy had started to mentally tick off separations that would have to be made, safeguards he would have to employ to distance himself as much as possible from Struan.

He had had no idea how the woman would react to a delay in the job, or, God forbid, to the publicity that might be generated. She was an unknown and he was exposed, which was not a feeling he liked. For the first time in a long time, Troy had felt fear. His attempts to cash in and gather that retirement fund were looking more delusional by the minute. Bloody Struan. He had begun to feel as stressed and irritated as any other manager trying to corral inefficient and under-performing employees. Troy couldn’t share others’ pain or feel their anguish, but he could put himself in other people’s shoes on a practical level. He suspected that once this got out the woman would want to cut all ties with him as soon as possible. And Troy knew exactly how he himself would tackle that task.

And then there was the day job. Lyndon B was still his employer. Even though he was recovering from a heart scare and was in the south of France, and so Troy didn’t have to go anywhere by plane with him, things had a funny way of travelling back to Lyndon, and he was someone Troy never wanted to get on the wrong side of. Lyndon had known Darek, the supplier of the list of hits that had led him to the woman, but Troy had no idea how they all linked up, if at all, or how Lyndon might react if he discovered what freelance work Troy had been attempting to take on the side. Trying to think through the ramifications of this had given Troy a headache of monstrous proportions.

This was not a moment to be weak; it was a moment to be ballsy. He had watched the metal arms of the tow truck begin to tighten round the belly of his motor, the man in Day-Glo adjusting the straps. Troy currently had one advantage: no one knew what had happened – yet. He had to turn that to his favour. As his car had been hoisted off the road and out of the hedge with a tearing, metallic judder, he had made his decision.

N
icky fled back home from Liz’s house to find Greg’s car being unloaded from a recovery truck. A cheery man in overalls made her sign some papers before revving the engine and driving away with a wave.

She sat in the living room staring at Greg’s car in the street. Liz’s words wouldn’t leave her head; her abrupt transformation was . . . horrifying. She was a guard dog snapping at anyone who got close to her brother’s secrets. But Liz had made a mistake, and now Nicky was on a trail of discovery. I am his wife, she thought with outrage; you can’t keep me out. It was time to start digging.

She started in the study, a room she never used as she preferred to work on a laptop on the kitchen table. Greg had imposed a kind of shambolic order and she knew the photos were stored in a filing cabinet. Her drawer was the bottom one, Greg’s the top. It opened with a dependable screech and she started sorting through the mess of dog-eared envelopes filled with negatives and photos, half the packets ripped through age or neglect, stray photos or negative strips popping up at odd angles. She began to dig back through the strata of Greg’s life, the ages before digital. As she sifted, years of her husband’s life seemed to be absent, and then she’d open a package and an afternoon or an evening of the thousands that had gone unrecorded and unremarked would jump right out of the past and make itself felt. She found a fat envelope filled with photos of a single afternoon on a foreign beach: fresh-faced twenty-somethings gurned and sprawled; there were blurry shots of people moving too fast or everyone looking the wrong way; a woman in a bikini bending over to adjust a towel. She recognized no one except a shockingly young Greg: skinnier, sometimes smoking, often in sunglasses.

A few packs further down she found a series of moody, black and white shots of Greg in a fisherman’s hat and cropped trousers. He could have been no more than twenty-five. The rococo balcony in the background and the geraniums made it unmistakably Paris. Below that she found some photos of a woman’s pubic hair triangle, and there were two shots of Greg laid out naked on a bed in a brown room, a livid sunburn on the tops of his thighs. The next photo was a blurry close-up of balls and a dick. She turned it this way and that, resisting the urge to laugh. She didn’t know if it was Greg’s or not, surprised she couldn’t remember what her husband’s own member looked like. Underneath were a few professional head shots from his agency, and then right at the bottom, in a reversal of the fresher-to-the-older order of memories were the photos of his wedding to Grace, the ones that hadn’t made the cut into the album downstairs. A lump formed at the back of her throat. She closed the drawer quickly to choke off the flashbacks.