Their Little Secret Read online

  ‘How have your meetings been going?’ she asks. ‘These investors or whatever.’

  ‘Still as boring as they were two days ago.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re splashing out on a nice hotel, at least.’

  He nods. ‘Oh God, yes.’

  ‘Chocolate on the pillow?’

  ‘Of course. And plenty of nice smellies to pinch out of the bathroom.’

  ‘Take back to the Midlands.’

  ‘Right. I’ve got a cupboard full.’

  When the plates have been cleared and the table wiped, he orders another bottle of beer and says, ‘So, tell me about Jamie’s dad then.’

  It’s a very smooth move, Sarah thinks. Showing her that he’s sensitive and not remotely threatened by the previous men in her life. Or trying to appear that way. Either way she’s happy enough, because it’s a nice easy one.

  ‘He’s called Peter, and thankfully he lives a long way away, and marrying him was the biggest mistake I ever made. Or anyone’s ever made, come to that. Seriously, it’s right up there with the Millennium Dome, or buying a ticket on the Titanic.’

  ‘A short-sighted Dalek trying to shag a dustbin?’

  Sarah laughs. ‘Basically, it was a really stupid thing to do. I mean I got Jamie out of it, so not all bad. Just mostly bad.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He was just awful to live with. Horrible. He had a foul temper which only got worse, because I didn’t like him trying to turn me into someone I wasn’t. Oh, and there were a couple of affairs, mustn’t forget those, which I stupidly thought I’d be able to handle. He ground me down, basically.’ She picks up her glass. She sits back and grins. ‘Until I just woke up one day and told him where to go.’

  ‘Nice,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah, eventually. I got the house, all paid off and worth a damn sight more than it was when I threw him out, and there’s a nice fat cheque for child support which pops through the letterbox four times a year, so I’m sorted.’

  ‘Certainly sounds like it.’

  ‘I make enough from the writing to buy food and pay the bills. For the phone, the car, all that stuff … and I can treat me and Jamie to a few trips away.’ She shakes her head, brushes a loose strand of hair from her face. ‘If I’m honest, I lie awake at night sometimes, wondering if that was really me, you know? Putting up with all that. It’s like it happened to someone else.’

  He nods, thoughtful, sympathetic. ‘Does Jamie still see him?’

  ‘A couple of times a year, that’s all, because that’s what we agreed, but it’s starting to upset him.’

  He looks confused.

  ‘Jamie, I mean. Peter’s just this bloke who takes him on holiday twice a year and buys him toys he doesn’t play with. Jamie doesn’t know him, never really even talks about him. That’s not being a dad, is it?’

  For a second or two before he looks down at the table, she sees something dark wash across his face. ‘No,’ he says. ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘So, go on, then. What about you?’

  When he looks up, the smile is back on full beam. ‘Well, there’ve been a few mistakes, I suppose. Nothing as bad as that … not Titanic level, but, you know, plenty of false starts.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh, just usual relationship stuff. People getting jealous or feeling pressured or whatever. Work getting in the way. Probably my fault as much as theirs, a lot of them.’

  Sarah raises her eyebrows as she pours what’s left of the bottle into her glass. ‘So, there’ve been a lot of them?’

  ‘About average, I reckon.’

  He asks her if she fancies pudding. She rubs her stomach and shakes her head. She watches him signal for the bill and says, ‘In the end, it’s all about timing, isn’t it? Meeting the right person at the right time.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘In the right coffee shop.’

  He leans towards her. ‘Sometimes, it’s just blind luck.’

  ‘Luck or not, it’s about learning from your mistakes and trying not to repeat them.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not going to make any more mistakes,’ he says.

  She lets him drop her off, though she only lives five minutes away. It’s a big deal, she knows that, letting him see where she lives. It’s cold anyway and, in truth, she didn’t much fancy the walk, but she’d guessed that he would offer and had decided in advance that it was a step she was prepared to take.

  They undo their seat-belts and sit in his car – a high-end Mercedes – with the engine running. The car is immaculate, which Sarah takes as a very good sign, and there’s some kind of air-freshener, which would normally make her feel a bit sick, but doesn’t. She thinks it makes the car smell almost as nice as he does.

  As fresh and ready to spoil.

  ‘Asking you to come in for a coffee or whatever would be pushing it a bit, wouldn’t it?’ She turns to look at him. ‘Be a bit slutty.’

  ‘Hugely,’ he says.

  ‘Long as we agree.’ But she very much wants him to. Something else she’s been thinking about all day. Three days since she met him, but she’d happily take him inside to show him just how slutty she can be.

  Or shy, yet willing.

  Or helpless …

  Whatever he wanted.

  Music had begun playing as soon as he’d started the car. Something laid back and jazzy, but with a tune, which she likes. She watches him reach to turn it down. He’s got perfect fingernails.

  He says, ‘Thanks for a nice evening. Another one.’

  ‘I aim to please.’

  ‘Oh, you do …’ He leans across to kiss her. She parts her lips, but he angles his head at the last moment to kiss her cheek.

  She leans away, breathing faster and harder than she can remember in a while. ‘OK,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t want to seem too needy.’

  ‘I think I can see how needy you are.’ She nods towards his lap, his excitement clearly visible, even beneath the thick denim.

  He grins, wolfish, and lowers a hand to cover himself. ‘Don’t worry, I can sort myself out when I get back to the hotel.’

  A line comes into her head and she feels blood rising to her face. She almost says, Well, call me if you need a hand, but decides he already knows exactly what she’s thinking.

  Sarah opens the car door.

  ‘The best things come to those who wait.’ Conrad pushes a button and the car purrs into life. ‘The best.’

  TWELVE

  Thorne held up a bottle of wine when Tanner opened the door. ‘The finest in the Oddbins reasonably-priced-and-not-too-disgusting range.’ He handed his offering across.

  Tanner examined the label. ‘Excellent. And I’ve got a few cheap cans of beer in the fridge for you. Let’s drown our sorrows.’

  ‘My sorrows, you mean,’ Thorne said. ‘You’ve got nothing much to be sorry about, because you weren’t expecting it to go anywhere.’

  The results of the forensic tests Thorne had been waiting for had come in just before knocking-off time the previous day. The fingerprints belonging to the man who had conned Philippa Goodwin were not on record and his DNA was not on file in the national database.

  ‘OK,’ Tanner said. ‘So let’s not bother naming it and just get hammered.’

  She moved back to let Thorne in and stood to one side. Thorne stepped forward, taking care to look straight ahead as he entered, to keep his eyes from the floor while trying not to be too obvious about it. The carpet in Tanner’s hallway was no longer brand new, but he remembered the state of the one it had replaced well enough.

  The bloodstains and the white spatter where the bleach had spilled.

  This was the spot on which Tanner’s partner, Susan, had been stabbed to death almost a year and a half earlier.

  ‘Go through and sit down,’ Tanner said. ‘I’ll grab you a beer.’

  Thorne did not need to ask if Tanner had tidied up because she was expecting company. The woman simply did not do untidy. If anything, the TV lis
tings magazine lying open on the coffee table and the slippers, side by side next to the couch, made the place appear positively messy in comparison to its normal state of show-home perfection.

  ‘Getting a bit sloppy in your old age,’ he said, when she brought his beer in.

  ‘Piss off,’ she said. Then, ‘What?’

  Thorne pointed and Tanner moved quickly to fold and file the magazine beneath the table and gather up the offending footwear. ‘Dinner’s only going to be five minutes,’ she said. ‘I just need to heat it up, basically.’

  ‘M and S pasta, is it?’

  Tanner raised a finger and turned away, shouting back as she walked towards the kitchen. ‘I told you, I’m getting better.’

  A running joke, with a dark heart.

  While Tanner had always been the organised half of the partnership – the bill-payer, the book-balancer – Susan had most definitely been the one who had done the cooking. Unfortunately, she had also been a little too fond of drinking wine with her meals, breakfast included, and the tensions her addiction had caused between herself and Tanner remained – sadly – unresolved at the time of her death.

  Thorne winced at a sudden clattering in the kitchen. He sat down and put away half the beer in his can.

  He knew he was not the only one dealing with guilt.

  Looking around, the place seemed almost back to the way it had been before an arson attack which had almost cost Tanner her life. Uncluttered, obviously, but still cosy enough. There were now a lot more books lined up on the shelves either side of the fireplace, and he was happy to see that Tanner’s colour-coding system was back in evidence once again.

  When Tanner’s cat, Mrs Slocombe, padded in and dutifully ignored him, Thorne leaned back happily and drank a little more. He could feel himself starting to relax.

  ‘Here you go.’

  Tanner came in and laid down a tray on the coffee table. A dish of something that looked appetising enough, some paper serviettes, salt and pepper. She hurried back to the kitchen to fetch her own tray, this one bearing an added roll of kitchen towel, just to be on the safe side.

  ‘Carbonara,’ she said. ‘Get stuck in.’

  ‘Great …’

  Thorne lifted the tray on to his lap. He had barely managed a forkful when Tanner said, ‘So, what’s happening with you and Helen?’

  He swallowed fast. ‘I thought so.’

  Tanner feigned innocence.

  ‘Bloody hell, you haven’t even read me my rights yet.’

  ‘No point pissing about,’ she said.

  As they ate, Thorne told her what there was to tell since the last time, which wasn’t much. He and Helen were still ‘seeing how things went’, they were getting on well enough, he was all right being back in his flat.

  ‘You’re missing Alfie though, right?’

  Thorne looked at her.

  ‘Well, I mean, course you are. I’ve seen the two of you together, don’t forget.’ She laid down her fork. ‘Look, I don’t know how you want this to turn out and, for all I know, you don’t either … but whatever happens, happens. And in the end, it’ll probably be the best thing for both of you.’

  ‘That it?’

  She nodded and picked up her fork again.

  ‘I tell you this,’ Thorne said. ‘When the Job goes tits-up, there’s an agony column with your name on it.’

  The food was good enough for Thorne to ask a beaming Tanner for a second helping. Once that was finished and they’d carried everything through to the kitchen, scraped the few leftovers into the bin and loaded the dishwasher, they moved back into the sitting room. Tanner opened a cupboard housing a mini stereo system and put a CD on. Some bloke with a guitar and a whiny voice, singing a whiny song about whining, but Thorne didn’t think it sounded too horrendous.

  That was enough to tell him just how relaxed he was.

  ‘Just noise, that’s what you said once. Remember? You told me that music was just noise.’

  She shrugged. ‘Some noises are better than others.’

  They sat and listened for half a minute, then Thorne lowered his voice and said, ‘Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs Robinson?’

  Tanner stared. ‘Mrs who?’

  Thorne laughed and waved it away. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘So, where do you go from here with the Goodwin business? Finding Patrick Jennings.’

  ‘What do you mean, where do I go? I mean, that’s the end of it, right?’

  ‘Well, it should be,’ Tanner said. ‘I know you better than that, though.’

  ‘So, what would you do?’ Thorne sat forward. ‘I know you wouldn’t do anything, but … hypothetically.’

  ‘Why not talk to the ActionFraud team? Find out what their next move’s going to be and see if you can get in ahead of them.’

  ‘Right, because that sounds nice and easy.’

  ‘Or you could just let them get on with it. Sit back and wait for them to catch him. Either way, I’ve sent them all the information we’ve got.’

  ‘Bloody hell, you don’t mess about, do you?’

  ‘I try not to.’ An edge was creeping into Tanner’s voice.

  ‘Might have been nice if you’d told me, that’s all.’

  ‘Russell didn’t really give me a lot of choice. Plus, it’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘Yeah, if giving up is the right thing to do.’

  ‘Listen to yourself, Tom.’

  The look on Tanner’s face was enough to bring an end to it. Thorne closed his eyes for a few seconds and leaned back. ‘I try not to,’ he said. ‘I don’t half get on my nerves, sometimes.’

  The whiny singer gave way to something instrumental – light and Latin-ish – while the beer gave way to a couple more, fuelling an exchange of the latest incident room gossip. A DS whose boyfriend had just been caught with indecent images on his laptop; a CSI who ‘ruined’ a crime scene thanks to some dodgy prawns the night before; a male DI on another team who now wished to self-identify as a female one.

  When Thorne announced that it was time he made a move, Tanner pointed to the empty cans on the coffee table.

  ‘Only if you came on the Tube,’ she said.

  ‘Come on, Nic …’

  ‘You want to get pulled over, lose your job?’

  ‘What, are you going to make a call?’

  Tanner let her breath out slowly. ‘The spare room’s made up.’

  ‘Thinking ahead,’ Thorne said.

  ‘It’s always made up.’

  Thorne sighed and got slowly to his feet. ‘There’d better be a full English waiting for me in the morning.’

  ‘I can do you toast.’

  He trudged out into the hallway and began to climb the stairs. Suddenly, he was tired. He turned on the landing to see Tanner below him, already double locking the front door.

  ‘So, what would you have done if I’d got in my car then? Would you have done anything?’

  She looked up at him. ‘I would have been … conflicted.’

  Thorne leaned against the banister. Thinking: You weren’t too conflicted seven months ago, when both of us were bleeding. In that flat, with a poker in your hand …

  He said, ‘So, any more thoughts? About this place?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tanner said. ‘I think I’ll stay put for the time being.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘Whatever makes you happy.’ An insurance policy had paid off the mortgage after Susan’s death and Tanner now owned the two-storey house in Hammersmith outright, but it was too big for her. Felt too big. Seven months before, she had been looking to move, had been viewing suitable flats.

  Until she had walked into the wrong one.

  Until life – death – had got in the way.

  Thorne said goodnight and opened the door to Tanner’s spare room. A towel had been laid out at the foot of the bed, from where the cat sat staring at him, stock-still and daring him to shift her.

  ‘Don’t you fucking start,’ Thorne said.

  THIRTEEN

&n
bsp; Margate

  ‘Sorry …?’

  It sounds to her like the boy’s voice, reedy enough to begin with, has gone up an octave or something.

  ‘I said, do you want to go for a walk?’

  Michelle takes a pace back to allow a small group coming out of the bar to move between them. Then she steps back towards the boy. He isn’t going to say no, she’s sure of that much, but still, it annoys her that she’s having to wait.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean—’

  ‘It’s not a big deal.’

  ‘No.’ He flicks what’s left of his cigarette towards the gutter, but it doesn’t quite make it. ‘Course not.’

  ‘It’s not like my evening’s ruined if you don’t.’

  She can already see how much of a big deal it is to him. She wonders how many men – of any age – she would need to proposition before she found one who would turn her offer down. A good many, she’s certain of that, and, not for the first time, she asks herself why most men are so … pathetic.

  ‘I should probably let my mates know,’ he says.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Well, I don’t have to.’ The boy takes another quick swig of his alco-pop. ‘I don’t suppose it really matters.’

  Perhaps pathetic is too strong a word, she decides. The truth is that she doesn’t believe women are necessarily any choosier than men, just that they like to pretend they are. It’s simply that, if a woman wants sex badly enough, she pretty much just has to go out and ask. OK, so maybe she’ll weigh up the available options a little more carefully than her male counterpart, but in the end it’s there for the taking, if she fancies it. Men seem rather more … indiscriminate, because they’re made to work that much harder and get used to being knocked back, so they’re hardly likely to turn down an offer when it falls into their laps.

  Way of the world, isn’t it?

  Same way a dog will eat whatever’s put in front of him, just in case it’s the last meal he’s going to get.

  ‘How long d’you think we’re going to be?’

  She’s aware, of course, that there is still time to walk away. To find a different bar and just raise a glass or two instead. It’s a good plan, she knows that, a plan that will work, so maybe getting to this point is all that she needs.