I chuckle, my head still nestled against him. ‘I love you so much, darling. Even if you do crack some truly appalling jokes sometimes.’
He laughs too, and cuddles me in his arms, strong as an oak.
‘Hey.’ I draw back to stare at him. ‘How are you at home, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be working at St Hilda’s tonight?’
‘Surprise.’ Dominic tips his head to one side, his smile charming and apologetic at the same time. ‘I told you a little porky, sorry. I’m down to work tomorrow, not tonight. I had to pretend I was going out to work or you would have wanted to know where I was going when I went to collect His Nibbs there.’ His eyes crinkle up at the edges as he smiles. ‘And that would have spoilt the surprise.’
I glance back at the cat, who is busy playing with the tassels on one of Mum’s pine-chair cushion covers.
‘Dom, did you ever bring him here before?’
‘No, why?’
‘Because I heard a cat just before I fell down the cellar steps, remember?’ I feel his sudden stillness and bite my lip, wishing I hadn’t said anything. I try to cover the awkwardness with a casual shrug. ‘Anyway, it’s not important. I could have sworn I heard a cat that day, that’s all.’
He’s still got that charming smile on his face, though it looks forced now.
Does he think I’m crazy?
‘I probably imagined hearing a cat,’ I add.
‘Right,’ Dominic says, but doesn’t pursue it. He leans forward and kisses me hungrily on the lips instead. ‘You know the best bit about me not being at work tonight?’
I raise my eyebrows, smiling.
‘I get to take my wife to bed early,’ he whispers in my ear, ‘and make as much damn noise as I like, because everyone else is at that party next door.’
Chapter Forty-One
On Boxing Day morning, still smiling about Dominic’s unexpected gift, I have a lazy breakfast of fruit and yoghurt, then politely decline to go out shopping with my mum and dad.
‘But, darling, the sales will be on,’ my mother says.
‘All the more reason to stay home,’ I say firmly. ‘I can’t afford to spend money on anything. Even reduced stuff. Honestly, you know Dom and I are saving for a deposit on a place of our own.’
‘Your father will help you out with a deposit. Won’t you, Robert?’ Mum smiles at him.
Dad has been reading The Times over breakfast, but lowers it now to nod at me. ‘Of course.’
‘And that’s very generous of you, Dad. But you know how Dominic feels about that. He’s proud, he doesn’t want charity.’
‘It’s not charity when it’s your own parents,’ Mum says.
‘Well, he doesn’t like the idea.’ I flash her a brittle smile. She means well but she doesn’t understand. ‘Maybe I’ll shop online instead. There are always great bargains this time of year.’
‘It’s so much more fun in the shops though. And we could have lunch somewhere nice afterwards. You always used to enjoy that.’
I hate having to keep saying no like this. I can see the disappointment in her face. But it’s important that I stay home today. And it’s not something I can share with her.
I avoid Dad’s searching gaze.
‘Someone has to look after the kitty,’ I remind them. ‘I’m going to call him Panther. Where is he, by the way?’
There’s a silence.
‘We made a little bed for him in the utility room,’ Mum says hesitantly. ‘But I’m sure he won’t need much attention. Probably best if you avoid disturbing him for now. Let him get used to a new house.’
‘Good idea.’
A horn sounds outside. Their cab has arrived. Dad lays aside his newspaper, and Mum fetches her handbag. I follow them into the hall to wave them off at the door. Dad hates shopping, which probably explains why he looks so grim.
‘Look, you two have a great time,’ I say as they climb into the taxi together. ‘I’ll be fine here with Jasmine and Panther. Don’t spend all your money, okay?’
‘Now you’re being silly, darling,’ Mum says, but I can see she’s relieved by my cheerful mood this morning.
Once their cab has pulled away, I hurry inside and head straight upstairs to check on Jasmine. To my delight, she’s still asleep, the room dark when I knock gently and stick my head round the door.
I climb the stairs to my own little flat, and shut the bedroom door. Then I sit down on the edge of the bed and open my laptop.
Jason Wainwright, I type into the Google search box. Private Investigator, London.
The main website is not very exciting. A few pages of testimony from former clients, Jason Wainwright’s CV, and some discussion of prices for various different services, including investigatory work like ‘tailing’ and ‘staking out’ individuals and addresses.
Nothing surprising there.
But when I widen my search beyond the website, glancing down the list of other results, I find a news report that leaves me stunned. Then several more, all on the same topic. The same name.
Jason Wainwright.
I gasp, my eyes widening as I read.
Man Dies After Being Hit By Tube Train
I scan the sparse details, feeling sick. A recent widower, after thirty years of marriage, Jason Wainwright ran a private investigation service, and was described as ‘reclusive’ and even ‘depressed’ by neighbours. Nobody seems to have expressed surprise at his death. Not even the police, though they were reported as ‘investigating’ the circumstances of his sudden death at Embankment tube station on the Circle and District lines.
The word ‘suicide’ is not mentioned in any of the reports I find.
But what else could it have been?
His late wife’s name was Joyce. I wonder how she died. The report doesn’t say.
What on earth was Dad doing with this guy’s business card in his pocket, and how is the dead man connected to me? Because he has to be connected in some way, surely? It seems too much of a coincidence for Jason Wainwright to have died only a few feet away from me at the same time as Dad was in contact with his firm. Especially after the way he looked at me, his gaze so intense.
But why contact an investigator in the first place? Is something wrong? Something Dad can’t handle through his usual Foreign and Commonwealth Office contacts?
Perhaps he hasn’t even heard about Wainwright’s death yet. We told him about the suicide at the tube station, of course. But it never occurred to me that Dad might know the man who died. How can I ask though, without revealing that I’ve been going through his pockets?
I get down on my knees and retrieve the black notebook from under the bed. Dad hasn’t mentioned it’s missing. Either he hasn’t noticed or has decided not to say anything.
The cover is a little dusty. I wipe it with my sleeve, then climb into bed, still in my pyjamas, and put pillows against the headboard so I can read comfortably. As an afterthought, I lean over and grab a magazine from the floor, then open it to a random page and set it in front of me. That way, if Jasmine comes in and surprises me, I can hide the notebook behind the magazine.
I open the notebook to the first page. It seems to be written in code. But when I look more closely, trying to decipher the tiny squiggles, I realise it’s shorthand. I didn’t notice that in the cellar.
Luckily, ten pages into the notebook, shorthand gradually turns to longhand. Whole words emerge first. Then full sentences, with the rare incomprehensible squiggle. So the first ten pages are completely indecipherable.
Frustrated, I turn back to the first page that isn’t all in shorthand, and start to read. Slowly, frowning, struggling to work out the sporadic shorthand squiggles from the context. Not entirely without success.
‘Rachel’ is only occasionally written in full. Sometimes it’s ‘Rach’. Most times it’s merely a capital ‘R’. Written with a flourish, and sometimes circled for emphasis. Just as I find instances of ‘Catherine’ and ‘Cat’, but also ‘C’.
My name is always underlined in red.
Rachel getting worse. Several episodes of mania last weekend. She had to be . . . restrained . . . harming herself. I wish we could find a cure for this. If there is a cure, which the specialists seem to doubt.