Private Lives

42



‘Darling, I could have told you he was a coke fiend. You didn’t have to send me to St Tropez with a camcorder down my knickers to find that out.’

Sheryl Battenburg rested her chin in the curve of her palm and smiled at Larry. He was fairly sure that if they hadn’t been in the rarefied environs of the Beaumont Bar at the Savoy, she would have come over and sat on his knee.

‘Well, pictures were what I needed, Sherry, not rumours.’ He smiled as the waitress brought his old friend a flute of Krug. It was one of the few places in London that did it by the glass; he didn’t want to waste a bottle when he wasn’t even drinking it.

It had only taken Larry a few phone calls to find someone who was going to Fabio Martelli’s birthday party, held on a yacht and at the Nikki Beach Club in St Tropez. Sherry was an old-school Chelsea good-time girl with bleached blond hair and a deep tan. She and Larry had indulged in a short-lived affair between wives two and three. Now pushing forty, she had never married and Larry had no idea what she did for a living, other than attend parties and launches. He didn’t think to ask where the money was coming from.

He looked down at his iPhone and scrolled through the photographs that Sheryl had sent him from the yacht party, stopping at a shot of a redhead lounging on the deck dressed in just a micro-bikini.

‘Looks like it was fun,’ he grinned.

‘I hope they are okay. I know you said you wanted something really fruity, and there were obviously people having sex all over the shop, but I could hardly go into the cabins and get piccies of them at it, could I?’

Larry nodded. He’d known that even someone as connected as Sheryl might have trouble getting snaps of Fabio actually taking drugs or in the act with someone other than Kim Collier, so he’d asked her to take pictures of people who were obviously part of Fabio’s party. And as he scrolled through the photos, he had to say she’d done the job magnificently. She had managed to snap shots of Fabio draped over a variety of beautiful women in next to nothing; she’d even caught him evidently in conference with some burly men dressed in expensive loungewear and chunky jewellery. It was better than he could have hoped.

‘Have you ever thought about going into spying?’ he said with a chuckle. The single-mindedness and world-class schmoozing that had allowed Sheryl access to the highest strata of society were perfect transferable skills, should she choose to enter the field of espionage.

‘Sorry the quality isn’t that brilliant,’ she said, leaning forward to peek at the photos – and give Larry a flash of cleavage.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ said Larry. ‘I’m not looking for David Bailey, just something to give me a bit of leverage.’

‘This is nothing illegal, is it?’ she said, looking at him earnestly.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket.

‘How can you suggest such a thing, Sheryl?’ he said with mock-outrage. ‘I’m a well-respected lawyer.’

‘You’re a shark, Larry. If you weren’t one of my oldest friends, I wouldn’t trust you further than I can throw you.’

‘Well you can rest assured that you’ve done a good thing here,’ he said, leaning back in his banquette and scratching his stomach in a satisfied way. ‘A father is going to keep his son because of this.’

‘Oh, Larry, I always knew you were a big softie underneath it all,’ she cooed.

Larry laughed. He wasn’t entirely sure why it hadn’t worked out with Sheryl while Loralee had managed to drag him to the altar. The more he experienced life and love, the more he was convinced that relationships were a matter of timing. True, Loralee was younger, and more beautiful, but if he was honest, Sheryl was more his type of woman: slightly worn around the edges perhaps, but fun and clever and wise in her own way. It was just that Loralee had been there at the moment that Larry had decided to settle down again.

‘So. Are you going to take me shopping?’ asked Sheryl as Larry waved for the bill. ‘After all, it was a very, very big favour you asked of me.’

He looked at the two-carat diamond studs she was wearing; if he wasn’t very much mistaken, those were the earrings he had bought her during their affair.

‘I think we can safely say that you can expect a very nice Christmas present,’ laughed Larry. ‘But a married man taking another woman shopping might be interpreted the wrong way.’

‘You’ve changed, Larry Donovan,’ she grinned.

‘I’m trying,’ he said honestly. ‘I really am.’

‘Well don’t try too hard,’ said Sheryl. ‘I quite liked that old rogue you used to be. How is the latest Mrs Donovan, by the way?’

‘Fine. Beautifying herself at the Chelsea Day Sanctuary today.’

‘Really? I thought that was closed for refurbishment.’

‘Oh well, some spa in Chelsea,’ he said, waving his hand dismissively as they got up to leave. ‘Anyway, how’s your love life?’

‘I only have eyes for you, lover,’ she giggled.

Larry gave Sheryl a sidelong glance, wondering at her true age. Was she too old for Matthew? He could certainly do a lot worse, Larry thought, feeling a sudden pang of affection for her.

He hurried through the foyer and out towards the cab rank. No matter how fond he was of Sheryl, he really didn’t want to be seen loitering in a hotel lobby with a notorious party girl, especially after the task he’d set her.

‘Find a nice fellow.’ He smiled, kissing her on the cheek to say goodbye. ‘I do want you to be happy, you know.’

‘That’s always been the trouble with men like you, Larry,’ she said, jumping into a taxi. She wound down the window and winked at him. ‘You all think we need a man to make us happy. It never crosses your mind that we’re perfectly fine on our own.’