Suddenly I have the full force of his attention; it’s a little unnerving. “And do you think Caro would say getting into Oxford was one of the best things to happen to her?”
Caro would never consider the question; Caro would view entry into Oxford as right and proper, exactly what she was due. “Well,” I hedge, “we weren’t particularly close.”
His lips quirk. “No longer pursuing the high-risk strategy?”
I laugh. “Like I said, less and less as I get older.”
The corners of his mouth tug upward, then he glances at his watch. “Well, Miss Channing, I know someone as direct as you will forgive me for cutting to the chase. You are the stalking horse. I like your business, I like the pitch book you sent through and your fees are ballpark, but you’d be a hard prospect to sell to committee, as you don’t have a proven track record yet. I’m not sure it’s worth my while to have that fight.”
“What would make it worthwhile? A reduction in fees?”
He purses his lips. “It would help, but even that might not be enough. You just—”
“Don’t have the track record,” I finish for him.
He nods ruefully. “But I can honestly say it’s been a real pleasure.” His eyes are smiling; it takes ten years off him. I can’t see the slightest resemblance to Caro.
In the cab on the way home I record my post-meeting notes on my pocket Dictaphone for Julie to type up later and then I call Lara and rant for five minutes about how I was an idiot to give up my lucrative job to start my own firm, how aforementioned firm will be bankrupt in six months at this rate, how no one will ever hire me again after such an appalling error of judgment, and so on and so forth . . . Lara has heard it all before. She doesn’t even bother arguing back.
“Finished now?” she asks when I finally run out of steam.
“For now. Come round tonight—I’ll probably bore you with more of the same, but I promise to at least treat you to a curry and some nice wine first.” A giggle with the ever-sunny Lara is exactly what I need.
“Sorry,” she says, yawning. “I’m knackered. Can we do tomorrow instead?”
“Knackered . . . What were you up to last night?” I couldn’t remember her saying she had a date, but Lara picks up men like the rest of us pick up newspapers. She puts them down in the same way, too. She is and always has been unrelentingly and unashamedly promiscuous, but somehow in her it seems . . . wholesome.
“I met someone in the pub after work. Just a bit of fun.”
“Lucky you,” I say, unable to keep the envy out of my voice. I’m not sure I’ve ever just “met someone in the pub.” I can’t recall anyone ever approaching me cold. Unless Seb counts.
“Ah, Kate.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “Like I keep telling you, you need to drop your standards. Then you’d have as much action as you could wish for.”
“Maybe.” But I don’t think that’s it. I scrub up well—I’m tall and fairly slim, I’ve got good hair and I’ve been told I’ve got beautiful eyes—but none of that quite has the appeal of a buxom beauty of Swedish descent with an easy smile and a relaxed attitude to sex.
“Your place tomorrow, then?” Lara asks.
“Perfect.” I’m about to ring off when I remember I still haven’t told her about the body. About Severine. “Wait—Tom called me.”
“How is he? Is he back in London?”
“Yes, actually, but that isn’t why he called. They found . . .” I swallow. “They found the body. I mean, Severine. They found her in the well at the farmhouse,” I finish in a rush.
“Oh God,” Lara says bleakly. “That’s horrible. Though maybe it will help her parents get closure or something. Do they think it was that boyfriend she was talking about?”
“I suppose so.” It’s an obvious question, but I hadn’t considered how she got into the well. Who put her there. Even now, my mind shies away from it. “I don’t know. Tom says the French police want to talk to us all again.”
I can almost hear Lara’s grimace. “Really?”
“It’s probably just procedure; after all, we were the last people to talk with her properly.” Before she went into town and was never seen again. “She must have gone back, though, since she was found in the well; I suppose that’s new information.”
“Still, it must have been that boyfriend, surely. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I really hope it doesn’t take up much time. We’re soooo busy at work right now.” She yawns down the line again. “I suppose that explains why Caro’s been trying to get hold of me.”
“You too?” That’s a surprise: if anything, Caro likes Lara even less than me. “She left me a message; I haven’t called back yet. But she must have known Tom would tell us; she can’t have been calling about that.”
“Only one way to find out.” She yawns. “Shotgun: you first,” she adds impishly.
“All right,” I say reluctantly. “I’ll call her.” I don’t want to talk to Caro any more than Lara does, but I may as well find out what she wants sooner rather than later. If Caro wants something, she won’t be deterred.
CHAPTER TWO
Severine hovers.
At first she is no more than a feeling, a presence that rests on my consciousness just out of reach of my field of vision. I put it down to the unwanted memories that have floated to the surface of my mind, stirred up by the discovery of her bones. But that is not enough for Severine. One morning I find those very bones, bleached white and neatly stacked in a pile with the grinning skull atop, resting on my kitchen counter; blinking does not remove them, though I know they’re not there. On yet other occasions she manifests in a fleshed-out version of walnut-colored skin, secretive eyes and a superior lack of smile. With her comes an insistent tide of memories, fetid and dank after being buried for so long, that will drag me down into their rotten darkness if I yield to them. I trenchantly refuse to succumb; instead I call Caro.
“Caroline Horridge,” she answers crisply, after only one ring. I imagine her sitting at her desk in Haft & Weil, her taut frame wrapped in a business suit, with not a hair or a sheet of paper out of place.
“Hi, Caro, it’s Kate.” There’s a pause. “Kate Channing,” I add through gritted teeth. This is a classic Caro strategy, forcing me to identify myself; can she really be expecting a call from another Kate with a strong northern accent?
“Oh, Kate,” she says, faux-warmly. “God, it’s been so long. Thanks for calling back.”
“No problem.” I can feel my cheeks aching from my fake smile. Someone once told me if you smile on the phone, the caller hears it in your voice; apparently it doesn’t matter if the smile is genuine or not. I’m not going to deliberately antagonize the daughter of a man who could hand me a major contract. Any accidental antagonizing can’t be helped. “How are you?”
“Good,” she says breezily. “Though busy. Which I can’t really complain about in this market. You?”
“Same. Good. Busy.” Not as busy as I’d like, which is evident when I glance at my computer screen and see my sparse diary for the week, but she doesn’t need to know that.
There’s a pause. I wait for her to get to the heart of the matter. “I take it Tom’s spoken to you?”
“Yes. Not exactly the sunniest of news.” My smile has dropped. The skull with yawning darkness for eyes is still waiting for me, just a step beyond conscious thought.
“Do you mean about Jenna or that girl?” I take a sharp breath in—is she really suggesting that murder and a broken engagement are on a par?—but Caro is still talking. “It was always just a matter of time on the girl—surely no one was expecting a different outcome—”
“Severine,” I say bluntly. The bones demand to be named. I wish they would make their demands on someone else.
“What?”