Yes. I do know. There’s an inevitability about it, a permanence, even though I recognize that I didn’t know at all. I swallow. “Now I do,” I whisper. “I didn’t before.” Things I’ve been scared to acknowledge I’ve wanted and hoped for are gathering together inside me, a pressure that’s building, straining, until I’m afraid to move lest I burst open.
His hand reaches out, and I feel the back of his fingers trail gently down my cheek. I find I’m holding my breath. “I’m sorry I was such an unforgivable shit. It’s just . . . there was a moment there, the other night, when I thought I was getting everything I’d always wanted. And then—reality set in.” His fingers drop, he turns his head away and suddenly my stomach clenches into a hard knot. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I will have to close myself off again, stamp down on all those things so eager to burst out. “And I was so fucked off—at myself, mostly—for allowing it, for putting myself in that position. Because I knew better, really. You can say whatever you choose to say, pretend whatever you think you should feel, but I see it in you, tonight like every other night. It’s always been Seb for you, hasn’t it? You never even saw me. And I’ll always know that.”
He has it all wrong, just like I’ve had it all wrong about so many things. “No, no,” I protest urgently, my voice rising, “that’s not fair, that’s not right—”
But he barely notices my interruption; he’s still talking, in a low, oddly persuasive rumble. “When this—when Modan—is done, I’m going to move back to Boston—”
A sudden crash comes from the bathroom. It sounds as if Seb has pulled something over: quite possibly the radiator judging from the metallic reverberation. Tom is already moving in that direction. “Shit. Sorry, Kate, you’d better go,” he throws over his shoulder, then he’s pulling the bathroom door open. I catch a glimpse of his face in the yellow light that leaps out to paint him, harsh lines etched round his mouth. “Shit!” he says again. Then he disappears inside and the door shuts abruptly. I’m left alone in the passageway.
For a moment I stand there, completely at a loss. Surely I can help with whatever disaster is now unfolding—but then I realize: that’s not the point. He doesn’t want me here, and this is a convenient way to politely get rid of me. I consider that for a moment more, then take a shuddering breath, pick up my bag and quietly leave the flat.
In the taxi on the way home I replay the night of Linacre Ball, when I first met Seb, and when, of course, I also first met Tom. I think about Tom dragging Seb along to the party, with quiet plans of speaking to a girl—me, as it turns out. I wonder where he had come across me before. I don’t suppose I’ll ever find out. I wonder how different things would have been if I’d turned back for the man-boy with the marvelously hooked nose after jumping off the wall, but I have to stop that train of thought before I come apart a piece at a time. Then from nowhere Tom’s words from an afternoon not so very long ago in his flat float back to me: Seb likes to win—and I put that together with Seb’s sly look—Yes, who was that girl? I don’t think you ever told me—and I’m flooded with such savage fury that I want to scream with it.
I know I’m an unholy mess. I wish beyond all reason that my dad was still alive. But he’s not here, and I am, in a taxi driving through the deserted streets of London. So I go home to an empty flat—truly empty, as Severine is nowhere to be seen—and crawl into bed with all my clothes on, craving the oblivion of sleep.
* * *
—
When I was growing up my mother often used to say that things look better after a good night’s sleep. I’ve always been my father’s child, and he was never so blindly optimistic. In the morning, I’m still under suspicion of murder and my love life still has not improved. And I remember that I still haven’t found out what Tom saw all those years ago at the farmhouse.
The office provides little respite. A potential client—big job, looking to flesh out their whole litigation team, but we’re in stiff competition with two other recruitment firms—asks me diffidently about any “events in the private lives of the key personnel of Channing Associates that could be potentially reputation damaging” were they to enter into a contract with us; I know immediately that the rumors aren’t confined to Mark Jeffers.
“Ah,” I say with what I hope is a knowing laugh. “You’re actually asking about the completely ridiculous rumor that I’m about to be sent down for murder.”
“Well, I . . .” I can practically hear the squirming down the line.
“To tell you the truth, it’s all horribly sad. A girl disappeared in the neighboring farmhouse to where I was staying on holiday in France ten years ago, and her body has just been found. Naturally the police have spoken to all of us who were staying there, and naturally we’re all keen to do anything at all we can to help.” I pause and add meaningfully, “As I’m sure you would be, if you were in my shoes.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. We just have to be very careful. As a firm we pride ourselves on our unimpeachable reputation . . .”
It’s hard not to zone out. No matter what I have said or can say now, we’ve lost this one. It was a tight race anyway, and rightly or wrongly, this just gives a reason for them to pick another horse. They won’t say that, of course. I’m mildly curious to see what excuse they will come up with. My money is on them labeling us “a comparatively new firm that has yet to be sufficiently proven.”
Paul comes in, his face grim, just as I’m putting down the phone.
“I know,” I say to forestall him, moving around my desk to rest my backside on it. “I just had chapter and verse on reputation from Strichmans.”
His mouth is in a thin line almost as pale as his eyebrows. “What did you say?”
“The truth, as it happens, but we’ve lost it anyway.”
“They said that?”
I shake my head. “No, but they will.”
He pulls out his chair and flops into it, dispirited. “This isn’t going away, Kate.”
“It will.” But even I can hear that I lack conviction.
“Can’t they arrest someone already?”
“I’d be fine with that. So long as it isn’t me.”
He almost bursts up out of his chair. “What the fuck, Kate? You said—”
“Joke, Paul. Just a joke.”
“You can’t joke about this stuff,” he says stiffly, but at least he subsides back into his seat. “It’s serious, Kate.”
“I know. We just lost Strichmans. Though we may never have got that one anyway.”
“So what are you going to do?”
The you in his question rings out like a bell, loud and clear, reverberating in my brain. Paul is dissociating himself, preparing for the worst. “We’re going to do our jobs, and we’re going to do them very well.” I’m careful not to put stress on the plural pronoun.
“Sure,” he says with no vigor. He leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees and hands hanging in between, staring at the floor.
“Paul.” I speak sharply, pulling myself upright. He doesn’t look up. “Paul!” This gets his attention. “Don’t build this up to be something it’s not. We’re quite some distance from finished. I hired you because I knew you’d get out there and hustle. So get out there. Hustle. Otherwise you’re absolutely no good to me.”
He stares back at me for a moment. I refuse to break eye contact. I have the advantage of height since I’m standing; it puts me in mind of wolf pack behavior, fighting to be alpha male. Then I see a small gleam in his pale eyes. “Pep talk over?” he asks dryly. “Or do you want to give me another kick up the arse?”
My lips twitch. “That’s it for now.” Then a thought crosses my mind. “Oh, pass me the Mark Jeffers file, would you?”
“I haven’t loaded it all onto the network yet. Why, do you have something suitable?”
“We’ll see,” I say evasively.
“I should have it up there by the end of today. Unless you’re in a hurry?”
“No rush,” I tell him breezily, and circle my desk to sit back at my station, but Severine has planted herself in my chair. I should sit down anyway, I know I should, but I find myself saying to Paul, “I’m running out for coffee. Want anything?”