He leaned forward and picked up his glass of whisky. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of triumph play across Gab
riela’s lips. It swiftly passed
and she raised her glass, took a sip of her drink and set the glass down.
‘I’m sure that Evie didn’t mean to write the story
,
’ she said
, her voice
gentl
e
. ‘The people at
Pure Dirt
will most likely have found her notes by accident and
they
themselves
will have
written the story. I cannot believe that Evie would ever give them anything unpleasant about you. She seemed to me to be very fond of you.’
‘Well, that’s what I thought, too, but obviously we were both wrong. Much as I’d like to believe that it was all a mistake, as you’re suggesting, I can’t. This isn’t Hollywood – it’s real life – and in real life she wouldn’t have jotted down what I’d said if she hadn’t intended to m
ake a story out of it. T
here’d have been no point. And what’s more, if she had made such notes, she’d never have left them lying around – a reporter wouldn’t be that careless. Every story means money to them and they’d jealously guard the facts that they’d gathered.’
‘It did say that Evie was a new reporter. She will not yet think in the way that experienced reporters will think.’
‘Even if you’re right – and it’s a sign of your very generous nature that you’re trying to make Evie innocent in all of this – even if you’re right and she’d left her notes lying around, no one would have been able to read them. A
part from the fact that her
writing leaves a lot to be desired, it
’s
virtually impossible for one person to make sense of another person’s notes. The essence of notes is that they remind the writer of what was said, not that they record every detail. No, that story could only have been written by Evie – I told it to no one else.’
He sat back with a deep sigh.
‘Oh, Tom
,
I’m so sorry for you.’ Her voice shook with sympathy. ‘I can see how much Evie’s action has hurt you. Will you be in terrible trouble for these things you have done?’
‘I may have to make some reparation for reading
what I shouldn’t have done
– a fine
and a reprimand for the business with the fax
, maybe;
hopefully
no
t much
more than that. As for Zizi,
despite their insinuations,
there’s no proof that we had a
sexual
relationship
– and there couldn’t be as we didn’t
.
Nevertheless,
Pure Dirt
will obviously try to get their damages reduced at the very least.
No, o
ne of the worst
aspect
s
of the whole thing
for me
personally
is the way in which my colleagues will look at me after such an exposure. To be shown to have breached our code of conduct is humiliating, to say the least.’
‘I wish I knew what to say that would help you. People who know you, Tom, will know that you are
a good man
–
a man, though, not a saint.
Zizi will have led you on, like many unscrupulous women do to powerful men. And as for reading forbidden material, you were a very young man,
who was
working alone on his first big case.
’
He stiffened
. ‘
After all these years of great work, they will not hold these unimportant things against you. You must put this magazine story behind you and forget about Evie and her betrayal. Look only to the future now.’
‘You’re right, Gabriela,’ he said very quietly, and he sat upright. ‘I was extremely young when I read that fax and it was the first time that I’d ever gone solo. However, that information doesn’t appear in the magazine article. Evie knew the facts, though, as I told her the full story. The only way you can have known them, and known about Zizi
and me
, was if Evie told you. You wrote the article for the magazine, didn’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Tom.
’
Her mouth smiled.
‘
We are friends, are we not? Friends do not do things like that to each other. Evie was not your friend, but I am.’
‘I used
to think that that was the case,
but I’ve clearly been proved wrong.’ He looked across the table at her. ‘Tell me, why did you do it?’
He watched the colour drain from her face. A harsh patch of red stood out on each of her cheeks.
‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ she stammered.
‘Oh, but you do. I didn’t for one moment think that Evie
wrote
the story and g
ave
it to the magazine,
but if I
had
harboured any suspicion
of her being guilty, it would have been swept away the
minute you confirmed that she’
d passed on what I told her in Italy.’
‘I have confirmed nothing like that.’ She attempted to laugh. ‘You are not making much sense, Tom. Or perhaps I am not understanding your English very well. Evie was the reporter, not me.’
‘I’m quite certain that you manipulated Evie into telling you what I told her. When I find her – which I will do – she’ll tell me how. What I want to know from you now is why you did this. What on earth can have been your motive?’
Gabriela took a deep breath.
For a moment he thought that she was going to prot
est her innocence again,
but then he saw her hesitate. A look of resignation crossed her face and she released h
er breath in a small sigh. P
osition
ing
herself on the edge of her chair,
she
gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders and spread out her hands, palms upwards, in a gesture of helplessness.
‘It was on the spur of the moment, Tom. I was not thinking clearly. When Evie told me
these things
about you, and told me about the magazine, another person inside me took over. I can’t say any more about it than that. Please believe me, I am so sorry for what I did.’
He stood up. ‘Hardly a spur of the moment action, I would have thought. However, I have a feeling that I’m going to have to be satisfied with that as your answer, although it still doesn’t explain why you wanted to hurt me.’
‘Oh, no, I never wanted to hurt you, Tom.’ She quickly stood up and started to move round the table towards him. ‘Not you. I would never hurt you
–
I love you. It was
about
Evie. She does not deserve you. Who is she? What kind of family does she come from; what breeding does she have; what education? She is not the woman for you, and she would not have
been the woman for my brother.’
‘For Eduardo?’
‘Yes, she would
have
be
en
wrong for
him
, too, although he could not see this.
The Montefiori family must unite themselves only with the best. I have known you are the person for me since Eduardo showed me your photograph and told me about y
our illustrious career. Oh, Tom,
do you not feel in your heart that you and I are meant to be together?’
She stretched out her arms and put her hands on his shoulders. With a shudder, he pushed them away from him and stepped back from her.
‘I now have your answer to my question, Gabriela. And my answer to your question is that I’m leaving this flat now, never to return.’
He walked past her, crossed the room in long strides and went out of the apartment without a backward glance.
Gabriel
a
turned slightly and stared at
the open doorway
. H
is footsteps echo
ed
around the stairwell
as he bounded down the stairs, and then she heard the front door
slam
shut. S
he started to tremble. A moment later,
an engine
was
revved up in the street below her apartment.
S
he spun
round, ran to the window and reached it just as his black car started to pull away from the kerb in front of her house. Pressing her face against the window pane, she watched him drive around the central garden and turn down a road that led out of the square.
‘Tom,’ she whimpered as she saw him go, and she put her hand on the cold glass as if to stop him. ‘Tom.’
Slowly she raised her eyes from the garden below
to the brick gateposts that flanked
the Victorian houses on the other side of the square, and higher still, beyond the jagged line of tiled roofs and chimneys to the pale blue sky above
.
White clou
ds drifted slowly
into view
, bring
ing with them the sound of three girls laughing in a
bustling, crowded restaurant. S
he could see their faces smiling at her
, faces offering friendship
. One more face appeared, the face that had dominated her thoughts for
so many
months
–
a man’s face.
But the clouds
continued
their leisurely pace
across the sky
,
and they took
with them the laughter, the smiles, and the faces – all of the faces. And there was nothing.
Month after month stretched out ahead of her, imprisoning her far from home, alone and f
riendless in an alien country.
She turned
away and looked
back
at
her sitting room. Before her she saw emptiness. I
n her head, there was silence.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Eureka
(well, almost Eureka)
What a brilliant end to the week, Tom thought in jubilation as he w
alked
into his house. Winning a case had never been as satisfying as it had been that afternoon. How he would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when th
os
e hacks at
Pure Dirt
heard
what
the jury’s verdict
had been
.
Of course, there were still some loose ends to be tied up, such as the award of costs and the amount of damages, but the decision in favour of his client had come through loud and clear, and he hoped that those muckrakers hadn’t missed a single word.
But even better than
his victory over
Pure Dirt
,
with
the current case behind him and the preparation for his next case well under way, he could
now
get down to
looking for
Evie. He
’d waited long enough to do something about finding her –
he fervently hoped that he hadn’t
made a mistake in
heeding
the
advice
of Evie’s friends
about the detective – and he wasn’t going to wait a moment longer. He
couldn’t wait to see her again
. Just
the thought of starting the search that would end with him
holding her in his arms
made him feel
more excited than a schoolboy on the first day of the summer holidays.
He left
the wheelie
bag at the
foot
of the staircase
, pulled off his
coat
and dropped it on the bottom stair –
it would have to go to the dry cleaner’s b
efore he wore it again
–
hung his suit jacket over the rail,
went into the drawing room, poured some whisky into a glass and carried the glass up the stairs to his study
.
Sitting
down in his swivel chair
, he
leaned back
and
link
ed
his fingers behind his head.
W
here to begin his search, he wondered.
Looking back, he
now
wished he hadn’t listened to
Rachel and Jess
, but had followed his instinct and gone ahead and hired a pr
ivate detective. If he’d done that
, he might already know where to find
her
and not be sitting in his study, staring at a glass of whisky
, in a quandary
about where to start looking.