Charlie realized he’d been lucky to get out of Morocco with his life. But now – thankfully – he had a new link made out there, with a more trustworthy connection, and shipments were coming into docks and airports with no trouble and the money was flowing freely from that direction at last.
Now, with the Moroccan link set up, Charlie was looking to expand his manor even further. A Turkish deal soon followed; his manor was building up nicely. But he wasn’t done yet. He felt ready to go on and conquer the world. Colombia next. The big cartels. Maybe the Matias crew, the biggest of all. They were already sniffing around, looking for established firms to handle the British end of their operations.
‘Sky’s the limit,’ he told Nula when he eventually came home. Then he looked at her. She was pale, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘You OK, babe?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Nula, but she wasn’t.
The truth was, Terry’s rejection had scorched her soul and she had been on tenterhooks ever since, waiting for him to tell Charlie, waiting for the whole thing to blow up in her face. Up to that point, she hadn’t realized how desperately she’d wanted him. Now, she knew. And now he knew, too. It was humiliating, being knocked back hard like that. It had rekindled all those feelings of failure and embarrassment she thought she’d left far behind her in her former life on the old manor. Now she was finding it nearly impossible to be civil to Terry, or Jill. She’d felt so bad that she’d gone to the doctor’s and he had given her some nerve pills when she broke down on him in the surgery.
‘Ah, you missed me, did you, doll?’ asked Charlie, grinning, pulling her in for a hug.
‘I told you,’ said Nula, shrugging him off. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Bloody hell! Time of the month, is it?’ He rolled his eyes.
Nula was about to say something cutting when the au pair came in with little Milly. Charlie was instantly all smiles, embracing his daughter.
‘Come to Dada,’ he said, scooping her up, throwing her into the air. He produced a small stuffed camel from inside his coat and Milly grabbed at it, smiling. ‘Dad’s been away on business. Mummy missed me, did you miss me?’
Nula watched them together. Poor plain little Milly was the spit of her when she’d been a little girl. The kid was delighted with her father’s return and with the gift. Charlie always brought Milly back little treasures like this; flamenco dolls from Spain, even a voodoo doll from Haiti, which gave Nula the creeps: she’d burned that. She didn’t like the thought of the sinister thing sitting on a shelf in her daughter’s room. After half an hour, the au pair took the little girl away upstairs and Nula and Charlie were alone again.
‘You know what I reckon?’ he said.
Nula shook her head. Maybe one of these days Terry would tell him what she’d proposed during his Morocco trip. And on that day, she was going to be in a shitload of trouble. Again, there was that feeling of sickness, of things spiralling out of her control, of the previously solid earth moving, swaying under her feet. The doctor had told her to join a club, do something physical. She hated the idea of that. She wasn’t sporty, or particularly sociable. He’d suggested she keep a journal, to express her feelings. She’d started doing that, pencilling in how she felt day by day, all that was happening around her.
‘I reckon you’re broody. All that stuff after you had Milly, realizing you couldn’t have any more kids, I think it hit you hard,’ said Charlie.
‘It hit you, too,’ Nula pointed out.
‘Yeah. I can’t lie, it did. But you know what? I’ve had an idea.’
‘Oh?’
‘I think we should adopt. What do you reckon?’
Nula looked at him. Christ, he was such a piece of work! Charlie Stone thought that anything could be overcome. Even a wife who couldn’t pop out sprogs any more.
Adoption? It wasn’t something she’d considered. But if Charlie wanted more and this was the way to further secure her position – just in case Terry ever did spill the beans – then maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.
‘We’ll do it proper. A government adoption agency. It’ll all be kosher, I promise you,’ Charlie told her.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
And Charlie hugged her and kissed her, beaming with pleasure.
‘A little boy this time, yeah?’ he said.
‘OK,’ said Nula.