Obviously I tried to phone Patrick the second I got out of there. Fuck the Ben Rules.
I had accepted Tamsin’s offer of a cab without argument. It was getting pretty late and I wasn’t really in the mood for pissed-up tube-goers making their way home from fun nights out. My night out could not have been described as fun. Revealing, yes. Shocking, yes. Fun, no. Not exactly.
It clicked straight to voicemail. He obviously had it turned off. Probably tucked up in bed with Michelle by now, hand curved tenderly around her waist. The loving, considerate husband. I didn’t leave a message. I’m not that stupid.
Five minutes later I was grateful he hadn’t answered. If I’d blurted out exactly what was bothering me, ignoring his protestations of ‘Can I call you back in a bit, mate?’ then I would probably never have heard from him again. I would have overstepped the mark from something that was unthreatening to something that was decidedly dangerous. I would have made myself a liability.
I’m going to have to play this carefully. I can’t storm in there all accusing and demanding. Mind you, I’m not going to let him get away with it either. At the very least I intend to tell him what I know. To see what he has to say for himself.
I tried not to think about them together. Tried to remind myself that he had only just met me when it happened. But the idea of it made me feel like throwing up.
Ali was up when I got in. She started in on some interminable story about how her ex had called her phone by mistake, but they’d ended up having a long and soul-searching conversation. Something like that. I struggled to even feign interest. I think she said they were meeting up next week. I have no doubt she’ll tell me the whole story again when I see her tonight. Ali has that tendency. If she has something to tell you, once is never enough. I’ll catch it on the replay.
I claimed tiredness and an early start and retreated to my room. The thought of sleep seemed like an impossibility, though, so I put in a DVD of The Princess Bride – a film I have watched at least seventeen times and slept through countless more, swallowed down two Nytol and somehow managed to pass out.
Tamsin has a slightly hysterical whiff about her this morning, like a kid the week before Christmas. She’s a woman on a mission. I know she’s gagging to talk to me about it. Now she’s opened up those floodgates nothing will close them again. I get the impression she’s looking forward to a brainstorming session because she’s already asked me what I’m doing at lunchtime. It’s laughable.
Of course I haven’t heard anything from Patrick. We don’t have the kind of arrangement that includes heart to hearts on the phone. All I can do is wait for him to text me about a meeting time – I’m always free, by the way. Whenever he has sent me a date and venue I have only ever said yes. I’ve cancelled plans and let friends down to be at his beck and call. Suddenly this strikes me as a bit pathetic. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long.
I wait until Lucy finally decides to go out and get herself some lunch. As usual it doesn’t even cross her mind to offer to pick something up for me, too. Mind you, I’m as bad these days. Once I realized she was never going to reciprocate my goodwill I gave up. Let her pick out her own minuscule low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie sandwich. Tamsin is out at a meeting. Across town at the offices of ITV.
I shut the door. Pick up the phone. Dial the number.
‘Patrick Mitchell’s office.’
‘Hi,’ I say in what I hope is a happy, confident tone. ‘This is Bea from Castle. I have Tamsin Fordham for him.’
‘Hold on, Bea. I’ll see if he’s available,’ Verity – I assume it’s Verity – says.
I wait. The door handle rattles and I jump. I hold the handset over its cradle, ready to hang up at any moment. Ashley sticks her head round the door.
‘I’m just—’ she starts to say and I can’t help it, I practically bite her head off.
‘Fuck’s sake, Ashley. If the door is shut then knock.’
I hear a rustle on the other end of the line and flap my hand at her to leave. She backs out, mouthing, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Just in time. I hear his voice. He sounds wary, and why wouldn’t he?
‘Tamsin?’
I can’t be bothered with the niceties. ‘Anything you think you should tell me?’
‘Jesus Christ. What the hell are you doing calling me at work?’
‘Because I knew you wouldn’t call me and I needed to talk to you.’
‘I thought we’d agreed …’
‘Yes, well, I don’t feel like sticking to that agreement at the moment.’
‘You want to tell me what this is all about?’ He sounds angry.
‘Do you want me to over the phone?’
‘Stop playing games, Bea.’
‘I’m not. It was a genuine question.’
He sighs noisily. ‘What are you doing after work? I could meet you for an hour at six.’
He’s already waiting by the little kiosk that sells teas and coffees when I get there. Not that we are planning on sharing a cuppa. It was just the only place we could agree on in the whole of Hyde Park, tucked just inside, right by Lancaster Gate tube.
I’m ten minutes late because I couldn’t get away from Tamsin’s manic plotting. She’s like a dog with a bone now that she’s decided to catch Patrick out. We already spent half the afternoon throwing out more and more laughable ideas on how to go about it. Mine were deliberately idiotic, obviously. At one point she accused me of having watched too much Scooby Doo. Thankfully she hasn’t stumbled across any plans worthy of serious consideration yet. Nothing Patrick or I should lose any sleep over.
I feel a little flutter of excitement when I see him, as I always do. He’s looking down at his phone; he hasn’t noticed me yet. Then I feel bad for having worried him and for breaking the Ben Rules so flagrantly. I’m not the only one who has things at stake.
And then, of course, I remember why we’re here and I just feel angry.
He looks up when I’m still a few feet away. Neither of us smiles.
‘Sorry I’m late. Tamsin kept me talking.’
Patrick starts to walk towards the ornamental pond and I follow.
‘So,’ he says, dispensing with the niceties, ‘are you going to tell me what this is all about?’
I have already decided I’m just going to say it. I’m not going to bubble wrap it for him.
‘Tamsin told me about you and her.’
That stops him in his tracks. ‘She did what?’
I mean, it’s actually quite incredible that his first thought is how this might impact on him. ‘The fact that she told me is hardly the point. Did it happen?’
He looks at me. ‘Are you jealous? We’d only known each other a couple of days.’
‘That’s not the point … I mean … Tamsin?’
‘I didn’t sleep with her.’
‘So I hear. She’s already given me a “blow by blow” account.’
I pause to see if he will jump in and deny what I’m implying. He doesn’t. I force myself not to get sidetracked in pressing for details.
‘But … what? It was her you really fancied all along? You’ve been waiting for this to happen for years? What?’
‘Of course not. If you really want to know I did it to shut her up.’
Now I’m the one who is taken aback. ‘What?’
‘Once you told me about the honey trap I knew I had to do something. I figured if I could get her to feel guilty, too, she’d stop acting like the fidelity police.’
I flop myself down on an empty bench. I actually laugh. ‘That might possibly be genius.’
He sits next to me. Close but not too close, in case some random colleague happens to saunter by with their poodle.
‘I thought so. Not that it should matter, because we’d only just met and we hadn’t promised each other anything, but I’m not and never have been interested in Tamsin in that way. I swear.’
OK, so now I’m going to say something really needy. Bear with me. It’s going to be pitiful. ‘And, otherwise, it’s just been me? I mean, apart from Michelle obviously …’
‘It’s just been you. It’s only going to be you. I really like you, Bea, you know that.’
I take a deep breath in. Exhale loudly. ‘You’re actually quite scary. To have come up with that as a plan …’
‘It worked, didn’t it?’
‘I guess I have to admit it did. But that text she sent you—’
He interrupts, laughing. ‘She told you about that? That was a fucking godsend.’
‘She’s deleted it.’
There’s a comedy moment where he scrabbles for his phone, checks his messages, scrolls forward and back over and over again. Checks his photos. ‘How the fuck?’
I tell him what she told me. I’ll be honest, even though I’ve decided to forgive him I still get a certain satisfaction from seeing his confident mask slip.
‘Fuck. That must be how she found out where and when we were meeting up.’
I hadn’t even thought of that. ‘You think?’
‘How else?’
‘It gets worse,’ I say, and I tell him about Tamsin’s new determination to unmask the real him. ‘She wants me to help her.’
He thinks about this for a moment. The afternoon has turned cooler. There’s the tiniest hint of autumn in the air. I dig my cardigan out of my bag and put it on.
I start to worry when he doesn’t say anything, wondering if this near miss has made the whole thing seem a bit too real. ‘Are you having second thoughts … about us I mean?’
And as I say this I realize that I desperately want him to say no, I’m not having second thoughts, I couldn’t give you up now even if I wanted to.
Shit. I really don’t want him to answer.
He looks at me. ‘No. Of course not. But it’s complicated now – you do see that?’
I nod reluctantly. I’m scared about where this is going.
‘We can’t get caught,’ he says quietly.
‘I know. But if she thinks I’m helping her then I can make sure we don’t.’
This has only just occurred to me. Tamsin asking for my help might just be the thing that saves me and Patrick.
‘I mean, think about it. I can send her off on completely the wrong track.’
A hint of a smile plays on his lips for the first time since we got here. That lopsided thing he does, where only one side of his mouth turns up. It’s always made me go a bit weak at the knees.
‘You think you can pull it off?’
I’m so relieved that my confidence knows no limits, even though I am not exactly sure what I intend to do. ‘Definitely. It’ll be hilarious. And after a while surely she’ll give up …’
‘That I wouldn’t be so sure of. We can’t get complacent. Not for a second.’
We. He said ‘we’.
‘No! Of course not. I know my job’s nowhere near as important as your marriage’ – in all honesty I’ve realized I couldn’t give a toss about his marriage any more, but I want him to feel confident that I do, and I still very much care about my job. At least until I can find another one, then all bets are off so far as I’m concerned – ‘but I don’t want either to blow up in my face. We can use this to our advantage.’
His smile widens, takes over his whole face.
‘So long as she never finds out it’s you she’s got nothing. Nothing Michelle would believe anyway.’
‘It’s risky,’ I say, now I’m feeling secure enough to know he’s not going anywhere.
Patrick laughs. ‘We can really mess with her head. Get her to believe anything we want her to believe. It’s actually funny.’
‘I guess we can’t use Ben any more.’
He thinks for a second. ‘Yes we can. We have to. Just not for real meetings. Then I can make sure I leave my phone for her to find every now and then. I mean, what else is she going to do? Follow me?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’
‘I can get away next Thursday evening. You?’
I think about the night out that Ali, Sarah and I have planned. Just a pizza followed by the pub and then a club. Nothing special but we did all promise each other we’d keep it free.
‘OK.’
‘Six thirty at the Covent Garden?’
I nod.
‘I’ll send you a Ben message and you just need to say yes to whatever it is. But the plan is half six at the Covent Garden, OK?’
‘Sure.’
‘Oh, and get a pay-as-you-go phone before then. I will, too. I’ll keep mine in the office, locked in a drawer that only I have the key to. Texts only, no calls.’
‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘This is getting like The Wire.’
‘We need to be extra careful,’ he says, and then he looks round to check no one is watching and gives my hand a quick squeeze.
‘I really do want to keep seeing you, Bea.’
I gulp, furious at myself for turning into such an idiot. I have no idea where this is going to end.
‘Me, too.’