‘How are you feeling?’ said Venetia, stroking Serena’s hand as she lay propped up in her hospital bed. As she was also injured as well as in labour, rather than being taken to the Portland where she’d been due to give birth, she’d been taken to the Royal Free Hospital.
‘Serena, he’s so beautiful,’ said Venetia. She gazed warmly at the tiny baby held in her arms, with his shock of brown hair and cross, crumpled pink face. Serena looked down and smiled, the warm, proud, protective smile of a new mother. Her face was tired, exhausted, but still beautiful. She looked so tiny and fragile, not the big movie star, thought Venetia.
Venetia had hardly been able to grasp the situation when Cate had called just before midnight to say that, in the space of only a few short hours, Serena had been kidnapped at gunpoint, and had gone into labour. She had left home immediately and raced across London, a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She had no idea what injuries, if any, Serena had sustained from the ordeal. All she could think about was that she did not want to lose her sister as well as her father, her husband and her lover. Please God, she had prayed, give me this one.
Venetia turned when she heard the sound of soft footsteps entering Serena’s private room. Tom was at the doorway, clutching drinks and magazines from the hospital shop. What a difference a day makes, Venetia thought to herself, as she saw Serena and Tom’s eyes lock across the room.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she smiled, getting up and giving Tom’s arm a squeeze as she passed. Tom smiled at her, grateful for the gesture. Even while he had raced with Cate over to the hospital, following the ambulance’s flashing light as it hurtled through the darkness, he had felt an overwhelming sense of awkwardness. After all, what was he in Serena’s life any more? Not direct family, not her partner – not even a friend, he thought sadly. But he felt so right being there next to her.
‘You’re awake,’ he smiled softly.
Serena’s lips were cracked and dry, but she still managed a wry smile. ‘Labour was bloody hard work: don’t do it.’
‘How’s the rest of you?’
‘Just a sprained ankle where I fell. It’s fine.’
Tom perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed and looked over at the baby. ‘Any names yet?’
‘I want to see his personality first. I quite like Toby,’ smiled Serena, gazing at the cot.
‘No showbiz names,’ said Tom in a mock-severe tone.
‘Elmore will be terribly disappointed,’ grinned Serena.
Tom could not believe that this was the same woman he had last seen on the Nile cruiser in February. It was barely a year ago, but she seemed a completely different person. Her body was thin, not the rounded curves of most of the new mums he had seen on his walkabout through the hospital. Although she had clearly been through an ordeal, there was a softness, a fragility about her. It had been a year of hard knocks for Serena and it was starting to show, thought Tom, feeling a powerful desire to try and make things right.
Serena felt his eyes on her. ‘You’re thinking I look shit, aren’t you?’ she said, a tremble of panic in her voice. Tom lightly touched her hand. ‘Actually I was thinking how it suited you,’ he smiled.
‘Motherhood suits me? Ewww!’ said Serena, a spark of her old self briefly igniting. ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers: I’m not a complete wreck, you know. It hasn’t been the best year for me in many ways –’ she glanced back to the cot – ‘although in many ways it has. And next year I’m going to get everything back on track.’
‘But first enjoy your baby, eh?’ said Tom softly, feeling his fingers unconsciously stroke hers.
Serena looked up at him. She didn’t want to seem tired and useless, not in front of him. ‘I can do both,’ she insisted. ‘Lots of people combine motherhood and a successful career. Look at Catherine Zeta Jones or Julia Roberts.’
Tom grinned at the familiar feistiness that had fired up in her eyes.
‘Funny you should say that,’ said Tom slowly. ‘Since I last saw you, I’ve been working on a script. It’s been green-lighted. Dickie Browning is producing, can you believe it?’ he grinned. ‘I think there may be a good part for you in it.’
Serena felt her body twitch on the bed. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Tom,’ she said, pulling her hand away.
‘Ahh, I don’t feel sorry for you, Sin. I admire you,’ he said matter-of-factly.
Serena felt a pain coming from somewhere in her body. Not a post-natal pain, or one from having a gun barrel forced into her flesh, but the dull ache of her heart. She stared at him sitting by her bedside, so handsome, so concerned, so decent. He wasn’t here to judge her or condemn her, to gloat or feel sorry for her. He was here because he cared. The year seemed to rewind in slow motion as she thought about her time with Michael Sarkis, even her night with David Goldman. Neither of them was half the man Tom was, but she’d rejected him for those milksops – yet all Tom did now was admire her. She looked over to the cot where her son was sleeping and she couldn’t help but wish it was the three of them sitting in their own home, a family. Tom followed her eyes. ‘He’s a fine little man,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Serena weakly, her voice all small and cracked.
Their eyes met and his hand gripped hers a little more firmly. Did he think the same? Could he want the same?
‘I won’t let you down again,’ whispered Tom, his eyes drifting from Serena’s face to the baby’s thin body. ‘I won’t let either of you down.’
Cate had spent so long with the police, giving statements and being interviewed, that she had almost missed the birth of her nephew. Camilla had come down to the station and demanded that Cate be released, quoting all sorts of confusing legislation and police charters. Cate suspected that Camilla had been making it up as she went along, but it had worked, and now she was sitting in the hospital’s cafeteria on a plastic chair, sipping black coffee, her eyelids feeling like lead.
She hadn’t had any sleep in over twenty-four hours, she realized as she looked at her reflection in the glass. She was still wearing her white Ungaro gown from the night before. Sleep, sleep, she needed sleep. As she allowed her eyelids to rest closed for just a few moments, the previous night’s events came flooding back. After the shot had rung out, the police had been called immediately. Dimitri had tried to escape in one of Philip’s Bentleys, but he had been picked up on the A1 thirty minutes later, bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound in his arm.
Philip and Nicholas had denied everything, but with Serena screaming her accusations about her kidnap and Oswald’s murder, they’d been taken down to the police station for questioning. Cate had no idea how seriously the allegations about her father’s death were being taken, however. They had to be realistic: short of a confession, murder would be very difficult to prove. Besides, Philip had not exactly confessed to killing Oswald, had he? He had been very careful to insist, ‘It was an accident.’ Cate snorted. She doubted it. But men like Nicholas and Philip, who were connected, powerful, and rich enough to get the very best lawyers, they were almost certain to slip the noose.
She felt a stab of guilt when she thought once more about Oswald’s body lying motionless in the moat. Somehow, after everything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours, his death had slipped from her mind and she felt guilty that she didn’t feel a deeper sense of grief. She wasn’t sure whether the grief had been delayed by other events, or whether the numbness she felt about Oswald’s death inside was a detachment that came from not caring. She did care. Daddy was a bully, he was difficult, he had made her life hell. But he was her father. As Cate had cradled Serena’s baby in her arms last night, welcoming in a new generation of Balcons, she had realized that family was everything. Despite all they had been through, the four girls still had each other. Nothing – not the secrets, the heartbreak, the tragedy; not even Daddy – could break their bond. That was all that mattered. Cate scrunched the polystyrene coffee cup in her fist and stood up, her creased gown still shimmering in the fluorescent light. It was time to go home.
Jack Kidman was waiting for Venetia outside Serena’s room, his eyes like a lifeline across the cold linoleum. When he had turned up at her home the night before, her whole body had melted into a puddle of relief. As they lay together on her bed, he had told her he had understood her actions at the Christmas ball. He hadn’t expected her to leave the family party; he had just wanted to go somewhere and cool off. He told her he wanted to be there for her, but that did not necessarily mean being at her side the whole time. Now, in the hospital corridor, he stretched out his hand and pulled her towards him. ‘Want to go home?’ he asked.
Venetia nodded.
‘Kensington or Westbourne Grove?’
Her heart gave a little skip, wondering if she had read too much into the words. ‘Do you mean my place or yours?’
The corridor was silent except for the sound of a distant trolley being rattled away by a nurse. ‘This year, I think there should be an “ours”,’ said Jack softly.
Venetia’s heart was beginning to race now. ‘Ours?’
Jack held her face in his warm hands.
‘When you’re ready,’ he said. ‘I know you’ve just lost your father and your husband, and you have responsibilities to your family, not to mention the business.’ He looked awkward and embarrassed as he continued slowly. ‘But I wondered, well, I think it’s something you should consider …’
‘What is it, Jack?’ she said, a smile pulling at her face.
‘Well, as you know the house in Seville is finished, and I was wondering if you’d like to come out there with me?’ He searched her face, looking for a flicker of emotion.
‘I don’t want to move there full time,’ he added, ‘not yet, anyway. I just thought I would go for the summer this year. Jade, my oldest child, is going to come out to spend her summer holiday there, and I want you to be there, too. I know it’s a long way off, but if we plan now …’
She looked at him as he babbled nervously, her eyes welling up with tears. Suddenly a new life was unfolding in front of her. She had worked so hard with her business, and she would always feel proud of those achievements, but love, children and companionship was all she really craved, and it was all here in front of her now. Jack’s eyes, soft and chocolate brown like a puppy dog’s, crinkled up, willing her to say yes. She knew where her priorities lay. The life Jack had always outlined for himself out in Seville was her idea of Utopia: turning the house into an art school, spending the days being creative, cooking with tomatoes or oranges fresh from the garden, running around with Jack’s three children. After all, she could still have a family, just a different type of family unit.
‘Is that a yes, then?’ he asked hopefully.
She pulled him forward to kiss him, a kiss full of hope, promise and passion. And she sighed. ‘Oh, it’s definitely a yes.’
Camilla’s Audi sped down the dual carriageway, past grassy banks and signposts to places she would never visit. Clouds were thick, the sky grey, slowly turning to the dull blue of dusk. Streetlights like big orange orbs passed above her head, drawing a straight line down the road like arrows pointing her to her fate. Driving down the A23 she knew that in about twenty minutes she would be there: her meeting with Inspector Cranbrook. Twice she had turned off the road, prevaricating, torn between a lie and her conscience. But each time her resolve had returned and she had curled back onto the main road to continue her journey. It was time to be strong, to face up to what she had done.
Camilla had always thought that ambition was her driving force, but over the last few days she had realized an even more powerful emotion had taken over. Guilt, morality, a sense of decency – whatever it was, it was even stronger than her will to succeed. Now she was heading south to tell Cranbrook about the hit-and-run incident eleven years earlier. She knew it would be career suicide. With Oswald and Leonard Graham both dead, the hit-and-run could have died with them. No body, no witnesses, just Leonard Graham’s letter. But her sisters and Nick Douglas had read it: how could she let them carry that burden? It wasn’t fair to make them shield her for something she had done. She owed it to them, to herself, to confess.
She sighed. This time last year she’d had everything: a career, a rich boyfriend, a beautiful house, money and respect. This time next year she could have nothing. Would she go to prison? Even if she dodged that bullet, she would almost certainly lose her livelihood. The Bar, politics, would all run through her fingers like sand once this information became known. Voices in her head tried one last time to persuade her to turn around to head back to London. But she couldn’t. Her car pulled into a car park behind the Sussex Police HQ. She walked to reception and looked nervously at a young blonde female officer behind the desk. The policewoman lifted a telephone beside her and stared impassively back at Camilla.
‘Inspector Cranbrook will see you now,’ the woman said flatly.
Camilla’s eyes were fixed forward, her mouth a determined line, as she walked down the cold, pale corridor. Her hand tightened around Leonard Graham’s letter, folded in her pocket. It was time to put things right.
Cate couldn’t sleep. Not the plump feather duvet, not the cashmere jogging bottoms, or the stillness of the deserted New Year’s Day streets could lull Cate off into a slumber. She might have been physically exhausted, but mentally she couldn’t stop processing all the revelations that had unfolded in the last five days. She glanced at the little silver clock on her bedside cabinet: it was 8.10 p.m. Probably not a good idea to try and sleep before she had eaten anything: she remembered that she had only had a cup of coffee all day. She forced herself off the thick mattress and ran downstairs to the kitchen, switching on the Christmas tree lights as she passed through the lounge; they sparkled like pomegranate seeds against the forest green of the fir tree.
As she walked into the kitchen, she kicked off her slippers to treat the soles of her feet to the warmth coming up from the underfloor heating beneath the limestone tiles. She opened the big steel fridge with a gentle pop. Oh dear, she thought: out-of-date chicken, wilted spinach, a box of organic vegetables that looked as if they were about to return to the earth. There wasn’t even any milk for a cup of tea. Tutting, she closed the door and went back through to the lounge. She perched on the edge of her brown leather sofa, staring at the Christmas tree lights and baubles, wondering if she could muster up the energy to find a shop that was open.
There was a gentle knock at the door and she got up, pulling her dressing gown around her. Perhaps it would be Camilla. She had urged her sister to go and tell the police about the body, the whole story. She had offered to go with her, but Camilla had refused. It would not have surprised her one bit if Camilla had bottled out of going. She attached the chain to the door and opened it a few inches so she could see the visitor standing on the little cobbled mews street in front of her house.
‘Nick!’ she said, surprised, opening the door. He stood at the doorway in a pair of dark blue jeans, a black sweater, his long camel overcoat and a blue scarf flipped over one shoulder like a college boy. Under his arms were two large bags that appeared to be stuffed full of groceries.
‘If you tell me that’s food, I’ll kiss you,’ grinned Cate, showing him into the lounge.
‘You do know your mobile is switched off?’ said Nick, pulling off his coat and dumping the bags on the sofa. He looked at her with a mixture of pleasure and concern. ‘I couldn’t get in touch with you,’ he said softly. ‘In the end I spoke to Tom. He’s at the hospital with Serena, you know?’
Cate smiled back warmly, ‘Yes, I know, I’m really pleased about that.’
‘Anyway, he told me you had left, so I assumed you had come home. You look knackered.’
‘Thanks,’ smiled Cate, ‘you know how to charm the ladies, don’t you?’
‘But you are OK?’ he said, his eyes deep with concern. ‘I wish I had been there with you last night.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she grinned. ‘I had Tom with me, the last action hero. I did feel as if I was in Die Hard or something.’
She instantly regretted her flippancy, wondering if Nick would think she preferred to be at Tom’s side. But Nick was thinking about her, not himself.
‘Have you slept?’
She sighed. ‘No, not yet.’
He stood and took her by her arm. ‘You go upstairs and have a hot bath or a lie-down, whatever. I’m going to cook you the best meal you’ve ever had,’ he grinned.
‘Really?’ she said, trying to peek into the two grocery bags he had left on the floor. ‘What have you managed to rustle up from the corner shop?’
‘Mmm, well, you might be surprised, Miss Balcon,’ he said teasingly. ‘Now go upstairs, I’ll give you a shout in about an hour.’
Upstairs, Cate sank back into the cloud-like confines of her duvet, covered her eyes with an arm and groaned softly. Friendship. That’s why he was here. Or did he feel sorry for her? It all felt so right, she thought sadly: Nick beavering away over a steaming stove, Christmas lights twinkling, Cate pottering about the house. Easy, intimate comfort. It was as if they belonged together, but their kiss on Christmas morning now seemed so long ago. Yes, they had spent hours in each other’s company since then, but there had not been a glimmer of anything romantic between them. Far from it. Nick had been a helpful and supportive friend – no more, no less. She thought about them on the brink of a New Year and suddenly she felt sad. They might be spending New Year’s Day together this year, albeit out of sympathy on Nick’s part, but in twelve months’ time it would probably be different. No doubt Nick would find another girlfriend and their closeness would become eroded. She wondered if she should make one last attempt to tell him how she felt, but it all felt hopeless somehow. She had tried so hard at the Christmas Eve party to be charming, seductive, to present herself as a more glamorous sexual thing in front of Nick, but whatever frisson there had been between them had been extinguished the next day as soon as it had ignited. As delicious smells spiralled up the stairs from the kitchen into her bedroom, her eyes fixed sadly on the ceiling. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, she thought to herself, as she finally drifted off to sleep.
‘It’s ready!’ shouted Nick, rousing her. Cate took off her dressing gown and pulled on a sheer caramel sweater, shaking her hair loose from its ponytail. I might as well make some sort of effort, she thought, checking herself in the mirror.
As she stepped through into the lounge, she found that the whole room was glowing. Her dining table had been exquistitely set with holly, napkins, crystal goblets, and a parade of candles that was casting a glorious warm glow around the room. Nick was standing there with two glasses of champagne, the sleeves of his jumper pushed up to his elbows, a smudge of flour across his cheek. ‘What’s all this?’ said Cate, not quite believing the transformation, ‘I thought you were doing a microwave pizza.’
Nick clinked his glass with Cate’s and turned to press play on the stereo, cueing the gentle strains of her favourite Sinatra song.
‘I wanted to do this properly,’ he mumbled, wiping his cheek so that the flour grains fell off like tiny snowflakes. He suddenly looked awkward and the air between them charged. ‘I wasn’t sure tonight was the right time, after all you’ve been through, but …’ he paused, looking awkward. ‘… But Cate, I couldn’t wait any longer.’ He moved towards her. ‘I wanted to finish what I tried to start on Christmas morning.’
Cate’s heart lurched. ‘What are you talking about? The right time for what?’ she whispered.
‘Time to stop being just friends,’ he said, pulling her close and planting a soft lingering kiss on her lips. It was familiar but exciting, tender but passionate. She had never tasted a sweeter kiss.
‘We should have done that days ago,’ she whispered.
Nick’s fingers stroked hers. ‘No. We should have done that months ago,’ he said. ‘But after all you told me in Milan –’
‘What?’ said Cate, jolting her head up in surprise.
‘You told me that nothing should happen between us because we worked together.’
‘I never said that!’ said Cate indignantly. ‘If I remember rightly, you said you had a girlfriend, which you did.’
‘No, you said …’ began Nick, a smile breaking out on his face. ‘You said …’ and they both began laughing.
Nick put his hands on her shoulders and looked her directly in the eyes. ‘I would have given up Rebecca for you in a second,’ he said, stroking her cheek with his thumb. ‘You’re my best friend, my partner in crime …’ He stopped and took a small breath. ‘You’re the woman I love.’
Cate felt a tear trickling down her cheek. ‘I love you, too,’ she said, looking into his deep hazel eyes.
‘Marry me Cate,’ he said, his lips coming down onto hers once more, so she could taste the slight fizz of champagne. Sinatra sang in the background, the smell of roast chicken swirled around the room, candlelight crackled. Belonging. Home.
She moved her lips away from his, just enough so she could speak. ‘Marry you, Nick Douglas? But we’ve only just kissed,’ she said, her mouth moving into a slow smile.
Nick grabbed her hand and looked at her watch. ‘Workaholic, when are we due back in the office?’ he teased.
‘Not until Monday,’ she said, putting her hands around the back of his neck. Nick squeezed her tight, as if he would never let her go.
‘Hmm, three days. You know what I call that?’ he asked, running his fingers through her hair.
‘No,’ smiled Cate into his shoulder.
‘Plenty of time.’