Alicia Wintrop lived in a red-brick town house on West Eleventh Street, so close to Tess’s own apartment that, if she stood on her roof terrace, they could probably have a conversation.
‘Can I help you?’ said Alicia, appearing in the open doorway. Even at nine thirty in the morning, she was perfectly dressed in West Village chic with her dark-blue designer jeans, white, long-sleeve T-shirt, and vertiginous heels that looked more like bondage gear than casual footwear. Tess stood on the top step of the stoop, breathing the cold air deeply, desperately trying to shrug off the hangover from the night before’s drinking. ‘I’m Tess Garrett, a friend of Brooke Asgill and David Billington’s,’ said Tess, handing her an Asgill business card. ‘I wanted to talk to you about a private matter. Can I come in?’
Alicia frowned at the card then reluctantly beckoned her into the house.
‘Are you going to the wedding?’ asked Alicia, leading Tess into a sleek kitchen that smelt of flowers and fresh bread. Tess looked around enviously, doing a quick inventory of the ground floor. Painted in muted, elegant colours and dotted with impressive-looking modern art, the house had to be a ten-million-dollar property and yet Alicia Wintrop could be no more than thirty. How do these people do it? wondered Tess.
Alicia opened the fridge and poured two glasses of fresh juice.
‘Yes, I’ll be at the wedding,’ said Tess, taking her glass, ‘although I’m sort of working.’
‘So you work for Brooke?’
‘I’m her publicist.’
‘Ah. You must be busy,’ smiled Alicia, taking a sip of her juice.
Tess suppressed a sigh. There was no time for small talk.
‘Maybe my job has made me a cynic,’ she said, ‘but I don’t really believe in coincidences. Do you, Alicia?’
Alicia leaned against the granite worktop and shrugged.
‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ she replied guardedly.
‘Let me explain,’ said Tess evenly. ‘Brooke and David are extremely distressed about a story that appeared in the Washington Spy this week. A story that makes all sort of insinuations about Brooke’s family. A story that, to be frank, can cause a lot of damage.’
‘Really? I don’t read the Washington Spy,’ said Alicia, averting her green eyes.
‘That’s strange,’ said Tess. ‘Pillow talk obviously isn’t what it used to be. You see, I heard you’re sleeping with Benjamin Foley, the Spy’s proprietor, and I think you asked him to run the Olivia Martin story.’
Alicia’s cheeks coloured but her expression was defiant.
‘And I think you have horribly bad manners coming into my home and accusing me of such things. David Billington is my friend.’
‘Exactly,’ replied Tess.
Alicia stared down at the floor and Tess took her silence as her cue to continue.
‘A contact at the Oracle told me that the story about Brooke and her college tutor was leaked by an ex-girlfriend of David’s. I think that girlfriend was you, Alicia. I also think you persuaded Ben Foley to run the story. The Billingtons are very influential in Washington, and not many people would want to piss them off by running a story like this, not even a satirical magazine. This is a little rich even for their blood. But then, maybe a good fuck persuaded Foley, eh?’
Alicia dipped her chin and glowered. ‘This is outrageous!’ she spat. ‘Complete speculation.’
Tess didn’t move or speak. It was one of the tactics she had picked up from her old editor at the Globe, who used it to great effect with publicists and lawyers. It gave nothing away and yet hinted at power and knowledge.
‘You don’t want David to marry Brooke, do you?’ said Tess finally.
‘No, I don’t!’ yelled Alicia finally, her nostrils flaring angrily.
Tess breathed a silent sigh of relief. She was right after all.
‘I have known David for fifteen years,’ said Alicia, her voice trembling. ‘I was in a relationship with him for two of those years. I know his family well and I know the plans they have for him. I loved David Billington, do you understand that? I believe in him. It may be your job to protect the Asgills, but at what cost? You know David’s political aspirations. You’d be a fool not to recognize that he’d be a great politician. But if his wife’s father murdered someone and it’s been covered up for all these years by her family, how is that going to look to the American public? They deserve more; they deserve the truth. Can you live with yourself trying to cover that up? Can you live with having denied this country a great leader – and for what? A salary?’
Tess looked at Alicia contemptuously. She did not believe for one second that Alicia’s motives had been so altruistic, that she cared so much about the American public. This was a woman who only cared about herself and was prepared to use any tactic to get her own way.
‘Don’t give me all this morality,’ said Tess. ‘This is about you still wanting David. It’s about you being jealous of Brooke Asgill and wanting to split them up.’
‘I had my whole life, our life, planned out before he met her.’
‘Your relationship was over by the time David met Brooke.’
‘Yes, and I ended it. Foolishly playing hard to get,’ she said. ‘I wanted him back, but by that point, he had already met her. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.’
Tess examined her face, seeing that her eyes were glossy with tears and, for a moment, felt sympathy. She remembered the sharp pain when she saw the sapphire ring in Sean’s bag in Maui. A ring for someone else. Yes, she knew what it was to want someone and discover that they wanted someone else. But that didn’t justify Alicia’s actions. She wasn’t just damaging Brooke; she could bring down a whole family, perhaps two.
‘The story about Howard Asgill and Olivia Martin is over forty years old,’ said Tess steadily. ‘It’s dead, forgotten. More to the point, it’s not even true. Don’t sabotage David’s relationship because of it.’
Alicia stared directly at her. ‘And you are sure about that, Tess? Absolutely sure about it?’ said Alicia with contempt. ‘Why don’t you speak to Olivia’s sister and then tell me you’re so sure. She certainly doesn’t believe Olivia just disappeared.’
‘Oh, and now you care about Olivia Martin’s family too?’ scoffed Tess.
‘At least I care about someone,’ said Alicia.
Tess put down her glass and picked up her bag.
‘Goodbye Alicia,’ said Tess, turning towards the door. ‘I’ll see myself out.’
Out on the street, it was cold. Tess pulled her coat up around her ears and hurried back towards Perry Street. With every step, Alicia’s words grumbled uncomfortably around her mind. At least I care about someone. Maybe she was right. Would she be doing this if she wasn’t being so well paid? No, absolutely not. But she had come to think of Brooke as a friend and, for all Meredith’s frostiness and Sean’s cavalier way with her feelings, she did care about the Asgill family. What annoyed Tess more was Alicia’s claim to care for David and his career. It may be your job to protect the Asgills, she had said, but at what cost? It reminded her of a conversation she’d once had with a barrister friend of Dom’s. He was renowned for getting violent criminals off their charge and Tess had asked him, ‘How can you? How can you do it when you know they are guilty?’
His response had been simple; that if his client told him he was innocent, then that’s what he believed. Tess remembered mocking him for his self-seeking blindness, and he’d reminded her that journalists were not such moral creatures themselves. Maybe he was right, too. But that wasn’t why she had got into journalism: what she’d loved back in the days of the Colchester Observer was breaking stories and digging up the truth. Tess had to admit that, somewhere along the line, that ideal had become pushed to one side. The Sunday Globe had been as much about the fancy job title and the fat pay-cheque as about chasing down the truth. But was she still that way? she wondered. Was she still so blinded by ambition that the truth no longer mattered? She shivered as she opened the door to the apartment. Jemma was coming out of the kitchen holding a glass jug filled with something thick and creamy.
‘Oreo Cookie Jello,’ she smiled, holding it up. ‘Want some?’
‘Jello? At eleven o’clock in the morning?’
‘Jello is good any time,’ winked Jemma, plunging a spoon into the gloop with a satisfying slurp. Tess sighed and flopped down on the sofa.
‘Am I a bad person?’ she asked Jemma.
‘Why?’ said Jemma, sitting on the armchair. ‘Am I to assume you’ve just attacked Alicia Wintrop and left her for dead?’
Tess smiled weakly. ‘No, not that, it’s just this job … Ah, sod it,’ she said, and reached for the Jello. She ate in silence for a moment.
‘What if Howard Asgill killed Olivia Martin?’ she asked quietly.
‘I thought you and David Billington were working diligently to make that story go away.’
‘But what if it’s true, Jem?’
‘I’m not sure it’s that important these days,’ she shrugged. ‘Bill Clinton’s brother was a coke dealer and it didn’t harm his career, did it?’
‘It was his half-brother and Bill was already a governor,’ replied Tess quickly.
Jemma curled her feet under her and looked at her friend directly. ‘Why do you think this Olivia woman was murdered all of a sudden?’
Tess rubbed her lips thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know what happened to her. Certainly nobody has openly talked about Howard’s involvement before now, unless you count Charles Devine.’
‘Who’s a terrible old gossip.’
‘But I’ve just got a feeling that something’s not … not right here, Jem. We’re both news-hounds, aren’t we? That’s what we’d have been called in the old days. We sense stories like dogs sense blood. I’ve just got that tingle.’
‘So what’s your theory, Sherlock?’
‘Charles Devine said that Howard was rumoured to be having an affair with Olivia. We know from press cuttings from the time that Olivia’s career was on the skids, plus she had a drug habit. What if she needed money and went to Howard demanding some kiss-off from him once he got married? He kills her. Gets rid of the body.’
‘Maybe, but Tess, maybe she got abducted by aliens who’d come to see the Beatles at Madison Square Garden.’
Tess wasn’t listening. She stood there thinking for a moment.
‘Pass me the phone,’ she said quickly.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘Dom.’
‘Dom?’ shrieked Jemma. ‘I thought you said you never wanted to see him again after he turned up last night to fuck with your mind …’
‘He can get free hotels,’ said Tess, determined to be practical.
‘Is now the right time to be going on holiday?’
‘I’m not going on holiday,’ said Tess, putting the receiver to her ear. ‘I’m going to Louisiana. To Meredith’s family home.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as I can get on a plane.’
Jemma shook her head and slammed the jug of Jello on the coffee table.
‘Tess. For as long as we have known each other, you have always wanted to work in New York. You’ve wanted the life, the excitement, the buzz, and the Asgills have handed you that opportunity on a plate. Shit, if it wasn’t for the Asgills, I’d be back snapping celebrity cellulite as they get out of taxis. We owe them, Tess. We’re here to make sure this wedding happens, not to dredge up the past and point the finger. We’re supposed to be protecting them, not running around the country trying to stitch them up.’
‘I’m not stitching them up. I’m doing my job, Jemma,’ cried Tess angrily. ‘This story has been rumbling around for decades, but if I don’t try and find out what really happened to Olivia Martin, it’s a story that is never going to go away.’
‘I just don’t want you chasing after ghosts,’ said Jemma. ‘You’ve been doing it for the last ten years. You don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Not any more.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Tess, her voice barely a whisper. ‘I do have something to prove. I have something to prove to myself. And no matter how much you think we owe the Asgills, if that family were involved in Olivia’s disappearance somehow, then I’m not going to turn a blind eye to murder.’