In the newsagent’s, Shelley scoured the papers for a story reporting on the dead man at The Lanesborough. Nearly three weeks had passed and still there was nothing. The cantankerous man behind the counter looked even more vexed than usual. This new daily ritual – on the days she left her flat – looked like it was going to be a long-term project. As such, she decided it would need to be spread more widely than among the three newsagents she currently used.
When Shelley had called Angel on Friday, she was at the airport on her way to Ibiza for a weeklong job. There was nothing they could do until she returned. After seeing her mother on Friday afternoon, Shelley held a solitary party in her flat. Inconveniently, she’d had to break it up twice over the weekend to see clients at her working flat in Belsize Park. Monday was the first time she’d had more than three hours’ unbroken sleep and now, on Tuesday, she was going with her friends to see Tara’s son.
Outside on Hampstead High Street, Shelley heard a car horn beeping in time to blasting music – Public Enemy: Bring the Noise. Shading her eyes from the bright sun with her hand, she saw Hugo driving down the hill in his white Range Rover. He pulled up to the curb beside her and she climbed in.
“Where’s the Porsche?” she moaned, turning down the volume.
“Sorry darling, it’s a long drive.” Hugo tilted the rear view mirror, examining his reflection like a woman checking her lipstick. “Couldn’t make the ladies suffer in the back just for you, could I?” He removed his navy blazer, turned the volume back up high, and nodded his head to the music as he sped off down the hill.
“Where’s Tara?” she eventually asked, readjusting the volume again.
“She went back to hers on the weekend. Ozzie showed up at mine, brought a few of the old Bullingdon chaps with him – she didn’t want to be around.”
They drove to Hendon to collect Nicole, then to Earl’s Court to pick up Tara. At midday, they finally set off on the long drive to Dorset. Shelley was pleased she’d managed to keep her seat in the front. She was never a good passenger, and even worse in the back.
“You sure it’s all right for us to be coming, love?” Nicole asked Tara.
“It’s fine, really. Just remember you’re my friends from art college and whatever you do, don’t slip up.”
Shelley hoped she wouldn’t be asked questions about art and artists. The names of a few famous artists, and the fact that Van Gogh chopped off his ear, was the extent of her knowledge. At least she had Tara and Hugo on hand. Tara would know enough to keep up the lie, and Hugo’s father was an art dealer, so he ought to know quite a bit. They would be able to get Nicole and Shelley out of any sticky moments.
***
Hugo turned off a country lane and stopped the car at a pair of black wrought iron gates. Tara jumped out, pressed the buzzer on the brick wall, then jumped back in again. The tall gates opened and the Range Rover rolled up the long driveway towards the house.
Shelley was amazed. The Barnes family lived in a mansion. A huge, red-bricked, sprawling house. How had Tara fallen from there to how she lived now? Surely, her parents could have given her an allowance.
Mr and Mrs Barnes stood outside the front door, between the two pillars that towered either side. They looked as regal as their house. Mr Barnes, Tom, welcomed them in to an extravagant hall, then through to a massive drawing room that overlooked the back garden. Looking out the sash window, Shelley wondered where the garden ended. It seemed to go on forever, in all directions.
Shelley took a seat next to Nicole and Hugo on the enormous tapestry sofa. With her and Nicole’s flowery blouses – their attempt to look like art students – their half was overloaded with a mismatch of patterns.
Tara and her mother, Agnes, had disappeared on their arrival. After a short while, Agnes returned, carrying a teapot and a plate of biscuits on a gold tray. She set it down on the coffee table next to a china tea set. Tom poured the tea and passed round floral teacups on matching saucers.
“Do you ride, Shelley?” Agnes asked. She looked like Princess Margaret, with her hair big and loose in a bun.
“I have but only a couple of times,” Shelley replied.
“For a living,” Hugo mouthed at her.
“What about you, chaps? Do you fancy going for a ride later, while Tara’s with Maxwell?”
“Spiffing.” Hugo clapped his hands together.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been on a horse,” Nicole said.
“Tom will show you how. Won’t you, dear?” Barely moving her head, Agnes peered up at her husband who stood beside her armchair.
“Of course, dear.” Tom picked up the porcelain ribbon plate from the coffee table and passed round the biscuits. “Finish up here, then we’ll set off.”
Tara entered the room with Maxwell, who didn’t even come up to her waist. The long sleeves of his white and blue checked shirt draped over his hands, past his knuckles. He shook his arms, perhaps trying to free his little fingers. He looked particularly small, but then Shelley didn’t know much about children’s heights and ages; she was rarely around them.
A few feet away, he stopped walking. He seemed reluctant to come any closer or for his mother to move farther into the room. He knelt on the carpet with his arms wrapped around one of Tara’s legs, clinging on tightly like a trap.
“Come on, sweetie-pie. I want you to meet my lovely friends.” Tara bent down and scooped up her son. She rested him on her hip and walked over.
“They’re going out riding with Daddy,” Agnes said. “Take Max and totter off upstairs.”
After the shortest of hellos, Tara followed her mother’s instruction and carried Maxwell out of the room.
***
Shelley, Nicole and Hugo followed Tara’s father into the garden. At the stables, he handed them each a riding hat. Shelley and Nicole also received tartan body protectors. Tom and Hugo went inside the stables, and came out leading four horses.
Shelley took the reins, gripped the saddle and pulled herself up on the grey speckled horse. Hugo mounted his horse with ease as well, but Nicole struggled to get off the ground. Tom dropped the stirrup a couple of notches. Then he guided her foot in place and pushed her up and onto the horse. Fortunately, this was one of those rare days that Nicole was wearing jeans.
Galloping though the open field, Shelley relished the feeling of the wind in her face and hair. The intrusive memories that dwelled in her head, and charged her in pain for their keep, had been evicted. Only a visit from the bailiff – heroin – had ever been able to do that. This could be better than heroin. There was no guilt in riding a horse. She wasn’t hurting anyone, or herself, in the process.
Hugo caught up to ride alongside Shelley. Looking back over her shoulder, she realised they’d covered quite a distance. She couldn’t see Nicole and Tom, and expected they hadn’t got far. Suddenly, she remembered their charade of being art students. Worried Nicole might be asked awkward questions, she turned around and galloped back to find them.
***
When they arrived back at the house, they returned to the drawing room, where sandwiches and cakes awaited on a three-tier china stand.
“What did you read at Oxford, Hugo?” Agnes asked, sitting down in her armchair.
“PPE.”
Shelley looked quizzically at Hugo.
“Philosophy, Politics and Economics.” He took a bite of Battenberg.
“And you’re an art dealer, Tara tells us. How interesting.” Agnes straightened the neckline of her high-collared dress while staring intently at Shelley. “What about you, Shelley? What are you studying at art college?”
Shelley paused, waiting for Hugo – who was a trustafarian and not an art dealer – to come in and help her. But he didn’t. “It’s very broad, everything really,” she said.
“Our wonderful Shelley is an expert in expressionism.” Having thrown the grenade, Hugo reclined on the tapestry sofa. To savour the fallout, Shelley expected.
“So you like emotive art.” Agnes poked a finger into her colossal hair. “Who are your favourite artists?”
Shelley looked at the ceiling, then at Nicole. “I like Van Gogh... um...”
“She likes all the great ones. You know, Rembrandt, Picasso, Matisse.” Nicole smiled sweetly at Tara’s mother.
“Shelley doesn’t concentrate in class.” Hugo leant forward and put his empty plate on the coffee table. “She has a crush on one of the teachers. She’s a big distraction for her.”
“That’s not true.” Shelley felt the blood rush to her cheeks.
“He’s joking.” Nicole smiled at Agnes. “You’re not funny.” She glared at Hugo.
Later, when they drove back through the giant gates, Shelley felt disappointed. Tara had never come back downstairs with Maxwell. She’d hardly spent any time with him. Although Shelley wasn’t keen on being around children, Maxwell was her friend’s son and she’d wanted to get to know him. It probably wasn’t her first and only opportunity, but with what they had planned for the rapist, and with the issues Tara had with Maxwell’s father, it might have been.