Saturday evening, and I’m sitting in Jack’s lounge, waiting for him to finish getting ready to go out. It’s shortly after 8pm, and it’s only just dark. There are faint streaks of daylight still visible in the sky outside, which means, of course, that the curtains are tightly closed, and I already feel trapped and fidgety. It doesn’t help that the first person I encountered when I arrived was Rhona, who told me in her usual unsmiling manner that Jack had only been up for an hour and was still in the bathroom.
‘He said to wait in there,’ she said, gesturing towards the living room. She stood there, silently watching me, as I slipped my jacket off and hung it on the rack in the hall. I glanced at her as I pushed the living-room door open, but her eyes were dead and there was no expression on her face. A shiver ran through me.
What is it with her? I thought, as I quickly closed the door behind me, leaving her outside. She’s… she’s scary. I think I’m actually scared of her.
It was only then that a ghastly thought crept into my head, one that probably should have entered it earlier. Rhona’s only just started working for Jack in the last couple of weeks, but what if they know each other from before? Is that why she’s so unfriendly? Could she be his female accomplice, the one who made the call about the jewellery? Maybe she’s even the one he enlisted to stab him; she looks like the type who pulled wings off butterflies when she was a kid. I’m pretty sure Jack has no idea why I’ve really come back into his life, but what if Rhona’s suspicious? Could she be keeping an eye on me? The way she keeps materialising out of nowhere…
I pace the room, too restless and uptight to sit down. Earlier, I sent two carefully worded messages. The first was to Jack’s PA, Naomie. Her email address was easy to work out because all his staff are simply firstname.surname@ShannonMedical.com. The second went to Yiannis Pappas, through a personal contact form on his profile page on the website of the company he now works for. After a chat with Nathan about the best way to approach him, I deliberately kept my message short.
As it’s a bank holiday weekend, I’m not expecting a response from him until Tuesday at the earliest, but a reply from Naomie to the message I sent her popped into my inbox within minutes. As I’d planned, I told her I’d recently started dating Jack and would be in the area of her office on Wednesday, on my day off.
The response had been brief, but positive.
I accepted the offer immediately, but now I’m all over the place, wondering how I’m going to handle this. Do I simply bring up the subject of ‘my friend Amber’ and see how she reacts? I just don’t know, and as I pass the huge antique Baroque French mirror on the wall for the fourth time, I pause, realising my jitteriness is showing on my face.
Calm down, I tell myself. Jack will appear in a minute, and this has to be just another pleasant evening. I can’t afford to give him the slightest inkling that I’m stressed or worried about anything.
I hear his footsteps in the hallway and turn to face the door, forcing a smile.
‘Hey, you,’ I say. ‘Happy Easter. You look good.’
He does. Putting all my true feelings and fears about this man aside, and viewing him purely from an aesthetic standpoint, it still strikes me every time I see him. He’s stunning. We’re going for cocktails and then dinner in town tonight and he’s wearing slim-fitting dark jeans and a tailored navy jacket with a snow-white shirt underneath, the top button open. His hair is still a little damp from the shower and looks artfully tousled, and as he returns my smile and tells me I look good too, I repeat a silent mantra in my head.
Do not let him get under your skin.
Do not let him get under your skin.
Do not let him get under your skin.
You’re here to expose him, I think. He’s a bad, bad person…
But the game must be played, and so as our taxi arrives and we head off into central London to enjoy dirty margaritas followed by a delicious meal at a three-Michelin-star restaurant that’s usually booked up for months ahead (‘I pulled a few strings,’ Jack murmured to me, with a wink), I play it like a pro. I’ve found myself wondering more and more about what makes Jack tick. Even though I gave up trying to get to the bottom of his strange psyche the first time, now I’m increasingly feeling as though this is incredibly important; that it’ll explain not only why he lives as he does, but why he’s behaved as he has, too. I want to understand it, I need to know why he’d do such terrible things, and I’m trying to be subtle, but every time I ask even a vaguely probing question about his childhood or his family, he quickly shuts the conversation down and changes the subject.
I’ve always known he has no siblings, and that both of his now-deceased parents were only children too, meaning his family is small – no aunts, uncles, or cousins. And I know, of course, that his dad was a police officer, a Chief Superintendent, in fact, with the Metropolitan Police. It’s his mother I’m more interested in, because she’s the one he really won’t talk about. I know the business was hers, and that she inherited it as a much smaller concern from her father, growing it significantly before it was passed on to Jack after her death, whereupon he really made it take off. I know she died when he was in his teens, but that’s all I know. This evening I decide to try again, first casually chatting about my own mum, and about how she’s recently taken up taekwondo, to my immense surprise. Then I swallow the final spoonful of my dessert and say:
‘What sort of stuff did your mum like to do? Or was she always too busy with the business?’
He glances up from his plate and eyes me silently for a couple of seconds, then shrugs.
‘She liked hiking. Didn’t have much time for it though,’ he says, then looks down at his dessert plate, scooping up another spoonful and putting it in his mouth.
I take a sip of water and decide to plough on.
‘It’s so sad you lost her so long ago,’ I say. ‘I’d love to have met her, and I’m sure she’d have been so proud of you. I mean, the company’s just exploded, hasn’t it? She’d have been amazed. You’ve never told me… what happened to her? Do you mind talking about it?’
He looks at me again then picks up his napkin and wipes his mouth, holding eye contact. I suddenly feel a little quiver of unease. We’ve been having a nice enough evening, the conversation light and gently flirtatious, but now I feel a shift in the mood. The atmosphere is suddenly heavy around our candlelit table.
‘She died suddenly,’ he says tersely. ‘I was sixteen. Can we leave it there, please? I’ll get the bill.’
Shit.
He barely says a word on the cab journey back to Barnes, and as we walk into the house Rhona is standing in the hallway like a silent statue. My feeling of despondency increases.
God.
This house. These people.
‘I’m just off to the supermarket,’ she says, by way of greeting. ‘You’re running short of a few things, Mr Shannon, so I thought I’d go now, when it’s quiet.’
She reaches for her coat, and Jack mutters: ‘Fine. Thanks, Rhona,’ and strides past her, me following in his wake. I feel her eyes on me, but I ignore her, unable to deal with a clearly pissed-off Jack and a malign housekeeper simultaneously, and at the same time thinking how batshit crazy it is for her to be heading to the twenty-four-hour Tesco or wherever at midnight, as if that’s a totally normal thing to do.
In the bedroom, I grit my teeth and try to appease him.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say gently, and reach out tentatively to take his hand. ‘I know you don’t like talking about your mum, and I shouldn’t have asked. It must have been awful to lose her so young, and if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you, OK? But I promise I won’t ask you again. Forgive me? It’s just because I care, you know?’
For a few moments he stands there, his back rigid, his eyes vacant. Then, he slowly slips out of his jacket, dropping it onto the carpet, and my heart rate quickens. Have I pushed it too far? What’s he going to do? I open my mouth to say something else, to apologise again, but suddenly, his expression softens, and he entwines his fingers in mine and pulls me towards him.
‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘It’s just sometimes the past is best left in the past. Come here.’
I feel a rush of relief, and then we’re kissing, his tongue in my mouth, one hand in my hair and the other cupping my breast. We fall onto the bed and Jack pulls at my dress. He peels my underwear off roughly, and then he’s inside me, and for the next couple of minutes I’m lost. My body responds to his mouth and his hands and the thrust of his hips; it betrays me.
I shouldn’t be enjoying this. I shouldn’t even be doing this, I think, even as I moan with pleasure. But… oh, my God!
Jack collapses onto his pillow, breathing heavily, and closes his eyes. It’s what he always does, this post-coital sleep, but tonight I’m not going to do my usual thing and snuggle up beside him. I heard the gentle clink of the bunch of keys in his pocket when his jacket hit the plush wool carpet, and the jacket is still there, like a dark dozing animal curled up on the floor. And I know Rhona is out, so this is my chance.
I stand up and walk quickly to the bathroom, pulling off my rumpled clothes and putting on one of the two always fresh white towelling robes that hang on the back of the door. Then I return to the bedroom, push my feet into my trainers, pick up my phone, and lean over Jack, who’s still lying flat on his back.
‘I’m thirsty. I’m just going down to get a drink. Do you want anything?’ I whisper. There’s no response. His breathing is slow and steady, his left hand limp by his side, the injured one curled protectively against his body.
Good.
I creep to his jacket, cautiously moving the fabric, looking for the pocket. I slide my hand inside, closing it over the irregular metal bundle, and remove it with barely a sound.
The keys. I have the keys. I glance at Jack’s inert form once more, then tiptoe to the door and slip out of the room.