Curled up on the four-poster bed in the master bedroom of The Standlings, Molly swallowed a mouthful of brandy and grimaced. She just couldn’t concentrate on the late-night movie she was watching – even the fifty-inch plasma screen couldn’t make it more interesting. She sighed and took another sip. The last fortnight had been hell. The humiliation of having to clear her desk at Midas had been bad enough, but then she had been forced to face a week of complete paranoia, terrified that Marcus would smell a rat. Thankfully he seemed to buy her excuse that she wasn’t enjoying the job and would much rather get on with the renovations at The Standlings. But Molly was missing London. Working in Piccadilly had given her so much freedom – to meet Alex, go shopping or see friends for lunch on her Midas expense account. She had once boasted about ‘the manor’ but, now it was all she had, she felt trapped and suffocated. Just then, Molly’s mobile chirped. She didn’t want the distraction, but Marcus was away on business and would expect her to answer. She put down the brandy and flipped it open.
‘Hey there …’ she purred.
‘Is that you, Molly?’ asked a woman’s voice, its tone soft and apologetic. ‘I’m sorry for calling, especially so late. But you hadn’t replied to my letters and I wasn’t sure if you’d received them.’
‘How did you get my number?’ asked Molly, instantly recognizing the voice and sitting up straight.
‘I called – what’s it called? – the Midas Corporation. I saw you in the papers and it said you worked there. That’s how I knew where to send the letters. Anyway, I told them who I was and said it was very important I speak to you.’
‘You haven’t got my phone number for a reason,’ said Molly coldly.
There was the sound of soft sobbing down the line. Molly sat there listening, her eyes drifting to the window. It was pitch-black outside and she could see her reflection in the glass, her face shadowed and sinister. She looked like a ghost.
‘Okay, so I got the letters,’ said Molly, irritation in her voice.
‘Did you read them?’
‘Yes, Janet,’ said Molly numbly. ‘I read them.’
‘Well, it’s got worse, Molly, it’s worse than when I last wrote. Your father. I think he’s going to die.’
Molly Sinclair had wanted to escape her small village on the outskirts of Newcastle for as long as she could remember. At sixteen she was already tall, beautiful and precocious; a lazy student, she had little desire to do well in the classroom, knowing that her fortune lay in her face and her body. There were no shortage of men in Newcastle’s Bigg Market queuing up to buy her drink. One told her he was a photographer and offered to get her started as a model. At the ‘studio’, a small bedsit in Fenham, the man told her to take off her clothes and lie down on a bed draped with black chiffon. When he’d gone to fetch his film, she’d
smashed his camera onto the floor, then run. Did he think she was stupid? She wasn’t going to be exploited by anyone.
Molly’s luck had changed on her seventeenth birthday. Her new boyfriend, an oil-rigger stationed in the North Sea, couldn’t get to the shops to buy a present, so had sent her £500 cash.
‘I’m going to London,’ she had told her father and stepmother the moment she opened the envelope.
They hadn’t shared Molly’s vision. ‘What’s so special about London?’ her stepmother Janet had demanded angrily. ‘It’s not paved with gold, you know.’
She’d show them, she thought, boarding a train for St Pancras.
Molly had a plan: she had read
The Face
and
Blitz
magazine religiously and she knew that Chelsea and Soho were where all the beautiful people hung out. Trying on a pair of PVC pants in Seditionaries, the famous shop on the King’s Road owned by Malcolm McLaren, Molly had been approached by a glamorous woman who wanted to know if she was a model. This time, the photographer was real, and within six months Molly had bookings for
Harper’s & Queen
and
Cosmopolitan
magazines, a commercial for a cosmetics company and catwalk shows for the top fashion houses. Molly was part of a new era of girls, the next generation from Marie Helvin and Jerry Hall, and her status brought her wealth, fame and fun. She lived in a house in Edith Grove with two other models, Michelle and Lulu, both slightly older and both protective of Molly when she confided in them about her upbringing: the death of her mother, her father’s neglect of his only daughter when he’d remarried ‘that bitch Janet’. Molly had hinted at domestic violence and abuse, and Michelle and Lulu took her out on the town to help her forget. They spent night after night in The Wag Club and the Limelight, or being
wined and dined by rich men at Langan’s. Sucked into her new glamorous jet-set world, she forgot Ken and Janet even existed; when people asked, she told them her family was dead. Sometimes she even believed it.
Then, six weeks ago, the first letter had arrived for her at the Midas Corporation. In scratchy black ink, Janet had told her that Ken was ill, having suffered a minor stroke. The second said that hospital investigations had revealed weaknesses in his heart that could spark off an aneurism at any time. She’d hadn’t bothered reading the third letter; she had simply folded them all up and put them at the back of Marcus’s wardrobe. She had tried hard to forget about them, but at night when The Standlings was very dark and the floorboards creaked, the sight of the wardrobe had begun to trouble her, as if there were ghosts banging inside.
‘I’m sorry to hear about it, Janet,’ she said finally, knotting her hand in a fist. ‘But I don’t see what all this has got to do with me.’
‘Molly! How can you …? Don’t you care? Don’t you want to see your father?’ said Janet, her voice becoming angry. ‘He’s having open-heart surgery. We’re hoping he’s going to be strong enough for it, but he … well, he needs it. Without it, doctors say he will only have a few months.’
Molly shook her head. What was all this to her? Why was this woman bothering her again after all these years? She dug her nails into the bedspread, feeling angry for being disturbed and angry with herself for feeling bothered at the news.
‘Are you going to come home, Molly? He still doesn’t know what he did to upset you, or why you won’t see the family …’
Molly was silent.
‘But none of that matters now,’ said Janet. ‘It’s time for us to be together. Maybe for one last time.’
‘We’re not really a family any more though, are we?’ said Molly, closing her eyes as she said it. ‘I don’t belong there, I never have done.’
‘This is ridiculous, Molly. He’s your father.
Your father
!’
‘Janet. Please don’t bother me again.’
‘Listen, he’s in Newcastle Infirmary. The operation is a week tomorrow and—’
Molly didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. She dropped the phone, went over to the wardrobe to retrieve Janet’s letters, tearing them into pieces before she flushed them down the en-suite toilet.
For once in her life, Erin felt truly happy. Sipping a champagne cocktail, surrounded by twinkling candlelight, facing the man she felt sure she was falling in love with, Erin felt as if she were on a set of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. Julian had picked her up after work and taken her for dinner at Julie’s restaurant in Holland Park, grabbing a cosy table for two in the gorgeous open-air courtyard. This was just typical of Julian, she thought gleefully. Every morning, she would spend at least half an hour deciding what to wear on the off-chance that he would show up after work, the top down on the sports car, to whisk her out for supper or home to her flat, where they would sit on the tiny balcony drinking red wine or go straight to the bedroom.
The sex, of course, had been sensational. He was both unselfish and demanding; his hunger for her body made her feel sexy, desired, grown-up. His touch excited every nerve-ending in her body, and her orgasms were like fireworks. On those mornings, the Julian mornings, Erin would go into the office with a smile as wide as China.
Adam would tease her, of course. ‘Did someone strike it lucky last night?’ he grinned. But Erin had denied everything: she’d had to. Julian’s company were still potential
clients and, as Adam’s PA, it would be very poor form indeed to date an employee.
‘How about we skip dessert and go back to your place?’ asked Julian. It was only 9.30. Julian winked and motioned the waiter over.
‘What about your place?’ asked Erin. They had only been to Julian’s Hoxton loft apartment once, but she had loved it. She had seen sleeker apartments – she saw them every day as part of her job – but pottering around Julian’s place in his oversized towelling robe, sliding into his free-standing stone egg-shaped bath, or making tea in the chrome-fitted kitchen, she felt as glamorous as any of the sophisticated designer-clad women she had met working at Midas. More than that, she felt at home.
Julian pulled a face. ‘No, not my place. Islington’s closer. Anyway, I prefer it at yours, I like being around your things.’
Erin’s brief disappointment dissolved as she saw other women glance enviously at her as they left the restaurant and screeched off in the convertible, her hair trailing behind her like a banner. For a second she thought this is how Karin must feel every day of her life.
At Peony House, Julian parked the car while Erin went into the lobby to check her post.
‘So you’re alive, then?’
Chris was waiting for the lift, looking as if he was just coming back from work, with bicycle clips still fastened around the bottom of his suit trousers.
‘So it seems,’ smiled Erin, collecting a parcel of Amazon books from on top of her pigeonhole.
‘Well, you’re in luck, Frankenstein,’ said Chris, holding the lift door open for Erin. ‘I’ve been sent a bottle of Petrus by a French importer. Don’t ask me why. All I do is take their bribes,’ he smiled. ‘Fancy a nightcap? You can tell me where you’ve been hiding for the last week.’
Erin looked embarrassed as she heard footsteps and Julian appeared behind them.
‘Did someone say nightcap?’ he smiled.
Chris gave a vague nod of the head. ‘Oh hello. Yes, I’m Erin’s neighbour. And you are …?’
‘Chris, Julian. Julian, Chris,’ said Erin, rushing to introduce them, feeling her cheeks blush hot. But why should she feel awkward? Okay, so she should have mentioned Julian to Chris before now, but it was hardly a secret, was it? She had just declined to mention it. Chris merely raised his eyebrows and the three of them rode up in the lift silently.
‘Are you always nipping over for nightcaps then?’ asked Julian when they were in the flat. He had slipped off his shoes and had gone over to the fridge to open a bottle of wine while Erin lit a scented candle and quickly tried to tidy up.
‘Don’t be silly, it’s nothing like that,’ she said. ‘He writes about food and wine for the
Herald
, so it’s kind of research.’
‘Is that what they call it now?’ he grunted as he pulled the wine cork, pouring them both a glass before they flopped onto the sofa together.
‘Don’t go getting all huffy,’ said Erin, kissing Julian on the neck. ‘I’ve barely borrowed a cup of sugar from him.’
‘Well, just see that you don’t,’ grumbled Julian.
Perversely, Erin was enjoying his jealousy. It was a new experience for her – and she liked it. The room was dark, lit only by the candle, which gave it a sepia glow. Erin’s head was fuzzy with claret and happiness.
‘So, how are the plans coming along for Belvedere Road?’ she asked.
He reached over and stroked her hair. ‘Hey, don’t spoil a nice night talking about work.’
Erin knew he was right, she really needed to unwind,
but, still, she was feeling more than a little anxious about the development. She’d had a phone call from the site manager that afternoon, who had told her that he had six men pencilled in to start in eight weeks’ time and there was still no sign of the plans.
‘I know,’ she sighed, ‘but I’m new to all this and I need your help. If you’re not confident about getting planning permission by then we’ll have to delay it. I don’t want men sitting around doing nothing.’
Julian moved closer to her and his lips brushed hers, sending a shiver of desire up her spine. ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow, eh?’ he whispered, ‘I’ve got other plans for right now.’
She felt his hand on her thigh, pushing up the thin red jersey dress until it was ruched up over her tummy. He bent down to kiss her navel and along the top of her panties, grazing her skin with his teeth, tickling her thighs with his lips. Impatient, Erin reached over her head to pull off her dress and Julian unclipped her bra so that her full breasts sprang out. Julian picked her up, giggling, naked except for her white panties, and carried her into the bedroom, ready to explore every inch of her body with his tongue.
Exhausted and happy, Erin fell into a deep, blissful sleep almost immediately after sex. She did not hear Julian creep out of the bed and into the other room.
Silently he crossed to her desk and sat naked in front of Erin’s laptop with the Midas logo on its titanium lid. Accessing Erin’s work files would now be easy, if only he had the password. He thought for a moment, then typed in ‘ADAM’. Women could be so predictable, he thought to himself. The screen flickered to life. He was in. He smiled and got to work.
Five o’clock. It was time. She was never late, he thought, as he gazed out of his bedroom window, a smile briefly lighting up his thin, pallid face. He watched as she jogged past his house and down the street until she disappeared out of view. He knew the route she would take. Towards Hyde Park. He had followed her once on his bicycle and watched as her personal trainer had put his hands all over her while she had stretched, touching her warm body as she rotated her hips, her hair swinging from side to side gloriously like a thick, dark waterfall.
For those few seconds when she ran past his window his life was complete, filling his day-to-day nothingness, giving him a purpose, a reason for being. She was perfect. Lean and fit, strong and sexy like a comic book heroine. She was a drug, a drug that had to be consumed again, and again and again. But those few seconds each day were not enough. Not now. Now he wanted more, much more. It was time to get to know her better. Because they were destined to be together. She would see that. She would see that soon.