Astrid Brinton had a reputation for throwing fabulous parties, a reputation which crossed international borders and time zones. Whether it was a clambake at their Hamptons beach house, a cocktail party in their Cap Ferrat mansion or a post-Grammies shindig at their LA home, Astrid had a talent for entertaining that bordered on art. It was convenient that Blake had an enormous back catalogue of work that still sold in their thousands, and the recent reunion tour of his band Human Nature had sold out in stadiums around the world, raking in millions. For the Brintons’ latest dinner party, held at their Henley-on-Thames Gothic mansion, no expense was spared, although the twenty-four exclusively selected guests sitting around their oval ebony dining table would all have turned up even if Astrid had announced that she was serving Pringles. After the delicious scandal involving Blake, Clover Connor and the bonnet of a Ferrari, sheer curiosity meant every one of the assembled guests had dropped whatever they were doing to attend. Even so, the meal was exquisite: Iranian caviar, Wagyu beef air-freighted straight from Japan and poached pears accompanied by tiny clouds of mascarpone sorbet. Each course was served with a perfectly matched wine costing at least a thousand pounds a bottle. After the finest Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee was brought in, Astrid jumped to her feet and tapped a Christofle teaspoon against a wine glass for attention.
‘I know you’ve all been wondering why we’ve invited you here tonight,’ said Astrid, radiant in ivory Chanel couture. ‘Well, Blake and I wanted to share some very special news with our closest friends.’ She paused dramatically.
‘Blake and I are going to renew our wedding vows,’ she announced gleefully, bouncing excitedly as a ripple of applause went round the table like a Mexican wave and the waiters appeared bearing vintage Dom Perignon.
‘I got off the phone this morning from Frégate Island in the Seychelles and you’re all invited. Watch this space, darlings!’
Johnny was the first to move around to congratulate his parents. He had flown in from LA that afternoon where he was playing the second lead in a Tom Cruise movie. His latest girlfriend – a pretty bible-belt blonde hung on his arm and simpered in all the right places.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ whispered Molly Sinclair, seated to Cassandra’s left. Molly was an old friend of Astrid’s from her modelling days. ‘I thought Astrid would have been straight to the divorce lawyers after the Clover Connor episode.’
‘And give up all this?’ smiled Cassandra, touching the top of her champagne glass for the waiter to fill. ‘Would you?’
‘You’re so right, darling,’ purred Molly. ‘Infidelity goes with the turf. I bet half the people in this room have fucked one another.’
Speak for yourself,
thought Cassandra, knowing Molly’s terrible reputation as a gold-digger around the society circuit.
‘Speaking of which,’ continued Molly, ‘you’ll never guess who I saw a few weeks ago in a very discreet little restaurant in Chelsea.’
‘Who?’
‘Your uncle’s wife with a man who most definitely was not her husband. I must say they looked
very
cosy.’
‘Rebecca?’ replied Cassandra, completely surprised.
Molly put her hand over Cassandra’s. ‘Sorry, darling, I probably shouldn’t have said anything, it being family and all. But I have to say he was a complete dish; looked a bit like that actor Rufus Sewell.’
Cassandra’s mind began to work overtime.
Rebecca having an affair? Who with? What can she be playing at – is it just sex or is she thinking of an upgrade?
Cassandra had spent her entire working career manipulating people and turning situations to her own advantage. It had made her look for the angle in every situation.
There’s no such thing as an innocent lunch,
she smiled to herself.
‘Time for a little digestif,’ said Astrid, leaving the room and coming back holding a beautiful porcelain dish on which stood a
trembling pile of cocaine. Across the table, Johnny’s girlfriend’s eyes widened in disbelief.
‘Meissen,’ said Molly.
‘Sorry?’ said the pretty blonde.
‘I noticed your surprised expression, darling. The dish, it’s Meissen. Don’t you have it in America?’
Cassandra left the table to freshen up in the bathroom. Greywood was a sumptuous palace, a labyrinth of complete luxury and she always enjoyed walking through the corridors admiring a Miro here, a Brancusi there. She was about to go back into the dining room when she saw a little boy waving at the top of the main flight of stairs.
‘Hello, Josh,’ she waved back at Astrid and Blake’s 5-year-old son. He was a cute little thing with a crop of floppy blond hair and stripy blue pyjamas, like a cover star from
Vogue Bambini.
‘Cassandra, come and see my new car,’ he called, beckoning through the bannisters.
She wavered, a little embarrassed.
Weren’t kids supposed to be able to detect adults who didn’t like children?
Cassandra sighed, she supposed Josh was used to her being around by now and he decided the matter by running to the bottom of the stairs and tugging at her hand. She patted him awkwardly on the head.
‘Not tonight, Josh. I have to go back in there and talk to your Mummy and Daddy. And they’ll be very cross if they know you’re not in bed yet.’
‘First come and see my car. It’s a BMW.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘O K, but just for two minutes, OK?’
She carefully removed his sticky hand from the fabric of her Balenciaga pencil skirt and allowed herself to be pulled upstairs. They were met at the top of the stairs by Helen, Josh’s nanny.
‘I’m so sorry, Cassandra,’ she said with an anxious expression. ‘The television was on in my room. He was asleep twenty minutes ago and I didn’t hear him.’
‘Well, perhaps you shouldn’t be watching the television when you should be watching Joshua?’ said Cassandra tartly.
‘Car! Car! Car!’ shouted Josh, bouncing up and down.
Helen guided Josh towards his room.
‘OK, let’s show Cassandra your car quickly and then you must go back to sleep, deal?’
‘OK!’ said Josh, dashing off. The boy’s room was like a fantasy playhouse created by interior designers. His bed was in the shape of a fort, but there was a Hockney over the fireplace next to colourful drawings by Josh. Josh got inside a miniature black BMW and began pedalling furiously around the room.
‘Astrid tells me that you went to school with Rebecca Milford,’ said Cassandra to the nanny. Helen nodded and then smiled gratefully once she realized that Cassandra was just making polite conversation.
‘Yes, it seems a lifetime ago. We were in the same year actually, although I know you wouldn’t think it to look at us,’ she said.
Cassandra almost nodded in agreement. Helen looked as if she hadn’t been to the hairdressers in years. Her hair was flecked with grey and the undersides of her eyes were puffy.
‘Rebecca was always a beauty, though. You could tell she was always going to do well for herself. You know: marry well.’
Cassandra smiled, thinking it was all relative. She wouldn’t be happy with someone twenty years older than herself unless he was one of Forbes 400 wealthiest. But for a poor girl from the village, she supposed Roger would have to do.
‘Funny she ended up being Ruan McCormack’s boss though,’ said Helen.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Cassandra, intrigued.
‘Oh, she went out with Ruan for about two years when we were at school. He was a couple of years below us but he was very good-looking even then. Funny how she owns the company Ruan works for. Although it’s not surprising she ended up with Roger. Our PE teacher would take us running past the hall and she’d always stop and say, “I’m going to live there one day”.’
But Cassandra wasn’t listening. Suddenly something that had been staring her in the face seemed all too obvious. It was just as if bright stadium lights had gone on inside her head.
‘Helen, does Astrid keep her old magazines?’
‘You mean like
Rive
and
Vogue?
I don’t think so. But I do, what do you want?’
‘Do you have
Tatler?
About three issues ago. I want party pictures from the Milford launch party.’
‘Oh yes, I’ve definitely got that one,’ said Helen, leading Cassandra down the corridor to her room. ‘It’s not often I
actually know people at a party in a magazine. And Jude Law was there, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Cassandra distractedly, as Helen rifled through a pile of magazines and found the right issue.
‘There,’ said Helen, flipping to the well-thumbed party section. ‘Is that what you wanted?’
Cassandra scanned the pages and, finding the picture she wanted, carefully tore it out and handed the magazine back to Helen.
‘Now I think you’d better get Joshua back to bed before he has a mini pile-up,’ she said, scooting back towards the party as Helen stared after her with a look of total confusion.
Back at the party, Cassandra found Molly glassy-eyed and talkative, a trace of white powder around her nose, but when she showed the party pictures to Molly, she instantly confirmed that Ruan McCormack was the man she had seen Rebecca with at the Chelsea restaurant.
‘I wouldn’t forget those eyes anywhere,’ she smiled. ‘Just gorgeous, very rugged and intense.’
The dinner guests adjourned into the library, but despite the convivial atmosphere Cassandra could not shake her feeling of disquiet.
‘Got somewhere else to go?’ asked Molly sipping an expensive Chateau D’Yquem. ‘If it’s another party, I’m coming with you. There’s not one single man here tonight. With the exception of you and me it’s all bloody couples. I’m not surprised. Astrid must be feeling
frightfully
insecure.’
Cassandra looked at her but didn’t take in a word Molly Sinclair was saying. Her mind had been mulling over what an affair between Ruan and Rebecca could mean. After Emma’s arrest Ruan had been made acting CEO of Milford. If she had been charged and convicted he would have got the job permanently. Rebecca was having an affair with Ruan; would she leave Roger and achieve her dream of living in the ‘big house’? Was burning down the Stables with herself in it some plan for Ruan and Rebecca to run Milford together too? Cassandra tried to look at every angle of it, secretly hoping that the driver who had forced Emma off the road in Gstaad would turn out to be Ruan or Rebecca and not her mother.
But then Mother confessed, didn’t she?
She reminded herself. It was all too much: she felt a sudden urge to speak to Emma.
She excused herself from Molly and went over to Astrid who
was sitting on a sofa on her husband’s knee, her arm wrapped proprietorially around his neck.
‘Sorry darling, I have to go,’ said Cassandra, bending to kiss her on both cheeks.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, sit down,’ demanded Astrid, ‘I want to tell you all about Frégate.’
‘Sorry. Can I call a cab?’ said Cassandra firmly.
‘To get back to London?’ asked Astrid.
‘No, I’m going to Chilcot.’
‘In that case my driver can take you. Just let me give my husband a big snog and then I’ll get him.’
Emma looked at her desk clock. It was 10 p.m. and she was alone in the office. In fact, the whole factory was dark and silent. Emma couldn’t sit still at home though, not when there was so much to do. She knew she had promised Rob that she would ease herself back into work gently, but these days she found herself driven by some sort of strange nervous energy. It was as if her mind was struggling to work something out. Regain authority at work? Fix her relationship worries? Deal with the whole Julia situation?
God knows there’s enough to sort out,
she thought. She turned back to her computer and clicked through complicated spreadsheets – profit and loss, cash flow, product orders and production schedules – none of it seemed to be able to hold her attention.
She heard footsteps in the corridor and looked up in surprise to see Rebecca. Her hair looked freshly blow-dried; she was wearing jeans and an expensive looking cashmere overcoat.
‘Hello Rebecca,’ she said curiously. ‘What are you doing here? Looking for Roger?’
Cassandra had asked Astrid’s driver to make the twelve-mile journey to Chilcot. Before descending on Winterfold, she had wanted to call ahead to Emma, but realizing she didn’t have her cousin’s number in her phone phoned Rob Holland instead.
‘Cassandra?’ he said as he answered. ‘Listen I’m a bit busy …’
‘I was just wondering if Emma was with you?’ she interrupted.
‘No, I’m just on my way back to Winterfold. I spoke to her half an hour ago. I think she’s still at the office. Why? Is everything all right?’
‘Rebecca and Ruan are having an affair. Is it me or is it too bloody suspicious?’
‘Suspicious?’
‘I have a theory,’ said Cassandra flatly. ‘I’ll meet you both at Winterfold and do me a favour and hear me out.’
Rob felt a sudden fear and didn’t want Emma to be alone.
‘How about I meet you at the Milford offices?’
‘Very well,’ said Cassandra. ‘I should be there in ten minutes.’
Rebecca looked at Emma and there was something in her eyes that instantly put her on edge. Rebecca moved into Emma’s office and carefully closed the door behind her.
‘Rebecca?’ asked Emma, now unnerved.
‘I heard all about Julia,’ said Rebecca, walking slowly towards Emma, ‘and it’s all worked out nicely for you, hasn’t it? You’ve managed to wriggle off the hook yet again.’
Emma just stared at her, unsure what she expected her to say.
‘Rebecca, what are you saying?’ she said, all her instincts telling her something was wrong.
‘I suppose this means you’ll be CEO again,’ said Rebecca, staring straight at Emma. ‘Putting Ruan to one side yet again. You do know that without him this company would have been bankrupt under Saul?’ Her expression turned to a sneer. ‘And without him, you wouldn’t have had a clue where to begin, would you?’
‘We all value Ruan in this company,’ said Emma slowly, moving to one side of her desk, but Rebecca closed her exit off.
Ruan?
she thought desperately.
What does Rebecca have to do with Ruan?