‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ she reminded him. ‘Why do you think she’d be in touch with me?’
There was a pause before he said, ‘She thinks we’re still—’ He stopped and her heart turned over as she realised what he’d been about to say. ‘She knows things can’t go on the way they’ve been since she came back,’ he continued, his tone betraying how hard he was finding this. ‘We’ve tried talking about it, God knows we’ve tried, but the next day it’s as though she hasn’t taken anything in. I know she has, but she chooses to pretend—’ He broke off again. ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t your problem. I just needed to know if you’d seen her.’
Though Vivienne’s every instinct was warning her not to become involved again, she knew there was no way to avoid it, not only because of how she felt about Miles, but because of what Jacqueline’s disappearance could mean for her. ‘Did something happen before she left?’ she asked carefully.
‘Not really. She and Kelsey had a blazing row a few weeks ago. They were here in Devon at the time, and I was in London. I only knew about it when Kelsey called to tell me I had to get her mother certified or she wouldn’t be held responsible for her actions.’
Feeling the tragedy of this being no normal teenage cry, she said, ‘I take it you’ve asked Kelsey what it was about?’
‘Of course. She says it was all the usual stuff, Jacqueline’s coldness and refusal to listen or communicate. Her inability to let go of the past …’
Vivienne could feel her mouth turning dry, but the past didn’t mean her – it meant a long time before she’d ever come into their lives. Then, remembering something he’d once told her, she said, ‘What about the flat she used to have? Might she be there?’
‘She sold it over a year ago.’
‘Perhaps she’s bought another without telling you.’
‘I can’t find anything to say she has, and I’ve been through her papers both here and in London.’
Vivienne swallowed hard. ‘Have you contacted the police?’ she asked.
‘Not yet, but I think I’ll have to.’
Her eyes moved to the door as Kayla returned with a bottle of champagne and a dripping umbrella.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be laying this on you,’ Miles was saying. ‘I’ll ring off now. You have my numbers, in case you need to call.’
‘If they haven’t changed, yes.’
‘They’re the same.’
A silence followed that neither of them attempted to fill, but there was no need when they both knew what the other was thinking, and even feeling. It had always been that way with them, and finding it hadn’t changed was perhaps more difficult to bear than all the other emotions that were burning inside her.
Finally, hearing the line go dead, she clicked off too and carried the phone back to her desk, suddenly realising she was shaking.
‘Champagne’s in the fridge,’ Kayla shouted from the kitchen. ‘Fancy a coffee for now?’
Vivienne barely looked up as she answered. A hundred more questions were starting to emerge through the longing Miles had left her with, but she wouldn’t call back to ask them. She needed to think, to assimilate how Jacqueline’s disappearance might affect her – and how she might handle it if she turned up here. The thought of it caused a shudder of unease in her heart, and putting her head in her hands she took a deep, steadying breath.
Had Jacqueline not decided to end her marriage three years ago and go to live with her sister in the States, Vivienne doubted she and Miles would ever have been more than a passing introduction at the launch of a new magazine. As it was, Miles was free to pursue an attraction that had been as instant and powerful for her as it had for him, and they’d dropped all the pretence and gone home together that night. Within a week he’d told her everything about his marriage and his life, and it was around the same time that they’d both admitted to something special happening between them.
Their relationship hadn’t been easy, particularly at the beginning, when he’d regularly called Miami to find out how Jacqueline was, or to ask if there was anything she needed. She rarely wanted to speak to him, and when she did she merely told him to get on with his life and forget all about her. Kelsey should do the same, she’d say, and Vivienne could only imagine the hurt that must have caused the poor child.
It was mainly because of Kelsey that she and Miles had never flaunted their relationship in public, preferring to give his daughter some time to get used
to
her parents being apart before asking her to accept someone else in her father’s life. Not that she and Vivienne didn’t meet, because they did, but the troubled child’s fear of someone stealing her beloved daddy’s affections had made her hostile to Vivienne in a way that had caused several rows between her and her father. However, Vivienne had remained determined to work at it, and Miles wouldn’t be dissuaded from envisaging a future with a new wife, and perhaps even a new family that would give Kelsey the siblings she’d always lacked.
Quite what Kelsey might have thought of her father’s plans they’d never found out, because one Saturday evening, while they were in Devon and Kelsey was spending the weekend with a friend, Miles had received a call from his deputy editor warning him that
The News on Sunday
, clearly short of a story that weekend, was going to make a splash of his relationship with Vivienne.
Miles had been furious. Since he and Jacqueline were no longer together he could hardly be accused of cheating, so there was no doubt in his mind that the story was being run out of malice. The editor of
The News on Sunday
detested Miles with a Wagnerian fervour. Not that the animosity had shown in the article, far from it. Gareth Critchley was much too clever for that. He’d merely congratulated Miles on finding true love at last, because no one could have deserved it more after all he’d been through with his tragically disturbed wife. Then Critchley had sat back to watch the fallout that only he, Miles and a handful of others had known would follow.
It hadn’t taken long, because within days Jacqueline was back from the States, by which time Vivienne and
Miles
were in London, and the scenes that followed would remain with Vivienne for ever. There had been no way she and Miles could have stayed together after that, for Jacqueline had shown them then, in the worst way imaginable, how far she was prepared to go to keep them apart.
Now, a little over two years later, just as Vivienne was starting to feel she might be able to get on with her life, Miles was calling to tell her Jacqueline had disappeared.
‘OK, boss, if you don’t want to answer the phone I will,’ Kayla declared, plonking a steaming mug of coffee on the desk, and like the chirpily efficient assistant she was, she snatched up the nearest receiver, saying, ‘Kane and Jackson, the one and only Kayla speaking. Oh hi, Alice. Yes, she’s still here.’
Vivienne picked up the phone. ‘Before we go any further,’ she said to Alice, ‘Miles has just called.’
At that Kayla’s head came up and Alice fell silent.
‘So what did he say?’ Alice finally managed.
‘Apparently Jacqueline’s disappeared. No one’s seen or heard from her for about three weeks.’
‘Oh my God,’ Alice groaned.
‘Shit,’ Kayla murmured.
‘This goes to the top of the agenda when I get there,’ Alice stated. ‘Whatever else is going on in our world, nothing takes precedence over this.’
An hour later Alice was pacing up and down the office, a hand buried in her wavy, golden hair, a deep frown darkening her softly freckled features.
‘So no one actually knows if she came to London?’ she said, referring to Jacqueline. ‘I mean, she could have waited for Miles to drive away from the station,
then
hopped into a taxi and gone anywhere?
If
what he’s telling us is true.’
Vivienne started. ‘Why on earth would he lie?’ she challenged.
Alice looked at her incredulously, then slightly tempering her instinctive response to such naivety, she said, ‘Try to remember, you’re the one who’s in love with him. The rest of us aren’t clouded by rose-tinted specs, or delusions of romance that—’
‘Don’t be mean,’ Kayla interrupted. ‘She didn’t ask to fall in love—’
‘Kayla, when you’ve got a grip on reality that doesn’t involve Hollywood, you can speak,’ Alice snapped, ‘until then, please leave it to me.’ As she turned back to Vivienne Kayla poked out so much tongue that Vivienne couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Ignore her, she’ll grow up one of these days,’ Alice commanded, lending weight to Kayla’s belief that she had eyes in the back of her head. ‘Now, what I’m concerned about is this: when exactly did Jacqueline disappear? What prompted her to go?’
‘How can I possibly know that?’ Vivienne protested.
‘I don’t suppose you can, but I think it’s important, don’t you, because the last thing you need is that woman turning up on your doorstep, or worse, dropping in on your mother for a nice cosy little chat, so we need to know—’
‘You’re making her sound like some kind of maniac,’ Vivienne broke in. ‘She has issues, we all know that.’
‘And one of them is you.’
‘Not really. Miles and I haven’t even seen one another …’
Alice waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’m aware of how
long
it’s been, and I don’t want him coming back into your life only to hurt you all over again. You went through enough the last time he broke up with you.’
‘He didn’t have much choice.’
‘So he says.’
Vivienne looked at her in astonishment. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she demanded.
‘All we know is what he told us.’
Vivienne’s eyes flashed with temper. ‘You know what Jacqueline did to herself and Kelsey,’ she said angrily. ‘They were in hospital for God’s sake, and as far as I’m aware you never had these doubts about him before, so where are they coming from now?’
‘Vivi, where marriages are concerned
no one
knows what’s really going on, except those who are in it. And, I’m afraid, having a tragedy doesn’t make someone a saint. Miles has his faults too, and no one knows them better than his wife. She’s the one who’s had to live with them all these years, and she’s the one who’s—’
Vivienne got up and began walking to the door. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this,’ she declared. ‘It’s bad enough that Jacqueline has taken it into her head to disappear. That you now think Miles is in some way responsible for her depressions and delusions …’ She spun round angrily. ‘Putting everything else aside, you met him often enough, so how can you stand there accusing him of … Well, I don’t know what you’re accusing him of, and I’m not sure I want to.’
‘I was crazy about him, I admit it,’ Alice said. ‘It was hard not to be, but marriages break up all the time, Vivi. She’d have got over it, eventually, everyone does, so why didn’t he—’
‘You know very well that wouldn’t be true in her case – and I had no idea you’d been harbouring all
these
horrible thoughts and suspicions. That you could think for a minute that Miles is some kind of …
monster
…’
‘That’s not what I’m saying, because I know he’s not, but he isn’t perfect either. No one is, and how do you know if you have the full story of what happened fifteen years ago? It’s a long time, Vivi, they’ve been through a lot since then and you’ve only ever heard it from his side.’
Vivienne’s hands went to her head. ‘He’s not a liar, Alice. I trust what he told me, and if you think I was gullible enough to be taken in …’
‘Not gullible, just blinded, as we all are by love.’
Vivienne looked at Kayla, and to her dismay saw only solidarity with Alice, rather than sympathy with her.
‘All we want is to stop you doing anything that’s going to end in disaster,’ Alice said gently. ‘He’s been in touch, next he might want to see you, then heaven knows where it might end, but whatever happens, you’ll never be able to change his past … Oh God, Vivi, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
‘I’m not crying,’ Vivienne declared, bringing her head out of her hands. ‘I’m just horrified that we’re even having this conversation. I always thought I had your wholehearted support …’
‘That’s exactly what this is. Me trying to protect you from yourself, because no one ever sees things rationally when they’re in love.’
‘For heaven’s sake! Five minutes ago it was Jacqueline I was worrying about, now here you are telling me that I’m the one who’s unhinged, because I fell for a sociopath.’
Looking suitably chastened, Alice replied, ‘That’s
not
what I’m saying at all, so why don’t we try to start this again? Jacqueline does a disappearing act, Miles calls you and intimates she might have gone because he still has feelings for you.’
‘He didn’t say that!’
‘But he did intimate it, and now we’re extremely worried because we all know what she did to get him back last time.’
‘Blimey, she might already be dead,’ Kayla murmured. ‘Three weeks is a long time.’ Her eyes rounded with intrigue. ‘Oh my God, what if he’s offed her?’
‘For God’s sake!’ Vivienne shouted angrily. ‘I wish I’d never even mentioned it now.’
‘But what if she
doesn’t
turn up?’ Alice said.
‘Of course she will. She always does, so let’s change the subject. I want to know what happened with the WI at the weekend? Better still, let’s break out the champagne. We have a movie deal to celebrate, remember?’
‘I’m up for that,’ Kayla responded, heading for the kitchen. ‘It’s not the best, because they didn’t have it, but it’s dry and it sparkles.’
When Alice’s eyes came back to Vivienne’s they were softening with affection. ‘I’m sorry if I gave you a hard time,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to be unkind, I just don’t want to see you hurt the way you were before.’
‘I know,’ Vivienne responded. ‘And I shouldn’t have got so worked up.’
Coming to give her a hug, Alice said, ‘You wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t. It’s a very sensitive issue for you, I understand that, and I could see how shaken up you were the minute I walked in the door.’
‘Please let’s drop it now,’ Vivienne said. ‘We have
work
to do and champagne to drink … And phones to answer,’ she added, picking up the nearest one as the main line started to ring. ‘Vivienne Kane speaking,’ she told the caller.