Obsession (37 page)

‘So what do you do?’ Cristos asked, as Luke got up to answer the door.

Corrie eyed him with marked hostility. ‘You mean when I’m not having sexual fantasies about you?’ she responded haughtily. ‘That was what made me laugh, you know.’

The corner of Cristos’s mouth lifted, along with one eyebrow. Then he swept an unhurried look the entire length of her body. ‘Was I good?’ he asked.

Oh my God, what was she going to say to that? ‘As you heard,’ she replied smoothly, ‘it made me laugh.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Actually, it robbed me of the urge to tear off all my clothes and beg you to make love to me on the instant.’

He grinned and Corrie, who simply couldn’t believe what was coming out of her mouth, melted.

‘To answer your question,’ she said, much gratified by the fact that she hadn’t yet – at least during this conversation – blushed, ‘I’m a programme researcher. In other words I find and develop the ideas …’

‘I know what a researcher does,’ he interrupted. Then he smiled again and this time, to her dismay, Corrie felt her colour rising.

‘Have you found
any
locations yet?’ she asked, crossing her legs and bouncing her hair with her fingers.

‘Not one.’

‘What is the film about?’

He was about to answer when Annalise and Luke came into the room.

‘So sorry I’m late,’ Annalise gushed, crossing the room to embrace Corrie. ‘Daddy called in and I just couldn’t get away.’

She turned to Cristos, and as Luke introduced her Corrie noticed immediately the spark of appreciation in his eyes as he shook Annalise’s hand. Oh well, Corrie told herself, swallowing hard on her jealousy, she was insane to have thought she could impress a man like Bennati in the first place.

Miserably she watched him as he sat back down again, then to her surprise, as her eyes reached his, she found that he was watching her. But there was such a knowing smile on his lips, as though he could read her thoughts, that before Corrie could stop herself she had slammed her eyes closed and looked away.

‘You were asking what the film was about,’ he reminded her.

Corrie felt sick. ‘Mmm,’ she grunted, tossing her head. ‘So I was.’ If he preferred Annalise to her then that was up to him, but she was going to wipe that smug smile off his face as far as she was concerned. He might like to think that every woman in the world fancied the pants off him, well now he was going to find one who didn’t!

‘Did you still want to know, or did you go off the idea?’ he asked.

‘Oh no, no,’ she said, wishing that Annalise and Luke weren’t watching her with such evident delight. ‘I’d like to hear.’

‘Well it’s kind of a difficult story to explain, but it’s based on the book
Past Lives Present
,’ he said. ‘I guess you won’t have read it, since it’s not published here in Britain yet. If you’re interested, though, I’ll have my assistant mail you a copy.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Corrie said, appalling herself by how off-hand she sounded. Then to compound matters even further she added, ‘I’ll try to get round to reading it sometime, but I’m so busy these days I don’t get a lot of time for reading.’

Annalise was gawping at her in amazement, and Corrie’s expression was much the same as she looked back. She just couldn’t believe this was happening. She’d never been so rude to anyone in her life, but words were just spurting out of her mouth like anarchic missiles.

She turned back to Cristos. ‘Of course,’ she said, with her eyebrows arched so high they were half way to her hairline, ‘I’ll make a special effort for this book – now that I’ve met you!’

She sounded so unbelievably patronizing that she longed to smack herself across the face. A bubble of laughter escaped her at that, as she imagined how they might all react if she actually did. But, deciding that the only thing she could do now was keep her lips firmly clamped together, she stared down at her drink feeling more wretched and more angry with each passing minute. She had so desperately wanted to make an impression on him, but she could see now that he was so well used to dealing with star-struck females like her that even her rudeness was commonplace, and it was unlikely he’d get even as far as the front door before forgetting her very existence.

It was ten minutes or more before Corrie spoke again. ‘Is it a problem for you?’ she suddenly blurted out. ‘I mean being so good-looking.’

When Cristos turned to look at her she saw straight away that he was trying very hard not to laugh. Luke was less successful, for Corrie heard him snigger before he covered his mouth with his hand. Corrie was on fire.

‘How do you mean, a problem?’ Cristos asked.

Corrie shrugged. ‘Well, I was just thinking that women
who
are very good-looking find it hard to get themselves taken seriously. I wondered if it was the same for a man.’

‘Not so’s I’ve noticed,’ Cristos answered.

‘Well, I guess you wouldn’t in your position,’ Corrie said.

Not long after that Cristos announced he was leaving. Corrie immediately looked at her watch and claimed that she too must be getting along. Cristos glanced at her with mild surprise, and she wanted to die. Obviously he thought she was engineering their joint departure, and already in his mind he was probably working out a way to be rid of her. Well, it was too late now, she’d only end up in an even bigger mess if she tried to backtrack.

As they walked down the stairs together Cristos was ahead of her, and Corrie prayed that he hadn’t heard the yell of laughter coming from Luke’s flat as Luke closed the door. But he was sure to have, and Corrie felt so totally foolish that for a moment she wanted to cry. But, as they rounded a corner of the stairs, and she watched him adoringly from behind, her spirits underwent a sudden lift. Perhaps they would get a few minutes together walking along the street. If nothing else it might give her a chance to redeem herself.

‘Uh, um, Cristos?’ she said, as he walked out through the front door.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, not even looking back.

‘Well, I’m sorry if I sounded … Back there, in Luke’s …’

‘Forget it,’ he told her.

‘Well, you see, I’m not normally …’

‘Taxi!’ he shouted, and to Corrie’s unutterable frustration a cab pulled right alongside them.

‘It’s all right,’ she told him loftily, as he started to get in, ‘I’ll take the next one.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘can I give you a ride somewhere?’

‘No. It’s quite all right. I don’t mind waiting.’

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself,’ and with that he slammed the door and the taxi drove away.

Twenty minutes later Corrie was back at her studio and on the phone to Paula.

‘It was a disaster,’ she cried, gulping at a glass of wine. ‘An unmitigated disaster.’

‘So what happened?’ Paula demanded. ‘What did you do?’

By the time Corrie had finished relating the brief hour she’d spent in Cristos Bennati’s company Paula was beside herself laughing. ‘And you reckon you didn’t make an impression?’ she gasped. ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have been there.’

‘Well apart from my mortification you didn’t miss much,’ Corrie told her. ‘I mean he’s not what I expected at all. Oh, he’s good-looking all right, too damned good-looking if you ask me, and God, does he know it! He didn’t really impress me though, I mean not as much as I thought he would …’

‘Corrie, this is me you’re talking to.’

‘I know who I’m talking to,’ Corrie retorted. ‘And I’m telling you that I didn’t fancy him after all …’

‘Corrie!’

‘I didn’t. Well, OK, I did, but he made me feel such a prat … All right, it was me who did that … But it was his fault. He made me say things I didn’t mean …’

‘Well how did he do that?’

‘He just looked at me, that’s how he did it.’

There was a silence at the end of the line, and Corrie took a deep breath which she eventually let go on a long sigh of resignation. ‘Paula,’ she said mournfully, ‘I think I’ve fallen in love. I hate him, I detest him, I never want to see him again in my life … But he’s the sexiest man alive, and I wanted to tear his clothes off right there and then and beg him to take me. The trouble was he fancied Annalise, well at least he looked at her like he did – he just
looked
at me as though he wished I would go away. I’m in agony, Paula. He’s the only man I’ve ever met who’s had anything like that effect on me.’

‘Well at least you’ve met him,’ Paula reminded her.

‘Yes, at least I’ve met him.’

‘Oh come on, don’t sound so dejected. I mean what else were you expecting? That he’d fall at your feet and declare undying love?’

‘It would have done for starters.’

‘You shouldn’t aim so high,’ Paula laughed. ‘He’s a major film director, Corrie, he’s probably got women chasing him all over the world.’

‘I know, and I’m nothing special. But he’s ruined me now for any other man. Do you think I should write to him and apologize for the way I behaved?’

‘No I don’t.’

‘No, I suppose you’re right. He probably wouldn’t read it anyway. Oh, Paula, why has God blessed me with a taste in men beyond my capacity to pull? You can make that my epitaph when I die, if you like. Here lies Corrie Browne, spinster of this parish, God blessed her with a taste in men beyond her capacity to pull.’

‘Oh shut up, Corrie. He’s probably a bastard anyway. Now, tell me about Luke. Did you find out what happened when he went to see Radcliffe?’

‘Yes. He doesn’t know Bobby McIver, it was all a figment of my imagination.’

‘You don’t believe that, surely?’

‘Yes, I do. All right, no I don’t. But I can’t think about anything other than Cristos Bennati right now.’

‘Stop being such a wimp! Does Luke know that it was you who went to see Radcliffe?’

‘Yes. And we talked about it, before Cristos arrived. He was furious at first, he said, but then he explained why … Oh, Paula, don’t bug me about this now. My nerves have been in such a state all day, what with one thing and
another
, and as a result I’ve over-reacted about everything. I just want to forget about Luke Fitzpatrick now.’

And with her humiliating experience with Cristos Bennati to occupy her thoughts, that was precisely what Corrie did. For, she told herself, if Inspector Radcliffe was satisfied with what Luke had told him, then who was she to doubt it? OK, Luke’s behaviour was odd sometimes, but her imagination was even odder. She read things into situations that just weren’t there, like mistaking paint for blood, and frightened herself half to death doing it. What Luke had said about her first encounter with murder made sense; it had clearly spooked her to such a degree that she was starting to become obsessed by it. So it was time now, she decided, that they all, she in particular, put it behind them and stopped trying to play amateur detectives.

– 15 –

PHILLIP DENBY WAS
standing in the porch outside a small terraced house in Twickenham. He had rung the bell twice now, but there was still no answer. She was in there though, he was certain of it, she simply didn’t want to let him in.

His handsome face was pinched and white as he turned to look up and down the suburban, tree-lined street. It was early in the evening and several people were about, mowing their lawns or washing their cars. A group of boys was playing in the garden three doors away, kicking a ball around and swearing like Irish navvies. Phillip winced to hear it.

He turned back to the front door. He should leave now, he told himself, he should just go away and leave her alone. It was what she wanted, and the thought almost broke his heart.

He walked the few paces down the garden path, pulled
open
the gate and dug into his pocket for his car keys. He was on the point of getting into his car when he took one last look at the house and his heart contracted as he saw her standing at the door.

For a long time they simply looked at each other, until finally Pam stood back and held the door wide. Phillip’s relief was so great that he started to shake. She was going to let him in, she was waiting there for him … He mustn’t jump to any conclusions, he didn’t know yet what she was thinking, or how she was feeling.

As he walked back up the garden path he was looking straight into her eyes. He thought she had aged in the past three days, but as he reached her she smiled, weakly, and he realized the tiredness in her eyes wasn’t tiredness at all – it was anguish.

‘I wondered if you would come,’ she said.

‘I had to. I had to know …’ He looked away. ‘If you’d prefer that I went …’

‘No. I wanted you to come. You’ve just come sooner than I expected. I needed some time to think, you understand that, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s why I haven’t been at the office,’ she added. ‘But I’m glad you’ve come now.’ She closed the door behind him, then walked through to her sitting room. Phillip followed, all the time thinking of how much he had always loved this cluttered little house and the woman who lived in it. They had shared such wonderful times here, but now he felt awkward, as though he no longer belonged. His tension, his fear, was so great that it was difficult for him to move – he simply stood at the centre of the room and waited as Pam poured him a drink.

When she handed it to him Phillip gazed down into her deep, hazel eyes, wanting her to know how much he loved her, but that he would understand if things could never be the same between them now.

‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘I know you didn’t do it.’

For a brief moment Phillip’s face froze, then suddenly his chest started to heave. He could barely catch his breath, the relief was so intense. ‘Oh God,’ he murmured, ‘if you only knew how it felt to hear you say that.’

‘Come here,’ she whispered, and holding out her arms she drew him to her.

It was a long time before they broke their embrace, and both had tears on their cheeks when they did. Phillip looked again into her eyes and he knew that his love for this tiny woman, with her pretty face and enormous heart was now more precious to him than ever.

‘I was so afraid,’ he said. ‘I still am, but knowing that you believe me … Oh Pam, how can I ever begin to tell you what that means to me?’