IT’S A GAME

A novella

CONTENTS

READY PLAY

LOVE GAME

HAWK EYE

MATCH POINT

by

Daisy D. Holland

* * *

Copyright © 2015 Daisy D. Holland

&

ReadLovePlay.com

All Rights Reserved

* * *

A novella in four parts by

Daisy D. Holland

* *
*

A romantic thriller intended for readers
over the age of 18. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or
dead, is purely coincidental.

READY PLAY

MARIA WOKE UP from what could only be
described as a young woman’s worst nightmare.

Her eyes snapped open and she gasped. She
couldn’t move. The duvet was on the bedroom floor and her white nightshirt with
its green logo for some washing up brand on the front, was soaked in sweat.

The pillow was moist and her light brown
hair clung to her skull as if she had just been pulled out of the deep end of a
swimming pool.

She heard nothing. She couldn’t hear the
traffic outside, cars revving up and planes overhead preparing for landing at
Heathrow. Not even her own breathing, if she was breathing.

It was spring, another Tuesday in May and
something was wrong in south west London.

Then suddenly, a bang. She could hear. It
was the sound of a door slamming and it cut through her eardrums like a
butcher’s knife. She had a headache.

The door to the balcony of her first
floor bedroom slammed shut with such force its glass panes cracked and crashed
to the floor.

Maria grimaced. An invalid again this
morning, she thought, as the pain from the night’s events shot through her body
from head to toe. Her ribs hurt with every heartbeat.

But none of that compared to the torture
she was feeling between her legs, as if some sharp object had been plunged deep
inside her. Slowly she raised her head, just enough to see herself lying there
as if on her deathbed.

This time she counted two more bruises, a
black mark on her left thigh and another on her right thigh, each the size of a
man’s fist.

This time her white underpants had been
pulled down to her ankles, torn to shreds.

Her throat tightened and tears started
rolling down the corners of her eyes, into her earlobes and, as she started
crying, down onto the pillow.

“Please, let me go back to sleep,” she
whispered.

Slowly she pushed her knees as far apart
as it was possible when both ankles were tied together with her own ripped
knickers.

There was no blood. Thank God, she
thought. She had been spared.

Her head fell back onto the sweat-soaked
pillow. What was it this time? Violence? Or just burglary? What did he want? Or
they?

Maria looked at her bedside table for
clues. The Cartier watch was still there, lying face down. Burglary appeared
not to have been the motive.

But, whatever had happened and however
dreadful the night’s events had been, Maria got an almost perverse satisfaction
from the fact that even this kind of pain made her feel more alive than dead,
for once.

There she was, lying quiet as a mouse on
the queen-size bed with its sturdy iron frame, paid for by her mother like most
things in her flat, including the comfy chair, the dining table with its six
fancy chairs, the couch with its Laura Ashley floral print and big designer
cushions and the wooden table in the kitchen. It all really belonged to Maria’s
mother. The flat was a mish-mash of styles.

The only three things Maria had picked for
herself, apart from her tennis rackets, were three beautiful goldfish, Andy,
Andrea and their baby Angela. The fishy family lived in an aquarium, sitting on
the side table by the window with a view of the balcony and the communal garden
below.

Today began like any other day in Hell.
Yet, today she was also having her first tennis lesson with new coach Kirk at
her club, Bedford Square Lawn Tennis Club.

Kirk was from the north somewhere, about
twenty eight years old and an awesome tennis player. And handsome. Maria had
met him once, briefly, and she was looking forward to seeing him again. She
rarely looked forward to seeing anybody again.

“Oh hell.” Her mobile rang, but she
ignored it and turned on her side to face the bedroom wall, as brilliantly
white and empty as her love life.

Then
she closed her eyes and disappeared into her own perfect world.

Lila Louise
as she was called by autograph hunters – Lee to those who thought they
knew her well - looked in the mirror at the man still seeping in her bed. How fortunate
she was to be here with Peter in her bedroom with its majestic sleeping area
– a four-poster bed raised on a platform – surrounded by antique
furniture, modern art, his and her state-of-the-art bathrooms, a walk-in closet
and sliding doors leading directly to a private patio with a fountain and a
communal, manicured garden beyond. This was in London’s Knightsbridge and this
morning she was in heaven.

Lee stretched her neck gently and sighed
as she gave it a little rub. How wonderful she felt this morning, like a woman
for a change and not like the wicked witch some people mistook her for. That
was how she saw it, anyway.

She gave her own reflection in the mirror
that knowing little smile, like a silent movie star quietly congratulating
herself after the performance of a lifetime.

She looked at the mobile on her desk.
There was no reply from Maria, not to her call this morning or to the many
other call she had made yesterday, the day before and days, weeks and months
before that.

The small turquoise box was still in her
the middle drawer of her dressing table. In that she kept two of her favourite
diamond earrings, each the size of a small pea.

The first earring pushed into the tiny
black hole in her left earlobe with ease. Good. But it didn’t stop her from
thinking of her daughter, yet again. She simply couldn’t get through to her, in
any way. In fact, Lee had entirely forgotten why she even wanted to speak to
her in the first place. Her own daughter!

“Ouch!” She missed the second hole and
saw a small red dot of blood on her right earlobe, which she wiped away with a
soft tissue from the silver box next to her phone.

One more call to Maria, and that’s it,
she thought. Lee got out of her chair to walk off the frustration while she
listened to the phone ringing and ringing at the other end. No reply, and she
put the phone down on the dark Oriental wooden table at the foot of her bed.
She put it next to her two most recent and treasured purchases, a silver cast
of her own breasts, made by one of Europe’s most talked-about artists which had
cost her roughly thirty-thousand pounds sterling per nipple – that was
her answer every time someone asked the price – and her orange Birkin
bag. The bag was stamped with her initials in gold above the clasp and she had
bought it herself at Hermès in Bond Street, very much with business in mind.

The bag contained her Blackberry with
hundreds of important numbers and email addresses of agents, publishers, PRs,
journalists and general fixers who helped make her life bearable. Also in the
bag were her favourite old red Picasso lipstick and new Givenchy mascara, a
notepad in which she jotted down interesting observations she made of people
and places, a bundle of Post-It notes, pens and her credit cards, of which
there were many.

She returned to finish her toilette at
the table and admire her earrings, a present from herself when her first novel
hit the ‘one hundred thousand copies sold’ target. She tilted her head and let
the light bulbs catch the sparkle of the diamonds. Glamorous. Very glamorous.

“Goodness me,” she whispered. There was a
happy little shock on her face, raised eyebrows and pursed lips. She had just
spotted something else as she studied herself in mirror.

“Well, I never!” She had to smile at
this. Yes, it was what she thought it was. Definitely. It was there at the
bottom of her neck where the neck meets the collarbone, left hand side. It was
a red-blue mark, the size of a two-pound coin. Imagine, a love bite! How chic.
How naughty and how very 1971, the year she lost her virginity. Now that did
make her laugh.

Peter heard her giggles and stirred. She
could see him in the mirror as he woke up slowly. His right leg poked out from
under the duvet in the four-poster bed and fell over the edge of the mattress.

It was a long, lean leg covered in thick
grey hair like his chest and lower arms.

He was a good-looking man, six-foot-two
with silver hair and intelligent grey blue eyes, which had the most
extraordinarily seductive expression, always. Gosh, Lee thought. He could be
looking at you while talking about a holiday in Mallorca with his family or
turbulence in the BRIC economies, but what his eyes were really saying was “I
want you in my bed right now”. They drove Lee crazy.

His body was, as his wife June never
tired of saying, quite something. It was strong and he held it with confidence.
His arms were long and his hands presentable. They had spent years shaking
other people’s hands, closing deals, and tossing and turning women over in bed
like no man she had ever met before.

Still, to Lee, his most potent organ was
his brain. In that respect he was more than her equal and from that she got
tremendous satisfaction.

Lee could talk about Peter all day.

His grooming and charisma matched his
position in the hierarchy where he worked – he was a number two in the
world of finance, specialising in Eastern European markets.

His wardrobe was simple because, as he
said, his life was complicated enough. Savile Row suits and black brogues were
his standard attire. And the orange Hermès tie currently strapping his right
arm to the bed-post, was his trademark business look.

Lee smiled again.

This morning his jacket and trousers were
hanging over the black suede comfy chair next to the bed while his crisp white
shirt had landed on the Oriental table next to Lee’s silver breasts. Heaven
knows where his shoes were.

Yet, the handcuffs with pink diamantes
and black silk tassels, dangling from his ankle sticking out from under the
duvet, that belonged to Lee.

So did the 22 karat gold Xena choker, the
lace restraint, the ostrich feather tickler, the snakeskin eye mask and
spanking paddle.

All those accessories and many more were
lying in heaps on the floor as rude reminders of the night’s delicious
adventure.

Lee put a mint in her mouth.

Then came the knock on the bedroom door,
as had been requested. Lee checked the time, nine am on the dot.

She returned to bed and Peter with her
flesh tingling so much that the little hairs on her arms stood up. Peter opened
his eyes slowly.

“Come in,” she said with her
businesswoman’s voice.

The door opened and in walked Alvina,
Lee’s beautiful cleaner, carrying a silver tray.

Alvina was from Brazil, born in Rio de
Janeiro twenty-one years ago. She was in London to polish her English and had
come to work for Lee through word-of-mouth.

She wore the pastel blue dress uniform,
cut short above the knee, with a v-neck and sleeves to her elbows. It fit her
perfectly. The front was dominated by a row of large black buttons and two
enormous pockets.

This morning she was also wearing black
suspenders and high heels.

She shut the door behind her and walked
like a supermodel across the herringbone floorboards to the foot of the
four-poster bed where she placed the tray on top of the duvet. Peter and Lee
were hungry.

Alvina took her time pouring the coffee.
Her long auburn coloured hair was twisted in a bun high up on her head and her
full lips were a daring red colour, a stunning contrast to her creamy
complexion. But what set her apart from the next pretty brunette were those
huge eyes, heavily rimmed with khol and strong eyebrows. You would notice her
in a crowd, she shone. Alvina had added some lipgloss, Lee noticed.

Peter was now quite alert, having seen
the lacy trimmings on Alvina’s black lacy bra when she leant forward to secure
the tray on the duvet. He never missed much, but didn’t say much either. Yet,
it would have been hard for him to disguise the fact that he was now very
intrigued. He ran his wonderful hands through his hair while his bedroom eyes
darted from Alvina’s figure to the tray and back to Alvina again. He flashed
his best box office smile.

Alvina responded with a look that said
“Come on, I dare you”. Then she pulled a pin from the tight bun on her head and
an avalanche of brown, glossy hair came crashing down over her shoulders and
breasts.

Breakfast for three was served.

MARIA’s alarm went off with the most
irritating sound imaginable and she swiped the screen to get it out of her
head. A teddy bear was pressed against her chest and she pulled her knees up
under her chin. And there, for another few minutes, she lay quietly, foetus-style,
trying to go back to sleep.

The teddy had been a gift from her
grandmother twenty years ago. It was rather worn, but it gave her comfort. Even
so, it couldn’t ease the tension she felt.

She tried in vain to work out the
sequence of events that night, but her thoughts were like snow flakes in a
storm. Maria was, as her mother had been telling her for years “all over the
place.”

Thank you very much, she thought. Great
help.

But she knew she had to do something,
pull herself together. And she was really going to try and do that today. Yes,
she was. Five more minutes in bed was all she needed to rid her head of the
heavy stuff clouding her mind.

During those five minutes she managed to
unwind. Her features relaxed, the frown on her forehead disappeared and the
muscles in her arms and legs eased. And a positive thought entered her head
– that of Kirk, the coach at Bedford Square, the man she was going to
marry.

Yes, Kirk was her future husband. He had
to be. Even before she met him, Maria knew he existed. She had already imagined
herself in a long, white wedding dress, standing next to him in church.

The flowers had been worked out in her
mind, the jewellery and what she was going to do with her hair. All those
things had been decided down to their minutest detail. Twenty one red roses
– the same number as her age – a single strand of pearls around her
neck, also a gift from her grandmother, and her hair that was going to be
pulled up in a bun on top of her head with flowers in it.

The sight of Kirk in tails was vivid in
her mind’s eye. Tails would suit his dark, intense eyes and hair and that tall,
strong frame of his.

She could well imagine his broad
shoulders and strong arms around her. And then there were his hands, which
cracked the best top-spin forehand she had ever seen at Bedford Square.

What could possibly go wrong? Absolutely
nothing could go wrong.

She thought of her future and children.
She would want children one day. And Kirk would make an amazing father.

Then Maria’s eyes snapped open again. The
thought startled her. Father? Oh, dear God.

She sat up as if jerked out of bed by
invisible strings and swung her legs over the side of the mattress.

“Think of something else. Think of
today,” she murmured, scratching her head.

She picked up the glass of water on her
bedside table, decided if she was thirsty enough, then took a sip and stood up.
Standing there, the door to the balcony caught her eye. It was in perfect
condition, shut with no cracks or pieces of glass on the floor. She walked over
to inspect it, hoping to find at least one little sign of a crack, but instead
she found every one of the twelve glass panes in the door in perfect condition
and polished to perfection by the cleaner. At that moment, they were letting in
the brilliant morning sunlight.

LEE returned to her dressing table with
thick brown towels around her chest and wet hair.

The taste of Peter and Alvina lingered in
her mouth as the text popped up on her mobile asking her if the lunch meeting
with her agent and publicity girl would be put forward an hour.

“12 instead of 1pm, pls?” it said.

“Yes,” she texted and threw the towels
into a wicker basket with her lacy robe. She had something new to put on,
something special Peter had pulled out of his man bag this morning.

She reached for her surprise present, a
kimono, a beautiful Agent Provocateur silk Darkest Star kimono, which was
black, short and see-through with satin trimmings and long, wide flower-power
sleeves. It was wonderfully wearable with or without its matching leather
harness.

It flattered her figure, which was rather
good for a fifty-something-year-old, an achievement entirely her own and
without the help of personal trainers or surgeons. She had her parents to thank
for her excellent genes, if nothing else. Her wide sensuous mouth and fairly
heavy eyelids had prompted some people to call her Charlotte Ramping or
Jacqueline Bisset ‘with a hair cut’. Thank you very much, she thought.

Lee sat down in front of the mirror and
started combing and drying her bob, which was just long enough to reach the
bottom of her neck. She was feeling pretty and young again, and sexy. What a lovely
present.

She was used to getting presents almost
on a weekly basis, from people she didn’t even know. But this one she
particularly treasured.

Some fans, predominantly women who
remembered her birthday, sometimes sent her poems or paintings or something for
the home. Cushions and candles were other favourites. Some people sent her
clothes or fragrances. There was a handful of Chanel No 5 stored at her agent’s
office.

Men mostly sent her flowers or jewellery.
One crazed fan sent her a condom, used by himself, or so he’d claimed,
delivered to her home address. The police were called in and he was later
sectioned. Then there was the admirer from abroad who had a Porsche driven to
her house. That present was returned.

But the kimono was special. Granted, it
was as much for Peter’s own enjoyment as it was for hers, but that is what made
it special. It was a token of their secret romance.

The cleaner was back in her uniform and
her hair was up in a bun the way it was two hours earlier when she first walked
into the bedroom. Her heels, however, had been swapped for the brown flats she
wore when she was doing chores round the house, such as vacuum cleaning,
washing up and putting the rubbish out.

She wiped some dust from her dress and
set about tidying the bedroom. The duvet cover and pillowcases came off as did
the black silk sheet, which she stuffed into a large white cotton sack. Today
was laundry day.

The tea cups, the sugar bowl and the
silver tray were on the floor not far from the dressing table, from where she
picked them up, with Peter’s shoes. The handcuffs and spanking paddle lay scattered
near the door to the terrace and the choker and feather tickler had somehow
landed under the bed. Without blinking, Alvina got on all fours and pulled them
out.

But there were three items still missing,
including the brown leather bit gag, the bull ring and the beautiful red suede
Coco de Mer bondage collar. Alvina looked under pillows, behind curtains and in
the laundry basket. Eventually, she found them under the wooden Oriental table
and put them back in her left pocket.

They were presents from her boyfriend.

“I had a good time,” Peter said, as he
put his jacket on and said his goodbyes. “And thank you for breakfast.” He
pressed a handful of banknotes into Alvina’s hand.

“Thank you Sir,” she said, handing him
back his tie.

“Oh, thank you. How could I forget,” he
said. “Delicious. What tea was that? Twinings or something else? I’d like to
try that again.”

“It was something else,” Alvina replied
with a smile, as she put the cash in her right pocket without counting it.

“Absolutely, you must come back for
more,” Lee interrupted, turning to the pair from her table. She had applied her
mascara and gloss to her lower lip.

Peter gave her a quick kiss on her soft
brown bob and said “see you soon”. He was off to Moscow that afternoon.

Alvina saw him upstairs to the front door
while Lee struggled with the lock on her pearl necklace. “Blasted…!” Where was
Peter when she needed him?

But her jewellery wasn’t her only source
of irritation. There were plenty of other problems to choose from that day.
Still, for all the banana skins that had been thrown in her path, none upset
her more than her daughter’s cold shoulder. It made Lee both angry and sad, and
hurt.

“All that tennis,” she said. Lee was
mumbling to herself and turned up the speed on the hair drier. “Am I going mad?
Thank you, Maria.”

It was that boy Kirk, the new coach at
the club. Lee had heard the rumours. She had not choice but to put a stop to
the madness.

As club chairman, it was part of her job
to rubberstamp the hiring and firing of staff and that was going to be one of
her duties that afternoon. Her right eyebrow shot up at the thought.

The
lock on her necklace snapped into place and with that she tapped the name of
the club on her mobile to have Kirk meet her in the main meeting room at five
o’clock when he would be fired.

THE
WALK-IN wardrobe was enormous, far too big for Maria’s needs. She shook her
head. What on earth was she going to hang on those long racks?

“Get a few tops, for goodness’ sake, some
jumpers and t-shirts in different colours, a couple of dresses, a skirt and
some jeans. Please!” That was what Gomez said every time he ‘popped by’. And
shoes. She had four pairs of trainers, including a brand new pair of K Swisses,
an old pair of wellies, two pairs of flats and a few flip flops.

“Maria, what’s WITH you.” Gomez always
pretended to be horrified when he saw her wardrobe. “You’ve been living here
for a year and look around you. The flat is empty, as if nobody lives here. How
can you leave a gorgeous walk-in wardrobe like this empty?” Then he’d throw his
arms in the air.

Gomez was very sweet, but Maria really
had other things on her mind, and whether this season’s colour was yellow
instead of green wasn’t one of them. She enjoyed his company up to a point. He
was charming and funny and he often managed to boost her spirits. But spending
a whole day with him was another story. Maria certainly wasn’t looking forward
to next Thursday and the dreaded shopping trip she had promised to go on, with
him as her advisor. It sounded like another of her mother’s bribes. It had her
evil handwriting all over it.

A quick shower followed and breakfast,
which took no time given that she only had a glass of water and a cereal bar
with maximum ninety calories. As she chewed on the bar, she had to admit that for
all her mother’s faults, she had made one very good change to Maria’s life in
the last couple of months. She had got her own new Brazilian cleaner to tidy up
Maria’s flat, too, twice as week.

The Brazilian – Maria couldn’t
remember her name – was highly efficient. The flat had been spotless
since her first visit. The six dining chairs were lined up to perfection on
either side of the table in the sitting room and gone were the books and
magazines lying on tables and chairs everywhere and which Maria never opened
anyway.

Ok, the old dragon had a genius for
picking staff who were both excellent and reliable, poor things. She was no
doubt a nightmare boss. How they must suffer. Maria had seen her mother’s
ruthless side many times and pitied everyone around her.

Maria scraped her hair back into a
ponytail. The light brown hair complemented the blue colour of her eyes, but
perhaps she should go blonde. She had the face for it, heart-shaped with a high
forehead and wide-set eyes, and a dimple in her chin that just rocked. Her neck
was long and her shoulders slim.

‘What would I look like with Maria
Sharapova locks?’ She laughed and turned her head from one side to the other in
front of the mirror. ‘Blonde might work.’

Maria knew she was cute, she had been
told often enough. She just didn’t feel cute. Her ballerina posture and the
flat tummy didn’t make her feel better inside, either.

So, today’s tennis outfit had been picked
with care by Gomez. He’d chosen her new white, fitted tennis skirt with
matching top, plain v-neck and short sleeves, the white pop socks and the new
trainers. She looked right, almost like a player on the WTA tour. And she was
excited.

It was nearly coach time and she picked
up her racket, the blue Babolat, from its new home behind the door to the
walk-in closet where the Brazilian had put it. Her phone was on the bedside table
and it showed a missed call.

Was that from Kirk?

As
she stepped out of her flat and into the sunshine, Maria had the strangest
feeling this could turn out to be a really nice day after all.

“The bedroom is fine. You’ve done good a
job, thank you. But give the kitchen floor a good scrub.” Lee’s voice was
matter-of-fact, almost frosty. There was to be no confusion whatsoever over who
was boss – just in case, she thought while fishing for something at the
bottom of her bag.

“If there’s anything else that you think
needs tidying up, please go ahead. I’ll pay overtime. The mirrors in the
sitting room will certainly need to be wiped by the weekend and all the glass
surfaces. Is it just me or are there greasy fingerprints everywhere?”

Lee barely looked at Alvina as she walked
past her in the hallway and opened the front door.

Alvina nodded and rushed forward to hold
the door open.

“I have some shirts at the dry
cleaner’s,” Lee added. If you have time you could pick them up, but don’t worry
if you don’t. You could do that on Friday instead.”

If Alvina was in any way wrong-footed by
the sudden and dramatic reversal of roles which had taken place since the
threesome got dressed just an hour earlier, she didn’t show it at all.

There she stood, like a pro, holding the
door and making a mental note of the list of errands and chores Lee was asking her
to perform.

This girl’s a find, Lee had to admit.
Alvina’s approach to her job was business-like, which made everything simpler.
She was always on time, well-presented and she did everything that was asked of
her. No chore was too tedious or disgusting for her, such as cleaning up
guests’ vomit. And she even knew how to spell ‘crème fraîche’ on the shopping
list.

Alvina was also quite the mistress in
bed. She was all those things at the tender age of twenty one, the same age as
Maria. Hard to believe, Lee found. What a coincidence. The thought chilled her
spine.

“If anyone drops by tell them I’ll be
back at six,” she said jumping into the waiting taxi.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Alvina gave her a look, which only a
couple of hours earlier had driven her crazy with desire. Now it rattled her as
the driver switched on the taximeter and drove off.

There was always someone dropping by
Lee’s house, which had been her home since the mid-nineties. It was a redbrick
property with generously proportioned rooms featuring high ceilings and
original cornices. It was built for entertaining and convenient for the shops and
parks in London’s West End. One former prime minister had lived there in his
bachelor days and two mistresses of Edward VIII, according to legend.

To this day several of her friends had
come to view it as their own home-away-from-home, a breeding ground for
established as well as rising stars in the world of literature and
entertainment.

One of the neighbouring buildings was a
coffee shop frequented by the types of people who bought her books, and to the
right of her house was a glorious mansion block, home to some of the VIPs on
her personal invitations list. Her invitations list was as long as it was
impressive. She had been cultivating the right people for years and it had paid
off. Now they were cultivating her.

Safe to say, many careers had been launched
or killed at her house, in her sitting room or at her the kitchen table –
indeed, in her bedroom.

The memories came flooding back as the
driver took her via the river, along the north side of the Embankment with its
views of the London Eye and the Palace of Westminster.

What a charmed life she lived. But she
had worked hard for it and took pleasure from being able to share her great
good fortune with others. Family and friends, and not a small number of charity
shops, had shared in that success. Lee was generous to a fault, that is what
everyone said.

But not everyone showed her due respect
and appreciation for what she did for them. Maria had turned her back on her
mother’s hard-earned connections and, as a result of that, a unique opportunity
to learn from the best. Many of Maria’s peers would have killed for those kinds
of introductions, but Maria – ever the ungrateful child – had
turned on her hells and rewarded her mother with what amounted to nothing less
than a slap across the face. It was a source of enormous disappointment to her.

Few kids, as Maria was back in the
nineties, had got to sit on the knees of a bona fide Academy Award winner who
had offered to help her get into the most prestigious drama school in the world
– and then literally spit the great man in his face?

It was a hideous moment – the start
of a dreadful chapter in Lee’s life, a memory which still made her ill. Indeed,
it happened in the own sitting room and it a long time for Lee to forgive her
daughter.

When she asked why she did it, all Maria
would offer was a few grunts and mumbles and a lazy shrug of the shoulder.

The actor, who was at the time Lee’s
lover right up until that incident, was now dead and Lee had since charmed her
way back into his circle.

Yes, she sighed, number 69 had witnessed
more than its fair share of high drama and power games between friends,
colleagues and lovers. All of which was, of course, grist to Lee’s mill. As a
novelist she fed on tension and people falling out. Pity that Lee had now
herself become embroiled in a power game with her own daughter.

She handed the driver thirty pounds plus
tips and walked purposefully into the Isle of Dogs building of Baxter &
Bradley, her loyal publisher. Her heels echoed on the shiny black floor of the
main reception as security officers hurriedly opened the turnstiles and pressed
the button for a lift. She looked the part. The navy coloured shoes were
matched with a pencil skirt, above-the-knee, and a cream Chanel jacket with
navy buttons and trimmings. The collar was round and the elbows were
three-quarter length. And then there were her diamonds. It was a conservative
look, she played it safe.

The meeting could just as well have been
held via conference call with Lee sitting at home in her dressing gown, but she
insisted on at least one face-to-face meeting a month. People were the life and
blood of her profession and, not least, in her daily life as a woman. It made
her think of Peter and previous loves who had come and gone over the years.

They were divided into four categories.
Peter was head of Group A, the ones who loved her for her beauty, the ones who
didn’t want anything from her except herself. Those who made it into Group B
appreciated her intelligence. They tended to get just as much satisfaction from
talking to her over a steak tartare at the kitchen table as they did watching
her feast off their member in the bedroom. Others stuck with her for the power
she wielded. They were further down the pecking order, in Group C. Then there
was the bottom group, Group D. They were the ones who benefitted tremendously
from her wealth. Her cleaner, for one, was in that group as, indeed, were the
colleagues at Baxter & Bradley, whom she was just about to have a meeting
with.

The lift doors slid open on the twentieth
floor and she was met by an assistant, offering her tea or coffee, water or a
glass of wine or champagne, anything she wanted.

“Water for me, please,’ she said and
picked a notepad from her bag. She went straight for the CFO’s office and took
a seat at the far end of the table.

There
was one more person who stood to benefit substantially from all her hard work
and money, and that was, of course, her daughter.

JUNE
was finishing her lesson with Kirk. She looked prettier than ever, Maria had to
give her that.

The short white pleated skirt and low-cut
top did wonders for her figure. The top was rather tight with thin straps and
certainly not made from sweat-absorbing materials.

But pretty as June’s clothes may be, her
backhand was ugly. It was a single backhand and out of control, slicey.

On top of that, she missed rather a lot
of easy shots and, to make things even worse, she giggled with every miss.

Kirk seemed amused. Something dreadful
struck in Maria’s chest. She picked a table in the restaurant by the courts and
sat down, waiting her turn. The restaurant was empty at this time of day except
for the man in a brown suit reading a newspaper.

On court, Kirk stood out among players in
his black clothes, thus arrogantly defying club rules, which stated
predominantly white. His shorts were three-quarter length to his knees, his
t-shirt was large and loose and his shoes, socks and sweatband round his wrists
were black, too. It made him look intimidating, dangerous even. It had an
effect on Maria. She didn’t mind.

Kirk barely moved as he fed June easy
shot after easy shot, whipping his racket with tremendous speed and power and
pushing her from left to right until she was out of breath.

He was torturing her, but June was loving
every minute and the more difficult the shots and the more hopeless she looked,
the more she was enjoying herself.

Maria was jealous. She pulled at her
ponytail until it hurt and grabbed a magazine on the chair next to her. It was
Hello! She leafed through the pages.

There was a happy couple on the cover,
another happy couple. It was their wedding. And inside the magazine were
pictures from the church ceremony and of the newly-weds posing in the garden
and in the marquee. She immersed herself in this blissful world of Hello!
couples and lost track of time.

“Darling!” It was June, shameless June.

She gave Maria a peck on the cheek and
introduced her to Kirk. June had been calling Maria ‘darling’ for as long as
she could remember and never missed an opportunity to smother with affection
and girly talk. She apparently saw this as being part of her duties as her
godmother.

“Well, your turn,” she said, still
breathless. “How are you, darling? He’s very good. Are you well?”

Kirk’s presence made Maria feel dizzy.
Then he suddenly excused himself and disappeared into the clubhouse.

“Fine, thanks,” Maria replied. She was
always ‘fine’.

“Are you sure?” June’s jolly expression
vanished.

Maria nodded. “Yes, absolutely.”

Seeing June this sweaty almost made her
laugh. The woman’s face was the colour of a burnt lobster and her top was
soaked in all the right places. She was huffing and puffing and smiling and
chit-chatting.

“Well, I hope so. One hour with Kirk and
you’ll forget all your worries, I promise you. He’ll make you sweat.”

“But he’s gone.” Maria tried to sound
casual.

“Oh, he got a text from your mother so I
think he had to call her.”

She must have noticed Maria’s
disappointment. “Club chairman, remember? Your mother is his boss,” she
wittered on. “She’s chairman of the club. You know that. They’re probably talking
admin. Oh, here he is. Good luck, I’ll go and get changed.”

Maria’s
first tennis lesson was a blur. Nerves, excitement, confusion – whatever
it was, it got in the way and she’d found it hard to focus.

But she was quietly pleased every time
she managed to return one of his big forehands.

“Great racket speed,” he shouted from the
baseline across the net. “Yes!” he yelled with every return of his cross court
bullet.

He changed up and whipped the next shot
down the line to Maria’s backhand, giving her no chance. So he did manage to
put her in her place. He enjoyed that, she could tell.

“Ok, good forehand,” he shouted across
the net. “But we need to work on your backhand and anticipation. Your
anticipation is good but it could be better. Come to the net,” he said and ran
towards her.

Maria’s knees were getting weaker and his
hard rallying had exhausted her. Her cheeks were rosy and sweat was starting to
pour from her forehead and chest. She was being tested for the first time in a
long time and it gave her the most wonderful feeling.

“Show me your grip. Your backhand,” he
said, as they met at the net.

She held her racket with both hands on
the shaft next to her hip on the left side. As a natural right-hander, her left
hand was closer to the racket head and the right hand tightened round the
bottom of the shaft.

“Yes, ok, I see.” He jumped over the net
and took up position behind her. He stood so close to her she could feel the
heat from his body on her back and smell his mix of aftershave and sweat.

“You’ve got lovely hands,” he said,
placing his own hands on top of hers, gripping the handle. “I like the way
you’re holding it, but make sure you push it forward with your left wrist too,
not just the right hand in this position. You’ll get a better swing and more
power.”

He pulled the racket gently out of her
hands. “Like this,” he said softly. “Look at my hands.” His left wrist was
pushing the racket while the right hand kept it balanced. “And rotate,” he
added, turning his torso as he pushed through the shot. “Rotation is another
lesson for another day.”

The sun was burning down on them both,
yet some mysterious fog appeared before Maria’s eyes through which she saw
them, not on court hitting balls, but flying off on their honeymoon to some
sunny pace.

Ridiculous!

“Sooo!”

June was back and even jollier than
before. She’d changed into her casual wear, a blue knee-length, fitted skirt
and white t-shirt with a belt. Her round sunglasses were sitting prettily on
top of her head and her quilted handbag was dangling from her shoulders.

“How was it? He’s good, isn’t he?” she
said in that half laughing, half talking voice. “I told you. I saw some of your
rallies and you were gooood. You kept up with him and you had some good shots,
really. I mean really, Maria. It was the best I’ve seen you play in ages.”

June was sweet and Maria was trying to
listen to her as she struggled to remember how she got from the court and into
the clubhouse. She had not the faintest memory of what had happened just
seconds ago. As her mother had said many times over the years, Maria was on
another planet.

“Get changed, darling. I’ll wait for you
here.” June said.

Maria looked puzzled. “Why will you wait
for me?”

“We’re meeting Coco at Harrods,
remember?” She gave Maria the ‘come on now’ look. “Lunch! Have you forgot!”

“Oh, my God, sorry,” Maria said, snapping
out of it. Yes, lunch with June’s eldest daughter, that spoilt little girl. She
had entirely forgotten.

“Have I paid for my lesson?”

“Darling! Yes, you did, just now. Two
minutes ago, right here. Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes, sorry. It must be the sun getting
to me. How is Peter?” Maria changed the subject quickly.

“Peter’s ok, thank you. There’s a bit of
trouble at work, I think. Can’t be fun, his job. He was away last night and
he’s off to Moscow today, but he’s soldiering on. He always is. Always does. He
works hard. The children aren’t happy he’s away so much, of course, but they’re
not home much anyway and I’m used to it.”

If it weren’t for the lines around June’s
eyes and her pink little mouth and forehead, Maria might have thought she was talking
to a ten-year-old.

“Now off you go. Hurry, get changed.
We’ll have a wonderful lunch the three of us.” She waved a hand at Maria as if
to sweep her aside. “I’ll have a large glass of champagne while I wait. Don’t
be long, will you.”

With
that and another big smile, June walked up to the bar and ordered her third
glass of Möet.

THE
atmosphere in the clubhouse at Bedford Square changed every time Lee arrived
like a cat among pigeons. She was not so much its chairman as its reigning
queen. Yet, her ability to strike fear into the hearts of lesser woman was
developed long before she was elected to the post, not unanimously. Men, too,
even the best players, felt a sudden something in her presence. People feared
the worst or expected the best from her. Nobody ever quite knew what was coming
their way.

That late afternoon, at five o’clock, she
looked particularly focused when she took a seat close enough to court number
two to see Kirk coach the new young talent, Hettie, if that was what she
wanted.

It wasn’t and she pulled out her iPad
from the Birkin bag to edit the first chapter of her new romantic thriller.

The hush at tables near her alarmed her,
even if she was getting used to people lowering the tone of their voice or
changing the subject when she arrived. Did they know why she had come tonight?
Had Jimmy been indiscreet?

Jimmy might be a magnificent bean counter
and an enthusiastic tennis player, but as club secretary he was an unmitigated
disaster. Lee capped up the word DISASTER as she typed.

Sweet old Mr Henderson, waving as much as
he could with his frail hands, was sitting just two tables from Lee and he got
his frail wife Joanie to turn and nod a hello in her direction, too. Mr and Mrs
Henderson were the most senior members at Bedford Square, although they hadn’t
played for decades. They still played an important role as social members,
always having a nice word to say about everybody. They’d been married sixty-two
years, a wonderful couple. Lee waved back at them. Little did they know they
were going to die the cruellest death in chapter seventeen.

Lee
let her fingers dance across the keyboard.

Kirk
was puzzled, unsure of what Lee was talking about as they walked up the stairs
to the meeting room on the first floor, but he nodded politely.

She was nervous. Even she could hear the
tension in her own voice.

“Andrew Stilton has applied to the club
to become its new head coach,” she said, abruptly. “He’s been at the best clubs
both here and in Spain, as you know.”

Kirk remained silent.

“And he’s moved to this area. He now
lives just round the corner from here with his family.”

Lee stopped by the door to the big room,
used for board meetings, job interviews and committee lunches. Kirk moved
swiftly to open it for her. He let her pick her favourite chair, the one with
armrests at the far end of the table.

She didn’t look happy as she put her bag
on the table. It landed with a thump on the surface, which had been wiped clean
but still looked like a garage worktop, stained and with cheap, bruised metal
legs. For meetings, it was generally covered up by a pretty tablecloth.

So Lee began her speech.

“Andrew can work weekends and his
daughter is now fourteen and a very good player. She can act as his assistant,
as and when, which is a good thing, particularly for the junior team.”

She spoke at length about the wonderful
reasons why Andrew was such a good fit for the club, his family and the
important people he knew at Wimbledon and in Madrid.

“His contract in Madrid runs out next
month. Well, that’s on Saturday, actually.”

She swallowed hard, looked at Kirk’s
stony face and waited patiently for his offer of resignation.

But Kirk knew what she wanted. He made
her suffer a little bit longer and said nothing as he pulled a chair from under
the table. He placed it opposite hers and sat down. Then he leant forward
towards her, rested his elbows on his knees and looked into her large and very
confused blue eyes.

“And there is no contract between you and
the club, so we shall have to let you go. As from this Saturday,” she added.

She picked up her bag and stood up
straight. “Sorry, I know you’ve only been here a month, but the decision has
been made. Nothing I can do.”

“Sit down,” Kirk ordered.

He was not at all surprised to see her
sit down like an obedient schoolgirl.

“I have to go,” she said. “I have an
important meeting in ten minutes.”

“I don’t think so.” Kirk pulled a key
from his pocket and walked towards the closed door.

Lee gasped. “Such disrespect!” But she wasn’t
entirely displeased, and for reasons she just couldn’t explain, she remained
seated.

Kirk locked the door. The sound of his
key turning in the rusty keyhole roared like thunder in her head. There was
such an intensity in his dark eyes as he returned to Lee she thought she might
go up in flames. He stopped inches from her and looked down at the puzzled
expression on her face. Her eyes were exactly level with his hips, which, she
noticed for the first time, were narrow with a stomach as flat as the ironing
board in her own kitchen cupboard at home. His muscular legs were trained to
the nth degree. He was delicious, a monster.

Lee was, for the first time in as long as
she could remember, speechless.

There he stood, in silence, looking down
at her for what felt like a lifetime.

She looked up at his eyes. They had
become soft and smiling. This was an emotional roller-coaster ride and he was
in control. He cupped her face with his hands, very softly, and ran his fingers
slowly through her hair, as if to collect it in a tiny ponytail at the back,
before letting it loose and collapse around her cheeks.

He repeated the manoeuvre after stroking
her face with his large hands.

Lee heard footsteps on the other side of
the locked door and men’s voices. It was James talking to someone in the
corridor. She recognised his deep voice and the beautiful accent. He was asking
for a price on a new carpet in the corridor and on the steps down to the
restaurant. All Lee had to do now was call out James’s name and she would be free
in seconds. He would kick the door in easily and Kirk would be sacked on the
spot. Problem solved.

But she said nothing.

Instead, she moved her hands slowly to
the top of Kirk’s black shorts and briefs. She tugged at them gently, pulling
them down bit by bit over his hips and down to his knees.

It was the most wonderful sight as his
member moved. Its size and shape were unlike any other she had ever seen before.

From then on Lee didn’t have to do
anything. She parted her lips slightly and with a tender stroke at the back of
her hair, he pushed through and into her mouth. He started to move his hips,
back and forth, adding speed and pressure.

Her eyes welled up as she felt his member
swelling and moving against the walls of her mouth and sliding on her tongue
and on her lips, back and forth, in and out. She lost all sense of where she
was and for how long.

Kirk tightened his grip on her hair and moments later released
a deep, heartfelt sigh.

Lee thought she was going insane as she
ran down the stairs. She stopped, caught breath and walked into the restaurant,
towards the main exit.

Mr Henderson and Joanie were still at
their table, finishing their cake. Lee hoped they wouldn’t notice much as she
walked past, but they did.

“Are you ok, dear?” Joanie asked.

Other members noticed, too.

“Can I help?” Charles said.

“Have you lost anything?”

“Is your family ok?”

Lee escaped out through the main door and
the gate and fell into to her waiting taxi. Her handbag smashed against the
floor of the taxi and her belongings fell out.

They might all have seen the tears
rolling down her cheeks, but nobody knew they were tears of pure joy.

LOVE GAME

GOMEZ was beside himself with joy. It was
going to happen, at last. The opportunity he had waited an eternity for was
there in front of him. After a number of subtle and less subtle hints, Maria had
agreed, unexpectedly, to his plan for a shopping trip down Sloane Street, his
favourite street in the world. And today was the day.

He
beamed as he introduced the two women. “Sue, this is Maria, and Maria meet
Sue.”

His joy
at this unlikely meeting of two women who might as well have come from opposite
ends of the world, was there for all to see.

“I just
knew you’d get on. I’ve wanted you two to meet for such a long time.”

He had
come prepared. His suit was made especially for the occasion, no flashy lining,
no crazy handkerchief in his pocket this time and good shoes with plain dark
socks. Even his tie was conservative.

His plan
had been carefully laid. Establish and build trust, was his motto when dealing
with the Harper women. Therefore his own appearance was to be understated. It
was to be cool. A job on this scale did not come often. Spending money on his
number one client’s credit card in Sloane Street was shopping of a quite
different order altogether. Gomez was moving up in the world, he could feel the
rush of blood to his head.

The
shopping list was long and detailed. There were dozens of things to get for
Maria’s walk-in wardrobe. Or the ‘morgue’ as he called it. Would Lee approve? He
hoped so. Maria herself had merely given the list a blank stare.

The task
before him was mammoth, he knew it. When it came to shopping, Maria was an ice
cold virgin, frigid.

But Sue
could help. Difficult, delicate clients were her speciality.

“Sue,
you look simply amazing.” His finger ran through his brown mob of hair, which
he shook excitedly whenever he wanted something. “You’re the best ambassador
this brand could ever wish for.”

“Oh,
you’re very kind,” she said without looking up from the computer screen by the
till.

If he
had asked Maria, she might have said Sue looked rather ordinary in her black
trouser suit and barely-there jewellery. She was wearing pearl earrings and her
hair was long, black and dead straight with a fringe. No big deal. Maria looked
down at the shiny black floor. It had a glitter effect like a Leicester Square
disco.

She and
Gomez had clearly established a rapport between them. That was his strength. He
was good at winning people over with his candy sweet charm and eternal optimism.
Maria could see how some people might find his cheerfulness infectious and that
was probably the reason he got on so well with her mother, forever looking for
fixers and flatterers.

Like Sue,
Lee was more than capable of seeing through it all. She was one of them. Like
they, she played the game.

Except,
she didn’t see through Maria.

“Come
this way, please,” Sue looked up from her computer now.

“Apologies.
I was looking for the new dress I’d like to show you. Kensington Palace ordered
one the other day,” Sue said, dead cool for someone dropping heavy hints that
the Duchess of Cambridge had bought a specific item. “It’ll be here in less
than half an hour, a courier is bringing it over. You could be the first
non-royal in the country to see it,” she added. “Such a lovely dress.”

Sue
raised an elegant hand towards the open door at the back of the store. It led
to a suite with soft lighting, mirrors, plush chairs and sofas. The carpet was
thick and cream coloured. Maria looked at her trainers. She felt awkward having
to step on those delicate carpets in her ugly shoes.

“Don’t
worry at all, you’re fine,” Sue said. “It’s a strong carpet and we have good
cleaners. Make yourself at home.”

Maria
sat down in the sofa and looked at the shelves stacked high with shiny bags and
shoes and accessories. The rails were dripping with dresses made of animal
prints, some stripy cardigans, check skirts and shift dresses in different
colours and pants with mini-flares à la 1970-something. On another rail were
ten or twenty fur and animal print coats and jackets, enough to have the most
die hard fashionista in stitches.

The time
had come for Maria to apologise. “I think I’m not quite dressed for this, “ she
said with a whisper.” Clothes were another area of her life where she never
felt confident and almost no amount of designer gear could help her. Today she
was in distressed jeans and a grey T-shirt. She felt completely out of place.

“Maria
darling, don’t worry, that’s why we’re here…to help you,” Gomez said.

Maria
smiled while Gomez and Sue soothed her nerves and fiddled with garments.

The
glossies on the low coffee table caught her eye. They were lined up in rows with
millimetre precision, one precisely next to the other and so on. The look made
her feels as if she were at the dentist. It made her smile. ‘At least, at the
dentist I’d be anaesthetised,’ she thought.

“Tea? Freshly squeezed
orange juice? Something alcoholic?” Sue asked. A glass of champagne and two
glasses of wine were brought in. Maria asked for a glass of water.

Sue was, arguably, the top saleswoman in
Sloane Street. “Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Saint Laurent, you name it, Sue
has worked there,” according to Gomez. “At all the big houses down Sloane
Street and Bond Street, too, for that matter.”

He held
his empty glass up for a re-fill.

“Anything
you want to know about the world of fashion or how to make the most of
yourself, just ask Sue.”

Maria
smiled politely. She really couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted to know
about that world.

“She’s a
walking encyclopedia on designers, shoes, belts and sunglasses.”

Well,
Maria had known Gomez for a couple of months since he became her mother’s
stylist and personal shopper and she was fairly certain he knew more about
shoes and sunglasses than anyone else.

He, too,
was playing the game to perfection. Showman!

“And she
knows Lee very well,” he added.

He
should not have said that.

“Sue
sold an entire cruise collection to Lee for her trip to Porto Cervo. Do you
remember, Maria, when your parents went to Sardinia? Every single item she wore
then was personally picked by Sue.”

With
that piece of information, the rest of the afternoon became a blur of sales
patter, thoughts and daydreams for Maria.

Kirk was
on her mind. She saw herself with him on imaginary holidays in Bali, Hawaii and
Barbados and later realised she was standing in the middle of the floor trying
on a block coloured shift dress in blue, green and brown, As Seen In Vogue, according
to its label attached to the sleeve.

She was
also daydreaming when she was being sold a pair of nude sling-backs with
four-inch heels. She had nodded like a robot when Sue asked her to lift her
feet. And she vaguely remembered being sprayed with a new fragrance and the
sight of Gomez slipping a sample bottle into her handbag.

As for
the block coloured dress, would Kirk like it?

Maria
just couldn’t get him out of her head and she had a sneaky feeling she knew the
answer would be a big no.

There was disappointment
on Gomez’s face as they left the store empty handed. It was a look Maria hadn’t
seen before and she felt the tension between them as they crossed Sloane
Street. The atmosphere was thick, as if he were mourning the death of a loved
one – yet, he was mourning over a white shirt with navy piping.

His
mood, however, returned to normal almost at the blink of an eye.

The next
shop was only a hundred meters up the road and he jumped from the street up on
to the pavement with a head full of ideas.

“I’ve
got it,” he said, thrilled. “Fitted and colours, that’s you. Pencil skirts,
short skirts, nice skinny jeans and anything sculptured. Colours? I’d say….”

He went
through the browns, the blues, the greens and all the other dark colours.

“This is
the last store we have time for today. It’s just up here. I’m one hundred
percent sure we’ll find you something spectacular.”

His
relentless optimism drained Maria and if she saw another shop window plastic
doll dressed to kill she was sure she would collapse.

Then
something caught her eye. She looked to her right, transfixed. She knew this to
be the moment her life changed forever.

“There’s
just one more shop,” Gomez said, much in a rush and hurried Maria along. “It’s
my favourite store in the whole of London and I know you’ll find something
absolutely perfect there. It’s where my best friend works.”

Gomez
burst into the store and threw four flirtatious remarks at startled personnel,
two for the manager and one each for the assistants. They welcomed him with
hugs and kisses.

The two
girls introduced themselves as Zuki and Petra.

“They
speak seven languages between them,” Gomez marvelled. “And this is John.” The
girls pushed a magnum of Cristal into Gomez’s hands.

“Oh my
gosh!” he gasped. “You really are too kind. You shouldn’t have, it’s too much!
Thank you very, very much, how wonderful. Look at it, it’s enormous.”

It was
curtains up for another Gomez performance.

The
scent in the luxury boutique hit Maria like a warm cloth in the face.

“Shall
we go down,” Susannah said leading the way down wooden steps and into another
Aladdin’s cave of handbags, shoes and rails dripping with garments.

Here the
sofa was a pale orange, deep and with huge brown cushions in suede. Maria
squeezed in between one of the cushions and an armrest. Soon her thoughts
wandered.

It was
some time before she noticed a man’s trouser legs in front of her.

“Hello,”
he said.

Maria
looked up. It was John. He was holding two things in his outstretched arms, a
blue belted dress, fitted and cut above-the-knee with short sleeves in one hand
and, in the other, a sheer kaftan, short and yellow with a blue pattern running
along the hem and the border on the sleeves. It was expensive.

“Look at
you, you look fabulous,” he said, when Maria stepped out of the changing room,
wearing the dress. He turned to John. “Maria has so much potential, my fingers
are simply itching to give her a make-over, but she won’t let me come near
her.”

He
circled her like a shark, studying every inch of the dress, how it fit her at
the waist, the hips, the bust and over the shoulders. He made her move her arms
so he could check how it fit her in the armpits, too. He admired the length of
the dress and the five-inch slit on the front, slightly to the left of centre.
Then he launched his attack. “You’re a bombshell, you can be so sexy!”

Maria
flinched. She did not feel comfortable being described as sexy.

But
Gomez smelt blood. “If your mother could see you now, you’re amazing. Watch out
Mrs Lila-Louise Harper, your daughter is catching up.”

John had
other ideas. He stood there, legs apart while moving a hand to his chin, and
thinking. He was short but with a strong build, bald and with a strange
intensity in his dark eyes. His quiet suit, which was dark grey and exquisitely
tailored, had exactly the right width in his trouser legs. He knew what he was
doing. He rarely spoke, but when he did he made sure it mattered.

“I’m
seeing a bit more than that,” he said. “I’m seeing a change in you. When you
walked into the shop you looked as if you’d rather be somewhere else. Your
posture and the expression on your face said it all and you almost fell into
the sofa, hiding behind the cushion.

“In that
dress you’re standing up straight and looking around you. Yes, the dress makes
you look sexy, but not because it shows off your figure, because it doesn’t
really. It draws attention to your eyes. It makes you come alive and that makes
you intriguing.”

Maria
returned to the dressing room. She didn’t mind Gomez’s bombshell talk, but
John’s words made her feel very confused. She might as well have been naked.

“I’ll
think about it, thank you,” she said.

Gomez pumped his fist.

It would be dark soon in
Sloane Street. Gomez wondered if the day had been a success or a failure. He
had hoped to fill Maria’s walk-in closet, or ‘the morgue’ as he referred to it,
with everything a young woman could wish for. He now knew it wasn’t so simple.
It was a long and complicated process, which needed a considerable amount of
TLC.

“I’ll
write up a few notes for you, Maria, about the things we’ve seen today and my
own ideas for what you can do with the best pieces and what occasions they’d be
suitable for. Then we can set a budget.”

Maria
agreed. But there was only one outfit, which had caught her imagination that
day. It was the pastel blue bra with lace trimmings and thin double straps with
matching knickers she had seen in the window not far from Gomez’s favourite
store. There it was again as they passed by. She looked over her shoulder at La
Perla while Gomez hailed a taxi.

The
ensemble was revealing and flattering and, much as she hated the word, it was
sexy.

She liked it very much.
Yes, she was going to have it.

LEE was in the sitting
room looking out of the window at the communal gardens beyond her own small
patio when the flowers arrived. It was early afternoon and the last RSVP to
that night’s dinner party had arrived. They would be twelve for dinner at seven
o’clock, an early start and an early finish. The occasion was the annual
reunion of her oldest friends, former classmates, childhood playmates and
boyfriends from way back. They were people who knew Lee before her first big
pay cheque. The evening was one of her favourites of the year. It was not an
informal evening, few things in Lee’s life were, but it was fun and full of
gossip going back decades. She loved those old stories.

Much
preparation had gone into the evening already. The sitting room was impeccable,
tidied by Alvina with floors polished by a professional team, overseen by
Betty, her trusted housekeeper of fifteen years.

Betty
had been her mother’s best friend, she knew Lee as a baby. The gilded mirrors,
the side tables, the large couch with the floral print in the centre of the
room with the glass coffee table and the two armchairs were now smelling fresh
again. Luckily, the Persian rug had come back from the dry cleaner just in time
and the silver picture frames on the piano looked newly polished – and
didn’t they need it.

Through
the double doors on the right was the dining room where the table had been set
with heavy ceramic plates in plain white and silver plates on top. Knives and
forks, the porcelain and cut crystal glasses all dazzled in the light from the
bay window.

When the
flowers suddenly arrived, it was a very tired Betty who signed for them at the
door and carried them through to the sitting room. The bouquet was a firework
display of roses, lilies, bouvardia, hypericum, amaranths, carnations and much
more. They were gorgeous, they were a big statement.

They
threw Lee into chaos.

“Very
nice bouquet, isn’t it Lee?” Betty said as she wrestled with it on the coffee
table. “I don’t think we have a vase big enough. I wonder who would send such a
big bunch.”

Indeed.
Lee asked herself that very question and was terrified of the answer.

Of the
two men who sprang to mind, Kirk’s name popped up first. Then again, perhaps
not.

But Peter,
he was a giver. His generosity knew almost no bounds.

Lee held
her breath and sliced the thick, cream envelope open with her blood red
fingernails. The card inside was stiff and gilt-edged and there was the name,
typed in a thick font: James P. D. G. Johnson, Colchester.

Her
world caved in.

“James
who?” Like a ghost she walked to the couch, threw herself down on it, flat on
her back, and started to sob. There she stayed most of the afternoon, feeding
on a toxic diet of vitamin drink, antidepressants and Mars bars.

For ages
she lay still, staring at the ceiling. “All that cornice for what?”

In that
magnificent sitting room with its original features and pricey décor, insanity
lurked.

“Betty
please get me a doctor’s appointment and cancel the dinner party. You’ve got
their numbers.” She mumbled her words like a child.

“I’ll do
that, Lee,” Betty shouted from the hall, wiping her hands in a grey check tea
towel. She had played a key part in Lee’s high drama over the years and she
knew all the little twists and turns. So she went straight back to the kitchen
table piled high with the afternoon’s shopping, the lobster, the foie gras, the
chicken and the bags of strawberries, pineapples, kiwis, oranges and melons for
the fruit salad.

Lee’s
temperature appeared to be rising.

“Those
flowers are an insult,” she shouted at Betty and the rest of the world. “That
man raised my hopes. Now what!”

“Yes, Lee. You may well
have a point,” Betty replied.

The afternoon began to
make sense when Lee got the text. She was on her back on the couch with two
blankets on top and a red satin sleep mask – or so it looked to Betty
– covering her eyes. There was a month’s supply of Diazepam within reach.

“Meet me
Cedar House, 98 Bricket Lane, E1, Flat 5, 3rd floor, 2nite 11pm” the text said.
There was no wink or smiley and no question mark. There were no if’s or but’s.
It was a command. Bricket Lane was an address she had never heard of in a part
of London she had never been to.

The thought was driving
her mad with excitement. The dinner party was on again.

The evening was a
success. Lee was the perfect hostess, relaxed in her jeans and strappy brown
top with a caramel cashmere cardigan thrown over her shoulders. Eleven guests
had arrived, two of them from her school days, another three from college, two
former boyfriends and the rest of them were people she travelled with in her
youth.

There
were compliments to the chef. Betty’s lobster salad was singled out, and the
Krug, as ever, a popular drink. Not many remembered seeing Leo this happy
before. They were very much looking forward to next year’s get-together. Same
time, same place.

Then again, none of them
had seen her running out of Bedford Square tennis club the other evening with
tears of joy streaming down her face.

There was a catch to having lunch with June,
there always was. The most generous and entertaining of lunch companions, and
always drunk by the end, she would have you promising her a great favour. Today
was one of those promises, a shocker.

Five
minutes into her sea bass, June had Maria agreeing to do the unthinkable, to
intern at her PR company, two weeks, starting tomorrow Friday at nine am.

“Who
knows,” she said, sipping from her glass of champagne, “you might like one of
our young men. There is one who is quite nice looking, your age. And straight.
You’d get to socialise a bit. Sounds fun?”

Her
glass was covered in bright red lipstick marks as she put it down. Those big
blue eyes, narrowed and twinkled and that silver blonde bob was looking messy.

Maria
saw her mother’s handwriting all over this arrangement.

“Oh
Maria, please. Do it for me. Come on, please.” June had read her thoughts.

“I’m not
a great socialiser,” Maria said. She put her glass of orange juice down on the
table, demonstrably. “I’m really not, you know that.” June pleaded with her,
eyes like a puppy. Maria found herself saying yes, very much against her will.

“Done!”
June said, nodding her head so hard her fringe fell into her eyes.

This afternoon, Maria
just didn’t have the heart to say no.

Not even twenty-four hours
later, at eight fifty-five am Friday, Maria walked into the office of JJ PR, June’s
PR company, wearing her new dress, the blue belted shift Gomez had suggested
and the nude heels. Her desk was huge with a computer, a telephone and two
trays for post, in and out, both of which were empty. The desk was in the
middle of the office, surrounded by other desks stacked high with bits of
paper, product samples, paper bags, family photos and pot plants and bottles of
wine and champagne. The décor was simple and soulless, white walls, large
windows and a kitchenette at the back, loos at the front by the elevators. This
was Soho and everything was noisier and faster than anywhere else. People were
coming and going, and Maria couldn’t work out which was which. It was a culture
shock.

And it
was Dress Down Friday. Maria had made a fashion faux pas on her first day.

“I know
how you feel,” a woman’s voice behind her said. “Don’t worry. Everybody does
that on their first day. They start on a Friday because it’s casual and easy
and then people forget to tell them to dress down so they come in looking like
prats on their first day. Cruel!”

She
smiled. “Nice dress, though. I’m Christa.”

“Maria.”
Maria stretched out an arm.

Christa
was in ripped jeans, a blue shirt and trainers. Her hair had been scraped back
rather hastily in a messy short ponytail and her face was free of make up. Maria
had spotted a heart shaped tattoo on the inside of her wrist when they shook
hands. She wasn’t pretty, quite ordinary looking, but she seemed the type who
gets friends through the sheer force of her personality.

“Any problems let me
know, I’m over there.” She pointed at a desk in the far corner, then
disappeared into the kitchen.

Maria started at the
bottom. Supervised by an account executive, she helped fold sweaters into large
shopping bags, print labels and stick them onto the bags and call couriers.
Before lunch she was helping the manager generate keywords for online content. She
met those challenges with a mix of amasement, exhaustion and nerves. For
several hours that day she forgot about Kirk.

“Any
plans for lunch?” Christa said, back at Maria’s desk with a bag and ready to
go. “Berwick Arms? The office favourite. It’s not far from here, great food and
cheap wine.”

Christa
poured her heart out to Maria as they walked the ten minutes to the pub. It was
a long and complicated story and Maria was neither hungry nor thirsty by the
end of it. But the Sauvignon arrived within minutes of the two women taking
their seats at the corner table, Christa’s regular spot. The thick, dark and
low-hanging wooden beams and the red table clothes gave the pub a cosy family
feel. But then there were the rude cartoons on the walls. Maria looked at them.
They were very rude.

A second
bottle of Sauvignon landed on the table before the salads. Christa poured and
Maria spilt some of the wine as she raised her glass to her mouth again. When
was the last time she was drunk? She couldn’t remember.

“What
accounts do you work on?” she asked Christa.

“Bit of
this, bit of that. Shoes, lingerie, accessories, you name it, whatever. And
shampoo. But I don’t really do shampoo or beauty. They’re niche, not really my
field.”

She
looked up at Maria and plucked two anchovies from her Niçoise. “They’re looking
for someone on the shampoo account. Might be something for you?”

Maria
couldn’t stop staring at the cartoons.

“Lingerie?”
she asked. “You said lingerie?”

“No,
shampoo! They’re looking for someone on shampoo.”

Maria took another sip of
wine. The Sauvignon - or was it something else – was making her head
spin. “So what lingerie account are you working on?” Maria’s thoughts were now
entirely on the pastel blue underwear she’d seen in the Sloane Street window
display. She knew something crazy was happening to her.

Day one at the office
ended on a happy note. There was Christa, wine and work, all of which she had
survived unscathed. Christa was ok. She was real, down to earth. Maria admired
the way she had fought her way back from the brink.

By five
o’clock she had been promoted to assistant on digital content.

“Thank
you, I really enjoyed myself,” Maria told her line manager, Lulu, as she left,
reflecting on the day’s small successes, such as drafting copy for a ski
holiday blog.

Lulu was
gracious, complimenting her on her efforts. There was every reason for Maria to
be happy as she walked across the main reception on the ground floor, oblivious
to the two men sitting in the sofa by the window.

“Hello,
Maria,” a voice called out as the main doors slid open. It was a man’s voice,
one she had heard before but couldn’t put a face to. She turned around and saw
Peter, June’s husband. Sitting in the leather sofa in his tailor made suit next
to a man in a brown jacket and jeans, Peter looked smoother than ever.

“You’ve
grown up,” he said.

“How are
you?”

“I’m
well, thank you, Maria. Actually, tired. I’ve just got back from Moscow and I’m
off to a business dinner tonight. Waiting for June. She told me you were
working here for a couple of weeks.”

Maria remembered Peter.
As she stepped out of the office building and into the busy, smelly noisy Soho
street, she remembered him well. Goodness, he was still handsome. Very, very
handsome, indeed.

It was a journey in every sense of the
word. It was a game, a plan devised by the devil himself.

With the
push of a button, the sliding doors to Lee’s walk-in wardrobe opened and a
light came on. She stepped in as if walking through Heaven’s door. Lee was
losing her mind.

She sat
down in the brown covered Louis XVI chair and enjoyed the silence, the view of
her clothes and the pure luxury of it all. This was her favourite room in the
house, her inner sanctum.

Alvina
did an excellent job of keeping it tidy. The white carpet was impeccable, thick
and soft and smelling new. The brown wood of the doors to the different
compartments was freshly polished and the mirrors sparkled clean in the glare
of the spotlights in the ceiling.

The room
was split into four sections, one for each season. To the left were the autumn
and winter collections, colour coded in browns, blacks, greys and greens as
well as the navy Chanels. On the right side of the wardrobe were the spring and
summer collections in reds, oranges, pinks and pastels.

Of
course, Gomez deserved credit for stocking up on jackets and skirts et cetera
every time something had to be binned or sent to the charity shop. So, she
noticed, he’d had time to get the new Matthew Williamson kaftan after all.
There it was, hanging almost right in front of her. She had waited two months
for that kaftan and only got it because Gomez kept pushing for it, bless him.
And those accessories had to be a living nightmare to sort out. The tights and
the belts, gloves, sunglasses, scarves, everything was organised on hangers and
on shelves and in drawers. It looked perfect, like a little Bond Street shop.
Gomez was a star. And Alvina. They were her two superstar helpers, always
bursting with energy and eager to please.

But
there was an area of the brightly lit room only Lee had access to. It was a
special compartment, hidden behind the navy Chanels, which she opened on those
occasions when she needed to spice up her look and lift her spirits, when she
needed to raise her game. It had one rail with outfits on hangers, a shelf and
twenty hooks for accessories. To get access to that compartment, the entire
autumn collection had to be pushed aside and a door would open at the press of
a button on the remote control in her hand. It was her secret world, her own
imperfect space.

Lee
pressed the button. Tonight was one of those very special occasions. In an hour
she was stepping into the unknown, to the East End of London, just forty-five
minutes from her house by car, but in another world in so many respects. The
little she did know of the area – the Sixties council blocks and burnt
out fish and chip shops – she had gleaned from downbeat news articles and
TV, mainly crime series. Lee was aware of the riots, the murders, the
prostitution and the general deprivation over there, and statistically it was
perhaps the poorest borough in the country. At this time of night it could be a
very dangerous place to be.

But the
more Lee thought of the dangers and the risk she was about to take, the more she
wanted to pursue this adventure tonight.

The door
opened slowly and there it was, her special wardrobe in black leather and blood
red silk.

There
were thousands of butterflies in her stomach as she ran a finger along the coat
hangers, deciding what to wear. This one, the black leather quarter cup bra
with matching ‘ouvert’ knickers and suspender belt. First the knickers, they
fitted her, still. She smiled at her own bottom in the mirror as she turned to
inspect what, in her own harsh eyes, was still a good look.

‘Quite
impressive for a fifty-plus mum,’ she thought. The quarter cup bra with the
peeping tom effect was her favourite. It didn’t leave much to the imagination,
but it was always a huge success. Men liked that one. And the suspender belt
sat perfectly on her hips. There was a new bottle of Westwood’s Boudouir
fragrance on the round table in the centre of the wardrobe. Lee put a drop on
her index finger, which she stroked between her breasts and above the panty line.
Boudouir was a fitting name for this fragrance with its warm and wild scent
– perfect with her pubic hairs, which the beautician had waxed into a
heart shape.

The
fishnets rolled up her legs with ease and were fastened, no problem, followed
by the Louboutin heels, the ones with the dramatic net and diamante effect. Et
voila! She tied a black velvet ribbon around her neck for a slightly harder look,
but decided instead to err on the side of soft.

So there
she stood, looking at herself in the mirror and feeling sexy and, most of all,
inspired. The thought that only a couple of hours earlier she had been sitting
upstairs in her cardigan with childhood friends from Beddingford, a village so
small it had only five shops and a community building, was intoxicating. Those
were innocent times. Her clearest memories were of badminton games on the lawn
and skating on the pond whenever it got cold enough. She didn’t get her first
kiss until she was nineteen. She was going to become a nurse.

But back
to tonight’s adventure. The tried and tested Xena cuffs might come in handy, so
she picking them off the hook and, she thought, maybe try the new cat whip. And
the crystal spanking pad plus rape alarm, which she put in her other Hermès
bag, the blue Birkin.

Her sable fur coat would
have just dotted the i, but it was nineteen Celcius outside. It would look
ridiculous and the Burberry ‘flasher’ mac worked fantastic with lingerie. She
picked that one instead. Her shoulder length hair, brushed into a bob, and
large pearl earrings lent her just the right amount of respectability – but
not much. The smile in the mirror said it all.

Lee had been to Bali,
Hawaii, Mauritius, Rio, Hong Kong, Monaco, Alaska, Moscow and she had been to
Greenland, even, and Norway three times. But she had never been to the East End
of London, not once. She shook her head with amazement at this thought as she
opened the door to her black Mercedes SL400 and threw the Birkin on the
passenger seat.

“You
poor car,” she said, reversing into the street. “Guess where you are taking me
tonight…” The SL purred as she sped up Knightsbridge towards Hyde Park Corner
and jumped the red light at the roundabout before turning left into Green Park.
It was a route they had both taken so many times she could almost do it
blindfolded in her four-inch heels. In no time she had come as far as The Ritz
Hotel, the venue for Maria’s eighteenth birthday.

The
windows of the car were darkened, but it made her appreciate the bright lights
of the West End and Piccadilly Circus with all its advertising boards all the
more. She put the music on, some old Whitney Houston song playing on Melody.

The time
was ten-thirty – she would be there in half an hour at this rate, easily,
she convinced herself and followed the signs to Whitechapel. There was a lorry
in front of her, which stopped at the red light. Lee slowed down and stopped,
looking left. The Blind Beggar, it read on a sign above a pub. She had heard of
that pub, it was where one of the Kray twins murdered a rival gang member
decades ago, wasn’t it.

For some
odd reason it sent the most delicious shivers through her body.

The
street lights were now few and far between, the darkened windows in her car
didn’t help. She turned the music off to focus on the signs. Bricket Lane was a
hundred yards up on the left.

The car
rolled into the quiet dead end street with a five-storey council house on the
right and a row of terraced houses and a boarded up pub on the left. She
stopped the car behind a white van, on a red line but there was nowhere else to
park in that street. It was only when she jumped out of her SL400 that she
noticed the graffiti on the side of the van and the burnt out car opposite. No
matter, it was ten fifty-five and she jumped across the pavement and into the
courtyard of Cedar House. This was insane.

The
courtyard was a heap of rubbish, lit up only by two spotlights attached to the
banister around the first floor corridor – the only two remaining that
hadn’t been smashed. Broken glass, empty beer cans, bikes, tyres, dog mess and
two empty shopping trolleys… there was trash everywhere. The point wasn’t lost
on Lee, she had arrived at the world’s dumping ground.

Watching
every step she took, careful not to plunge her heels into a pool of vomit, she
approached two men sitting on the only entrance to the building. They looked
drunk.

“Excuse
me, is there a lift to the upper floors, please?” She did everything she could
to avoid eye contact.

There
was a filthy laugh. “A wa’? Bit posh? Wha’s under that coat, then, luv?” He
looked her up and down, slicking his lips, far too drunk to even think of it.

That
thought gave Lee some comfort, at least. “I’m sorry, I’m really late for a meeting.”

The
other gave a knowing chuckle. “Nah, luv. We use stairs round ‘ere.”

“Thank
you.” Quickly, she jumped between the two drunks and sprinted up the steps to
the first, the second and the third floor. Her heels echoed in the stairwell,
loud enough to make the two confused drunks jump.

The time
was after eleven and she was out of breath. From the third floor corridor,
which wrapped around the outside of the building she could see The Shard
building in the distance. It showed how far from the centre of London and home
she had driven. The flats around her seemed empty, she could just make out
number one and two and three as she made her way towards the end of the
corridor. The windows in flat four were broken and Lee could see an overturned table
in the dark. Finally, she had arrived. She was standing outside flat number
five, a dirty, cheap brown door with unopened envelopes sticking out of the
rusty letterbox.

She
knocked on the door, but there was no response. The time was ten past eleven.
She knocked again, but still no reply. She tried to look through the filthy
window next to the front door. It was a kitchen and she could make out a bottle
of red or white wine by the sink and two empty glasses. She knocked on the door
a third time, but still there was nothing but a deadly silence. He was in
there, she knew it. A woman’s instinct. She slammed her fist hard on the
rotting wood and the door opened with a small click.

The
light switch didn’t work. It was dark.

“Hello?”

There
was no response.

“Is
anyone here?”

She
heard nothing except for traffic in the far distance and a dog barking in the
street below.

Her hand
reached for the rape alarm. She wrapped her fingers tightly around it.

A faint
light came on in doorway ten feet ahead. “Hello?”

Again,
there was only silence.

Lee
pushed open the door gently and there, on the left, she saw the bed pushed into
a corner. It was huge, with a cheap, dull, off-white bedspread. She looked
around. There was no other furniture in the room. Then she felt a large hand
slam against her face, grabbing her from behind and pressing so hard against
her mouth she thought her teeth would break. Another arm held her hard around
the waist, locking her arms and pressing her against his body.

For
several seconds she stood frozen with fear, but when she recognised the scent
and relaxed he let go of one hand. She was free to scream. But she didn’t.
Slowly his hand untied the belt of her coat and slid inside, down her stomach
and into her ouverts.

There and then, the night of her life began.

HAWK EYE

Maria kept feeding June’s backhand, hitting
the ball cross court or down the line as close to the corner as possible, hard
and flat. She took the first game in less than two minutes and the set in just
over ten.

“Oh gosh!” June gasped. “Shall we play
another set, and then have some lunch?”

Maria nodded. She had barely broken
sweat.

June took up position at the baseline,
ready to serve. “I think I need to sort out my backhand, it’s dreadful. I can’t
believe it. I’ve had so many backhand lessons, but maybe I should switch to a
double backhand, what do you think? Yours is super.”

June was a tough businesswoman. She had
built up JJ PR from scratch and run it with an iron fist for the past eight
years. But on a tennis court she was a completely different person. The minute she
got a racket in her hand, she turned into this giggling schoolgirl who seemed
to get hugely surprised every time the ball came back at her.

Maria had seen this many times before.
People reacted in different ways on court. Some become quite aggressive,
swearing like troopers, arguing every point, challenging line calls and
sometimes even aiming their shots at the other person.

In June’s case, all her neuroses came out
and she revealed a stunning lack of focus. Off court that would surely have
sunk her company years ago. But it was fun to watch. Occasionally, June would
punch the air if her opponent missed an easy shot – not quite tennis
etiquette, but often it was her only hope of winning a point.

Maria, on the other hand, was made of
stronger stuff, if only on court. She kept her frustrations to herself, never
showing her opponent how she was feeling whether she was winning or losing. Her
energy, positive or negative, was channelled into the game. On court, Maria was
a winner. She hadn’t been nicknamed Mini-Sharapova for nothing.

It was her father who taught her to
contain her emotions when they starting playing over fifteen years ago. She
wasn’t much older than five when he gave Maria her first racket and one of his
most important rules was to never show the opponent if you’re struggling.

“You’re just giving them an advantage,”
he said. “It will boost their confidence if they see you’re not happy with your
game. Show them nothing.”

So Maria had perfected the cool vibe and
knew how to focus on winning the next point rather than analyse why she had
lost the previous one. Still, she remembered hammering a forehand back at her
father with such anger and power it became clear for the entire family that
tennis was the game for her.

June’s serve was interrupted when a ball
from the neighbouring court rolled in front of her feet. It belonged to Angus
Dickinson, another member of Bedford Square tennis club, who was playing
doubles with his regular gang of City high fliers.

Angus was a new club member and its
wealthiest by far, appearing as number one hundred and something on the Rich
List. He was a popular donor to the club’s slush fund. He was a hedge fund
manger and his house, which was three terraced houses knocked into one,
overlooked the courts. Everybody wanted an introduction.

“Thank you,” he shouted as June returned
his ball.

“Pleasure,” she said, cold as a fish.

She ran to the net and signalled for
Maria to come closer.

“Do you know Angus?” June asked in a
hushed voice, eyes dancing. “What do you think of him?”

“I don’t know. Never really spoken to
him.”

“Oh, I used to fancy him to bits when I
first saw him. All the women here do,” June said.

“Ok. Not me. He seems nice enough. But
married, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I think he is. Good looking, don’t
you think. But that serve!”

The look on June’s face was priceless, it
was one of pure horror. Her eyebrows hit the hairline and her mouth screwed up.
She looked exactly like the teenager she was behaving.

“The minute I saw him serve I was so put
off, I couldn’t believe it. Look. It’s completely ridiculous, it’s a woman’s
serve. He’s lucky the ball even goes over the net. He just has no serve!”

Maria laughed quietly, as Angus tossed a
ball in the air and hit it straight into the net.

“I’ve never even noticed. Yes, it’s quite
a weak serve.”

“It’s so off-putting, don’t you find. A
man who can’t serve is not a man in my book. I simply couldn’t fancy a man like
that. If Peter served like that it would be DIVORCE! We wouldn’t even have got
married in the first place.”

June adored gossip, and she found plenty
of it at the club. “I don’t know if his billions would make up for a serve that
bad. Would YOU do it with him?”

She laughed, put a ball up her skirt and returned
to the baseline.

“You look great today, by the way. Blonder.
Have you had your hair done?” It was June’s serve, at set point.

“No,” Maria shouted.

Her white strappy dress was the simplest
design, but far too expensive. It was plain, perfectly cut and with the perfect
length to just under her hips, a nice A-line shape. There was a small logo
above her left breast and during a smash or one of her fierce into-out
forehands the dress would reveal her lime coloured shorts underneath. She
looked very good today.

The outfit was another of Gomez’s finds,
and it was arguably the first time in her life she was better dressed than
June. It was unusual for June, such a fashionista, who adored nothing more than
dressing up and studying other people’s clothes and analysing and comparing, to
come a poor second in the dress department. She took it well.

Today of all days, she had thrown
together a tired white T-shirt and a particularly dull blue pleated skirt which
reached too far down her thighs and made her look rather on the frumpy side.
Even her trainers showed signs of wear and tear.

“You make me feel old today, Maria.
You’re getting far too good, I can’t keep up,” she said before tossing her ball
in the air and hitting it down the ‘T’.

But Maria’s backhand was better than
June’s forehand and the serve was returned with interest, out wide, just
touching the tramline before slamming into the fencing behind Angus.

It was two sets to love.

“I need to sit down after all this, I
think,” June laughed.

It was a busy day at Bedford Square Lawn
Tennis Club. Saturday afternoon, clear blue skies and temperatures hitting
twenty-five Celcius. All ten courts, eight Astroturfs and two grass courts,
were taken. June put her sunglasses on and relaxed on the bench by the court.

“Oh, it’s so good to sit down, isn’t it?”

“But we’ll lose the court, won’t we,”
Maria said.

“Well, we can come back and play later,
but I really need to have a rest, and something to drink.” She took a water
bottle from her bag.

“This, I think, is one of my favourite
places in London,” she said. “Look around Maria. I mean, how wonderful is this?
Isn’t it just marvellous? And look at the flowers and the club house.”

Maria listened. She always admired June
for her ability to get pleasure out of absolutely the smallest things in life,
such as a plant or a squirrel running across the lawn. Better than sex, she
once said.

For Maria it wasn’t that easy to find joy
anywhere. She didn’t share this sunny disposition and today was no different.
But she played her part, smiled and agreed with June’s little musings. June was
still, technically, her boss for another week.

“This is just pure Heaven, don’t you
think?” she carried on. “Behind us we have these beautiful houses with gardens
and over there the flowers are hanging off the balconies. And the clubhouse, what
stunning architecture! Listed, I think it’s listed or it certainly should be.
It’s beautiful, just beautiful. If I weren’t working I’d be here every day.
Well, definitely on Saturdays and Sundays.”

Maria held her head high facing the sun,
hoping to catch a bit more as June talked. It was quite bliss to feel the warm
rays against her skin. “Yes, on sunny days like this it’s quite nice here,” she
said.

“Yes, we have the deckchairs on the
terrace, too. Where else can you sit in peace on a deckchair in the middle of
London and be waited on hand and foot? You’d think this was the Beach Club in
Monte Carlo!” Or nearly Monte Carlo.”

June reached for her sun crème. “I don’t
know about you, Maria, but I’m very happy here. And it’s good to play tennis
with you, too. We don’t do it often enough. But then you’re so much better than
me, so you should really find a stronger hitting partner.”

She rubbed her factor thirty cream on her
arms and legs and handed it over to Maria.

“On a different subject all together. I’m
glad you enjoy working with us. They say you’re very good. I thought, maybe
you’d like to stay on a bit longer? Would look good on your CV?”

Maria had hoped June wouldn’t ask, but
she kept talking.

“You’ve done really well the first week,
I’m told. They’re saying very good things about you, Maria.”

“Thank you,” Maria said. She took a sip
of her Lucozade. “I don’t know. I’m not sure, I don’t really know what I want
to do.”

“Ohh, please do think about it. For your
own sake. Your mother would be really disappointed if you left so soon.”

“It’s a bit difficult at the moment,”
Maria said.

“Oh, well, we’ll see. How about you and
Kirk?” she asked as a by-the-way. It was one of June’s finest lobs, the
question she had been waiting to ask all afternoon. For several weeks, she had
been concerned about Maria’s attachment to the club coach.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you still taking lessons?”

Maria sighed with relief. “Here and
there. Why?”

“That’s good. It shows. You’re getting
seriously good. Anything more to it than that? She glanced sideways, nervously,
at Maria.

“No,” Maria hesitated.

“Oh, I’m jolly relieved,” June said.
“Phew. I only ask, because he is quite flirtatious, don’t you think. A few
women have come forward, a few have had their hearts broken, but really, he
gets around too much. It’s not his job, his job is to coach, not flirt with
every female member here. How old is he? Twenty-eight, if that? And still,
these women, who should know better are drooling over him.”

June shifted in her seat. “He tried his
luck with me once, ha! And I’m a married woman.”

“What happened?” Maria asked.

“Oh, he made a pass at me once in the
corridor. He asked me to come to the boardroom with him but, honestly, I’m old
enough to be his mother. Ridiculous! But I’ve heard a few stories.”

“What stories?”

“Well, they say he’s a bit rough, you
know, whips and things. He’s apparently quite aggressive in bed. And he has
several women on the go at the same time. It’s all getting a bit too messy and
I think a complaint is about to be lodged against him, to have him sacked.”

Maria thought she should defend him. “Well,
those women might just be upset because he’s no longer interested.”

“Well, no. I turned him down and even I’m
finding it a bit awkward having lessons, now. Every time he looks at me with my
racket in my hand it’s as if he sees me with a whip instead. I feel
uncomfortable, but nothing too serious, I suppose. I’m rather older than him, but
you be careful, I’m worried about you. I fear he could turn nasty. There’s
something about him I don’t like.”

June jumped up from the bench. “Bite to
eat?” She put her bottle of water back in her bag. “A quick snack in the
restaurant, if we can get a table by the courts? But then I really have to
shoot.”

“Yes, could do,” Maria said. She felt
like a traitor.

The lunch crowd had dispersed, except for
one man in a brown suit sitting by himself, sipping a coffee. He looked up a
few times at June and Maria, otherwise he seemed engrossed in the FT.

June paid the bill. Time to leave, she
said. “No rest for the wicked. Peter and I have a work dinner tonight. I’m
exhausted just thinking about it.” She mentioned this just as Peter walked up
the stairs and into the restaurant.

“Hi Peter, come and say hello to Maria.”

Maria stayed in her seat, looking down at
the salad leaves and anchovies she had left on her plate.

“Darling, we’ve had the most terrific
match. Two sets. Maria won both, I’m afraid. She’s too good now. And she’s
grown so tall. You haven’t seen her for a ages, have you?”

June was a specialist in introductions.
“Maria, say hi to Peter, you remember him, don’t you? He’s still the same,
hasn’t changed a bit, never does. That’s what everybody says.”

Maria stood up and stretched out a hand.
She didn’t look him in the eyes, but Peter responded by embracing her and
giving her a kiss on both cheeks.

“Yes, of course I remember Maria. Hello
Maria. Lovely to see you.”

“Let’s go.” June was in a hurry. As she
picked up her bag with her rackets and crème and various accessories, she
didn’t see Peter steal another kiss from Maria.

Lee turned over on her side, trying to go
back to sleep. But she felt tense in every muscle of her body and her head was
like a tropical storm. Her bed was far too big. The enormity of the super sized
bed struck her like a hammer over the head at moments like this, when she had
it all to herself. And this morning she had it to herself. She was all alone,
solo, dumped! And dumped was never part of her plan. Her plan was for Peter to
be lying next to her. But for reasons beyond her control, he just wasn’t.

“Last minute cancellations, sorry,” was
all he could say on the phone yesterday. A colleague was replacing him on the
Moscow trip, but unforeseen circumstances meant he now had to go after all. Or
so he had said, the last she heard from him seventeen hours ago.

So why didn’t his Moscow office know
anything about it? His plane had landed five hours ago, everybody had checked
into their hotel and they were now in conference. Except Peter.

His phone was silent. It went straight to
answerphone every time she called, fifteen times this morning. No response to
her emails either and when she called him at home, the only time she had ever
done that, June had answered. Lee had hung up immediately.

Lee was twisting and turning among the
crème, silky sheets and covers. Her last conversation with Peter had been
analysed in minutiae a thousand times in her head to try and remember any sign,
just the tiniest clue, as to where he might have gone instead and, more
worryingly, why he was lying to her. The thought of him lying to her was
killing her.

The world was slowly, but steadily
shutting down around her.

She turned on her stomach and wept into
the pillows, barely audible sobs, until she was completely out of energy. She
was ill.

There she lay for another two hours, only
managing to stretch out an arm and squeeze a Diazepam table from the package on
her bedside table. The Diazepam made her feel better, for now.

When the knock on her door came, Lee was
feeling drowsy, her head was heavy and her eyes puffy. The sheer stress of her
situation had given her a nervous caugh.

“Come in,” she managed in between two
caughs.

When the door opened, in stepped Alvina,
looking prettier than ever.

Her long auburn hair was piled high on
her head with strands left hanging over her shoulders like a dark veil, down
over her cleavage and almost touching her elbows.

Her burning brown almond eyes were rimmed
with generous amounts of khol and her dark red lips – a new colour
– looked as if it could swallow the entire planet.

But her outfit! Alvina’s top was bright
white with thin shoulder straps and so tight it might burst. Under the top the
girl had on a blood red push-up bra – as if she needed it – with
black lace trimming. The skirt was a shock. A white Fred Perry tennis skirt and
the shoes were Babolat’s finest. Add black fishnet stockings with the straps
showing beneath the hemline, and there was a catastrophe happening before Lee’s
half-shut eyes.

Drugged by the pills, Lee sat up slowly,
blinking and holding her back up with her weak arms. She wondered if she was
staring at a ghost.

“Is Sir in the bathroom, shall I pour?”
Alvina said, fresh as a little daisy.

Today she had a large pot of tea with
three cups, smoked salmon sandwiches, crackers and a small pot of caviar. There
was even a rose in the silver vase on the tray.

“What are you doing here?” Lee whispered.

“I’ve prepared breakfast, as usual. Mr
Jones asked me to come today.”

“Peter Jones isn’t here.”

“Oh, have I got the wrong address?”

Lee didn’t remember how Alvina got out of
the bedroom or out of the house, but she never saw her again.

Apart from a middle-aged man in a brown suit
reading a newspaper in the big sofa, the reception area was clear. Alvina
breezed past him and ran up the steps to the first floor and Maria’s flat. She
could do this job in an hour, she reckoned. The place was almost always tidy
anyway, thanks mainly to her own sweet efforts. It was the kitchen and the bedroom
that needed tidying up.

Wearing her yellow cleaner’s gloves, she
got on all fours and started with the kitchen floor. It needed washing, ditto
the surfaces and the sink, which was stacked high with dirty plates. She didn’t
eat the girl, so she had had guests.

The bedroom was untouched and Alvina
moved on to the walk-in wardrobe. Very nice, she thought, but not as big or
luxurious as Lee’s and no secret compartment here with sexy gear. Ha! Some
secret.

Alvina opened her handbag and pulled out
the borrowed Fred Perry shirt and put it back on the same hanger from which she
had taken it the day before. The trainers were also returned to exactly the
same spot, a shelf with Maria’s six other pairs of shoes. Well, soon she
wouldn’t be needing them anymore, Alvina said to cheer herself up.

In the sitting room she found a coffee
cup, one tea, a plate of half eaten cheese and crackers and two knives and forks.

Hanging over the back of the big armchair
with the floral cover, she saw a dress, quite dull, in blue, which she hadn’t
seen before. She put it back in the wardrobe.

And oops, wasn’t that an orange tie in
the window sill? Yes, it was, right there next to the fish tank.

She took the tie and stuffed it into her
pocket. The fish were there still, quite sweet. Alvina took time out from
cleaning duties to watch them bask around in the water. Andy, Andrea and baby
Angela. They hadn’t been fed for a while, Alvina could tell. The big fish were
nibbling at anything including each other. Maybe it was just some romantic
moment they were having.

Then, in a single gulp, the baby disappeared
down Angela’s throat.

“Oh my God!” Alvina slapped her mouth
with her hand, partly to stop herself from laughing. Only two fish left –
the baby had just been eaten by one of her parents. Then she laughed harder.
“Ha, just like humans.”

The man in the brown suit was still in
the reception area when Alvina walked down the staircase.

He looked like an
official from some scary government department and it was rather too obvious
that he wasn’t reading the newspaper he was looking at.

Alvina pushed the
front door open.

“Excuse me,
Miss,” he shouted.

She should have
walked out and into the street then, but old habits – listen when spoken
to by government officials – made her stop and look at him.

“Yes?”

“I wondered if
you could help me, please.” He had a loud, confident voice, very English, she
thought. “I have a delivery for Maria Harper. Would you know where she is? I’ve
been waiting for her for quite some time.”

A delivery? It
was the first time Alvina had seen a deliveryman wearing handmade shoes, an
Hermès belt and a signet ring. What kind of delivery, she wondered, a bullet
between the eyes, perhaps?

“A delivery?” She
smiled. “Unfortunately, I don’t know where she is but I can take whatever it is
you want to deliver and put it in her flat for you. Would that help?”

“Sadly, it’s a personal delivery. I have
to have her signature.” His smile was even bigger than Alvina’s.

“What is it, if I may ask. I’m her
cleaner.”

“I’m afraid, it’s quite, quite personal.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m going to be
able to help you,” she said, planting a hand on the door.

“Excuse me, Miss,” he said hurriedly.
“Where do you come from?”

“I’m from Birmingham.” She’d had this
question thrown at her before.

“Birmingham? You were born there?”

“No, that’s were I come from, yesterday.”

“Well, Alvina,” he said, legs wide apart
and one arm wrapped around his chest with the other supporting his chin. “Did I
hear you say Alvina?”

“No you didn’t,” she said, ice cold.

He scratched his chin. “Well, would you
like to stay a bit longer in Birmingham or London, I can help you?”

Alvina sized him up. He was handsome in
an official sort of way.

A policeman maybe, or he could be a club
bouncer, a professional assassin even, one of those guys who chase people
across rooftops. She had seen them all. But one thing he was not – he was
no deliveryman. Liar!

He introduced himself as John Smith.
Tall, broad shouldered, around forty-fifty years old, clean shaven with very
short dark hair and a direct gaze in his steely blue eyes. He was quite hot.
Surely, he had a gun. Sorting him out would be fun.

“That’s very nice of you, Sir,” she said.
“Maria is not there, but I could open the door and you could leave whatever it
is you have to deliver or see if there’s anything which might help you find
her? Is she in any kind of trouble?”

“No, no, not at all,” he said, smooth as
a salesman. He put his hands in his trouser pockets and followed Alvina up the
stairs.

“I’m not sure what it is I have to
deliver, I just have an envelope but it would be nice if you could help me find
her. That would be much appreciated. You’re the cleaner, am I right?”

“Yes, I’m the cleaner.” She looked
anything but. With her bright white shirt, buttoned down to her chest and
tucked into very tight jeans she happened to be wearing her killer heels today
any more than he looked like a delivery boy.

She handed John the key. He turned it and
pushed open the door and stepped in, scanning the room like the pro he clearly
was.

“You can leave whatever it is you need to
deliver on the table over there,” Alvina said, pointing at the dining table in
the sitting room. John reached inside his jacket and pulled out an empty
envelope.

“I’ll leave it in there if I may,” he
said pointing towards the bedroom. “I can see a bedside table, there’s a better
chance of her seeing it there.”

Alvina nodded. She stayed in the sitting
room, closed the door without the click of the lock, and leaned against it
while he searched Maria’s bedroom. He turned the room upside down and when he
didn’t find what he was looking for, he returned to the sitting room and walked
angrily towards Alvina.

If John had tried this many times before,
so had Alvina. She had unbuttoned her shirt and removed her bra. In seconds he
was over her like an animal.

A thousand thoughts went through her head
as he wrestled her to the ground. But she stuck with her initial plan, the one
she put together in the reception area. He would like this plan the most.

He was handsome, he was hot and his hands
were all over her. He was a savage. He had no sense of risk or consequence of
his actions.

Alvina’s shoes went flying, her jeans and
knickers came off and her shirt was ripped to shreds. He turned her over on her
stomach with his military-strength arms and pulled her head back by the roots
of her hair.

Her beautiful hair. Why, she thought, as
he bit her neck, do some men grab women by the hair? She gasped.

With the other hand he unzipped his
trousers and entered her. It was fast and it was brutal and they were both back
on their feet in less a minute. John, here, had sweat pouring down his temples
as he tucked his shirt in his trousers. He turned his back to Alvina as he
zipped his trousers and it was at that point she kneed him in the back and
pulled his head towards her with both hands, twisting it sharp right until she
heard a click. Then she let him drop to the floor like a dead turkey.

She kicked him gently with a foot,
waiting for a sign. There was none. “Dead as a dodo,” she whispered.

There was space in the cupboard in the
hallway opposite Maria’s flat. Alvina had removed the trolley and cleared out
some of the empty bottles of detergent when she arrived.

There was a useful blanket in there, too.
And now the tie.

She plucked the orange Hermès tie from a
pocket in her jeans and fastened it tightly around John’s neck. She pulled and
pulled and tied two knots.

She opened the door to the hallway, very
quietly. There was no sound. Then she opened the door to the cupboard directly
opposite and dragged the thick dark blanket in there across the hallway and
into Maria’s flat.

Rolling John in the blanket was not easy,
but his was not the most difficult body she had ever handled. Now she came to
the bit she always knew was going to give her butterflies in her stomach,
moving him across the hallway and into the cupboard without getting noticed.

There was only one other neighbour on the
same hallway currently living there, an elderly lady.

It took Alvina four minutes to drag the
body across the corridor, secure it behind the door to the cupboard and lock
it. She returned to Maria’s flat and, hands on hips, sighed. John’s stupid mess
was going to take longer to clear up than it did to get rid of him.

It was late afternoon when Alvina heard
the key turn in Maria’s front door. She had cleared up the bedroom and wardrobe
and finishing off a few things in the kitchen when they arrived.

“Hello Alvina, thank you, we weren’t
expecting you,” Maria said, appearing in the doorway. She looked relaxed in her
jeans, flip flops and beautifully cut jacket. Maybe one of her mother’s, Alvina
thought.

There was a man’s voice in the
background. It was a sound she recognised.

“It looks great. Are there any problems?”
Maria seem easy going, more normal than ever.

“No, I just thought it needed a little
extra tidying, that’s why I stayed behind. I may not be here next Tuesday so…”

“Oh, are you off somewhere?”

“No, just a few things. I may go to
Birmingham for a short break.”

Peter appeared in the kitchen door next
to Maria and put an arm around her shoulder. He looked at Alvina without even
blinking.

“Thank you Alvina, that’ll be all,” Maria
said.

Alvina nodded and wiped her hands in the
towel next to the sink. As she left and walked past the happy couple, she
promised them she’d be back the week after next. Only then was there a flicker
of recognition in Peter’s grey blue eyes.

But there was no tip this time.

MATCH POINT

Lee walked up to Andy Hitchcock, sitting
comfortably in his leather swivel chair, protected behind a large desk. It was
a grey, dusty old office with two desks, two computers, two windows with dirty
net curtains and a wall full of steel filing cabinets. But it was one of the
best private investigative firms in West London. Lee had used them twice
before.

“Hello, Lee, take a seat,” he said with a
smile.

“Don’t worry about ‘hello’,” she said,
planting the palm of her hand firmly on the desk. “Or ‘Lee’ for that matter.
Where. Is. My. Report!”

She was red-cheeked and boiling with
anger when she sat down opposite her old detective, this Mr A Hitchcock as it
stated on his business card – and didn’t he milk it for all it was worth.
She didn’t take a seat, folded her arms across her chest and waited for
answers.

“Ms Harper,” he said, clearing his
throat. “We have a small problem. One of our investigators is missing. He was
our best man – is our best man. He’s been missing for two days, no trace
whatsoever. We can’t find him and the police are now looking for him as well.
I’m very sorry to say he was the detective following your daughter. I’m sorry
nobody has got in touch with you to tell you this, but obviously, we are now
also looking for one of our own in addition to your daughter.”

“When did you last hear from him?”

“Two days ago, from the apartment block
where your daughter lives, as it happens. He called to say he was in the
reception area waiting. He’d been there most of the morning but didn’t see her
come or go that day. That was…,” he looked at a piece of paper, “…that was at
12.05, Wednesday, June third.”

“But you’ve been on the case for more
than two weeks.”

“That’s correct, Ms Harper. Two days ago
we put our best man on the job. And that is what surprises me. He was one of
the best private detectives in the country. Is one of the best. Sadly, he
disappeared just three hours into the job. It’s a big mystery to us, this one.”

“I’m paying you well,” Lee said.

“Indeed, you are, Ms Harper. But, as they
say, in this case something has happened, something that is beyond our control.
Obviously, we are doing everything we can to find out what your daughter is up
to, given your concerns. And we understand she is safe, going about her business
as usual. She was at Bedford Square tennis club yesterday evening, then she
went home and she has not left her flat today at all, so we believe she is
there. But we are also looking for our man. Needless to say, his family are all
very, very worried, indeed.”

He had tried to put across the point that
while Maria was safe, their man was missing. He looked pleased with Lee’s
reaction.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear all this,” she
said, collecting herself. “I hope you find him, of course.”

There was no sense of urgency or the
sound of phones ringing off the hook or police officers coming and going as she
would have expected. But Mr Hitchcock had pulled rabbits out of his hat before
and she trusted him to do the same again.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Yes, please. Thank you. White no sugar.”

She sat down and searched her bag for the
mobile to check emails and messages as Mr Hitchcock sauntered into the kitchen.
There were fourteen emails and twenty two messages, but they would all have to
wait. She put the bag, crème Kelly bag, on the floor but retrieved it quickly and
put it on the table. Sticky floor, she thought. Bits and pieces of paper
scattered everywhere and did they even have a cleaner?

But Hitchcock & West had a good track
record. It gave her hope, even if it was a false hope, it gave her something.
Today anything would do.

Lee sighed. Maybe it was her skinny
jeans which made her feel so hot and bothered. Her open toe shoes and Ralph
Lauren shirt, made of the thinnest and fines silk, should help her feel cool, as
cool as it was possible in twenty-one Celcius degrees. Still, she knew this was
going to be her day in Hell.

“Ms Harper, if you don’t mind me asking
again,” Mr Hitchcock said as he returned to his desk with a mug in each hand.
“When was the last time you spoke to your daughter?”

“I don’t remember. A year ago.”

“A year ago!” He put the mugs down on the
desk, one in front of Lee, the other by his computer. Then he changed them
around. “My mug,” he said, smiling. He had expensive teeth.

“A year ago.” He looked at her with those
cold blue eyes over the rim of his dark framed glasses. “And where was that?”

“It was at the club.”

“The club?”

“Bedford Square tennis club. You know she
plays tennis.”

“Yes, I’m just making sure. Nothing
since?”

“I’ve called her a million times. Eight
times today alone, and texted and left messages, but she hasn’t called me back.
We’ve always fallen out and then she refuses to speak to me for a long time.
This time it’s been over a year.”

“May I ask, why does she refuse to speak
to you?” Mr Hitchcock said, opening a document on his computer. “It isn’t my
business, but the answer to that question may contain one or more clues as to
where she might be now.”

Lee became tearful. “My daughter has always
been like that. She was a difficult child and now she is a difficult woman. We
don’t get on, or rather, she doesn’t get on with me. She disapproves of me in
some way and I suppose I find it difficult to deal with her sometimes. I’ve
given her everything she has, a flat, a car if she wants it, clothes, food, but
she doesn’t appreciate it, or anything I do for her. It is impossible to get
through to her, for me or anyone else for that matter.

“I lead a very busy life and I’ve worked
hard all my life. But she doesn’t care.

“Perhaps the divorce affected her more
than I thought.” Lee looked at the dirty curtains in the windows. “Maybe she
feels I let her down then, but I couldn’t live with her father anymore. She has
to live her life and I have to live mine. I just can’t get her to see it like
that.”

She took a sip from her mug, but put it
back quickly. It had old lipstick marks on it.

“Do you have any information at all?
There must be more. What about the first detective, did he come up with
anything?”

Hitchcock leaned back in his chair. “Yes,
that one. He was not our best man and, in fact, he did not find very much, so
we put our number one detective on the case. We can work out a discount for
that period. But what we do now know is that your daughter leads a very quiet
life. A few trips to the shops, a couple of friends here and there and that’s
about all. She seems to spend most of her time at home. I don’t think you have
anything to worry about, Ms Harper.”

“What do you mean ‘a couple of friends
here and there’? My daughter doesn’t have any friends. Something is not right.
Call it a mother’s instinct, but I have a feeling she may be in trouble. You
need to do more, put two detectives on her.”

“I thought you said you and her don’t
speak?”

“Instinct, I said.”

“Have you spotted her with a man at all? I
heard from someone she might have a soft spot for the coach at our tennis club.”

“Mr Kirk Patterson? We’ve checked him out
too. Nothing on him at all.”

Mr Hitchcock leaned forward and tapped on
his keyboard with one hand. He was a skinny man with an angular face and
cheekbones that stuck out, making him look malnourished, quite unlike his
namesake. He was a cunning little fox.

“Ok, let me see if our missing detective
has made any notes yet.”

Lee stared at the reflection of the
computer screen in his glasses as he scrolled the text.

“Yes, I may have found something here.”
He pressed a button on his keyboard and reached for the A4 piece of paper being
printed under his desk. There was only half a page of typed notes, but little
did he know it was enough to turn Lee’s world upside down, again.

“Let me read it out. Here we go. Mind, as
our detective disappeared suddenly, in the middle of the job, we don’t’ have
much to go on, yet. This is only a small piece of the puzzle. This is what he
wroteesterday, at fourteen forty-seven hours. ‘Target seen leaving address with
a man and getting into a taxi. Said taxi drove the man to a bank, Anderson
& Hooper in Brook Street, Mayfair, a noted bank frequented mainly by the
very wealthy. The main entrance hall is big and ostentatious with a waterfall,
an island of trees planted in the centre of the hall and many elevators taking
what looks like a number of high-flying bankers to their offices above.”

Lee tapped her fingernails on her arm.
“And…?”

Mr Hitchcock looked up, then carried on
reading. “Target and man kissed. He is currently identified only as Peter, a
gentleman in his late fifties. Colleagues, who are all very smartly dress,
remain tight-lipped as to the very nature of their relationship. Target
returned to address in said taxi. To be continued.

Lee’s face was white. “That’s impossible.
Why didn’t you call me? He’s mine.”

“I can only apologise Ms Harper, the
detective isn’t here. And we didn’t know he was yours. I personally didn’t have
access to the document in your hand until this very moment. The police were
called and opened up our detective’s documents and I’m going through them as we
speak. He kept this particular document on his computer in a secret folder as
is our requirement.”

Mr Hitchcock spoke in strange sentences,
under his breath as if he thought his own office might be bugged.

“But how can you not have access. This is
very important information,” Lee said.

“That is why we don’t have access. It’s
kept confidential by each individual detective until he files it.”

Lee looked at the piece of paper through
watery eyes. “And it’s gibberish. It’s so badly written it doesn’t even make
sense. I don’t believe this.” She handed it back to him, stroppily.

“I’m sorry, Ms Harper. It may not be
fluent prose, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Our detective was a very good
detective, correction IS a very good detective, but he is no writer. Unlike
your good self, Ms Harper, if I may say so.

“We will get to the bottom of this. I
should think by the end of the week we’ll have all loose ends tied. And I hope
we’ll also have our detective back, although the prognosis is not good. It does
not look good at all, I’m afraid to say.”

“Enough!!” Lee held both hands to her
head and whispered: “This is insane.”

“Maria is probably at the club. I’ll go
there, but can you get a man round to her flat or get the police to go round.
Let them knock the door in if they have to, I’ll pay.”

With that she stormed out of Mr
Hitchcock’s office.

A thin black line of mascara ran down
Lee’s right cheek as she walked into the restaurant at Bedford Square tennis
club. The conversation suddenly gathered pace. Johnny, the barman, smiled at
her and dropped a bottle on the stone floor by the till. Flora, Angus
Dickinson’s wife, burst out laughing. She was having tea with a friend.

“Hi, have you seen my daughter today?”
Lee asked a teenager, waiting for his game at one of the tables.

He shook his head. “No idea who she is,”
he said.

Mrs Grey hadn’t seen Maria either and
neither had John, James, Nick and Nick’s son Michael who had just finished a
match.

“Mrs Henderson, Mr Henderson, have you
seen Maria at all, today?” Lee ran over to their table in the far corner. “No
Lee,” Mrs Henderson said. “You don’t look happy, is there anything we can do?”

“Sorry, I’m worried about Maria.”

The couple looked at each other. “Why
Lee? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling. I
can’t get hold of her and there is just so much going on I think she may have
got involved in something.”

Mrs Henderson looked unhappy. “She seems
such a quiet girl. She was here with June the other day.”

Mr Henderson took over. “Lee, James was
looking for you earlier. He asked to you. Have you spoken with him? Could he
help?” Mr Henderson looked nervously at his wife, who nodded at him, approving.

“James?” Lee could barely remember her
own name, let alone a club manager she rarely saw or spoke to.

“James, you know James,” Mrs Henderson
said. “James the Club Secretary. He’s here almost every day. You remember him!”

Mrs Henderson took a sip of her mineral
water. She wasn’t quite sure how to begin. “Well, we saw you, of course, the
other day when you left rather abruptly. Some meeting. But we didn’t get a
chance to speak to you properly. We were rather concerned. You seemed unhappy.”

At that moment James came down from the
stairs and burst into the restaurant.

“There you are, Lee!” It was that booming
voice of his Lee remembered the most. “Glad to see you here, I was going to
call you. See, we should have a meeting, when would be convenient time for you?
There’s a small matter we ought to discuss.”

Lee’s head was all over the place. “I’m
looking for Maria, I’m sorry, this is really not a good time for me to organise
a meeting. Have you seen her?”

James’s eyes narrowed. “I see her
occasionally, yes, very good player, very good player, indeed. Much improved.
But I think perhaps we should have a quick word, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m very sorry James. I would mind. I
can’t have a meeting with you now, I’m looking for my daughter. Is Kirk here?”

“No, Lee, he isn’t. That’s the thing.”

“Where is he?” Lee demanded.

“Well, we thought perhaps you might be
able to shed some light on that. I mean, so I gather from what we are all
hearing.”

James stood in the middle of the
restaurant, wringing his hands and dressed as if ready to ride to hounds. Lee
could hear the wheels were turning in his dirty little mind.

“And Peter?” Lee asked.

“Peter!” James gasped. “Another one!”

Lee’s confusion was now complete. “What
do you mean ‘another one’? Have you seen Peter Jones?”

“No, I haven’t as a matter of fact?”
James said. Peter was another matter. “Peter is another generous donor to this
club, that’s what I mean.”

James would rather burn in Hell than
watch Peter Jones succumb to Lee’s charms. Peter was a very, very special
member here and should be treated as such, James had said on several occasions
with no good reason.

Lee turned on her heels and left the
premises.

“Perhaps that meeting…,” James shouted as
he heard the front gate slam shut.

Lee arrived at the scene before her
mobile started ringing. It was a sight that, despite the day’s events, she was
ill prepared for. Blue lights flashed and police officers walked in and out of
the entrance to Maria’s apartment block. Passers-by stopped to ask. Lee heard the
word ‘murder’.

“Maria!” She shouted and pushed people
aside to get to the entrance of the building, once considered her second home.
“Has anyone seen Maria!”

The sight of Peter, flanked by two
uniformed officers as he came out of the building, hit her like a train. He
looked at her briefly as he was led to a waiting police car, with not a flicker
of recognition in those once beautiful grey blue eyes.

His face was bruised, his silver hair was
a mess and his expensive white shirt, dirty and ripped. He was a beaten man.

“Where is he being taken?”

“We’re questioning a number of people,”
an officer said.

“Questioning them about what?”

“There’s been a murder, ma’am.”

Lee woke up, lying on her back in an
ambulance, to the smell of vomit. She heard her name.

“You passed out, it’s only been a few
minutes,” an emergency worker said. “You’re fine. You mentioned a daughter?”

Lee felt groggy. “I have a daughter. She
lives here. Maria Harper. Flat 5 on the first floor.” She didn’t have the
energy to say more and she didn’t see the emergency staff looking at each
other.

“There’s a young woman inside, she’s
alive. But she didn’t mentioned any parents.”

“That’s Maria,” Lee said. “I need to see
her please.”

The scene in the reception area of
Maria’s apartment block was remarkably organised given the number of police and
ambulance workers and masked forensics coming and going.

Lee was led to the brown leather sofa and
offered a glass of water and another blanket. The sofa had been in this
reception area in all the years she had owned flat five, but she had never once
sat in it. She felt like a stranger in her own house. An emergency worker sat down
next to her.

“Please tell me the truth,” Lee
whispered.

“We are trying to find out what
happened,” the emergency worker said, quietly.

“Your daughter, did you say her name is
Maria?”

Lee nodded.

“Maria is alive and sitting up. She is
talking to officers. We’re trying to establish exactly what happened. It is a
very confused picture we have at the moment, but she is being well looked
after.”

“Has she been hurt?”

“We’re trying to find out exactly what
has happened, but she is in good spirits,” the emergency worker said, now
joined by a police officer. They avoided answering almost all of Lee’s
questions. “I’m told you haven’t spoken to each other for over a year?”

“We haven’t always got on terribly well.
”

“I understand.”

“There was a murder?” Lee asked.

“Yes, two men are dead. One was found in
a small cupboard with an object in his mouth and a tie around his neck.”

Lee flinched.

“He has been there for a day or so. We’re
still trying to establish his identity. The body of another man was found
behind the building. He had landed on the railings, I’m afraid. It is not yet
clear if he fell or was pushed, but we now know him to be Kirk Patterson. His
relatives have been informed.”

Lee’s reaction to the news was a
surprise, even to herself. A calm came over her and she straightened her back.
Her cheeks picked up colour again.

“I need to call Maria,” she said,
reaching into her bag, a gift from her late husband the day she gave birth.

“I’m sorry, you won’t be able to reach
her. She doesn’t have a phone at the moment. She is with officers.”

“But I’m her mother.”

“I’m very sorry. You’ll be able to see
her soon. Today.”

The emergency worker took a quick call on
her mobile, then held Lee’s arm.

“Maria is coming down soon. She’ll be
taken to another place where she will get all the help she needs. You won’t be
able to speak to her, yet. We’ll organise for you to meet her perhaps later
today. Will you be alright?”

Lee nodded. What other choice did she
have?

Maria looked beautiful, a different
person. She walked down the stairs with a kind of grace Lee hadn’t seen before.
The emergency worker held on to Lee’s arm as she stood up.

There was a smile on Maria’s face. Lee
couldn’t remember the last time she saw her smile. And her jeans and T-shirt
looked great on her, and the flip flops. Maria’s toenails were painted red, she
noticed. The pink tote bag was almost as good as new. It was a fifteenth
birthday present from Lee, one of many presents.

Walking between two officers, a male and
a female officer, Maria slowed down as she got to the main door. She looked at
Lee briefly and smiled again. She held a hand to her ear signalling. She was
going to call her.

Then she walked out of the building and
into a police car.

EPILOGUE

Leonora pushed the table into the corner of
Chorley’s Bookstore in Chorley, a small village not many miles from Taunton. It
was her favourite part of Somerset, her home all her life. Now she just needed
a tablecloth to cover the stains.

Then the glasses and books went on top
and the bottles could go underneath.

Leonora had personally prepared the
nibbles. They were carrot and cucumber sticks with dip, crisps in four
different flavours, mini hamburgers and pizza slices. Her daughter would bake a
carrot cake, or so she had said.

“Should I put them here or over there?”
Leonora’s publisher asked. He was huffing and puffing behind her with both arms
full of copies of her new novel.

“You’d better put them here or you’ll
drop the lot, I think. Here, thank you. How many RSVPs have we got so far,
Alex?”

“Ninety-eight, I counted this afternoon,”
he said.

Leonora looked at the table one last
time. “Super. Forty bottles of white and thirty red should be enough? I hope!”

It was her eighth book launch, but
Leonora still enjoyed them all as much as she did her first. She loved a good
party and getting people together and stirring the pot a little. All of that,
she found very amusing and useful in so many ways.

The books were in two perfect piles,
ready to be signed and sold. She was almost ready for her first customer.

She touched her hair with a hand, just to
reassure herself. “You need a new look,” her hairdresser had told her that
afternoon when she went for a wash and dry. “It’s summer, let’s try something
easy-to-manage and chic at the same time.”

So off came her brown bob and in came a
shorter crop, which took years off her real age and made her look sporty, fun
and a bit sexy.

“Almost like Audrey Hepburn,” she stylist
had said, if that wasn’t stretching it a bit.

But Leonora did look rather nice for
someone the wrong side of fifty. She was slim, dressed in pastel blue Capri
pants and a crisp white sleeveless shirt and nude coloured kitten heels. And
then those old diamond earrings, each the size of a small pea.

“My dears,” she said with a dazzling
smile as Mr and Mrs Johnson arrived. She threw her arms wide open and welcomed them
with an affectionate hug. They had supported Leonora in all her efforts since the
day she was born. Whatever she did in life, they were always first in the
queue.

“How are you Leonora, congratulations.
Let’s buy a copy,” Mrs Johnson said.

“It’s not too racy this time, is it Leo?”
Mr Johnson said. He was a retired GP and WWII veteran and rarely seen without a
twinkle in his eye.

“John!” his wife said, forever scolding
him. “What a thing to say, I asked you not to. Now, you pay and I’ll put a copy
in my bag.”

“Well, well, John,” Leonora laughed as
she signed a copy. “You’ve been around the block a number of times, I doubt
there’s much in my book that would shock you.”

Mrs Johnson took the signed book and put
it in her bag. “Leo, I thought of you this afternoon. They’re looking for a
head of the community centre, just a few hours a week. Mr Smith is stepping
down. Would that be something for you? You’d knock it into shape in no time.”

Leonora brushed the idea aside swiftly.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she laughed. “But how very kind of you to
think of me.”

There was a tap on her shoulder. Another
reader asked her to sign his copy and soon she had sold twenty-seven copies.

“April, there you are, how are you? Thank
you for coming.”

April was Leonora’s childhood friend.
Their parents had known each other and their two daughters had grown up together.

“Pleasure Leonora, congratulations and
well done.”

“I hope you’ll like the book?”

“I do,” April said. “I’ve just started,
two chapters in. It’s very sexy. I’m not in it, I hope. I haven’t become June
all of a sudden now, have I? She was just like June with her butterfly
conversation jumping from one topic to the next. “I like your new hair.
Wonderful.”

“Thank you April. Yes, I like it too.
Fresh isn’t it? No, you’re not in the book. And you don’t have a PR company.”

April laughed. “No, true. Of course not,
silly me.”

Then she fired a sharp look at Leonora’s
lively blue eyes with the pretty purple eyeshadow. “But my husband is a banker,
though!”

Leonora didn’t even blush as she handed
April a glass of white. “And so are Sarah’s and Olivia’s and Cassandra’s. And
you’re not an alcoholic either, are you?

“Goodness no, can you imagine!”

Leonora gave April another copy of her
book. “This is for Helen, my birthday present for her. Would you please give it
to her? How is she, expecting yet?”

“Thank you, thank you. No, no, but
they’re trying.”

“Oh, how exciting. Do keep me posted
April, won’t you?”

There he was, the new boy in town.
Leonora recognised him by his clothes. She had heard of Charles, a bookworm and
single, although he was in his late fifties. He had been described by one of
the assistants in the book store as a bit of a bore, poor soul. Here he stood
suddenly, next to Leonora and April with a glass of red in his hand.

His neck was a bit stiff, perhaps, as he
kept pushing his shoulders down, which made him look nervous or awkward. His
dress was as had been described, a tweed jacket with dark brown corduroy
trousers and brown shoes. He said he was very much looking forward to getting
to know the locals.

“Wonderful,” Leonora said. A new
customer. “Do you like books?”

“Yes, very much. This is a very nice
bookstore. I think I shall have to come here more often. My name is Charles
Bryte-Smith.”

“Good to meet you Charles. I’m so glad
you could make it.”

Charles narrowed his eyes. “I read your
book. They told me you were local and that you were having this book launch so
I thought I’d better read it before I arrived. There’s rather a lot of sex in
it.”

Leonora had completely forgot to get
herself a glass of wine, but if she had remembered this would be the perfect
moment to say ‘bottoms up’.

She laughed. “You’ve read it already?”

Charles pushed his shoulders down again.
“I think I’m probably more like James in the book. People always look for a
character who is more like themselves, don’t they?”

April nodded.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Leonora said. “Aren’t
you being hard on yourself? James is a rather beastly character, don’t you
think? Sneaky! You’re not meant to like him.”

“Well, perhaps. But he is right in what
he says, isn’t he?”

“Yes, there is that, of course. But that
doesn’t make him likeable, do you think?” Leonora looked around.

“I think he has difficulty in expressing
himself,” Charles added. “He is up against this quite dominating lead
character.”

Leonora stopped him there. “I’m thrilled
you’ve read the book. I could talk about it all evening, but you must meet
other people, make new friends.”

She turned to April. “Charles this is
April, we were at school together. April why don’t you tell Charles about the
sports charity?”

“We could do with the carrot cake now, I
suppose,” Alex said, carrying another forty books to the table. “We’re running
out of burgers and crisps.”

“Well, she’s not here,” Leonora said,
looking at the door. “Stuck in traffic, I bet. Usual excuse. She always does
this. Always late.”

“Look at the floor, Leo,” Alex said,
organising the books on the table. “Could you please ask one of the girls to
wipe up the red wine?”

“Yes,” she said. As she turned around she
heard Lucy’s voice.

“Mummy,” she shouted form the door,
waving an arm in the air. She made her way through the room with baby Nick
strapped to her stomach and a bottle of champagne in one hand and her bag in
the other.

“Phew! I’m so sorry. Again. I couldn’t
get away and the traffic was awful.”

“Don’t worry darling. You’re here.”

“Could one of the girls fetch the cake, perhaps,
it’s in the car. I couldn’t carry it. Please? I made two, they’re delicious.”

“Thank you Lucy. And thank you for coming
this time. I don’t see you or the children often enough.”

“Oh, mummy, not again, please. Oh look,
all those books!” She pointed at the table. “I’m so proud of you. Here, this is
for you.” She held out the bottle of champagne.

“Is daddy coming?”

“No, I did invite him. It’s a bit far to
travel, I suppose, but if we were absolutely sure you’d be here he might well
have come. He always did favour you.”

“Oh, mummy!”

Leonora finally poured herself some wine
and asked a member of staff for a glass of orange juice for Lucy. “How are the
little ones, and Andrew? Still busy?

“Yes, he’s in New York. They’re working
on a big merger. Back on Monday. He’s worked his backside off for the past six
months so we’re going to Mauritius next month. How are you, anyway? Is the book
selling? I like your new hair, short suits you.”

“Thank you Lucy. Yes, it’s selling very
well.”

“But mummy, really! This time!”

“No, Lucy, please. We can’t have this
conversation again. Not here.”

“But honestly. I’ve got to page twenty
and everybody’s in it this time. Me, April, Mr and Mrs Johnson, everybody.”

“Keep your voice down, Lucy. Of course
not. It’s fiction. When did you last play tennis? Never, you’ve never had a
racket in your hand. So don’t take it so seriously. I draw inspiration from all
sorts of people and places. It’s a mix and match.”

“Well, I think you need to widen your
circle of friends, because bits and pieces of all of us keep popping up in your
books. And Yelena, Nick’s nanny, for goodness sake. You’ve used her, too!”

“Lucy, Yelena is from Berlin. Alvina is
from Brazil. And don’t hire such pretty au pairs, then, if you’re worried.”

“Mother!”

“Darling, darling, now. I’m only saying.”

“And I’m getting tired of being the
baddie in your books.”

“Oh, come on. Lucy, you know I love you
more than anything, even if you’re always late and I don’t see you enough. But
I know you’re busy, you have the children. I’m really sorry Lucy, help yourself
to some cake, I have to sell some books now.”

“Ahhh, hello, hello Cedric. And Luisa and
Amanda, thank you all so much for coming.”

The evening was a huge success. Leonora
sold over two hundred and fifty copies of her book and so many people turned up
to the launch party that the organisers had to close the door to control the
crowd.

“What a lovely evening,” April said,
looking at her watch. “I shall have to leave soon. Anthony is picking me up, we’re
going to a business dinner. I thought he was off with his friends but it’s a
big business event. Wives allowed, apparently.”

“Well thank you, April. Nice of you to
come. If I don’t see you again tonight, let’s fix lunch, perhaps next week?”

“Yes, good idea.”

Leonora moved to the other side of the
shop where she could hear Alex and Charles discuss Shakespeare. She was now
closer to the door and could see who was coming and leaving. She saw Anthony
being let in. He weaved his way through the crowd towards April. He was in
black tie and although he was not one who stood out in a crowd – at
sixty-four his waistline was expanding – but he had charisma and a sharp
intellect. And charm. On their way out, he popped over briefly to congratulate
Leonora. As he kissed her on both cheeks, nobody saw he put a hand on her
bottom and gave it a loving squeeze.

“Tomorrow at two-thirty, same place,” he
whispered.

END