‘If that pleases you,’ I told her, ‘you’ve got Susie to thank for it.’
‘Even though she took you from me?’
‘Well, maybe “thank” is the wrong word. But it’s true: it was Susie who made me look at myself through someone else’s eyes, and see what they saw. When I did, I didn’t like me very much. I was a very confused guy for a while. For the record, Susie never tried to take me from you. After that happened, even when I knew she was pregnant, I thought that staying with you, trying to make our marriage work, was the right thing to do, and Susie didn’t fight against that. But with me filming in Toronto, and you in LA, at the time when we needed to be together, it didn’t have a chance; not to mention the fact that you were screwing Nicky Johnson on the side.’
‘I was angry with you.’
‘I know, and I’m not knocking you for it. What I’m saying is that if I’d done the honest thing as opposed to what I saw as the right thing I’d have told you about the baby and given up the pretence.’
‘And maybe I’d have forgiven you, confessed my sins with Nicky, we’d have gone on, me loving you, you doing the right thing. Who knows where it would have ended?’
‘In a mess. So why did you run off with Nicky, if you loved me all along?’
‘To find out how much you really cared. I knew it wasn’t working; I thought. . inasmuch as I thought about anything … that it might shock you into action. I hoped that you would come down to Mexico and we’d have a big scene and that you’d take me back with you. When you didn’t, when you only phoned me, I was shocked. When I told you it was over and you didn’t argue or try to persuade me, that made it worse.’
‘So when you turned up in Edinburgh with Johnson. .’
‘I was still hoping to drag us from the wreckage.’
‘Christ, Prim, you got the clown hurt and humiliated in front of a lot of people. His career’s gone straight downhill since then, because nobody wants to upset Miles by hiring him. He’s gone from being reasonably successful in movies to auditioning for crap parts on television.’
‘God, is that true?’
‘Yeah, but don’t feel too sorry for him. Miles put detectives on him. He was giving one to someone else at the same time he was carrying on with you.’
‘That makes me look an even bigger fool.’
I squeezed her hand. Until then, I’d been making a point of not touching her, but I forgot. ‘That was then, and this is now. Until everything’s sorted we’re going to concentrate on two things, Tom and the money, in that order.’
She squeezed back, then raised my hand to her lips and kissed it. ‘Thanks, for being a love.’ She frowned. ‘It’s all Mike Dylan’s fault in a way. If he hadn’t gone bad, he and Susie would be married now, and maybe it would all have turned out differently with us.’
‘The flaw in that argument, my dear, is that you and Dylan had a fling when he and Susie were engaged, and you, or so you say, were deeply in love with me.’
‘I never said I was perfect.’ She chuckled.
There was no answer to that, so I let the conversation lapse as the plane began its descent towards Heathrow.
There are always press photographers there, but happily none of them had thought to meet the Sunday-morning shuttle so we made it unobserved to the taxi rank, where I hailed a black cab and gave the driver Prim’s address.
He turned out to be a cricket fan who had been to the movies. ‘I saw you in Red Leather, Oz,’ he began, as we pulled out into the roadway. ‘Triffic. I just loved seeing all those Aussies gettin’ ’it arahnd the ’ead.’ He launched into an anti-Australian diatribe, which lasted all the way to Hammersmith. ‘This your missus?’ he asked, once his invective had been exhausted.
The words ‘cabbies’, ‘the Sun’ and ‘tip-off ’ flashed before my eyes. ‘My sister,’ I lied.
In spite of the monologue, he found the address straight away; I never cease to be impressed by the Knowledge, as the black-cab drivers call their photographic memory of the London street map, even if satellite navigation has overtaken it.
Prim told me that the flat was on the second floor; the block was new, and it looked as if the builder hadn’t skimped on materials. There was a lift, but it was going up when we walked into the entrance hall, so we took the stairs instead. I waited while she dug a set of keys from the depths of her bag, then watched her slide a brass key into the mortise lock.
‘That’s funny,’ she muttered. ‘It seems to be jammed.’ I reached forward and gave the key a twist, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘Are you sure you locked it?’ I asked, getting her ‘Do you think I’m daft?’ look in return.
‘Of course. You know how serious I am about security.’
I turned the key clockwise: there was no resistance and I heard a click. I did it again and heard another. ‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Damn it!’ she said. ‘I was sure. I really must have been drinking too much.’
I unlocked it again, then found the Yale key; there was no problem with that. When I stepped inside, though, instantly I was appalled. The door opened straight into a big living room, and the place was a shambles. Most of the sideboard drawers had been left open, newspapers were strewn all over the hardwood floor, a scream-coloured rug. . No, I don’t mean cream: it was so bright and garish that it made me want to scream. . was crumpled as if somebody had tripped over it, and an empty wine bottle and two glasses stood on a coffee table.
‘Bloody hell!’ Prim exclaimed behind me.
‘As you say, you really must have been boozing.’
‘Oz, I didn’t leave it like this,’ she protested. ‘Somebody’s been in here. I was right: I did lock up properly.’ She rushed off; I followed her into her bedroom. The place had been ransacked. All the drawers and the wardrobe doors were open, and a small wooden filing cabinet lay face down, as if it had overbalanced when both of its drawers were opened at once. I checked the rest of the place. It had been gone over, systematically.
I went back to the bedroom and righted the cabinet. Prim was sitting on the bed, both hands to her mouth, looking pale and shocked. I sat down beside her, put an arm round her shoulders, and drew her to me. ‘Just what you didn’t need, honey,’ I murmured, kissing her softly on the forehead. ‘I’m really sorry.’
I let her cry for a bit, then picked a box of Kleenex off the floor and wiped her eyes with a couple of tissues. She smiled up at me, wanly. ‘I’ve really got a fucking rainbow on my shoulder, haven’t I?’ she said.
I smoothed her hair back off her face. ‘You’re not at your luckiest, I admit. Can you see anything missing?’
She looked around and shook her head, then got up, walked over to the wardrobe, knelt in front of it and threw a shoebox to one side. I looked over her shoulder and saw, where the box had lain, a small safe. I guessed that once it had had a combination lock, but all that was left was a hole, where it had been drilled out. I opened it, reached inside and took out a red jewel box. It was familiar; I had given it to Prim myself. I lifted the lid, and recognised none of what was inside. All that was in it looked like cheap costume stuff.
‘Your diamonds?’ I asked her. ‘The necklace I gave you, those earrings, your engagement ring: were they here?’
‘Yes,’ she said, looking stunned. ‘They’re gone, Oz, all gone.’
‘Where do you keep your papers, the ones we’ve come for?’
She jumped to her feet and opened the top drawer of the wooden cabinet. ‘In here.’ She flicked through a series of folders. ‘They look okay,’ she announced.