To her surprise, he said rather sharply, “What magazine?”
Odd reaction, she thought. “Conception,” she said. What she wanted to add was, Is there another magazine I should be looking into? but of course she did not. She thought feverishly back to the other periodicals that had been on the table along with Conception. She couldn’t remember what they were, so interested had she been in that single one.
He said, “Oh. That. Conception. No, no. That’s not… Never mind.”
Which she could hardly do. She opted for a direct approach and said, “Mr. Fairclough, is something wrong? Is there something you’d like to tell me? Something you’d like to ask me? Is there some kind of reassurance I can give you…?”
He fingered the handle of his coffee cup. He sighed and said, “There are things Alatea doesn’t want to talk about, and her past is one of them. I know you’re not here to delve into her background or anything but that’s what she’s afraid of: that you might start delving.”
“I see,” Deborah said. “Well, this isn’t an investigative documentary, other than as it relates to the pele project. Certain issues about you yourself might come up… Are you certain she’s not just worried about how the film might affect you? Your reputation? Your standing in the community?”
He laughed self-derisively. “I did enough damage to myself when I was using. No film could damage me further. No, it’s to do with what Alatea did to get by before she and I met. It’s stupid, frankly, for her to be so upset about it. It’s nothing. I mean, it’s not like she made porn films or something.”
Deborah nodded gravely. She kept her face sympathetic but said nothing. Surely, she thought, he was on the verge… the cusp… the cliff’s edge… Just the tiniest nudge might push him over.
She finally said thoughtfully, “You two met in Utah, didn’t you? I went to college for a while in America. In Santa Barbara. Do you know the town? It’s expensive there and I… Well, funds were low and there are always easy ways to make money…” She let him fill in the blanks for himself, with whatever his imagination might provide. The truth was she’d done nothing but go to photography school, but there was no way on earth he would know that.
He pursed his lips, perhaps considering an admission of some sort. He took a sip of coffee, set his cup back down, and said, “Well, it’s underwear, actually.”
“Underwear?”
“Alatea was an underwear model. She did catalogue pictures. Advertisements in magazines as well.”
Deborah smiled. “And that’s what she doesn’t want me to know? That’s hardly disgraceful, Mr. Fairclough. And let’s be honest. She has the body for it. She’s attractive as well. One can easily see— ”
“Naughty underwear,” he said. He let that sit there for a moment so that Deborah could, perhaps, absorb the information and its implications. “Catalogues for certain types of people, you understand. Adverts in certain types of magazines. It wasn’t… they weren’t… I mean, the underwear wasn’t exactly high-class stuff. She’s dead embarrassed about it all now and she’s worried that someone will uncover this about her and humiliate her in some way.”
“I see. Well, you can reassure her on that score. I’m not interested in her underwear past.” She glanced out of the window of the café, which looked onto the market square. It was busy out there, and a queue had formed at a takeaway food stall operating from a dark green caravan with Sue’s Hot Food Bar scrolled in white across the front of it. People sat at a few picnic tables in front of the caravan, tucking into whatever the eponymous owner was shoveling, steaming, onto paper plates.
Deborah said, “I did think it was that magazine— Conception— but I suppose that’s more to do with me than with her. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up. Do let her know I apologise.”
“It wasn’t that,” Nicholas said. “She wants to get pregnant, certainly, but truth is I want it more than she does just now and that’s making her touchy. But the real problem is this damn modeling part of her life and those pictures, which she keeps expecting to pop up in some tabloid.”
As he made these final remarks, his gaze— like Deborah’s— went out-of-doors. But instead of the same casual glance Deborah had given the food stall and its accompanying picnic tables, his fixed on something and his expression altered. His pleasant face hardened. He said, “Excuse me for a moment,” and before Deborah could reply, he strode outside.
There he walked up to one of the individuals enjoying a Sue’s Hot Food Bar meal. It was a man, who ducked his head as Nicholas approached, in an obvious effort to go unnoticed. This didn’t work, and when Nicholas clutched the man’s shoulder, he rose.
He was enormous, Deborah saw. He looked nearly seven feet tall. Rising quickly as he did, he knocked his cap against the furled umbrella in the centre of the table, and the cap dislodged, revealing fiery red hair.
She reached into her bag as the man stepped away from the table and listened to whatever Nicholas was saying, which appeared to be as hot as the food the man was eating. The man shrugged. Further words were exchanged.
Deborah took out her camera and began to photograph the man and his encounter with Nicholas Fairclough.
KENSINGTON
LONDON
Barbara Havers considered herself one lucky bird when the cab drove only from Portland Place to Rutland Gate, south of Hyde Park. It just as easily could have been Wapping or regions beyond and while she knew Lynley would have been good for the cab fare ultimately, she’d not brought sufficient funds to cover a lengthy journey and she doubted the driver would have been willing to take a quarter of an hour’s snog in exchange for the ride. She hadn’t thought of this when she hopped blithely into the vehicle, but she breathed a sigh of relief when the bloke headed west instead of east and finally turned left a short distance beyond the brick expanse of Hyde Park Barracks.
He pointed out the building in question, an imposing white structure with a panel of doorbells indicating that it was a conversion. Barbara got out, paid for the ride, and considered her options as the cab rumbled away. But not before the driver told Barbara with a wink that this was where the couple debarked, they always went inside the place together, and both of them had keys since one or the other of them would do the unlocking when they reached the door.
Conversions meant flats, Barbara knew, which in turn meant occupants, which in turn meant winkling out the identity of the occupant in question. She fished for a cigarette and paced while she smoked it. The nicotine, she reckoned, would sharpen her wits. The sharpening didn’t take long.
She went to the door and saw the line of bells. Flats were marked but there were no names, as was typical in London. There was, however, one bell marked Porter, and this turned out to be a piece of good luck. Not every residential building in London had a porter. It upped the value of the flats within but it also cost the residents a bundle.
A disembodied voice asked her business. She said she’d come to make an enquiry about one of the flats that she’d learned would soon be coming on the market and could she possibly speak to him about the building?
The porter didn’t embrace this idea with wild enthusiasm, but he did decide to cooperate. He buzzed her in and told her to come along the corridor to the back, where she’d find his office.