A Wayward Game (20 page)

We end up lying
together in a knot on the living room floor, breathless and sated.
And as I lie beneath Neil, feeling his arms around me and his
breath coming harsh and heavy against my neck, I know that we’ve
crossed yet another boundary, and that I no longer care. And for a
moment – the slightest, swiftest moment – I feel utterly at peace
with the world and with myself, and I’m afraid of nothing at
all.

It’s only
later, when I have time to think, that I remember something about
our conversation – something that seemed irrelevant at the time,
but which troubles me now. Neil mentioned a conspiracy, if only to
rubbish the idea. He did so without any prompting from me. Why
would he do that, why would his mind turn in that direction?
Because it’s the truth, perhaps? Is there something he isn’t
telling me?

And the answer
that I hear in my mind makes me feel momentarily sick. There’s
plenty he isn’t telling me, of course. I really know very little
about him; I haven’t even been to his flat. And all the time, he
has been learning my secrets one by one, as if he is draining me
and giving nothing in return. And suddenly I wonder who can be
trusted here, and who is dominating who, and what kind of game
we’re really playing, until I find that my head is spinning and I
don’t know what to think at all.

Later, while
Neil is dozing in bed, I log on to www.whathappenedtodiane.org, and
find that there’s a new personal message waiting for me. I click to
open it, and find that it’s from Lurker.

Hi Kittyminx, and
thanks for replying. I might have guessed that you were a writer
and journalist; you’re always very eloquent and logical. (By the
way, I can’t help but wonder about your username – are you
connected in any way with a certain journalist who covered this
case in detail some time ago?!) I’m following a distance learning
course while working full-time, which is hard work but very
rewarding.

Your comments about
Diane make sense to me, in many ways. She has become a celebrity,
an icon, following her disappearance, and perhaps it’s because of
the mystery that surrounds her. But, unlike you, I think that
mystery is ultimately all we have in this case. There’s no strong
evidence against James Sallow, nothing that would stand up in a
court of law. And while everyone’s entitled to their opinions,
openly stating that he is guilty of Diane’s murder or manslaughter
is libel – as certain people have found out to their cost.

Yes, Sallow is wealthy
and well-connected. What difference does that make? He might have
been lucky, but he’s also worked very hard for what he has. Does
his wealth provide us with sufficient reason to slander and suspect
him? Remember, this man’s life has been, if not ruined, at least
very negatively affected by Diane’s disappearance. His girlfriend
and unborn child have both been lost. His parliamentary ambitions
have been destroyed because of this scandal. He’s had to endure
eight years of suspicion, muttered comments, and more or less open
accusations. And in all that time, he’s used only lawful means to
put his own side of the story across. He has used his own money to
hire private detectives to find Diane, or find out what happened to
her – which in itself puts an interesting complexion on the idea
that he killed her.

There was no
conspiracy. Conspiracy theories are for fantasists who refuse to
accept the essentially mundane and arbitrary nature of life. I’m
not accusing you of being a fantasist, Kittyminx. It’s just that I
think you’ve put two and two together and come up with five.

James Sallow has a
fairly watertight alibi. At the same time a witness saw Diane
walking her dog in the woods, he was in the City. Cell phone
records, and his colleagues’ statements, confirm as much. What is
your answer to that, out of interest?

Lurker.

I stare at the
words until they are reduced to a black scrawl on the screen,
without meaning. Again, I sense an undercurrent of hostility
beneath Lurker’s apparent friendliness, and wonder why. It seems
far more than the usual tension to be found between those who hold
opposing views on a given subject. And why, again, this mention of
a conspiracy, when I made a point of denying being a conspiracy
theorist in my original message? Lurker seems almost to be echoing
Neil’s words of this evening.

As I’m reading
the message again, something else suddenly comes into my mind:
Martin Stevenson’s restaurant. The Vine Tree, Richmond.

I type
Stevenson’s name into a search engine, and trawl through a dozen or
more web pages detailing his involvement in the Meath-Jones case.
There’s little here that’s new to me, and eventually I start to
look at the more general material. I visit the Vine Tree website,
and look at photographs of the restaurant: billowing white curtains
and matching tablecloths, French windows thrown open upon a sunny
garden, glasses of sparkling wine. There’s a photograph of
Stevenson, standing in his kitchen and grinning complacently,
surrounded by his staff. Having explored the site, I click away and
start going through the tail-end of the search results, expecting
little. Then I come upon a small feature, published nine years ago.
It’s archived on the website of a restaurant called La Sosta, an
upmarket place near Aldgate.

Staff from
the exclusive City recruitment agency Morgan Clearey held their
annual Christmas celebration at La Sosta this year
, the first
line reads. I scroll down, reading more carefully now, but at first
am rewarded only by information about special Festive menus. Then,
about midway through the article, I see a photograph that shows
several businessmen in sharp suits smiling as they pose with a man
in chefs’ whites. I see Martin Stevenson’s face first, his
strangely ageless features and short white hair above a plump body.
Then my eye is caught by one of the businessmen. He’s smartly
dressed, as always, and smiling sardonically. Brown curls surround
and lend definition to a handsome but strangely anonymous face.
Sallow.

I read the
caption:
Morgan Clearey staff (l-r) Thomas Morgan, Rupert
Clearey, James Sallow and Jonathan Pierce, with La Sosta chef
Martin Stevenson (centre).

“God Almighty,”
I whisper, and feel my heart contract beneath my ribs.

Of course, in
and of itself this means little. Why shouldn’t Sallow have
patronised a very popular restaurant near his offices, where Martin
Stevenson just happened to work? It’s the kind of coincidence that
means little, and means nothing at all as evidence. But it does
prove that the two men met before Diane’s disappearance. I take a
screenshot of the page, mindful as ever of how web pages sometimes
have a habit of disappearing, and then click back to the search
engine, and type in “Vine Tree Richmond”.

The first few
results I have already seen, but as I scroll down the page I find a
mention of the restaurant in about the last place I would have
expected: Larry Mortimer’s website. Larry Mortimer, the PR guru who
was employed by Sallow in the wake of Diane’s disappearance. And,
according to his own proudly-displayed list of clients, he has also
worked for Martin Stevenson and the Vine Tree. Doing what? Whipping
up favourable publicity, persuading his starry clientele to eat
there? No wonder Stevenson is doing so well. But how could an
ordinary chef and restaurateur afford Mortimer’s services, when
they cost so much?

I return to the
search engine, and after a little more exploration I locate an old
article from
The Richmond Courier
, a small and now defunct
local paper. Dated seven years ago, it talks about the opening of
the Vine Tree. None of it is very interesting, until I reach the
following passage: “The restoration of the Vine Tree was partially
funded by a range of business partners, including the City
advertising agency 20/20.”

20/20. Another
name, another vague sense of familiarity. I return to Google, and
type the name into the search bar. A list of websites flashes up,
one of them the Companies House entry. I click on this and, after
some searching, find the names of the company directors. One of
them, I see immediately, is Gerald Sallow, James Sallow’s father.
Media mogul, City businessman and millionaire, Gerald Sallow has
involvement in various companies and institutions – one of them the
company that helped to fund Martin Stevenson’s restaurant.

I stare at the
words, reading them again and again, allowing the implications to
sink into my mind. Stevenson met Sallow the year before Diane
disappeared. Later, when he said that he saw Diane in Bucklock Wood
at ten o’clock on June 16th, he provided Sallow with a watertight
alibi. Less than a year later, Sallow’s father’s company invested
in Stevenson’s restaurant. I look up from the screen, and feel a
smile creeping across my face.

“Gotcha,” I
whisper.

The shop just
off Oxford Street is busy at this time of day. Tourists wander
around the aisles, fingering clothes and jewellery, chatting
together excitedly. Shoppers pick items off the rails and hold them
up against themselves, wondering how they will look. In the
background, music jangles away on a sound system and cash registers
ring. I am idly looking through a rack of thin summer blouses when
I catch sight of Mr Walsh, the former concierge at Lexwood House,
walking into the shop.

Meeting anyone
you recognise in London by chance is an almost freakishly
improbable event. In a city so large, so populous and so busy, the
odds of running into someone you know even slightly seem tiny. I
smile at him as he approaches, and move towards him in a way that
suggests that I’d like to talk to him.

To my surprise
and dismay, though, Mr Walsh seems horrified to see me; he shrinks
back, almost flinching, and looks for a moment as if he might turn
and run out of the shop. Then his face settles into grim lines. I
notice that he looks far less well than he did before. He has the
gaunt, hollow look of someone who has lost far too much weight far
too quickly. His expression is tense, his eyes surrounded by dark
shadows. For a moment, I wonder if he is ill.

“
You
,”
he breathes, and his voice is laced with venom.

“Mr Walsh? Are
you all right?”

“No, thanks to
you and your meddling.”

“What? I don’t
understand.”

“No, of course
you don’t. You journalists are the scum of the earth. You look at
people’s lives as stories, things to fill up column space or TV
schedules. You don’t care that you’re wrecking lives in the
process. It’s all a game to you. What you don’t seem to understand
is that the rest of us have to live with these things. You kick up
the dust, but it’s other people who have to wait for it to settle.”
His voice cracks slightly, and his shoulders slump; for one
alarming moment, I’m afraid that he’ll burst into tears, here in
the middle of the shop floor. “Why did you have to come to my
house? Why did you have to come to
me
?”

“Mr Walsh, I
only asked you a few questions.”

“And I was
stupid enough to answer, God help me.”

I look into his
desperate, frightened eyes, and my heart lurches, and a sick
feeling comes over me.

“James Sallow,”
I mutter. “What has he done to you?”

“Not much, yet.
And if I want to keep it that way, I have to keep my mouth
shut.”

“What? Mr
Walsh, you have to go to the police.”

“The police?”
Mr Walsh looks at me as if this is the most stupid thing he’s ever
heard. “What makes you think the police would be on my side?”

“If Sallow has
engaged in criminal behaviour—”

“Sallow has got
money and influence. He can engage in any bloody behaviour he
wants. That’s the kind of country we live in.” Mr Walsh dabs at his
eye, where a tear has formed. “Why the bloody hell did you name me
in your article? I trusted you not to. You promised you
wouldn’t.”

I look at him.
“Mr Walsh, my story was never even published.”

“Then how did
Sallow find out that I’d talked to you? Did you tell anyone?”

“No,” I say;
but no sooner is the word out of my mouth than I remember that I
did
tell someone: Neil. A splinter of ice punctures my
heart. Could Neil have betrayed me?
No
, my mind screams. But
who else could it have been?

“You must have
told someone,” Mr Walsh insists. “Sallow knew. He
knew
.”

“Mr Walsh,” I
say, as calmly as I can, “I don’t know how Sallow could have found
out that I’d visited you. Are you sure that it was him who did this
to you?”

“He wasn’t
there himself. Too clever for that. But the gorillas he sent around
left me in no doubt about who they were working for.” He brushes
his tears away with his sleeve. “You’re not to come near me or my
house again, got it? Stay away from me. I’m too old to be caught up
in stuff like this.”

“I won’t bother
you again, Mr Walsh,” I say. I feel defeated, hollow – and
afraid.

“Please don’t.
And if you want my advice, you’ll leave the Diane Meath-Jones case
well alone.” He glances around furtively, and his voice drops a
little. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing, you stupid woman?
Don’t you understand?”

“Mr Walsh—”

“There are
forces at work here that you don’t understand. They won’t be
stopped. You might as well stand in the path of a whirlwind.” His
shoulders sag, and he suddenly looks, not angry, but defeated.
“Some fights are just too big for little people like us. Turn and
walk away. It’s the only thing you can do.”

With that, he
turns and lumbers out of the shop. I watch as he slips into the
crowd outside, and then disappears. I feel sick, and frightened.
The only person I told about my visit to Walsh was Neil; a short
while later, Walsh was threatened by Sallow, or by someone working
on his behalf. Did Neil betray me? Could he have?