Can You Keep a Secret? (34 page)

I stare at her, my heart beating hard. God, she's right. I could do it. I could get back at Jack. I could make him hurt like I've been hurt.

'But I have no idea what it is,' I say at last.

'You can find out!' says Jemima. 'That's easy enough. The point is, you know he's hiding something.'

'There's definitely some kind of mystery,' says Lissy thoughtfully. 'He has all these phone calls he won't talk about, he rushes off mysteriously from your date—'

'He rushed off mysteriously?' says Jemima avidly. 'Where? Did he say anything? Did you overhear anything?'

'No!' I say, flushing slightly. 'Of course not. I don't … I would never
eavesdrop
on people!'

Jemima gives me a close look.

'Don't give me that. Yes you did. You did hear something. Come on, Emma. What was it?'

My mind flashes back to that evening. Sitting on the bench, sipping the pink cocktail. The breeze is blowing on my face, Jack and Sven are talking behind me in low voices …

'It was nothing much,' I say reluctantly. 'I just heard him say something about having to transfer something … and Plan B … and something being urgent …'

'Transfer what?' says Lissy suspiciously. 'Funds?'

'I dunno. And they said something about flying back up to Glasgow.'

Jemima looks beside herself.

'Emma, I do not believe this. You've had this information all this time? This has to be something juicy. It
has
to be. If only we knew more.' She exhales in frustration. 'You didn't have a Dictaphone or anything with you?'

'Of course I didn't!' I say with a little laugh. 'It was a date! Do
you
normally take a Dictaphone on a …' I tail off incredulously at her expression. 'Jemima. You don't.'

'Not
always
,' she says, with a defensive shrug. 'Just if I think it might come in … Anyway. That's irrelevant. The point is, you have information, Emma. You have power. You find out what this is all about – and then you expose him. That'll show Jack Harper who's boss. That'll get your revenge!'

I stare back at her determined face, and for a moment I feel a sheer, powerful exhilaration bubbling through me. That would pay Jack back. That would show him. Then he'd be sorry! Then he'd see I'm not just some nothing, nobody girl. Then he'd see.
Then
he'd see.

'So …' I lick my lips. 'So how would I do it?'

'First we try to work out as much as we can ourselves,' says Jemima. 'Then, I've got access to various … people who can help get more information.' She gives me a tiny wink. 'Discreetly.'

'Private detectives?' says Lissy in disbelief. 'Are you for real?'

'And then we expose him! Mummy's got contacts at
all
the papers …'

My head is thumping. Am I really talking about doing this? Am I really talking about getting revenge on Jack?

'A very good place to start is rubbish bins,' adds Jemima knowledgeably. 'You can find
all
sorts of things just by looking through somebody's trash.'

And all of a sudden sanity comes flying in through the window.

'Rubbish bins?' I say in horror. 'I'm not looking in any rubbish bins! In fact, I'm not doing this, full stop. It's a crazy idea.'

'You can't get all precious now, Emma!' says Jemima tartly, flicking back her hair. 'How else are you going to find out what his secret is?'

'Maybe I don't
want
to find out what his secret is,' I retort, feeling a sting of pride. 'Maybe I'm not interested.'

I wrap the chenille throw around me even more tightly, and stare at my toes miserably.

So Jack's got some huge secret he can't trust me with. Well, fine. Let him keep it. I'm not going to demean myself by grubbing after it. I'm not going to start poking around rubbish bins. I don't care what it is. I don't care about him.

'I want to forget about it,' I say, my face closing up. 'I want to move on.'

'No you don't!' retorts Jemima. 'Don't be stupid, Emma. This is your big chance for revenge. We are so going to get him.' I have never seen Jemima look so animated in my life. She reaches for her bag and gets out a tiny lilac Smythson notebook, together with a Tiffany pen. 'Right, so what do we know? Glasgow … Plan B … transfer …'

The Panther Corporation doesn't have offices in Scotland, does it?' says Lissy thoughtfully.

I turn my head, and stare at her in disbelief. She's scribbling on a pad of legal paper, with exactly the same preoccupied look she gets when she's solving one of her geeky puzzles. I can see the words 'Glasgow', 'transfer' and 'Plan B', and a place where she's jumbled up all the letters in 'Scotland' and tried to make a new word out of them.

For God's sake.

'Lissy, what are you doing?'

'I'm just … fiddling around,' she says, and blushes. 'I might go and look some stuff up on the Internet, just out of interest.'

'Look, just stop it, both of you!' I say. 'If Jack doesn't want to tell me what his secret is … then I don't want to know.'

Suddenly I feel completely drained by the day. And kind of bruised. I'm not interested in Jack's mysterious secret life. I don't want to think about it any more. I want to have a long hot bath and go to bed and just forget I ever met him.

TWENTY-THREE

Except of course I can't.

I can't forget about Jack. I can't forget about our argument.

His face keeps appearing in my head when I don't want it to. The way he stared at me in the sunlight, his face all crinkled up. The way he bought the lucky heather.

I lie in bed, my heart hammering, going over it again and again. Feeling the same smart of hurt. The same disappointment.

I told him everything about myself.
Everything
. And he won't even tell me one—

Anyway. Anyway.

I don't care.

I'm not going to think about him any more. He can do what he likes. He can keep his stupid secrets.

Good luck to him. That's it. He's out of my brain.

Gone for good.

I stare at the darkened ceiling for a few moments.

And what did he mean by that, anyway?
Is it such a disaster for people to know the truth about you
?

He can talk. He can so talk. Mr Mystery. Mr Sensitive and Complicated.

I should have said that. I should have said—

No. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about him. It's over.

As I pad into the kitchen the next morning to make a cup of tea, I'm fully resolved. I'm not even going to
think
about Jack from now on. Finito. Fin. The End.

'OK. I have three theories.' Lissy arrives breathlessly at the door of the kitchen in her pyjamas, holding her legal pad.

'What?' I look up blearily.

'Jack's big secret. I have three theories.'

'Only three?' says Jemima, appearing behind her in her white robe, clutching her Smythson notebook. 'I've got eight!'

'
Eight
?' Lissy stares at her, affronted.

'I don't want to hear any theories,' I say. 'Look, both of you, this has been really painful for me. Can't you just respect my feelings and drop it?'

They both look at me blankly for a second, then turn back to each other.

'
Eight
?' says Lissy again. 'How did you get eight?'

'Easy-peasy. But I'm sure yours are very good too,' says Jemima kindly. 'Why don't you go first?'

'OK,' says Lissy with a look of annoyance, and clears her throat. 'Number one: He's relocating the whole of the Panther Corporation to Scotland. He was up there reconnoitring, and didn't want you spreading rumours. Number two: He's involved in some kind of white-collar fraud …'

'What?' I stare at her. 'Why do you say that?'

'I looked up the accountants who audited the last Panther Corporation accounts, and they've been involved in a few big scandals recently. Which doesn't
prove
anything, but if he's acting shadily and talking about transfers …' She pulls a face and I stare back, disconcerted.

Jack a fraudster? No. He couldn't be. He couldn't.

Not that I care one way or the other.

'Can I say that both of those sound highly unlikely to me?' says Jemima with raised eyebrows.

'Well, what's your theory, then?' says Lissy crossly.

'Plastic surgery, of course!' she says triumphantly. 'He has a face-lift and he doesn't want anyone to know, so he recuperates in Scotland.
And
I know what the B is in Plan B.'

'What?' I say suspiciously.

'Botox!' says Jemima with a flourish. 'That's why he rushed off from your date. To have his fine lines smoothed. The doctor suddenly had a spare appointment, his friend came to tell him—'

What planet does Jemima come from?

'Jack would never have Botox!' I say. '
Or
a face-lift!'

'You don't know that!' She gives me a telling look. 'Compare a recent photo of Jack with an old one, and I bet you see a difference—'

'OK, Miss Marple,' says Lissy, rolling her eyes. 'So what are your other seven theories?'

'Let me see …' Jemima turns the page of her notebook. 'OK, this one's rather good He's in the Mafia.' She pauses for effect. 'His father was shot, and he's planning to murder the heads of all the other families.'

'Jemima, that's
The Godfather
,' says Lissy.

'Oh.' She looks put out. 'I thought it seemed a bit familiar.' She crosses it out. 'Well, here's another one. He has an autistic brother …'

'
Rain Man
.'

'Oh. Damn.' She pulls a face and looks at her list again. 'So maybe not that after all … or that …' She start crossing entries out. 'OK. But I do have one more.' She raises her head. 'He's got another woman.'

I stare at her, feeling a jolt. Another woman. I never even thought of that.

'That was my last theory, too,' says Lissy apologetically. 'Another woman.'

'You
both
think it's another woman?' I look from face to face. 'But … but why?'

Suddenly I feel really small. And stupid. Has Jack been playing me along? Have I been even
more
naïve than I originally thought?

'It just seems quite a likely explanation,' says Jemima with a shrug. 'He's having some clandestine affair with a woman in Scotland. He was paying her a secret visit when he met you. She keeps phoning him, maybe they were having a row, then she comes to London unexpectedly, so he has to dash off from your date.'

Lissy glances at my stricken face.

'But maybe he's relocating the company,' she says encouragingly. 'Or a fraudster.'

'Well, I don't care
what
he's doing,' I say, my face burning. 'It's his business. And he's welcome to it.'

I get a pint of milk from the fridge and slam it shut, my hands trembling slightly. Sensitive and complicated. Is that code for 'I'm seeing someone else?'

Well, fine. Let him have another woman. I don't care.

'It's
your
business too!' says Jemima. 'If you're going to get revenge—'

Oh for God's sake.

'I don't
want
to get revenge, OK?' I say, turning round to face her. 'It's not healthy. I want to … heal my wounds and move on.'

'Yes, and shall I tell you another word for revenge?' she retorts, as though pulling a rabbit out of a hat. 'Closure!'

'Jemima, closure and revenge are not actually the same thing,' says Lissy.

'In my book they are.' She gives me an impressive look. 'Emma, you're my friend, and I'm not going to let you just sit back and allow yourself to be mistreated by some bastard man. He deserves to pay. He deserves to be punished!'

I stare at Jemima, feeling a few tiny qualms.

'Jemima, you're not actually going to
do
anything about this.'

'Of course I am,' she says. 'I'm not going to stand by and see you suffer. It's called the sisterhood, Emma!'

Oh my God. I have visions of Jemima rooting through Jack's rubbish bins in her pink Gucci suit. Or scraping his car with a nail file.

'Jemima … don't do anything,' I say in alarm. 'Please. I don't want you to.'

'You
think
you don't. But you'll thank me later—'

'No I won't! Jemima, you have to promise me you're not going to do anything stupid.'

She tightens her jaw mutinously.

'Promise!'

'OK,' says Jemima at last, rolling her eyes. 'I promise.'

'She's crossing her fingers behind her back,' observes Lissy.

'
What
?' I stare at Jemima in disbelief. 'Promise properly! Swear on something you really love.'

'Oh God,' says Jemima sulkily. 'All right, you win. I swear on my Miu Miu ponyskin bag, I won't do anything. But you're making a big mistake, you know.'

She saunters out of the room, and I watch her, a bit uneasily.

'That girl is a total psychopath,' says Lissy, sinking down onto a chair. 'Why did we ever let her move in here?' She takes a sip of tea. 'Actually, I remember why. It was because her dad gave us a whole year's rent in advance—' She catches my expression. 'Are you OK?'

'You don't think she'll actually do anything to Jack, do you?'

'Of course not,' says Lissy reassuringly. 'She's all talk. She'll probably bump into one of her ditzy friends and forget all about it.'

'You're right.' I give myself a little shake. 'You're right.' I pick up my cup and look at it silently for a few moments. 'Lissy, do you really think Jack's secret is another woman?'

Lissy opens her mouth.

'Anyway, I don't care,' I add defiantly, before she can answer. 'I don't care what it is.'

'Sure,' says Lissy, and gives me a sympathetic smile.

As I arrive at the office, Artemis looks up from her desk with a bright-eyed glance.

'Morning Emma!' She smirks at Catherine. 'Read any intellectual books lately?'

Oh, ha ha-di-ha. So, so funny. Everyone else at work has got bored with teasing me. Only Artemis still thinks it's completely hilarious.

'Actually, Artemis, I have,' I say brightly, taking off my jacket. 'I read this really good book recently, it was called "What to do if your colleague is an obnoxious cow who picks her nose when she thinks no-one's looking."'

There's a guffaw around the office, and Artemis flushes a dark red.