Guilty Pleasures (56 page)

Cassandra had spent the day quietly, reading and thinking; thinking about the past and particularly about the future. The fire had been a wake-up call for her in too many ways to count. She realized now that losing her job had hit her harder than she’d been able to admit. Before that terrible moment in the Ivy, Cassandra Grand had been indestructible, a goddess on her throne; nothing could touch her and everything she did turned to gold, assuming, that is, that gold was the colour of the season. She had spent so long going up, up, up, that when her wings melted, her fall was wounding and complete. She hadn’t just lost her job, she’d lost Max, she’d lost her dream of building a Cassandra Grand empire and most importantly, she had lost her elevated place in the world. And now, looking back at it from the ruins of her once-glittering life, she realized that she had lost a lot more along the way. She’d lost her friends, her family and a little piece of her soul. But Cassandra was a survivor and nothing had made her realize that more than the Stables inferno. She’d survived
literally.
It was surely a sign that she had to pick herself up and get back on track. Cassandra had settled down into the sofa with a notebook and a Mont Blanc pen to begin planning her fightback when the phone went.

‘Miss Grand. It’s Miss Broughton at Briarton School,’ said the anxious voice of Ruby’s head teacher.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘I’m afraid Ruby has disappeared from her room,’ said the teacher.

‘Well, where has she gone?’ snapped Cassandra, her heart suddenly beating faster.

‘Nobody has seen her since supper. Her friends Amaryllis and Pandora are also missing.’

‘And have you phoned their parents?’

‘Yes. They are in Athens and had assumed the girls were at school.’

‘Well, I’m assuming they’re not, otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me,’ snapped Cassandra.

‘We think they might have slipped out of the grounds …’

‘Can’t you look after your pupils properly?’ Cassandra shouted down the phone.

‘We have procedures that usually work,’ said Miss Broughton sounding unusually flustered. ‘Of course we can’t keep the girls on a twenty-four hour watch.’

‘Have you called the police?’

‘It’s only been a couple of hours.’

Cassandra inhaled sharply to compose herself. She thought back to her own time at school. In every year there were the fast girls in class; the ones who smoked before everyone else, partied before everyone else, had sex before everyone else. She shuddered. Ruby was only just fourteen.

‘I don’t know if this is relevant,’ said Miss Broughton cautiously. ‘But we’ve interviewed all the girls’ friends and apparently Amaryllis had been talking about going to “the Brits”?’ She said the last phrase as if she was trying to pronounce an obscure town in Africa. ‘I believe it’s some sort of musical shin-dig or something.’

‘It’s the Brit Awards tonight,’ said Cassandra quickly.

‘Perhaps they’ve gone up to London,’ offered Miss Broughton weakly.

‘Leave it with me,’ said Cassandra, slamming down the phone and calling Rob Holland.

Stella didn’t tell Tom what her father had said. Instead, she made an excuse about needing to check something at work and drove straight to Winterfold.

‘Sorry Emma,’ she said, embracing her friend who came to the door looking pale and drained. ‘I know it’s late, but I had to speak to you.’

‘Is everything OK?’

Stella glanced around.

‘Where’s Rob?’

‘He’s at the Brit Awards tonight but he’s coming back to Winterfold later. He insists on driving back to Chilcot every night from the office. You know he’s usually only here at weekends.’

‘Protecting his girl. Sweet,’ smiled Stella.

‘Without sounding a coward, I’ve been glad. I’ve been quite jumpy being here in this big house on my own.’

They went through into the kitchen and Emma began to make them coffee.

‘So have you heard from the police again?’ asked Stella.

‘No, not yet.’

For a split second Emma glanced at Stella suspiciously.
Why was she asking? What was she trying to find out?
Then she turned back to the kettle and shook her head.
Stop being so bloody paranoid,
Emma scolded herself.
Stella is your friend.
Emma was sure she was going slowly crazy, doubting everyone, looking for hidden meanings or motives in everything everyone did or said.

‘I was in Oxford with Tom this afternoon,’ said Stella.

‘Tom?’ said Emma, her eyebrows raised. ‘Anything I should know about?

‘Actually, yes,’ said Stella with a smirk. ‘I pounced on him on Tuesday. And before you ask he’s a very good kisser.’

Despite her gloom, Emma laughed.

‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. Does that make up for the fact that you disapprove of his lifestyle choices?’

Stella took a sip of warm, rich coffee.

‘He says he’s only had one joint since Christmas. And I think I believe him. Anyway, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.’

There were a few moments of silence before Stella spoke again.

‘We went to Julia’s gallery and I saw a painting that I think you should take a look at.’

Stella reached in her handbag, feeling a stab of guilt. Julia was Tom’s mum and had been very good to him, plus she was helping out her father with the exhibition, but she had to know if her suspicions were correct. She handed Emma the digital camera and scrolled to the picture she had taken in Julia’s gallery.

‘Do you recognize this? It was in the store room.’

Emma nodded, a faraway look in her eye as if she were trying to remember.

‘It’s Saul’s. Yes, definitely. We had a huge clear-out before Rob moved in. Julia took away several things from the attic to be restored
and valued. I made an inventory, although I suppose it was lost in the fire. After my accident I forgot all about it, but I do remember that painting. The colours … I don’t exactly have a photographic memory for art, but this I do remember.’

Emma looked up at Stella.

‘But why are you showing this to me now? It’s not as if she stole it or anything.’

Stella felt a sinking sense of dread, thinking of Tom and how he would hate her if she was right. For a split second Stella was going to hold her tongue, but then she caught sight of the long scar on Emma’s arm from the accident. Her friend was a shadow of her former self. She had lost so much weight since the accident that her jeans were hanging off her around the waist. The elegant, polished, successful woman had gone and had been replaced by a thin, nervy shadow.
No,
thought Stella,
the most important thing is the truth.

‘Did you ever see the back of this painting?’

Emma shook her head.

‘No. It was in a horrible old frame. I think it was one of the ones Julia took away to reframe.’

‘Well, this painting is by Ben Palmer, a Cornish artist and an old friend of Saul and my father’s,’ explained Stella. ‘Ben gave both of them some of his work as a gift when they helped him out financially. Apparently the paintings themselves are worth very little, however, on the back of Saul’s –
yours
– is a half-finished work by Francis Bacon. My father reckons it could be worth a lot of money, like maybe millions.’

Emma whistled.

‘Are you sure the painting is yours?’ said Stella, hoping that perhaps it was all a big mistake. ‘Maybe Julia had a similar one. Maybe she knew Ben too?’

But Emma wasn’t listening. She was staring out of the window into the darkness.

‘It was Julia,’ she said softly. ‘In the black car in Gstaad. And it was Julia who torched the Stables because she wants me dead. No one knew she had that painting except me, and with me dead, it’s hers.’

Emma fell silent, turning it over in her mind.

‘But why now? She’s had the painting for almost a year.’

‘Because she needed the money,’ said Stella quietly.

She stared down into the black liquid in her mug.

‘She used every penny she owned to bail Tom out of trouble. Apparently she’d scrimped and saved over the years to open a new gallery, but some gangsters were threatening to kill Tom because of the debts he’d run up at his bar in Ibiza. She needed money to save her son.’

‘She needed more money so she could save her son and get the gallery she wanted,’ said Emma. ‘So she thought she’d kill me, pocket all the proceeds from the painting and nobody would ever know any different.’

For the first time in weeks, Emma felt her anxiety and fear fall away, to be replaced by feelings of anger and betrayal. Her own aunt had tried to kill her, she felt sure of it. She looked at Stella suddenly.

‘I can prove she was the driver in Gstaad.’

‘How?’

‘Get the Swiss police to re-examine the Mercedes,’ said Emma. ‘There must be traces of hair, something that we can link to Julia.’

‘Em, I’ve watched enough CSI to know that it’ll be hopelessly contaminated by now.’

Emma closed her eyes and nodded, her mind flashing back to the scene at the side of the road.

‘You’re right. And anyway, it was weeks ago, the car will have been mended and valeted, maybe even sold by now.’

Stella shook her head sadly.

‘Money. It destroys everything,’ she said.

Emma intuitively knew what Stella was thinking.

‘Not everything, Stell. Tom can’t blame you for something his mum did, he’ll understand. If we’re right about this, Julia almost killed her daughter too, remember?’

‘God, this is going to tear the family apart.’

Emma nodded. She was right – and they were going to hold her responsible.

Ruby was scared. Far too late, she realized it had been a terrible mistake to come up to London. She knew she was going to be in dreadful trouble with school, with her mother, with her grandma, and what for? So far, it had been a miserable evening, nothing like Amaryllis had promised. Her glamorous older school friend – sixteen, she was practically an adult – had a new boyfriend called
Wesley. He was apparently a famous jet-setting record producer which had impressed Ruby enormously, especially when he had promised he could get the girls into one of the exclusive after-show parties at the Brits. And of course Ruby had felt very grown up borrowing one of Amaryllis’s Cavalli dresses, sneaking out of school and getting a taxi to London. Best of all, they were going to a fabulous showbiz party that had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with her mother. But it had all gone downhill the second they had stepped into the Sanderson’s Long Bar, which was noisy and crowded and intimidating. Amaryllis and Pandora had blended seamlessly into the crowd and although they hadn’t exactly left Ruby to fend for herself, she felt completely out of her depth. She’d breathed a sigh of relief when Amaryllis had said they were leaving, but instead of returning to the girls’ parents’ house, or better still, back to school, they had gone to Wesley’s apartment in West London to carry on partying.

The atmosphere in the beautiful Notting Hill flat felt hostile and cliquey. Amaryllis had gone directly into a bedroom with Wesley and Pandora had attached herself to some long-haired man she’d met at the Sanderson. In an attempt to fit in, Ruby accepted a joint from a man called Danny, the only person in the room who had bothered to speak to her. She’d inhaled too deeply, felt immediately nauseous and five minutes later was in the bathroom puking up the red wine she’d been downing throughout the evening.

Danny was waiting for her when she came out of the bathroom. She’d brushed her teeth using her finger and some toothpaste but she still felt wretched.

‘Is everything all right?’ asked Danny.

Ruby nodded, too weak to do anything except take his hand. He led her into a bedroom and she perched on the edge of the bed.

‘Do you want to go home? Shall I call a taxi?’

She nodded. ‘I want to go to Knightsbridge.’

While Danny went off to make the call, Ruby began to feel worse. The room was spinning and her hands felt tingly. Oblivious to her state, Danny picked up a guitar that was propped up by the window. He began playing and singing; the melody was like a lullaby and it was sending her to sleep.

The next thing she knew his body was over hers and his lips were brushing hers with a kiss. He smelt sweet and his eyes were beautiful, thought Ruby looking up and stroking his cheek.

‘Good girl,’ he whispered running his hand lightly down her bare arm. Danny’s hand crept slowly up her thigh pushing back the fabric of her dress until his fingers were curling under the rim of her cotton knickers.

‘No! Stop it,’ said Ruby, suddenly feeling her cheeks flush with shame.

‘Come on, let’s have a little fun,’ said Danny with a sexy grin.

She was really frightened now; afraid that the whole situation was about to tumble out of control.

‘I’m fourteen!’ she screamed, pushing him away from her and scrambling off the bed.

‘Shit, oh shit!’ mumbled Danny, recoiling away from her. ‘You should have fucking told me!’

‘I know,’ said Ruby sadly. ‘I’m sorry. Please, I just want to go home and see my mum.’

Cassandra pushed her front door open and flung her car keys on the table. She felt completely helpless. She had spent the last three hours trawling round every single Brits party in London. It had been a Godsend that Rob Holland had been leaving the awards ceremony with his phone on when she had called. When Cassandra had filled him in on the story, he had roared straight round to pick her up in his Range Rover and had ferried her to a dozen pubs and clubs, even a tent in a railway arch. But no luck. Even so, she was certain Ruby and her two friends were somewhere in London partying, especially when the school had phoned confirming that a local cab had taken three Briarton girls, fitting Amaryllis, Ruby and Pandora’s description, on a two-hundred-pound cab journey to London. Cassandra sank on the sofa and put her head in her hands. She imagined her child out in the city, God knows where, with those slags. Cassandra had been quick to blame Ruby’s older friends and her school, but the terrible feeling of guilt in her chest told her otherwise.
It’s all my fault,
she thought. She had barely seen her daughter in the last six months. During Ruby’s October half-term Cassandra had been in Sulka. Yes, mother and daughter had been together in Gstaad, of course, but days had been spent skiing, evenings had been full of parties, and once Emma had had her accident the whole family was in a state of chaos. Time spent together in a hospital waiting room barely counted as ‘quality’. She remembered Miss Broughton’s cautionary words on the day of
Cassandra’s career talk to the school: ‘I’ve always felt thirteen is a watershed age …’, ‘… the cusp of womanhood …’, ‘… she needs her mother to guide her along the right path.’