Not Quite Nice (28 page)

But somehow, after that, it had come into Brian’s possession.

Theresa tried to calm her thoughts.

By some mad serendipitous coincidence he could
perhaps
have bought it in the junk market, on a stall made up of stolen goods.

But in her heart she knew he hadn’t.

And if Brian hadn’t come upon it by chance, there were further sinister connotations.

He must have had something to do with the man who grabbed her bag.

Maybe he was even the one pushed her while the other one ran down to snatch the bag?

For some moments she sat still, her heart pounding.

Theresa stood up. She would phone the police and tell them.

She picked up the phone.

She sighed and put it down again.

What would the police make of her story? ‘Officer – I know the man who was in possession of my stolen pen!’

They’d laugh her off the line.

Perhaps she was simply looking out to make a villain of Brian because he had made a fool of her.

For the moment she would do nothing. But tomorrow, when she’d had a night to mull it over, she would share the information with Sally or William or David. She had to tell one of her neighbours.

Perhaps they had similar tales which put together would add up to something really incriminating.

24

Sian called on Sally in the morning, for coffee. She was wearing dark glasses, which she did not take off, even though they sat together in Sally’s kitchen.

‘Your daughter is an angel,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s handling all the books, the business, everything.’ Sian gave a little whimper. ‘I can’t seem to focus properly.’

‘Have you heard from him at all?’ Sally asked.

‘No. Just the farewell note which he left late at night before he sneaked out for his early flight. He must have been planning it for a while. You don’t just pick up tickets to fly to Sydney at the last minute.’

‘Maybe he’s really homesick,’ suggested Sally. ‘Does he have family out there?’

‘Some cousins and a sister, I believe.’ Sian emitted a dry sob. ‘I knew he carried on with women, of course I did. But I never thought he’d just go off like that.’

Sally shrugged.

That Jessica had been a slippery little thing.

‘Men can get led on, you know, Sian. It happened to me too. My husband . . .’

‘No, no,’ said Sian. ‘There isn’t another woman, I’m pretty certain. He really needed to find himself again. I realise that I overpowered him, with all my business propositions and international plans. He only ever wanted the simple life. So he’s gone off to find it. He just needs space.’

And we all know where that space is, thought Sally.

‘He’s never been the same since he did it with that Theresa woman.’ Sian sipped from her cup. ‘I hope she’s feeling rough about it.’

‘Sian. I am certain nothing happened between Ted and Theresa. Really. Nothing.’

‘Hmmmm!’ Sian shook her head. ‘I’m not so sure.’

‘No,’ said Sally firmly. What else was there she could say? ‘Jessica, on the other hand . . .’

‘Who’s Jessica?’ asked Sian.

‘The slight blonde girl. She announced her departure the day before Ted left.’

‘Oh,’ said Sian. ‘The journalist.’

‘Journalist?’ It was Sally’s turn to be surprised.

‘Oh yes. We had quite a chat about the business. She writes for one of those British tabloids, you know. Pages and pages full of nothing but rumours about celebrities you’ve never heard of, fashions you wouldn’t be seen dead in and letters from very cross people from the Cotswolds.’

Sally remembered the fight over the Dictaphone at the Cookery Club and said quietly, ‘Jessica was a journalist?’

Sian sobbed.

Theresa had grabbed a newspaper from the tabac before jumping on to the bus into town.

As she was feeling so shaky today, she decided on a little comfort, to read about things at home in England, and so bought one of the overpriced one-day-old English tabloids.

She stuffed it into her bag and spent the journey gazing out of the window at the unsurpassable view over the Bay of Angels.

She was heading for the Nice flower market. She planned to take a stroll through all the stalls, buy a little something, some olives or a tub of honey, then take herself to lunch on one of the sunny terraces.

She walked down through the dark alleyways of Old Town, looking at some lovely Jacquard linen tablecloths. Having chosen a nice one, and even taken her credit card out, she decided she must resist the temptation to buy. As she put the card back into her purse, she remembered she had still not phoned the bank since the message came up on that machine. As she hadn’t used the card since, she had forgotten all about it. She’d have to do it once she got home.

In the bustling market she bought some olive and chilli tapenade and found a table at the bar near the end of the Cours Saleya, near the Ponchettes and the glowing yellow façade of Matisse’s old Nice home.

She browsed through the menu and ordered a salad Niçoise and a glass of Côtes de Provence rosé wine. Why not?

While she waited she pulled out the newspaper and started to read the front page.

A shadow fell over her.

‘Theresa!’

It was William.

‘Come and join me.’ He pointed towards a table near the back of the terrace. ‘Corny line, but do you come here often?’

‘I’ve passed by a few times. It always looks so lively.’

As he helped her gather her things, William whispered in her ear. ‘It’s a sort of local gay bar, really. Though tourists generally have no idea. You get fam­ilies and honeymoon couples sitting among all the local lesbian and gay couples, totally oblivious.’

As she shoved the paper into her bag, Theresa looked around and realised William was right.

‘What fun,’ said Theresa. She whispered back to William. ‘How is Benjamin?’

‘He’s OK,’ replied William. ‘For the moment. I’m picking him up from rehab tomorrow.’

It was during dessert that Theresa plucked up courage to ask the question she longed to ask William.

‘The man you saw with Brian last week. I presume it was in here?’

William nodded.

‘Perhaps they were the unsuspecting tourists you just told me about?’

‘Brian had his hands all over the man,’ said William. ‘It was pretty revolting. It might be a kind of gay scene here, but it’s not
that
kind of place.’

‘Describe the man he was with again?’ Theresa asked.

‘Worn brown leather jacket, denim jeans, chain smoker . . .’

Theresa thought it was an accurate description, but realised it could still be anyone, not necessarily the man who robbed her.

‘Anything else?’

‘Swarthy. One of those passé Tom Selleck moustaches.’

It was surely the same man who had robbed her.

Brian knew him. Brian’s hands were all over him.

They were a couple.

Brian had assisted the man who robbed her.

Brian was a fake.

Brian was in collusion with a crook, and might well be a crook himself.

Yet she had been fooled into taking him into her own house, believing his hard-luck story. He was a conman. She hated to think what might have happened if she’d let things go any further.

There was only one conundrum . . .

‘If Brian is so into men,’ Theresa asked, ‘why do you think he ran off with Carol?’

‘Perhaps he’s bi?’ said William.

‘Or after her money?’ suggested Theresa.

William looked puzzled and said ‘What money?’

‘Carol’s money. Isn’t she an heiress?’

William shook his head, wincing, implying Theresa was mad for thinking so.

‘I rather gathered she was part of the Heinz family. American . . . Heinz baked beans, soup, ketchup and all that stuff.’

‘No,’ said William in a long querulous swoop.

‘So why all the “57” references?’

‘Her maiden name was Heinz. But so many Americans are of German descent, and Heinz is a very common name to them. It means Henry. I think she was from Pittsburgh, too, where there is a Heinz factory, but you can bet your bottom dollar a multibillionaire family like that would live somewhere fancy, like upstate New York, not downtown Pittsburgh.’

‘So Carol isn’t rich?’

‘No. David is the rich one. Back in the States he was a property developer. Bought up huge properties in Soho and Noho and Tribeca, when prices were rock bottom. Did them up, and sold them on for a fortune.’

‘Really?’ said Theresa. ‘I had no idea.’

‘David is rolling and Carol was the attractive woman on his arm, whom he was always so eager to please. She certainly got lucky with him. David kept her in great style, which she liked. Naturally enough.’

When the waiter came with the bill, Theresa offered to pay for both of them. The machine was brought to the table and she put in her PIN.

The waiter shook his head.

He spoke rapidly in French and Theresa couldn’t catch the gist of what he was saying.

William lowered his voice. ‘He says the machine is saying “no funds”.’

‘No funds? But . . .’ Theresa’s heart skipped a beat. Her saliva dried up. Her thoughts came quickly: her turquoise pen; Brian staying in her house; Imogen’s cloned card; his leaving with Carol; her own bank details kept ‘safe’ in the paperwork drawers in the living room and on her laptop, where Brian could easily find them.

She realised, with a sudden awful certainly, that she knew
exactly
what Brian had wanted from her.

‘We’re all famous!’ cried Zoe, lurching along the seafront, waving a newspaper in the air.

‘You’re back!’ said Sally, coming along the quay from the other direction. ‘You Jezebel.’

‘No,’ grinned Zoe. ‘Jezebel wrote the wicked words. Welcome to the Freakshow! Sodom-and-Gomorrah-sur-Mer.’

‘You’re drunk!’ said Sally.

‘And you’re fat,’ said Zoe. ‘But in the morning I shall be sober.’

‘So now you’re stealing your jokes, Zoe, as well as people’s sons. That was Winston Churchill’s quip. And I’m not that fat.’ Sally stood with her hands on her hips, blocking Zoe’s way. ‘Zoe? Where is Tom?’

‘Oh, Tommasso le Grand. Yes. The little adorable thing.’ She looked round as though expecting to see him. She shook her head and shrugged. ‘I gave him my body, and he was satisfied. No, he’s not here now. He needs time alone to touch himself up . . . I mean touch me up . . .’ She cackled and lurched a few steps onwards.

Sally took hold of Zoe and shook her by the shoulders. ‘Where is my son?’

Zoe wriggled out of Sally’s grasp.

‘He’s in Villeneuve Love-it . . . Villeneuve-Louvet . . . Loubet, looby dooby doo.’ Zoe staggered across the road, narrowly missing a collision with a passing cyclist. ‘He’s in a tent. I need to sit down.’

She threw the newspaper down on a seat at the back of the terrace outside the bar, flopped down on to the seat next to it and lay her head on the table. Within seconds she was asleep and snoring.

One of the waiters shrugged. It wasn’t the first time he’d had Zoe collapse, drunk, on one of his tables. But she was a good customer of long standing, and she always gave very good tips. So he put a glass of water on the table in front of her, and tidied up a little.

The scrappy, tattered old newspaper, which fell to the floor from the seat beside her, he took away and tossed into the bin.

Theresa spent the rest of the afternoon in the bank and later at the police station.

It turned out that, on the day he left with Carol, Brian had taken a substantial amount of Theresa’s money. After all the work on the Cookery Club she was back to square one. It was soul-destroying.

She now had a long wait while the bank decided whether or not to reimburse her. The fact that the man had been, in their eyes, cohabiting with her would not help her cause.

Going through the accounts minutely with the manager Theresa saw that although Brian had always paid the rent on the dot, and paid in the Cookery Club money, he carefully removed small amounts of money at the same time.

What an easy ride he had had with her.

When Theresa got back to the seafront in Bellevue-Sur-Mer she saw Zoe, passed out on a table in the bar, and remembered the first morning here, when she had seen her in a similar position, passed out in the café–tabac.

Sally was at another table nearby, keeping her eagle eye on Zoe.

Theresa gave her a wave and went across to join her.

‘I want her to wake up and tell me where she’s left Tom,’ said Sally. ‘Before she hit the deck she tried to imply that he had joined a circus.’

‘I’ve been such a fool,’ said Theresa, slumping into the chair opposite. ‘Brian’s cleaned out my bank account. But now I have to say I feel really sorry for Carol.’