Before We Met(25)

‘You, too,’ she said. ‘How are you? Tony said you were in.’

‘Yes, just popped out to get a bite to eat.’ He’d lifted the evidence, a brown-paper bag spotted with grease. He was in weekend wear: jeans and a brushed-cotton plaid shirt with a faded T-shirt underneath, a pair of Adidas shell-toes. She couldn’t remember ever having seen him out of a suit before. He was thirty-eight, she knew, but today he’d looked about twenty-five.

‘Saturday afternoon in the office?’ she said.

‘I’m doing projections, whipping some figures into shape before we meet Systema. Mark’s told you about their approach, obviously?’

‘Yes, of course. Interesting times.’

‘Could be. I’ll be here most of the weekend anyway. How about you, though? I thought you two were going away?’

‘To Rome?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, that’s still a couple of weeks off yet, unfortunately.’

He’d looked confused for a moment but then his face cleared. ‘Oh, I see. Well, if you’re here, you can’t be there, can you?’ He smiled. ‘Is Mark with you?’

‘Mark? Er – he’s at home.’

‘Oh. Right.’

Hannah had seen the question in his eyes. ‘He’s shattered, I think,’ she’d said. ‘He’ll probably be zonked out in front of the TV when I get back.’ She patted her bag hammily. ‘He left our electricity bill here by mistake last week – got it mixed up with some other papers. I’ve just been to Westfield for a bit of shopping and said I’d pop in and pick it up on my way back so we can pay it before we get cut off. Usual domestic chaos.’ Her laughter had come out sounding a lot more convincing than it had felt.

‘Right,’ David had said again, but the unasked question had lingered in the air between them: if Mark was in London, why was he at home on the sofa while David was spending all day at the office?



In the kitchen Hannah stood at the sink and downed three Aspirin with a large glass of water. Mixed with the shock and hurt was another feeling now: fear. Yes, she admitted to herself, she was afraid. What the hell was going on? If Mark needed her money so badly, why hadn’t he just asked for it? They were married, they loved each other, didn’t they? They were supposed to be a team, to support each other. If he’d asked her for it, she would have given it to him straight away. Why just take it like this unless he didn’t want to tell her the reason – or couldn’t?

What if he was in trouble? Not just money trouble, real trouble. What if he’d crossed someone dangerous? For a moment the idea seemed ludicrous – someone dangerous? Come on, Hannah, back to the real world – but then she remembered a story that Paul, a friend of Dan’s, had told over dinner the other day. He was in commercial property and the company he worked for, a specialised arm of one of the large estate agencies, had started doing business in Russia, going over and giving presentations to super-wealthy Muscovites to convince them to buy investment property in London. The presentations had been a success and they’d been hired to find properties for several new clients, but afterwards, Paul said, one of the clients had refused to pay their commission. It was a substantial amount, nearly half a million, and Paul’s company had chased and chased and eventually instructed their lawyer. Soon after starting work, however, the lawyer had come back and advised them quietly to write the money off. If they didn’t, the implication was, the repercussions would be violent.

Could Mark have got himself into something like that? DataPro did a lot of business overseas, and they’d handled a couple of projects for new Eastern European clients earlier in the year. What if one of them had refused to pay, he’d pursued it and they’d come after him? But why not tell her something like that? There would be no reason to hide it. And anyway, in that scenario, they would owe him, not the other way round.

Gambling made more sense. What if Mark was in debt to violent people and they were threatening to mess him up? She exhaled sharply through her nose. It was ridiculous – she was being ridiculous. What next, the Mob?

She stalked the room, successive waves of anger and panic breaking over her. She fended them off by focusing on what she could do. She could call the office and talk to David. If it were something to do with DataPro, he would know. But actually, would he? He’d thought they were both in Rome: Mark had lied to him, too. And what if it were nothing to do with the company? She liked David as far as she knew him, but that was hardly at all – she couldn’t stand the idea of him knowing their personal business and thinking there were problems in their marriage. And what if there was a simple explanation for all this – there still could be, couldn’t there? – and Mark returned to discover she’d involved his business partner?