Before We Met(41)

And he’d called her yesterday at a proper time – 3.15 in London, 10.15 in New York. When she’d finished talking to her mother, there had been a text alerting her to a new voice message. The number he’d called from hadn’t registered on the phone, sometimes they didn’t when he was calling from overseas, but when she’d accessed the voicemail, there he was.

Hi, sweetie, me again. Sorry to miss you – I hope you’re doing something fun. I’m going to be working at the hotel most of the day but I’m about to go for a run and then I’ll head out again for something to eat later on, probably. Thought about hotdogs but it’s not the same without you. I’ll try you again when I get back, see if I can catch you.

He hadn’t called again but, as he’d said, he’d been working. All this – she’d been over-thinking it. The facts spoke for themselves, didn’t they? What had she discovered that had anything to do with an affair? She’d found no letters, no photographs, no evidence of money spent on expensive presents, no skimpy knickers tucked into his trouser pockets. So there was confusion about where he was, but what did that mean? Even if he was in Rome, why did it have to be about sex? It was a major European capital: business was conducted there, too. And how did the marshalling of the money point to an affair? It didn’t.

The money was the key to it, she thought as she entered the business park; if she’d been thinking clearly over the weekend that would have been obvious. She would find out what the money was for and then she’d know what she was dealing with.

She stationed herself on a bench fifteen feet from the building’s main entrance, close enough to have a view of everyone coming and going without putting herself directly in eye-line. Five past eight. She opened the Times she’d bought before getting in the car, shook it out and pretended to read.

The denizens of Mark’s building were a conscientious lot. It had been quiet when she’d arrived but within two or three minutes people were pushing their way through the revolving doors in a steady stream, coffee in hand, some already on calls or reading email on phones. At about quarter past, David came round the corner and she quickly lifted the paper in front of her face. Today he was wearing a suit and carrying a burnished leather attaché case under his arm, and his jeans-and-plaid-shirt avatar from Saturday afternoon was hard to imagine. Just outside the doors he stopped to look at something on his phone and, in stepping out of the way of the woman behind him, he turned in Hannah’s direction. Her heart leaped, but without looking up, he tapped a few keys and revolved into the building.

Most people arrived on their own but there were occasional pairs and, two or three times, small groups whom she guessed had been on the same train and walked down from Hammersmith Broadway together. A couple of people glanced in her direction, curious as to why anyone who wasn’t smoking would linger outside on a morning as cold as this, but for the most part she felt invisible, safe.

By eight thirty, however, she began to think she was out of luck. DataPro had started for the day now. Surely Neesha should be here. Then Hannah remembered what Mark’s PA had said on the phone, her confession that she was juggling too much. She lived across London on the other side of the river – had she said Blackheath? – and unless her husband did it, she’d have to drop Pierre at day-care, too. Hannah turned a page in the paper and feigned absorption in an op-ed about corporate tax evasion.

It was twenty to nine when she heard hurried footsteps on the steps. Neesha’s face was tired and preoccupied-looking, as if she’d done the best part of a day’s work already. Despite that, she was as beautifully presented as ever. Her full-length navy herringbone coat was open and revealed a black wool pencil skirt over snag-free ten-denier tights and a pair of black snakeskin heels. Her hair shone and she was wearing red lipstick that was bold enough to be a fashion statement but just subtle enough to be office-appropriate. Hannah felt a burst of jealousy, not only because, this woman was ten years younger and beautiful, but because she had a job, a career with forward momentum, a reason to get smartly dressed in the morning and go somewhere.

‘Neesha.’ Hannah stood up quickly, thrust the paper into her bag and stepped into the other woman’s path. She watched as her face ran through a quick series of emotions, the initial surprise giving way first to wariness – what was Hannah doing here? Was this about what she’d said on the phone? – and then to friendly professionalism.

‘Hannah – lovely to see you.’ She glanced around and Hannah guessed she was looking for Mark. She drew Neesha slightly off the path, out of view from the doors.