Before We Met(92)

‘No, I won’t. What’s going on? Why are you doing this? You told me you were going to work but you haven’t been there, have you? They said they hadn’t seen you all day.’

‘They haven’t.’

To her amazement, Hannah saw that Mark was smiling. She held her hands up in disbelief. ‘What the—?’

‘I didn’t tell you I was going to the office.’

‘You did – you did! This morning.’

He shook his head. ‘You assumed I was and I let you believe it because it was the easiest thing. I said there would be a police car at the office but I didn’t say I was going there.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘Forget it. I can’t take any more of this. Here.’ She thrust the newspaper at him.

He took it then reached for her hand. ‘Come with me.’ He started walking back towards the door.

‘Now what? Mark . . .’

‘Just come with me.’ He was smiling again.

Outside, he led her twenty yards along the pavement then stopped. ‘What do you think? Do you like it?’

‘What are you taking about?’ For several seconds she didn’t understand.

‘This.’ He handed her a car key.

She stared at it and then, looking up, she followed his gaze to the car parked at the kerb, a navy blue Audi TT.

‘It’s yours,’ he said.

She looked at him.

‘I ordered it a while ago – the navy blue was a custom colour; it had to be painted specially – but it arrived yesterday.’

‘Mark . . . I . . .’

‘In a way, it’s perfect timing. It’s still a present but it’s an apology now, too, for all this . . . the situation. I’m so sorry you’ve been dragged into it, Han. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’





Chapter Twenty-two

The bathroom door opened and Mark emerged in a cloud of steam scented with his sage cologne, a towel wrapped round his waist. The hair on his chest was matted with water.

‘It’s Saturday,’ she said.

‘I know, and I hate leaving you, I really hate it, but it’s just a few more days.’ He looked at The Times that had been delivered with the breakfast tray. Nick and Hermione were on page seven. ‘I was lying awake all night thinking about it,’ he said. ‘If the papers are using the old photographs of him, it means they’re looking at the old stories, doesn’t it? David got a call from a guy at the FT yesterday who’d heard a rumour about the buy-out – if someone puts two and two together and Kevin Meyer at Systema hears about it, we’re buggered. I’ve got to get this deal done before it all blows up in our faces, and the only thing I can do until Tuesday is make sure everything’s ready.’

He bent to get his jeans out of his bag. ‘Why don’t you give your brother and Lydia a ring? I’d feel better if I knew you weren’t on your own. You could go over to theirs or have lunch somewhere, go to a gallery. That new Matisse show must be open now – I don’t mind if you see it first.’

‘I’m meant to be seeing Tom for a drink on Monday. But, yes, I’ll ring him.’

‘Good.’ Mark pulled a jumper over his head then picked up his phone and car keys from the bedside table. ‘It might be later rather than sooner this evening, maybe sevenish. Perhaps you could take me for another spin in your new wheels when I get back?’

He smiled and she smiled back, trying to look natural. ‘I should think that could be arranged.’

The car. In the strange hinterland between wakefulness and sleep this morning, she’d really wondered for a moment whether she’d dreamed it. It was gorgeous, exactly what she would have chosen herself if she’d ever had that sort of money to spare, but the suddenness of it, the fact that he’d bought it without telling her, and that it had arrived now, in the middle of all this, made it feel odd and unreal. They’d driven out towards Heathrow last night so she could try it on the motorway and as she’d accelerated, feeling the power of the engine as it went from seventy to eighty, almost to ninety, without any strain at all, she’d felt as if she’d stolen it.

‘Will you text me when you know where you’re going to be?’ he said.

As soon as the door closed after him, silence flooded the room. She put the television on and left the bathroom door open so she could hear it while she showered. Shutting her eyes, she let the water drum on her face. In the surprise and confusion about the Audi last night it had been pushed to the back of her mind but during her now-usual early-hours vigil, it had come pressing on her again, even stronger, the nagging sensation that there was something she’d forgotten.