Impetuous Masquerade

‘Oh, Mrs Travis, is Simon there?’ Rhia asked urgently, clutching the plastic handset tightly. ‘I—er—I’d like to speak to him. It is rather—important.’

‘I’m afraid he’s not up yet, Rhia,’ Mrs Travis replied firmly. ‘He’s had such a busy week. I’m sure the poor boy was exhausted.’

‘Well, do you think you could get him up, Mrs Travis?’ Rhia persisted anxiously. ‘I—I wouldn’t trouble you normally, but this is urgent.’

‘What is it? Perhaps I can help.’ Mrs Travis was evidently unprepared to wake up her son and bring him to the phone unless it was absolutely necessary, and Rhia sighed.

‘No. No, I have to speak to Simon,’ she insisted, hearing the older woman’s cluck of impatience. ‘Honestly, Mrs Travis, I wish you would just ask Simon to speak to me.’

‘Oh—very well.’ Mrs Travis gave in. ‘But I trust it’s something important, and not simply a ruse to get him to come round there. He’s promised to set out some seedlings for me this morning, and I want him to do them while it’s fine.’

Rhia didn’t answer her. She couldn’t, and with another sound of irritation, Mrs Travis went away.

It seemed ages before Simon eventually came to the phone. Rhia herself grew impatient, and she sat, drumming her fingernails against the vinyl arm of the couch, inwardly praying that he could help her.

‘Rhia?’ At last, Simon’s unenthusiastic voice broke into her prayers. ‘Mother says you insisted on speaking to me. What is it? Aren’t you feeling well?’

‘I’m—all right.’ In truth, Rhia felt far from well, but it was not something an aspirin could cure. ‘Simon, I have to talk to you. Could you come round to the flat—right away? I don’t know what I’m going to do!’

Her voice broke on the final words, and Simon responded with a little more warmth. ‘Look, Rhia, what is it, love? Can’t you tell me now? You’ve got my undivided attention.’

‘I can’t discuss it over the phone,’ Rhia insisted huskily. ‘You’ve got to come round here, Simon. I’m sorry, I know your mother won’t like it, but I’ve got to see you.’

‘But I am seeing you—this afternoon,’ Simon pointed out reasonably. ‘Can’t—whatever it is wait until then?’

‘No.’

‘Rhia——’

‘Don’t you dare tell me you’ve got some gardening to do!’ Rhia almost screamed the words. ‘Don’t you understand, Simon? This—this is a matter of—of life and death! What do I have to say to make you believe me?’

‘All right, all right.’ Simon spoke hastily, trying to calm her down. ‘Now, don’t get in a panic. I’ll come. I’ll get there just as soon as I possibly can. Just—take it easy.’

‘Take it easy!’ Rhia choked back a sob. ‘All right. But—be as quick as you can, will you?’

After Simon had rung off, Rhia went to get dressed. There was no point in hanging about in her dressing gown. And besides, the police could arrive at any moment. With her clothes on, she would feel infinitely more capable of facing them.

She put on jeans and a mauve silk shirt, and secured her hair at her nape with a leather thong. But she left it loose, having no patience for coiling it up into a neat roll today, and discarded the idea of make-up because her hands were too unsteady.

She was dressed and ready in half an hour, with her bed made and a pot of coffee perking on the ring. But it was fully another hour before Simon turned up, and she looked at her watch pointedly as she let him into the apartment.

‘I know, I know.’ Simon moved his Harris-tweed-clad shoulders half indignantly. ‘But I’d promised Mother to put in some cabbages and cauliflowers——’

‘Cabbages and cauliflowers!’ Rhia almost choked over the words, but she said nothing more until they were both standing in the living room.

She couldn’t help comparing Simon’s broad-shouldered stockiness to the lean-limbed frame of the man who had stood there the night before. There was no similarity between them, and Simon’s reddish-brown thatch bore no resemblance to Jared Frazer’s night-dark head of hair. They were different in so many ways, and she wondered what Simon would say if she told him how savagely Glyn’s uncle had treated her.

‘Well?’ Simon thrust his hands into the hip pockets of his twill trousers. ‘I’m here. What was so urgent it couldn’t wait until three o’clock?’

‘It’s almost that now,’ muttered Rhia childishly, and Simon sighed.

‘It’s half past eleven,’ he corrected her dryly. ‘Hmm, is that coffee I can smell? I could do with a cup.’

‘Haven’t you had any breakfast?’ demanded Rhia sarcastically. ‘I’m sure your mother wouldn’t send you out without the requisite number of calories.’

‘I have had some toast and marmalade,’ Simon admitted, somewhat defensively. ‘Rhia, what is all this about? I knew something was wrong last night, but you wouldn’t discuss it then.’

Rhia went into the small kitchen and poured two cups of coffee, curiously reluctant now he was here to actually broach what she had to say. How would Simon take it? Would he threaten to go to the police? How well did she really know him, when they were not even lovers?

‘It’s Val,’ she said at last, carrying the coffee back into the living room and handing him a cup. Simon had made himself comfortable on the couch, but now he put the paper he had been scanning aside and gave her his full attention. ‘She’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared!’ At least her words had the ability to cause Simon to halt in the process of raising his cup to his lips. ‘What do you mean—she’s disappeared? Has she been abducted—run away? What?’

‘Not abducted,’ declared Rhia definitely, perching on the edge of the chair opposite. ‘She’s taken all her things—at least, all the things she kept here, at the apartment. I don’t think a kidnapper would wait around for her to pack.

Simon stared at her. ‘And—you knew this last night?’

‘No. No, of course not.’

‘So what was upsetting you last night?’

Rhia sighed heavily. Then, in as few words as possible, she explained her meeting with Valentina the previous lunchtime, omitting only the fact that her sister had been driving the car.

‘My God!’ Simon was evidently stunned. ‘And you think she’s run away because she’s afraid she’ll be implicated?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But—what the hell! It wasn’t her fault. I can’t understand why she would feel the need to cut and run. It doesn’t make sense.’

Rhia bit her lip. ‘Perhaps—perhaps there’s more to it,’ she ventured.

‘But what?’ Simon was endearingly obtuse. ‘It seems to me she’d have done far better to admit that she was with him when the accident happened. The police are bound to find out. They always do.’

‘Do they?’ Rhia looked at him anxiously.

‘Of course they do. And in any case, it’s a silly thing to do, running away. It encourages people to think the worst, to imagine you’ve got something to hide.’

‘Perhaps she has.’ Rhia hesitated. ‘Perhaps—perhaps she was driving. How—how about that?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Simon sniffed. ‘Val can’t drive, you know that.’

‘But—what if she was?’ probed Rhia cautiously. ‘I mean, young people do crazy things.’

‘If I thought that, I’d have no sympathy for her,’ retorted Simon grimly, shattering once and for all Rhia’s hopes of confiding everything. ‘No, no. Val may have been reckless, a bit of a tearaway when she was younger, but she wouldn’t do a thing like that. Good heavens, that would mean she was guilty of manslaughter, if the chap dies.’

Rhia buried her nose in her coffee cup. She felt near to desperation herself, and now that Simon had proved so virtuous, where could she turn?

The sound of the doorbell ringing brought her head up however, and what little colour she had drained out of her face. Who was that? she wondered in dismay. The police! Having discovered Valentina was not at the hospital where she worked, had they come looking for her?