Dark Paradise

Almost reluctantly, she looked again, aware of a sense of foreboding.

It was Alison all right. That blonde head was unmistakable, and so was the way she moved her hands when the conversation became animated.

Kate couldn’t see her companion. There was a waiter in the way, and she watched tensely, willing the man to move.

‘Mange-touts, madame?’ The slightly reproachful tone of their own waiter indicated it was probably the second time of asking.

‘Please,’ she said, aware of Clive’s puzzled look. She forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry—I thought I saw someone I knew. But I was mistaken.’

The view to the table where Alison was sitting was unimpeded now, but she made herself pick up her knife and fork, taste the chateaubriand, pass an appreciative remark before she looked again.

There wasn’t much to see. The back of a man’s dark head, the breadth of his shoulders under an expensive jacket. And certainly not Jon. Which led to the question—what was her sister-in-law doing having lunch in one of London’s top restaurants with another man after barely a year of marriage?

Not merely another man, either. That lightning glance had told her all the bad news. Alison was with Matt Lincoln.

Kate would have known that arrogant tilt of the head anywhere, she thought bitterly, even if Alison herself hadn’t given the secret away. How many times had she seen that same expression of pleasure and absorption lighting up Alison’s face, usually accompanying some anecdote in which ‘Matt said’ or ‘Matt did …’

Such a pretty girl, her family had agreed, and clever too to hold down such a responsible job, because Matt Lincoln, her boss, was a name to be reckoned with in the world of television. He’d started out as a journalist, switched to TV news reporting, and then moved into the area of current affairs, producing and presenting a hard-hitting series of documentaries which had already collected a small clutch of prized awards.

Kate had watched and admired, even if she had reservations about the man himself. He was clever, ruthless and possessed of a sexual charisma that was almost tangible, and she didn’t like or trust men like that—men who were invulnerable, who marched through life like archetypal lords of creation.

His documentaries were brilliant, of course. He was an ace investigative journalist, and his targets were left with their villainies and weaknesses totally exposed. People rarely emerged with credit once Matt Lincoln’s searchlight had been trained on them.

Kate had sometimes wondered what his victims did with the ruin of their lives when it was all over. She’d mentioned this once to Alison, who had stared at her in amazement and asked what it mattered?

‘They’re crooks,’ she had said with calm confidence. ‘All of them, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Save your sympathy for the people they’ve conned and swindled.’

The spark in her blue eyes added silently, ‘And don’t criticise Matt to me, because he can do no wrong.’

Alison was very different from the majority of the girl-friends Jon had brought home, and this was what had made Kate suspect that this time it might be serious—at least with him. She wasn’t so sure about Alison’s feelings. After all, she had a glamorous job. She accompanied Matt Lincoln everywhere—even abroad. She met everyone that he met, and clearly enjoyed every exuberant moment of it, so would she be prepared to jettison all that for marriage with an assistant solicitor in a suburban legal practice?

Kate loved Jon, and always had, but she had no illusions about him. He was attractive, without being an Adonis, and possessed of a quiet charm, but might not his personality seem pallid when compared with Matt Lincoln’s arrogant forcefulness?

She knew without being told that Jon had misgivings too, although she hadn’t the slightest doubt that he was in love with Alison, and one evening when they’d had the house to themselves, he’d confided in her.

‘The trouble is I can’t figure out the situation,’ he’d said gloomily. ‘She’s worked with him closely for nearly two years, she’s travelled the world with him, she mentions him in every other breath, and yet I don’t know how heavily she’s been involved with him—if at all.’

Kate felt her way carefully. ‘Is it important that you do know?’

He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘Yes. I wish it wasn’t.’

‘Then can’t you ask?’

‘I’ve tried,’ he said unhappily. ‘Part of the problem is I feel a swine for probing. I keep telling myself that I love her, and therefore I should trust her. I really want to—and yet…’

Kate understood what he was trying to convey. Her mother had been a widow when she met Jon’s father, but Michael Herbert had been divorced, and gradually it had emerged that his wife had left him for another man when Jon was quite small. Jon had been a reticent child, but gradually he had learned to relax under the influence of his stepmother’s gentle serenity, and to accept and even return the affection which was offered.

Yet always at the back of his mind there had to be the memory of what his mother had done, she thought, which probably explained this strange streak of possessiveness he was displaying towards Alison.

She said gently, ‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about. After all, it’s the future you should be concerned with, not what’s past.’

He had smiled ruefully, running a caressing finger down the curve of her cheek. ‘Like you, Kate?’ Then, seeing her face change, he said swiftly, ‘No, I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean it.’

‘No, I asked for it.’ Kate forced a smile. ‘It’s really a case of “Physician, heal thyself”, isn’t it? But the thing is, Jon, you don’t know that there’s been anything between Alison and Matt Lincoln. Not every secretary has an affair with her boss, you know.’ She giggled suddenly. ‘Has Alison ever speculated about you and Miss Chalmers?’

Jon laughed too, his pleasant face relaxing. ‘I doubt it, but then if Miss Chalmers was in her thirties instead of her fifties, and diabolically attractive to boot, perhaps she might.’

Whatever his reservations, he had obviously managed to overcome them, because he and Alison had been married only a couple of months later, and Matt Lincoln had been one of the guests at the wedding—as Kate had good reason to remember, she thought with a sudden stiffening of her spine.

Clive’s voice cut plaintively across her reverie. ‘I have the oddest feeling I’m lunching alone. Come back to me, Kate.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She ate another mouthful with feigned enthusiasm, because she might as well have been chewing cardboard.

‘Still spotting familiar faces?’ Clive signalled the wine waiter to pour some more into her glass. ‘This is the place for them.’

‘I think it is,’ Kate said wryly, mourning her wonderful meal. She would have to lie and say she wasn’t very hungry. She could hardly say, ‘My sister-in-law is over there having a whale of a time with the man she used to work for, who may or may not have been her lover, and knowing what this could do to Jon has ruined my appetite.’

But that was the truth. Because Kate was ready to swear it had been quite some time since Alison had worn that particular glow for her husband. ‘Teething troubles,’ Kate’s mother had said, and she was probably quite right. For all Kate knew, Alison was lunching here with Matt with Jon’s blessing and approbation, only she didn’t believe it for one moment, because if there was going to be a bone of contention between the newlyweds, then it was likely to be called Matt Lincoln.

She supposed it would be the easiest thing in the world to walk across as they were leaving and say hello, and gauge what was going on from Alison’s reaction, but she knew she wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t risk seeing a look of guilt on her sister-in-law’s face, although Matt Lincoln would no doubt find the situation amusing in the extreme.

She could remember reading an article in a magazine quoting him as castigating what he termed ‘Suburban morality’ for concerning itself too much with trivial sins, and closing its eyes to the deeper crimes against humanity being perpetrated somewhere in the world each day.

Probably Matt Lincoln would regard the seduction of someone else’s wife as a very trivial sin, she thought stormily.

‘Is something wrong?’ Clive’s tone was worried. ‘You look as if you’re about to plunge that knife into someone!’

She forced a laugh. ‘Well, I promise it isn’t you, Clive. I’m afraid I’m just poor company today.’

‘You’re never that,’ he said warmly. ‘Is something bothering you? Can I help?’

She said, ‘It’s a family matter,’ and determinedly changed the subject. The dreaded Felicity’s latest book was a slight departure from her usual style, and Kate was wondering how far Clive expected the jacket and illustrations to reflect this. It was a good ploy and occupied them for the rest of lunch.

The next time Kate allowed her glance to slide towards the other table, it was to note with relief that it was unoccupied. Alison and her companion had departed—perhaps to go their separate ways, or perhaps not.

Clive said ruefully, ‘All we’ve done is talk about work, and that’s the last thing I intended.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Perhaps I should wait for a time when I can count on all your attention.’

He wanted to call a taxi for her, but she refused, saying she felt like walking.

It was a beautiful day, crisply autumnal, reminding her of horse-chestnut trees and bonfires. Alison and Jon had been married on a day just like this, she recalled, and the sun had been so warm that the guests had spilled out on to the terrace and lawns of the riverside hotel where the reception was being held.

Kate had been chief bridesmaid, in a topaz crěpe dress with a high ruffled neck, her curling chestnut hair drawn into a casually pretty topknot. She didn’t outshine the bride—Alison managed to look ethereal and radiant in her white silk organza—but she looked and felt good, and Jon’s unattached friends buzzed round her like flies round a honeypot. After Jon and Alison had left for Paris, there was going to be a family dinner that evening, and Jon’s best man, a friend since their schooldays, was escorting her in the traditional manner, and she declined all the other offers with smiling charm.

And all the time she was intensely aware that she was under surveillance.

If Kate was providing a centre of attention for the men, then Matt Lincoln was the same and more for the women. He was the celebrity guest, and it could only be a matter of time before someone actually asked him for an autograph, Kate thought cynically. Wherever he went there was an adoring group like satellite moons round a planet, but she supposed that wasn’t altogether his fault. Even without the glamour imposed by television, Matt Lincoln was formidable, exuding a vibrantly masculine aura. No one with blood in her veins could have overlooked him even for a moment, and Kate was annoyed to find how often her own eyes were straying in his direction.

‘For God’s sake,’ she adjured herself irritably, ‘haven’t you learned your lesson?’