‘What’s wrong? Have you two had a fight?’
Ros hesitated before she spoke, knowing that she had to be sensitive. She wasn’t sure whether Sam was over her own heartbreak. Brian had disappeared off the face of the earth after the night of Jonathon Soames’s dinner party, leaving Sam utterly distraught and bewildered. Ros had been forced to explain what had gone on at the DAG office, which had led in part to Sam deciding to step back from their activities. But what had upset Sam just as much as Brian’s vanishing act, the fact that she had been lied to, and that he had put them all in danger, was that she hadn’t really known her boyfriend at all. Right now, Ros could sympathise.
‘A fight? Not exactly,’ she said quietly.
‘Then what is it? You don’t think he’s still upset about that row you had at Miss Fancy Pants’ villa in Antibes?’
Ros didn’t like to think about that. The entire holiday had been so magical, but that last night at Les Cyprès had caused unmistakable tension in the subsequent days.
‘I don’t know. He certainly doesn’t like me talking about the expedition.’
‘Because he knows you disapprove.’
‘Thanks to Victoria,’ said Ros.
Sam settled forward and looked her friend in the eye.
‘Trust no one,’ she said finally. ‘I’m not convinced Victoria had your best interests at heart when she gave you the lecture about keeping him on a leash.’
‘I don’t want him on a leash. I just don’t want him going off with other women, and I certainly don’t want him to get killed in the jungle. But you’re right, I don’t trust Victoria.’
Ros felt embarrassed to admit the next thing, but Sam was the only person she could talk to.
‘Victoria warned me that Dominic might stray,’ she said, voicing the suspicion she had kept down inside her. ‘But I think he might be straying with her.’
Sam gasped. ‘Surely they wouldn’t be that brazen?’
‘Who knows what people are capable of.’ She cast her friend a glance, and they both knew they were thinking about Brian.
‘Something just doesn’t feel right,’ Ros said finally. ‘He hates taking phone calls when I’m around. And on at least half a dozen occasions I’ve picked up the phone and the person at the other end has just hung up. I’ve brought it up with him but he dismisses it as wrong numbers and crank callers. Apparently he gets a lot of those at the Capital office because of the polemics they run.’
‘I can understand that,’ shrugged Sam.
> ‘The other day I wanted to meet him for coffee. He was very cagey. One minute he said he had to go to a meeting. An hour later he mentioned he was going somewhere else. So I followed him.’
‘Ros, you didn’t.’
‘Look, I’m not exactly proud of myself, but if he’s having an affair with someone, with her, I have to know.’
‘What happened?’
‘He left his office and got the tube to South Kensington.’
‘Doesn’t she live around there?’
Ros nodded. ‘In some enormous pile on Egerton Crescent. The London house,’ she said with a hint of sarcasm.
‘Is that where he went?’
‘Well, no,’ said Ros, her shoulders slumping. ‘He went into the Brompton Oratory. He was in there about ten minutes, then he came out and disappeared down Knightsbridge.’
‘Did you follow him into the Oratory?’
‘No.’
‘Then why are you suspicious?’ Sam gave a little laugh to lighten the mood. ‘Don’t say you’ve got visions of him having nooky with Victoria on a church pew.’
Ros sipped her coffee. She didn’t know whether Sam was being incredibly naïve, or whether her own feelings for Dominic were sending her mad. It was her default setting to see conspiracy everywhere. She thought the Russians were in league with the Chinese, that the World Bank was more like a global dictatorship and that, quite possibly, the Americans had had prior knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor but had allowed it to happen to justify an attack on the Japanese. But when it came to affairs of the heart, she had always been quite uncomplicated. Previous relationships had failed to take root because she hadn’t been in love, and she was certainly not the sort of girl to be with someone for the sake of it.