‘So you were doing me a favour, is that it? You exposed him in the national press as a way of helping me out, his poor ignorant wife who needed to have all her stupid illusions shattered. Is that what you were doing?’
‘Yes,’ said Rachel. Her voice was barely audible.
‘Well it didn’t feel like it, Rachel. It felt like you were breaking my heart.’
Diana looked down and realised she was still clutching the crumpled news report. She walked over to the desk and, smoothing it out, left it on top of the file where she had found it. Then she opened the Lake House door.
‘Di, please . . .’
Diana shook her head. ‘I can’t speak to you. I don’t even want to look at you.’ She turned around and walked out into the night. Behind her, she heard Rachel’s voice.
‘Diana, wait!’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, what now? Do you want me to finish the job or not?’
Diana snorted and shook her head. ‘I think it’s the least you can do,’ she said. And she turned back towards the house.
20
Rachel had never really enjoyed air travel. Turbulence or the thought of crashing didn’t scare her; it was just that she was naturally a doer, and therefore sitting still for eight hours as she and Ross crossed the Atlantic was her idea of hell.
‘Why don’t you just do like I do and take advantage of the bar?’ said Ross, clearly enjoying the perks of business class. ‘It’s all free, you know.’
Rachel shook her head. She had watched her companion sink three generous Scotches already, and they hadn’t even served the in-flight meal yet. Experience had taught her that it was never a good idea to drink on the plane, that your hangover always seemed to exaggerate the jet lag, or was it the other way around? Besides, she wanted to be clear-headed when they got to Washington. After her horrible row with Diana the day before, she certainly felt as though she owed her sister the courtesy of doing her job to the best of her abilities, not half-cut.
She had gone over their argument again and again since she had boarded the plane, even confessing the details to Ross, who had simply nodded and explained that honesty was invariably the best policy before suggesting she have a champagne cocktail to forget about it.
But Rachel couldn’t forget about it. She had never been able to forget that hot, dusky night in Tuscany. It had been a real treat to spend a week somewhere as beautiful and luxurious as the Denvers’ palazzo. It wasn’t her world. Foreign trips were generally of the chasing-celebrities-around-Cannes-film-festival or press-junket type, and they had been getting increasingly rare as office budgets were slashed and she was forced to spend more time behind her desk. She could see it now, the stunning palazzo surrounded by poppy fields, olive groves and cypress trees. She could smell the lavender and the bougainvillea, taste the lobster risotto and almond biscuits cooked by the household chef, feel the warm water of the infinity pool against her sun-roasted skin as she dived through its surface. And she could hear the footsteps behind her in the darkness, tap, tap, expensive leather against cold stone, as she walked down the path towards her room, a single-storey cottage in the grounds.
She hadn’t thought to ask Julian why he had followed her – after all, her cottage was some distance from the palazzo. But he was drunk, and so was she. It had been his birthday the previous day, and they were all still high from the free-flowing champagne and the furtive lines of cocaine. After a few minutes of polite chat they had both fallen silent and all she had been able to hear was the distant shrieks and laughter of those guests still around the pool, and the sound of cicadas on the warm evening air. That was when he had kissed her. Or tried to. Pressing her against the wooden door of her cottage, sliding his hand down the back of her skirt until his fingers touched the top of her thong, breathing into her ear that he had always wanted her, that no one needed to know, that it could be their little secret. He was making an offer Rachel had no doubt would have been attractive to almost any of the women at that villa: to be Julian’s mistress, his bit on the side.
Instead, Rachel had kneed him in the groin and, while he was doubled up on the floor, had whispered in his ear, ‘If I hear that you have played around on my sister ever again, I will make the pain you are in right now feel like a kiss.’
Clearly he hadn’t listened – and that was why she and Ross were flying across the Atlantic to talk to the family of a girl Julian had almost certainly been screwing. What the hell was it about these men? Why couldn’t they keep their cocks in their pants? Did they really do it just because they could? A combination of weakness and male arrogance that made them overlook the little detail that they were married.
She looked over at Ross. Of course, it didn’t always work that way. She didn’t know the whole story of his relationship, but she knew that his wife had cheated on him with the man from the local dry-cleaner’s, citing Ross’s frequent nights away on stakeouts as reason enough. If he had been rich, would she have put up with his absences? Turned a blind eye?
Love just didn’t work the way it should, not the way it did in books and songs, anyway. She thought of Liam for a moment, wishing she had stayed – wishing he had asked her to stay. But no, like everyone else, he had thought she should go. ‘Be with your sister.’
Well, that was all going so well, wasn’t it?
In Thailand, Rachel had seen real poverty. In Ko Tao there was a whole fishing village made from bamboo, thatched palm leaves and rusting corrugated iron. Beyond their nets and the clothes they stood up in, those people had nothing, but, being Buddhists, they were genuinely happy to share their last bowl of rice with you. Pulling up outside the Kopek residence, Rachel certainly didn’t get that feeling of forbearance and togetherness. They had picked up a hire car at Dulles airport and driven a hundred miles west, towards the Appalachians, until they came to Rocksburgh, Maryland, pop. 2,347. Growing up, Rachel had always considered America to be the most starry and glamorous of destinations. It was Disneyland and movie stars, Pacific beaches and city skyscrapers. But this was not the USA of her dreams. This was poor, neglected America, where old pick-up trucks grumbled down highways dotted with trailer parks and empty lots full of junk.
‘Look at this place,’ said Ross, taking a moment to study the view. ‘I feel like I’ve stepped back in time, not driven an hour and a half out of Washington.’
Rachel had seen trailer parks in the movies before, but she had never actually been to one. Some of the plots were well tended and tidy, with the trailers themselves resembling small, shingle-fronted houses. Others were unkempt, the trailers more like the caravans from the rain-swept holidays of her childhood, their yards cluttered with rusting cars and discarded furniture. A dog – a mongrel with xylophone ribs and a foaming mouth – barked at them from the next lot, and Rachel was glad to see it was securely chained up. She thought of Madison Kopek with her shiny blond hair and her college degree – the amount of ambition it must have taken her to get out of here, it was no surprise she had managed to find her way into Julian Denver’s life.
Pamela Kopek’s house was one of the larger properties. It was timber-fronted, with grilles at the windows, and rimmed by flower beds full of plants that had wilted in the heat.
‘Do you think we should have phoned ahead to say we were coming?’ said Rachel, waiting for someone to answer the door.
‘It was tough enough getting her address,’ said Ross. ‘We didn’t want to risk spooking her.’
He knocked again, but there was no answer, apart from the furious barking of the dog.
‘She could be out at work,’ said Rachel.