‘She wanted you to seduce her brother,’ said Rachel, filling in the gaps.
‘She said she hated his wife and wanted to break them up. She made it sound like a noble gesture. Painted the wife to be quite the Wicked Witch of the West.’
‘So you went along with it.’
‘Elizabeth said that if I managed to pull it off, she’d give me fifty thousand quid. Fifty thousand quid!’ she repeated, her eyes lighting up. ‘I mean, that was two years’ wages for most people, more where I come from. So Elizabeth got me a ticket for an event Julian was going to and, well, I can’t say he offered much resistance to my charms.’ She smiled. ‘By the end of the night I’d given him a blow job in the back of his Bentley. The next day, he sent me a necklace.’
‘So it was just a job?’ said Rachel, trying her hardest to hide her shock.
‘Of sorts,’ Susie said honestly.
‘Did you know what Elizabeth had planned? Did you know she was going to shop you to the newspapers?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I really stopped to think how it would all pan out. I’d been given the fifty grand by this point and I was sleeping with Julian. I mean, I might even have done it for free if I’d known how handsome and charming he was going to be.’
‘You liked him?’
‘I did,’ she said quietly. ‘It was hard not to fall a little bit in love with Julian Denver. He was different from all those other men from the nightclubs, you see. He was smart, generous. And he never once talked about his wife, not like some I’d met. They treated you like a whore, made it clear from the start that they were married and this was just sex. Julian wasn’t like that. He made you feel special.’
She puffed out her cheeks and turned to the window as if she were getting emotional once more.
‘We saw each other for about a month. I lied to him – told him I was twenty-one. We had a good time together. Then Elizabeth came to see me and said that the tabloids had got hold of the story.’
‘You didn’t send those photos to the paper, then?’
She shook her head emphatically. ‘No way! I was terrified; I thought my dad would kill me when he saw what I’d been up to.’
‘Surely you realised you might end up in the papers if you started dating rich men like that?’
‘Why?’ said Susie, turning back round. ‘It wasn’t as if I was going after footballers or celebrities. Julian was just a rich businessman. Sure, I knew he was in the newspapers occasionally, but he was hardly Tom Cruise, was he? I was never interested in doing kiss-and-tells – I just wanted a nice life for myself, that’s all.’
‘So what did Elizabeth do?’
‘She encouraged me to co-operate with the paper. She said that the story was going to run, run big, so I might as well go along with them.’
‘How did she know it was going to run big?’
Susie snorted. ‘I heard a rumour she was sleeping with the editor.’
Rachel couldn’t find her breath. ‘She was having an affair with Alistair Hall?’
‘I don’t know about that. But she certainly had him where she wanted him. The story was going to be a splash, so I thought I might as well make a bit of money out of it. But I wasn’t stupid, I knew I had more leverage than that. I told Elizabeth that I could let it slip that she had orchestrated the whole thing.’ She laughed at the memory – as if she had outwitted the great Elizabeth Denver. ‘She had more to lose than I did if the truth came out. So I played hardball, got a few little sweeteners added to the deal.’
‘Sweeteners? What like?’
‘Elizabeth used her connections. I did as I was told, sat tight for twelve months, living off the Post’s money, waiting for everyone to forget my name. Then Elizabeth got me a job with a PR firm in Dublin. I started going by the name of Susan Mack. No one recognised me. No one asked too many questions because I had a powerful mentor. And four years on’ – she waved a hand around her office – ‘here I am, on a six-figure salary, under my own steam. And now I don’t owe anyone anything.’ She looked at Rachel, daring her to say different.
‘Do you still see Elizabeth?’
Susie shook her head. ‘I’d served my purpose; I was a liability as far as she was concerned. And by then, I was glad to get away from her. She scared me, if I’m honest. If she could do that to her own brother, what would she do to me if I dared to cross her?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘But then she called again a couple of weeks ago. To talk about you.’
‘Me?’ Rachel sat forward, her attention focused on the other woman.
‘It was just after Julian’s death had been in the papers. She reminded me that I couldn’t breathe a word about our little arrangement. Made a few veiled threats and said I might get a call from you. She knew what you were doing, that you were asking questions about Julian’s life.’
Rachel frowned. ‘If Elizabeth threatened you, why are you telling me all this now?’
‘Julian was alwa