The Ashford Affair Page 32

  Frederick carried a cup over to her. “You look like you need this.”

  It was tea, not coffee, made just as she liked it, brick red with a dash of cream, no sugar. She wanted to howl with frustration. She wanted to fling the cup across the clearing and hear it crash against a tree. She wanted to storm and rage and break crockery like Bea.

  Addie took the cup from him in hands that were surprisingly steady. “Thank you,” she said primly.

  “Is that coffee?” Val Vaughn strolled into the clearing, unwinding his scarf from around his neck.

  “Where’s Bea?” asked Frederick.

  “Why would I know?” Vaughn helped himself from the pot on the table. “Is there any food left, or have you all scarfed it?”

  “Didn’t Bea fly out with you?” asked Addie.

  “Not this morning.” Vaughn lounged against the table, his leather flying jacket open over a white linen shirt. “I just did a quick loop to see which way the game was wending. Is the old girl still snoring away on her cot?”

  “You’re lying,” said Raoul hotly. “You’ve run off with her.”

  Vaughn eyed him askance. “I hate to point this out, de Fontaine, but to have run off with Bea, I would have to have run off. Unless you are all the victims of a rather convincing hallucination, I appear to be rather palpably present. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I wouldn’t agree if you told me the grass was green,” retorted de Fontaine furiously.

  “Wise lad,” said Vaughn. “It isn’t. It’s more of a beigy brown.”

  De Fontaine made a wordless noise of frustration.

  “Bea’s gone missing,” said Frederick to Vaughn.

  Vaughn looked at the scratch on Frederick’s face but said nothing.

  “Maybe she went for a walk?” suggested Addie. Bea had never been the walking type, but, as Vaughn had pointed out, it would be rather hard for her to have run off when anyone with whom she might have run off was right here in the clearing. Or, more likely— “Are all the cars here?”

  “As far as I can tell,” said Vaughn. “I had the Hispano-Suiza, and the two Fords are in the clearing.”

  Budgie set down his rag and cracked the pieces of his gun back into place with one swift, efficient movement. “This isn’t Sussex. It isn’t safe to wander about alone. Desborough. Come with me?”

  “I’ll go,” said Raoul.

  “Not by yourself,” said Budgie. “Dammit, man, I don’t need to lose two of you. Come with us. If she’s gone to bag something by herself, I’ll have a piece of her hide.”

  He stalked off, and the other two followed, leaving Addie sitting on her crate and Vaughn standing by the table, looking contemplatively after them.

  “Did you see anything from the aeroplane?” Addie asked tentatively.

  Vaughn’s head turned sharply. He drained his coffee, waiting until the last drop was gone before he responded carelessly, “I was looking for elephants. They’re on a rather different scale.” He put down his empty coffee cup. “Shall we? We can’t let the Frog have all the fun.”

  Vaughn always sounded as though he was speaking in subtext, but there was an odd undercurrent to his words that made Addie distinctly uneasy. The idea that he was willing to join the search at all was disturbing enough. She would have expected him to pour another cup of coffee, stretch out his legs, and announce it was no affair of his.

  Addie heard herself asking, “Do you think she’s all right?”

  Vaughn gazed out across the brush, his blue eyes hooded. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  Vaughn looked down at her. “On how many of her nine lives she’s already used up.”

  There was a shout from up ahead, and a burst of excitable French. Addie abandoned Vaughn, thrashing forward through the brush. All the men seemed to be talking at once, talking and expostulating.

  Raoul held something up, waving it in the air, a creeper of some kind, long and brown and twisted.

  “What is it? Is that—” Addie skidded to a stop next to Frederick and felt her breath catch in her throat.

  That wasn’t a creeper Raoul was holding up. It was a scarf. A long chiffon scarf. It had once been a pale green, but now it was stained through, streaked with something that had dyed it a rusty brown.

  “Call the bearers,” said Budgie sharply. “We need everyone to search. Now.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  New York, 2000

  “Come in and close the door.”

  Paul was waiting for her, kicked back in his massive magenta desk chair behind a glossy mahogany desk that looked like Paul had nabbed it from J. P. Morgan. He didn’t stand when she entered; he never did. It was part of the power play.

  Behind Paul, on the credenza, sat the framed photos of Paul’s hypothetical children—hypothetical because Clemmie had never seen any hard evidence of their existence. The glass-covered shelves behind him were stocked with law books—no plebeian binders for Paul. Those were kept in Joan’s cubicle, along with all the rest of the actual apparatus of legal productivity.

  Following his instructions, Clemmie closed the door gently behind her, holding her yellow legal pad under one arm, a black pen clipped to the top. Paul’s pens were for Paul only. Many an associate had learned that the hard way.

  “I hope you had a good holiday,” he said in the false cheerful voice he used when he was trying to be chummy.

  Clemmie stared at him. Really? He knew her grandmother had died; he’d bitched enough about Clemmie missing work for it.

  She swallowed her snarky comment and crossed the office to her usual chair across from Paul’s desk. Deep breaths. Just suck it up. That was the only way to deal with Paul. In a day or so, the partnership announcement would be out and she’d never have to kowtow to the Pauls of the firm again. Instead, she’d be sitting with him at the partners’ lunch table and he could just lump it.

  Yes, good image. She’d just hold on to that one. Once someone made partner, there was no way to unmake them. She could be as snarky to Paul as she liked and there’d be nothing he could do about it. It was a remarkably soothing thought.

  Clemmie sat, balancing her yellow legal pad on the slippery polyester of her pin-striped skirt. “Joan said you wanted to see me?”

  There was a plastic football Paul kept on his desk, a little novelty one. He tossed it up in the air and caught it again. “Yes.”

  Up the football went again. And down. Clemmie waited. And waited. Meanwhile, her BlackBerry, attached to her waistband by its own special clip, buzzed and buzzed again.

  Any year now …

  “You’re probably wondering why I wanted to see you,” said Paul.

  Clemmie sat up straighter in her chair. It was faux Louis XIV, with slippery satin upholstery. “If it’s about PharmaNet, I’ve been coordinating with Harold while I’ve been away,” she said briskly. “I have the latest copies of the internal reports as well as an indexed binder excerpting the pertinent testimony.”

  Two paralegals had given up their New Year’s Eve for that.

  “No, no.” Paul frowned. “Although now that you mention it—Joan!”

  “Yes?” The suspiciously regular rattle of typing cut off and Joan popped her head around the door.

  Clemmie had to hand it to her; Joan had put up with a daily dose of Paul for nearly five years now, even if she had gone on a bender at last year’s Christmas party and used a couple of cocktail franks to rather graphically illustrate just what she’d like to do to him if he made her retype his f-ing briefs one more time. No one had wanted to eat the cocktail franks after that.

  Paul leaned sideways. “Tell Harold I want to see him once I’m done with Clementine. In, say … five minutes.”

  “Gotcha.” Joan disappeared around the door.

  Paul settled back in his chair, kicking it back. “Where were we?”

  Clemmie had no idea. All she knew was that she needed coffee and she needed it now. “PharmaNet?”

  Paul steepled his fingers. “I supp
ose you could say this does have to do with PharmaNet,” he said thoughtfully. “You are aware that you left us in a difficult position in London, leaving without warning.”

  “I told you as soon as I—”

  “Hmph.” Paul hushed her with a hand gesture. “It didn’t look good. Gordon wasn’t pleased. We’d told him we’d have a senior associate present and we walked in with a first year. Not good.”

  “I certainly didn’t intend—”

  “It was a highly awkward situation,” said Paul. “It’s not the sort of image we like to project.”

  Awkward? It had been a hell of a lot more than awkward for her.

  “My grandmother was dying,” said Clemmie flatly.

  “Yes, you mentioned.” Paul waved that aside. “Even before that, though, some of your comments about PharmaNet’s marketing practices—I know you meant them just for our ears, Clementine, but you never know who might be listening. That was very unwise.”

  Clemmie struggled to remember. Was this all because she had questioned their off-label marketing of drugs to the elderly? “I was trying to protect the best interests of the client.”

  Paul shook his head sadly. “That’s just the problem, Clementine. If it had been an accident—but that sort of choice goes to your judgment.”

  He looked at her intently, as though waiting for her to say something. Clemmie had no idea what he was waiting for.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “reasonable people disagree.”

  Paul looked at her pityingly. “In a law-school hypothetical, perhaps.” He took up the football, squeezing the plastic seams. Clemmie resisted the urge to snatch it away from him. She hated that damn thing. “As I’m sure you know, the partnership committee met last week. The announcement will be made tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” Clemmie said warily. “I had heard something to that effect.”

  Paul leaned back in his chair, narrowly missing conking his head on a studio picture of his theoretical offspring. “As your team leader, I wanted to speak to you personally before the memo went out.”

  “Thank you?” said Clemmie.

  Paul settled the football on the desk, leaning both hands on it. “I want you to know that everyone on the committee spoke very highly of the work that you’ve done here.”

  Since it felt redundant to say thank you again, Clemmie just nodded. Please, just get this done, she thought, please say congratulations and let me leave. No more torture. No more plastic football.

  “But there were some concerns voiced. About your commitment”—Paul looked meaningfully at her—“and your judgment.”

  What? Clemmie nearly lost her grip on her yellow legal pad. She grabbed at it just before it slid off her lap. She could feel the sweat beginning under her armpits, prickling against the nylon of her Banana Republic blouse.

  “In the end, the committee decided that it just wasn’t a chance we could take. It was a tough decision,” he added. “We do want you to know that.”

  Tough? Clemmie’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. Tough? She’d spent twenty hours a day, seven days a week, in this building. She’d blown off her family, her friends. She had no idea what was on television because she hadn’t watched it since law school. She hadn’t read a book since—well, did they still make them out of parchment? She’d missed her own goddaughter’s christening because of a fire drill that turned out to be a false alarm. She’d broken off her fucking engagement for the firm. He had to be kidding.

  “You aren’t serious.”

  Paul did his best to look concerned and understanding. “We all think very highly of your abilities as an associate, Clementine—but what makes a good associate isn’t necessarily what makes a good partner. There are certain qualities we look for in a CPM partner.”

  “Qualities like yours?” Clemmie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t.

  Sarcasm wasn’t Paul’s strong suit. “Precisely,” he said, looking pleased.

  So, basically, if she’d been a raging asshole with no managerial skills, she’d be fine?

  “This isn’t happening,” she muttered.

  She was asleep, she was hallucinating, she was—she didn’t know, but this couldn’t be real. She had busted her butt for so long, never put a foot out of line, always put the firm first …

  “Naturally,” said Paul, “we hope you’ll consider staying on as a senior associate. Everyone admires your output and we’d love to keep you here at the firm if we can. It’s not your work product anyone has issues with,” he said kindly, “just your judgment.”

  “Thanks.” She was going to be ill. She felt like throwing up, if there’d been anything in her stomach to go. All she’d had this morning was half a cup of cold coffee, the dregs of her cut-price coffee machine.

  “If you do decide to go elsewhere, we hope you’ll think fondly of CPM. I know several of our clients would be happy to have you on board their in-house teams—”

  She couldn’t take this. Seven years. Seven years she had given up so she could be told she didn’t have the right qualities? Paul’s voice went on and on, in-house work, client relationships, giving work back to CPM, blah, blah, blah. As if she were meant to be grateful. Grateful for what? For kissing his ass for two years? For never taking a holiday off? For spending her birthday doing twenty-two hours of doc review and sleeping the remaining two under her desk next to the frayed bits of lettuce from the previous night’s salad? Yeah, right, sure.

  Clutching the carved arm of the chair, Clemmie heaved herself upright. The yellow legal pad slid off her lap, onto the faux Aubusson rug that covered the industrial green carpet. It didn’t make a sound. Neither did she.

  “Clementine?” Paul broke off in confusion.

  Her legs felt wobbly. She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She didn’t have to do this anymore. Screw Paul. Screw CPM.

  “Clementine!”

  Clemmie ignored him. She did what she should have done years ago. She turned around and walked out.

  Kenya, 1927

  “When was the last time you saw Mrs. Desborough?”

  “On Wednesday night. I don’t recall the time.” Addie sat with her legs crossed at the ankles, her hands folded in her lap, perched on the edge of a narrow metal chair in a tent that had been turned into a temporary headquarters for the superintendent of the Chania CID.

  It was Budgie who had radioed to the police when the initial search for Bea proved fruitless. We don’t have the manpower, he had said when Raoul demanded to know why. Frederick had been silent, staring at that scarf, that ominously stained scarf. As for Val Vaughn, goodness only knew what he thought. He had stalked off to the makeshift landing strip, taking his plane out, for the aerial view, he said, although Addie didn’t imagine one could spot a woman as one could a herd of elephants. There was a distinct difference in scale.

  Perhaps, she thought, it helped him to be doing something, anything. The sitting about was maddening. Addie didn’t know whether to be terrified or furious. Terrified for Bea’s safety, out in the bush alone, furious at her putting herself into this position in the first place. It would be just like Bea to storm out, planning to teach them all a lesson by staying away until they were good and worried—she’d done something similar when she and Addie were young, seeking revenge on Nanny for some minor slight. She’d sauntered back after dark, having had a perfectly pleasant time taking tea with the head gamekeeper while the nursery was turned upside down and all of them were sent to bed without supper.

  As for the scarf, Addie had lost a good year of her life over that until she’d remembered that breaking noise, something smashing. Bea had probably cut her hand on that broken whatever it was and wrapped her hand in her scarf until it stopped bleeding. It all made perfect sense, and any moment now Bea should come strolling back in with a nonchalant, Miss me?

  Only she hadn’t.

  The superintendent had appeared on Thursday, bringing with him a complement of askaris, native police
officers. They had fanned out over the surrounding area, searching. For all their combined efforts, there had been no sign of Bea. Instead, all they had of Bea was a pitifully small pile of objects gathered on a rickety table on the side of the room, labeled like exhibits in a museum. Item: one diamond clip, worn by Mrs. Frederick Desborough on the shoulder of her gown. Item: one chiffon scarf, stained. Item: one blue silk evening slipper.

  Like the scarf, there were stains on the shoe, ugly, dark stains. It had been found about five yards away from the shoe, on an incline down towards a narrow stream, as though Bea, fleeing, had lost first her scarf and then her shoe. An askari had found the brooch glittering on the ground not far away.

  The shoe bothered Addie. It nagged at the back of her memory. She could have sworn that Bea was wearing green that night, not blue. Addie hadn’t seen her in blue since that horrible party at Ashford where Val Vaughn had brought up a safari and started them all on the path to this fiasco. Bea was always so careful with her attire; she would never wear blue slippers with a green frock. That was the sort of thing Addie might do absentmindedly, but never Bea. She was too particular about her appearance.

  But had it been a green dress that last night? Addie had thought so, but it had been dark, the light uncertain. She’d had other things on her mind. Her attention had been for Frederick, silent and brooding, not for Bea, blithely playing Val and Raoul against each other, one on each side, while Budgie slid further and further into his traditional evening stupor. Bea’s shoes might have been crimson for all Addie would have noticed.

  A pale blue crepe de chine didn’t look all that different from green chiffon in the candlelight.

  “Can you tell me roughly when that might have been?” asked the superintendent. He had a flat, strange accent. Canadian, he had told her when he first called her in for a statement, three days before. Since then, his expression had become more harried, the lines between his nose had deepened, and his questions had become markedly more pointed.

  “We didn’t take much note of the time,” Addie said, “not out here. It felt late, but with the early sunset it’s so very hard to tell. It might have been any time between nine and midnight. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”