No Escape Read online

  Chapter Four

  Mike Novak, a private investigator with a struggling agency operating out of a run-down former warehouse in New Smithfield, a grungy undeveloped cul-de-sac off Dock Street near the old Royal Mint, had first hooked up with Robin Allbeury five years ago after Allen Keith, at that time a junior partner in the Bedford Row practice, had hired Novak to check out the allegedly adulterous wife of a wealthy client. Novak had learned that the shoe had been firmly on the other foot, and had reported as much. The client had been enraged and ordered Allen Keith to fire Novak and withhold payment, but two days later senior partner Robin Allbeury had come to the agency to apologize.

  ‘I’d rather have my fee,’ Novak had told him.

  The solicitor with the beautifully-cut hair and suit, and the younger man with rumpled fair hair, pugnacious nose and mouth and hostile blue eyes, had taken a good look at one another.

  ‘Your fee plus a bonus.’ Allbeury had smiled as he’d written out the cheque on the spot. ‘And my thanks for a job well done.’

  ‘Your client wouldn’t agree.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Allbeury had said.

  When, some months later, Novak had read in the Mirror that the client’s divorce had been settled with particular fairness to the wife, he’d wondered if his report and, perhaps, Robin Allbeury himself, might have played a part in the deal.

  The following afternoon, a pair of heavies had jumped Novak near his flat in Lamb’s Conduit Street, advising him that he’d be smart in future to keep his reports in the interests of those who paid his bills, then given him a kicking to ram home the point. Deciding later, nursing a stiff drink and his wounds, that the rather smoothly charming Robin Allbeury should be made aware of the kind of people he was dealing with, Novak had phoned him, and within hours the solicitor had come to the flat.

  ‘Christ,’ Allbeury had said, appalled by his face.

  ‘You didn’t need to come.’

  The other man had ignored the bolshiness. ‘May I come in?’ In his left hand, he held a bottle of Jameson’s. ‘Better than aspirin.’

  Novak had hesitated, then let him in and shown him where the glasses were.

  ‘Straight to the point,’ Allbeury had said, pouring for them both. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You have my word,’ Allbeury said, ‘which I hope, in time, you’ll come to see is worth something, that my firm will, as of tomorrow, sever all links with the client in question.’

  ‘Judging by this little lot—’ Novak felt his ribs gingerly ‘—he may not like it.’

  ‘Tough,’ Allbeury said.

  ‘What about Allen Keith?’

  ‘If Mr Keith has a problem with my decision, he can look for a partnership elsewhere.’

  Novak had frowned. ‘You sound like you mean that.’

  ‘I never say things I don’t mean,’ Allbeury had said.

  If those thugs had inadvertently helped to bring about the start of a long working relationship with Robin Allbeury, they had also introduced Mike Novak to the love of his life.

  Clare Killin had been a nurse on duty in A&E when he’d limped in on the afternoon of his beating to have the nastiest of the gashes on his forehead stitched up. It was one thing, Novak had confessed to her, facing up to the odd angry fist or even boot, but needles were another matter altogether.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she’d assured him, her voice soft and Edinburgh-accented.

  ‘Aren’t you going to take the piss?’ he’d asked.

  ‘Would it help?’

  ‘Not a bit.’

  ‘Didn’t think so.’ She’d turned around. ‘Want to shut your eyes?’

  Novak had checked out her calm hazel eyes, sweet mouth and curly red hair, tied off her face, a few stray hairs escaping. ‘Think I’ll keep them open,’ he’d said. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  A fortnight after their first dinner together, Clare had moved into his flat, and three months later they had quietly, joyfully married. Neither had relatives in easy reach, Novak having lost both his Czech-born father and English mother in a plane crash seven years before, and Clare’s widowed father, Malcolm Killin, living up in Scotland, but neither had felt any need for family or for anyone else.

  The nearest thing to tension Novak had experienced in those blissful early days had been the odd troublesome client or the ongoing challenge of trying to make Novak Investigations pay its way. Clare’s stresses, on the other hand, had been on a vastly different level, witnessing, as she did almost daily, the kinds of pain and distress that Novak preferred not even to imagine. When she had finally burned out because, according to a colleague at the hospital, she was too empathetic to survive long-term as an emergency care nurse, Novak feared that he might, in some way, have failed her.

  The agency was relegated to second place and business suffered accordingly as he became determined to help Clare back to full strength, but she never went back to A&E, and Novak had backed her decision. The hospital, keen to help, had suggested the possibility of a transfer to another department, and Novak had mooted the idea that she might want to try her hand at private nursing, but Clare had rejected both notions.

  ‘It’s A&E or nothing for me,’ she’d said. ‘The things that made me unwell are the things I loved.’ And then she’d looked at him, strangely, searchingly.

  ‘What?’ Novak had found the look unsettling. ‘What is it, Clare?’

  ‘You must be very disappointed in me.’ It was a flat statement.

  Dismay hit him hard. ‘For God’s sake, why would you think that?’

  ‘You married a nurse. A strong, capable woman who took care of people.’

  ‘I married a human being, Clare. A sensitive, caring woman.’

  ‘You still love me then?’

  The flatness had gone, but the fragility was back, worrying him.

  ‘More than ever,’ he had told her, almost violently. ‘More than anything.’

  He’d asked her, soon after that, if she might like to consider joining him at the agency, had been both surprised and delighted by her eagerness to agree and, as time passed, greatly impressed by her contribution. Clare had turned out to be both a natural organizer and an ace at spotting flaws. In less than two weeks, she’d been confident enough to take over most administrative and bookkeeping tasks, leaving Novak free to focus on persuading at least a few of his formerly regular clients – two divorce lawyers, one of the big agencies who farmed out work, and Robin Allbeury – that he was back on track.

  Enrolling in night school, Clare had completed courses in IT, bookkeeping and business administration. She liked learning, enjoyed using her new skills to reorganize and market the agency while managing to bring down overheads and, to Novak’s relief and gratitude, helping them to break even for the first time and, soon after that, to move into profit. Still eager, she had urged her husband into some extracurricular studies of his own so that he might become an ABI member.

  ‘Respectability and contacts,’ she’d said, ‘can’t hurt.’

  ‘That’s what Robin says,’ Novak told her.

  ‘Oh, well,’ Clare said wryly. ‘If Robin says so.’

  She had never felt entirely certain about Robin Allbeury or convinced by his unusual, unorthodox and apparently altruistic activities, felt that he had to be concealing his true motives. If he was, Novak had told her, he hadn’t yet found out what they were, and, to be frank, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to find out so long as Allbeury went on helping people.

  ‘Women,’ Clare had said.

  ‘He helps us pay our bills,’ Novak had pointed out.

  She’d had no argument with that.

  ‘And he thinks you’re a remarkable person.’

  ‘Why should he think that?’

  ‘Because he’s a clever man,’ Novak had said.

  Two years after that, heartache had returned for them both with the death, at birth, of their longed-for first child. Clare, alone at home and taking a bath, had passed out before be
ing able to summon help, and their son, born with frightening speed, had suffered breathing difficulties and had not survived. Grief had poleaxed them. For a week after Clare’s discharge from hospital, neither she nor Novak had moved from the flat, unable to eat or sleep. Robin Allbeury, concerned by the lack of response to his messages, had come to the flat and all but taken over, shopping and cooking, alerting Clare’s father to the tragedy (though Malcolm Killin had himself been ill with pneumonia at the time, and unable to help) and helping Novak to organize the small, sad funeral.

  After the hideousness of the inquest, they’d picked themselves up with agonizing slowness, had forced themselves to visit a bereavement counsellor but found her of limited help. Work, predictably, had helped the most, and time. Months passed and they began to throw themselves more vigorously into the agency, to build again. But nothing was the same any more, everything felt contaminated by sorrow, shame or fear. If something made them laugh, they felt guilty because their child was in his grave. If they made love, they clung to each other like swimmers close to drowning. If they saw an infant in a pushchair, the force of their envy cut off their ability to breathe.

  Yet even that had passed.

  ‘Would you mind,’ Clare asked one morning, almost a year after their loss, ‘if I took on a part-time nursing job? Just two or three evenings a week.’

  Novak had been startled. ‘I didn’t know you were even thinking about nursing.’

  ‘I wasn’t, till Maureen phoned last week.’

  Maureen Donnelly, a former colleague of Clare’s, had transferred to Waltham General in Essex two years before to be closer to her father, who had Parkinson’s disease. Mindful, in the past, not to overdo shop talk when she and Clare got together, Maureen had lately noticed her old friend becoming increasingly keen to listen to A&E news and was happy enough to oblige by talking her through some of the more interesting cases that had come through her department.

  Nick Parry was one such case, a twenty-eight-year-old paraplegic who had come in the previous month after his adapted car had been involved in an accident on the North Circular. Struck by the young man’s courage and sense of humour, and upon hearing that one of his favourite part-time carers was about to be sent back to New Zealand by the Home Office, Maureen had promised to scout around for a replacement on his behalf.

  ‘Maureen thought we might get on,’ Clare told Novak, ‘so I went to visit him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because I thought you’d either get excited for me and then upset if it didn’t work out, or worried about it and upset if it did.’

  ‘Apparently it did,’ Novak said. ‘Work out.’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  He’d looked at her for a moment. ‘Do you still not really know me? I’d never stop you doing anything you wanted to do.’ He had paused, then quickly asked the question suddenly uppermost in his mind. ‘Do you want to leave the agency?’

  ‘No,’ Clare had replied decisively. ‘Never. The agency’s what healed me.’ She had paused ‘And you, of course.’

  ‘You healed you,’ Novak had told her.

  Clare had kissed him then, leaned very close and laid her lips gently against his mouth. ‘You’re the best, Mike,’ she said. ‘You know that?’

  ‘I just love you,’ he said.

  Chapter Five

  ‘So what do you think, Lizzie?’

  It was the second Monday of March – two days after Sophie’s seventh birthday party – and Andrew France, her agent, had just telephoned Lizzie at the house in Marlow to tell her that Vicuna Press, her publishers, had come through with their very handsome share of an offer – made in conjunction with the Food and Drink Channel – for a new Lizzie Piper book and TV series that would, if she accepted, take her on a European tour, tasting and creating new recipes for publication.

  ‘It sounds marvellous.’ Lizzie leaned back in the leather swivel chair in her study. ‘I can’t quite take it in.’

  ‘It really is quite extraordinarily exciting.’ Andrew sounded gratified by her response.

  ‘You haven’t said yes?’

  ‘Of course not.’ The agent’s tone became a touch wary. ‘But I must admit I imagined it an almost foregone conclusion.’ He paused. ‘You do want this, Lizzie, don’t you? Christopher certainly seemed sure you’d be leaping up and down.’

  Lizzie was silent for an instant. ‘When did you speak to Christopher?’

  ‘Less than two hours ago. While you were still out on the school run. I know I asked him to let me give you the news myself, but I felt sure he wouldn’t be able to resist saying something.’

  Lizzie heard the surprise in Andrew’s voice. ‘He was called to London before I got back,’ she said casually. ‘There’s probably a note somewhere.’

  ‘That explains it,’ Andrew said.

  ‘So what exactly did Christopher say about this offer?’

  ‘Not much,’ Andrew replied. ‘Except that he really was very happy for you. Which, if I may say so, Lizzie, you don’t seem to be.’

  ‘Oh, I am.’ Lizzie tried to sound it. ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘So can I go back to them, clinch it?’

  She hesitated. ‘Give me a little while, Andrew, please. I can’t just say yes to something as big, or at least as time-consuming, as this, without talking to the whole family.’ She paused. ‘Could you get a few more details for me? When, for instance, and how long, and which countries?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Andrew said. ‘Though naturally all that’ll be open for discussion. No one’s going to expect you to drop everything and fly off, Lizzie.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ Andrew said. ‘I know you couldn’t. So does Howard.’

  Lizzie knew that Andrew was right about Howard Dunn, her editor, but there was no certainty that the television people would be as sympathetic or obliging.

  ‘Quite right to be cautious, my darling,’ Christopher said later that night, after he’d returned from London, and they were sharing a nightcap in the drawing room. ‘Though I expect they’ll all be flexible. They want you happy, after all, clearly.’

  The children were all in bed, and Lizzie was confident that both Edward and Sophie were sound asleep, though it was unlikely that Jack would be sleeping. He often slept badly, but coped with insomnia by having two Walkmans by his bedside, one loaded with music, the other with an audio book, so that all he had to do was stick on his headphones and press a button.

  What Jack did not appreciate these days was too many nighttime visits by either of his parents to check on him.

  ‘If I have a problem,’ he told them, ‘I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I daresay Vicuna would prefer me to be happy,’ Lizzie answered Christopher now. ‘But TV people have rigid schedules, and unions, and weather conditions to consider, all of which I’m sure they’d expect me to fit into.’

  ‘And which I’m sure you’ll manage to, as you always manage most things, my love. Brilliantly.’

  Christopher was nothing if not charming, had always been that, and supportive, too, of Lizzie and her talents, and she had almost always been grateful for that.

  Gratitude had, in fact, been a large part of the package when she had first met and fallen in love with him. A car crash in her early thirties had left Angela Piper with ugly scarring on her left breast and abdomen. The priority at the time of the accident had been to keep her alive, after which no one had seemed to understand how desperately the pretty brunette had felt about her disfigurement – not even Maurice Piper, her husband, who had frankly been too busy rejoicing at having his wife still with him and nine-year-old Lizzie. But Angela had found herself unable to cope with what she regarded as great ugliness and, ashamed for what she saw as her own ingratitude and superficiality, she had stumbled into deep, long-term clinical depression, during which time Lizzie had grown into an isolated teenager, looking forward to escaping to university.

  Ten years later, Mauric
e had suffered a fatal heart attack, Angela had gone into free-fall and Lizzie, reading English and enjoying freedom in Sussex, had felt compelled to return home. Bleakness had spread out before her like fog; an end, she had felt, to learning and fun and friends, until Angela’s psychologist, Stuart Bride, had suggested that perhaps if someone were able to improve the old scars that clearly still disturbed his patient, it might do more for her mind than years of therapy.

  Christopher Wade – tall, impressive, with shaggy blond hair and piercing grey eyes behind round steel spectacles, a man who wore hats and doffed them regularly for ladies – had swept into the Pipers’ world with a blast of kindness and, in the fullness of time, at least a degree of healing. And Lizzie, thirteen years younger, had been there to witness it all, the gentleness, commonsense and skill, as well as the charm, so that when the surgeon had first asked her to lunch, soon after her mother’s second successful operation, she had been intensely pleased to accept.

  ‘Be careful,’ Angela had said when Lizzie had told her about it.

  ‘It’s only lunch,’ Lizzie had said.

  ‘No such thing between an attractive older man and a beautiful innocent.’

  ‘Not quite innocent, Mum, and hardly beautiful.’ Lizzie liked her blue eyes and blond hair well enough, but her nose was rather sharp and her legs, in her opinion, too short. ‘Certainly not when you consider what he must be used to.’

  ‘Damaged goods,’ Angela had said, wry yet serene, ‘is what he’s used to.’

  Lizzie and Christopher had married the following year, the bride, back at her studies, now at London University, the groom proud and happy, guiding his young wife out of St Paul’s, Knightsbridge into their new life in his large garden flat in Holland Park. An almost undiluted marital joy that had lasted until first son Edward was three, baby Jack was one, they had just bought the house, and the nearest thing to an imperfection in Lizzie’s world was Edward’s allergy to dogs and cats.

  The other – very much less attractive – side of her husband of which Lizzie would, in time, become all too aware, had manifested itself the first time in little more than a glint of darkness, like a small warning slick of brake fluid beneath a car, an alert of trouble to come.