Czytaj książkę: «Fire With Fire»

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN the central heating boiler had refused to reignite despite all her efforts Emma sat back on her heels and scowled ferociously at it. They really ought to have a new one, but her father’s income as vicar of a small country parish did not run to such self-indulgences.

Sighing, she pushed her hair back out of her eyes. Thick and curly, its dark chestnut colour was a striking foil for her creamy skin and widely spaced cool grey eyes, their coolness masking an intelligence and humour only perceived by the most discerning observer.

‘Emma. Oh thank God you’re here. You must help me, I’m in the most awful mess.’

It was far from being the first time Emma had heard those words on her younger sister’s lips, and she didn’t pay too much attention at first, her brain still trying to resolve the problem of the central heating boiler, but when Camilla burst into tears and gulped hysterically about ‘going to prison’ and ‘losing David’, she realised that whatever the ‘mess’ that she was in, it was something more serious than her usual small traumas.

Petite and blonde, Camilla had a way of attracting trouble that was completely at odds with her delicate appearance. The trouble was that her fairy prettiness had meant that her sister had been petted and spoiled almost from the moment of her birth, Emma reflected, brushing the dust off her hands and getting to her feet.

‘Come on Cammy,’ she began bracingly, ‘whatever it is it can’t be as bad as all that … David adores you …’

‘Don’t call me “Cammy”,’ came the tearful response. ‘You know David doesn’t like it … and it is bad Emma, just as bad as it could be …’

More tears flowed.

‘Well then you’d better tell me all about it.’ Calmly pulling out two chairs from the wooden kitchen table, Emma sat down in one and waited for Camilla to settle herself in the other. The trouble was that as their mother had died when Emma was ten and Camilla barely six, she had somehow taken over the role of mothering and protecting her younger sister and Camilla had grown used to expecting Emma to resolve all her life’s crises for her. What on earth could it be this time? Probably a quarrel with David’s mother over arrangements for the wedding, Emma thought wryly. Since she had become engaged to David Turner, the highly-strung Camilla had seemed to mature a little, but with the wedding approaching fast her tearful outbursts had become more and more common. A frown creased Emma’s forehead. There were times when she wondered if her younger sister actually wanted to marry David. They had known him for most of their lives and while she liked him, Emma couldn’t blind herself to the fact that he was very much under his mother’s thumb, and that if Camilla wanted a happy and smooth married life she would have to learn to get on better with her prospective mother-in-law than she did at the moment.

The main problem was that at heart Mrs Turner was an arrant snob. Her husband had been extremely wealthy and they had moved to the village when David was four and Emma the same age. Emma suspected that the only reason they had been admitted to David’s group of friends was because of their father’s family connections—his uncle had been a colonel in one of the better regiments and had married the daughter of a baronet.

It didn’t seem to matter to Mrs Turner that the vicar and his wife had very little contact with these minor relations; their existence was sufficient to make his children acceptable playmates for her son. But that had been twenty years ago. She was not as keen to welcome one of the vicar’s daughters as her daughter-in-law as she had been as ‘friends’ of her son. The Turners were comparatively wealthy. They owned the largest house in the district and Mrs Turner rather liked to play ‘Lady Bountiful’. The village fete was always held in the grounds of the Manor and Mrs Turner liked it to be known that she was heavily involved in several prestigious charities. Emma didn’t much like her, but Camilla was marrying her son, and the fact that David was dominated by his mother was something she was going to have to accept.

Mrs Turner never lost an opportunity of pointing out that David could have done much better for himself. In Camilla’s place Emma doubted that she could have stomached it, but Camilla claimed that she loved David and that he loved her, and that together they would be strong enough to withstand Mrs Turner’s acid barbs.

Privately Emma doubted it. Beautiful though Camilla was, like David she was inclined always to look for the easiest route through life. If David had not been an extremely wealthy young man Emma doubted if Camilla would have looked twice at him. Camilla had always deplored the poverty that went with their father’s vocation; as a teenager she had never ceased bemoaning the lack of material assets when compared to those of her friends; the problem was that because of her blonde prettiness she had been petted and spoiled—friends’ parents had included her on various holiday treats; their father had always been coaxed to find from somewhere the extra pennies needed for new clothes … Not that Emma begrudged her any of it—no, in character as well as looks they were completely dissimilar. From being a young teenager Emma had known what she wanted from life and it hadn’t been marriage to a man like David.

Now, she was poised on the brink of taking the all important step forward in her new career. After leaving college she had been lucky enough to get a job with their local radio station; from there she had progressed to regional television and now her current boss had advised her of a plum job coming up with one of the National networks, which he thought she stood a good chance of getting.

At present she was a co-presenter on an early news local programme, but she had been doing the job for several years and was ready for something else. Her goal was a top newsreading or anchorwoman job; perhaps if she was very, very lucky, even something on breakfast television, but she had a long way to go before reaching that objective she reminded herself.

However, the interview her boss had lined up for this new National job sounded extremely promising. She wouldn’t be the only one going after it, but Robert Evans considered that she had a more than fair chance.

‘You’ve got the looks,’ he had told her only this morning, ‘and the brains. And let’s not disillusion ourselves, you need both, unfair though that sounds.’

Emma hadn’t disputed it. It was an unfair fact of life that while male presenters were chosen on ability and personality alone, female ones needed to have an acceptably attractive face and figure. Although nowhere near as pretty as her younger sister, Emma knew she was reasonably attractive. Her bone structure was good, her figure elegantly slender. Her air of cool self-containment put a lot of men off, she knew, David in particular … she frowned a little remembering Mrs Turner’s latest broadside. She had called round the day after the local newspaper had carried a small article mentioning the fact that Emma was being considered for a top London job.

Being in television was all very well in its way, she had begun when Emma asked her in, ‘but it wasn’t really the sort of thing David wanted to be connected with. Reading the news was all very well … but it could lead to other things…’

Anyone would have thought she was proposing to pose nude for a Page 3 photograph, Emma thought sardonically. She knew that Mrs Turner was being ridiculous and so she suspected did the older woman, but David took his mother’s every word seriously and she had boiled with angry indignation at the suggestion that her job somehow made Camilla unfit to become David’s wife.

Camilla was twenty-two years old and should be able to cope with her own problems, she knew, but she didn’t have the heart to tell her so, saying instead, ‘Come on then, what’s it all about.’

‘Do you remember last month when I went to stay with Fiona?’

Emma nodded. Fiona Blake was one of Camilla’s old schoolfriends. At the moment she was flat-sharing in London with two other girls while she tried her hand at modelling. Fiona’s parents were wealthy enough for it not to matter whether Fiona made a success of her ‘career’ or not, and privately Emma did not think she would.

‘Well while I was there Fiona took me to this party. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted.’

Listening to the aggrieved note in her sister’s voice Emma sighed. Nothing that went wrong in her life was ever Camilla’s fault; she had always been victimised by someone else.

‘Fiona wanted to go because the party was being held by Drake Harwood …’

Drake Harwood? The name was familiar, as well it might be Emma thought, recollecting how the first time she had heard it it had conjured up visions of a tough, buccaneering individual. He was an up and coming entrepreneur who had recently bought out Scanda Enterprises and he was reputed to be extremely wealthy.

‘Fiona wanted to go because he’s taken over Macho magazine, and she thought she might be able to persuade him to use her as one of his models.’

‘Macho? Fiona wants to appear in that?’ Emma grimaced distastefully. ‘Honestly Camilla that girl has more hair than wit. What on earth would her parents say? It’s a girlie mag isn’t it?’

‘Fiona says it’s the only way for unknowns to break into modelling these days.’ Camilla defended her friend. ‘She says…’

‘Never mind what she says,’ Emma broke in, ‘Just tell me what’s got you in such a state. He didn’t ask you to pose for him did he?’ she guessed, darting a frowning look at her sister. Despite her plans to marry David Camilla had always had a yen for the glamour of a ‘Hollywood’ type existence. It was just as well she lacked the ambition to do anything other than daydream about it, Emma decided, hiding her relief at Camilla’s vigorous shake of her head. Camilla simply did not have the determination to succeed in such a dangerous world.

‘No … no … nothing like that.’ She bit her lip. ‘Promise you won’t be cross, and that you won’t breathe a word to David. He’ll never marry me if he finds out.’

‘Good heavens, what on earth have you done?’ She asked it light-heartedly not wanting Camilla to see her concern. Snippets of gossip she had heard and read about Drake Harwood were coming back to her. He had made it the hard way, grafting for every penny of the first few thousand pounds he made; working on a building site until he had enough to start up his own contracting firm. From then on he had gradually built up his empire until now at thirty-four he was considered one of the shrewdest and most dangerous businessmen around.

Macho magazine was just a small part of that empire, she recollected, something he had acquired when he took over Scanda Enterprises. She recollected reading somewhere that it had a pretty poor circulation and that he had been challenged by a rival magazine owner to beat their figures.

No doubt the whole thing was simply a publicity ploy she reflected cynically, certainly the supposed ‘rivalry’ had gained them both a good deal of newspaper space, but how much of an interest he intended to take in what was only a small part of his empire she didn’t really know. Certainly if he intended to use girls like Fiona as his models he wouldn’t do much to improve circulation.

‘So, you went to this party with Fiona,’ Emma pressed, ‘and…’

‘And I don’t remember anything else until the next morning,’ Camilla gulped tearfully, ‘when I woke up in a strange bedroom and …’

‘An even stranger man in bed beside you?’ Emma supplemented drily. ‘Mrs Turner’s going to love that.’

‘No … no I was in bed on my own … in a room of my own,’ Camilla protested. ‘I must have had too much to drink … either that or there was something in them, but Emma, I was so frightened … I just had to get out of that house … I kept thinking what if David could see me now, so …’

‘So …’ Emma prompted.

‘Well, I was still fully dressed, so I just got up and went downstairs. There was no one about, but there was a car outside—a red Ferrari, and the keys were in it … so I … I took it…’

‘You did what?’ Emma stared at her. ‘But Camilla you don’t drive. You’ve always hated it … you don’t have a licence …’

‘I know, but I was so terrified of being found there … I daren’t ring for a taxi … I had to leave … and I do know how to drive … but the car was so big …’

Closing her eyes Emma forced herself not to interrupt.

‘Don’t tell me,’ she said at last. ‘You hit something?’

‘A stone bollard,’ Camilla admitted. ‘You see it was very early in the morning—there wasn’t any traffic, but I saw this milk cart coming and I panicked. I hit the kerb and then this bollard …’

‘And …?’

‘I just got out and ran. Eventually I found a taxi, and I went back to the flat … Fiona wasn’t there, but when she came in I told her what had happened, and she told Drake Harwood, and he’s threatening to sue me for stealing his car and smashing it up …’

Fresh tears started to fall. ‘It will be in all the papers and everyone will know I spent the night there. David will find out and he’ll never marry me … His mother wouldn’t let him.’

Emma suspected that she was right. She gnawed thoughtfully on her lower lip, silently condemning both her sister and Fiona as a pair of stupid fools.

‘Haven’t you been to see Drake Harwood, and tried to explain? I’m sure if you told him the full story …’

Camilla shuddered. ‘You haven’t met him. He’s dreadful … So uncouth. Fiona thinks he’s exciting … but I didn’t like him. I couldn’t go and see him Emma, I just couldn’t … but his solicitor has already written to me. He wants me to pay for the damage to his car, otherwise he’s going to sue … and I can’t afford it.’

‘So what do you want me to do about it,’ Emma asked, already mentally bowing to the inevitable.

Tears were transformed into a radiant smile as Camilla turned towards her. ‘Oh Emma, I was hoping you would help me. Couldn’t you go and see him … Explain …’

‘Explain what?’ Emma asked drily. ‘That you don’t want your mother-in-law to know that you spent the night in one of his beds and then stole his car. … And what about paying for the damage Camilla?’

‘He doesn’t need the money, he’s filthy rich,’ Camilla said sulkily, ‘he’s just doing this because I wouldn’t pay any attention to him …’

‘Ah … You mean he fancied you and you gave him the cold shoulder? Umm, I can see that in those circumstances he might not be prepared to let you off the hook so lightly.’

‘But you will try and do something … you will go and see him?’ Camilla pleaded. ‘There’s still a month to go to the wedding and this letter says if I don’t pay for the damage within seven days, legal action will be taken.’

The man could always simply be trying it on, Emma thought, but then given his reputation and his tough upbringing it might not be wise to assume so. ‘Camilla are you sure this marriage to David is what you really want,’ she asked slowly. ‘You know you ought to be able to tell him about this, to …’

‘To ask him for several thousand pounds, a month before we get married?’ Camilla asked bitterly. ‘Yes I could tell David, Emma, but he would tell his mother and I could just imagine her reaction. You know she doesn’t want him to marry me, and yes, I do want to marry him. Can’t you see, I’m not like you, I don’t want a career or to be independent. I just want to live quietly and comfortably…’

The accent probably being on the latter, Emma thought drily, but refrained from saying so. ‘Let me look at the letter,’ she requested.

She read it quickly, sifting through the legal verbiage to the nitty-gritty, and when she had done so, she could see why Camilla was in such a panic. Drake Harwood wanted and intended to have his pound of flesh. Well she would just have to try and find some means of persuading him otherwise.

‘You won’t tell him the truth will you?’ Camilla begged. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to tell one of his newspaper friends and then it will be all over the papers.’

‘I hardly think the fact of your crashing his car merits such coverage Camilla,’ Emma told her mildly. ‘You’re getting things a little out of perspective.’

‘You don’t know how furious he was about his car.’ She shuddered. ‘Fiona says he had only just bought it … You haven’t met him Emma. You don’t know what he’s like. He isn’t like us. He’s…’

‘The proverbial rough diamond?’ Emma asked, her mouth twisting. ‘Oh grow up Camilla and don’t be so silly, otherwise you’ll end up like Mrs T.—a dyed-in-the wool snob. I’ll go and see him for you, and I’ll do what I can to calm him down. How do you intend to pay him back though? Could you manage monthly instalments from the allowance David is giving you?’

‘I suppose so … I don’t suppose you could persuade him to forget the money completely … I mean,’ she wheedled, when Emma’s mouth compressed, ‘it isn’t as though he needs it.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t need it, but you do owe it to him Camilla,’ Emma told her bitingly, ‘and in your shoes I should be only too anxious to pay it back and get it off my mind …’

‘Oh you always were too “goody two shoes” to be true,’ Camilla snapped crossly. ‘David says you’re a real schoolmarm type and that that’s why you’ve opted for a career instead of marriage …’

‘Oh does he?’ Emma was thoroughly incensed, both by her sister’s stupidity and by her smug assumption that once Emma had done her dirty work for her she could forget all about her responsibility for the accident.

‘Well, let me tell you that I’d choose a career over marriage to David any day of the week … he’s about as exciting as … as cold rice pudding …’

She regretted the words when Camilla got up and ran out of the kitchen, telling herself that she should not have taken her irritation out on her sister. Camilla was so absurdly sensitive to criticism, so much so that she occasionally wondered if the younger girl didn’t use her ‘sensitivity’ as a weapon to get her own way. She glanced down at the solicitor’s letter again, and frowned. She might as well get the ordeal over as quickly as possible. She picked it up and went through to her father’s shabby study, quickly typing out a letter on his ancient machine, requesting an interview with Drake Harwood.

She had to go to London next week for her interview anyway, and with a bit of luck she might be able to combine the two appointments. She only hoped for Camilla’s sake she was able to come to some arrangement with him. He couldn’t be expected to forego the cost of the repairs altogether, and Camilla was selfish and blind to think he should, but if she could persuade him to accept payment by instalments … if she could perhaps explain the reasons behind Camilla’s rash behaviour. She sighed, remembering that her younger sister had bound her to silence. She would just have to play it by ear, she decided, sticking a stamp on the envelope and sealing it.

‘Now remember, don’t try any clever stuff, just be your natural self.’

Emma grimaced as she listened to her boss Robert Evans, giving her instructions concerning her forthcoming interview. ‘And remember we’ll all be rooting for you here. You’ve got more than a fair chance Emma… You’re goodlooking, poised, intelligent, and you’ve got a personality of your own that comes across on the screen.’

Emma knew that everything he said was true, but even so she felt tensely anxious. She wanted to succeed at this interview, as much for Robert’s sake as her own. He had been the one to give her first ‘on screen’ chance when she came to Television South. He had helped and encouraged her giving her the self-confidence to project herself well. He was forty-five and a burly, dark-haired man with a pleasant sense of humour and a keenly ambitious drive. Emma liked and admired him, and knew that if she had not been the person she was, or if her liking and respect had been less strong she could quite easily have been persuaded into an affair with him.

She admired him for his faithfulness to his wife—a quiet, serene woman she had met on several occasions. The temptations in a job like his must be never-ending and yet from somewhere he found the strength to resist them. Emma liked that in him. Her own strong moral code was due more to her own inner beliefs than being a vicar’s daughter—their father had never tried to impose his faith on either her or Camilla; perhaps because she had had to grow up without a mother and be responsible for Camilla, Emma had formed her own moral code, based on her observations of life around her.

Her own self-respect was all important—without it she believed it was impossible for any human being to function properly. After all one had to live with oneself and her keenly honed ability to be self-critical was far sharper than any outside criticism she might have to face. An affair with a married man would be both messy and ultimately painful, but apart from that she could never feel completely comfortable in a relationship with someone else’s husband, and then there was always the nagging doubt that having been unfaithful to her, how could he be expected to stay faithful to a mere mistress … No … such a role was not for her. She was acutely distrustful of sexual attraction; people so often mistook it for ‘love’ with disastrous results. She herself had never met a man she wanted so intensely that the need to make love with him over-rode everything else. Camilla thought her cold, even frigid, Emma knew differently but she respected her body sufficiently to listen to what it told her; and it told her it would never be happy with anything less than the best.

She had had menfriends; often dating people who worked for the television company, but always terminating the relationship when it threatened to get too intense. She had the reputation of an ambitious career woman, but it didn’t worry her. Her career was important to her because it was a way of proving to herself her own ability but if she ever met a man who could fire both her emotions and her body; someone to whom she could give love and respect and who felt the same way about her, she suspected that all the energy she poured into her career would then go into her relationship with him. Sometimes the inner knowledge of her own intensity worried her; everyone thought she was so cool and controlled, but she didn’t have chestnut hair for nothing. Her emotions were there all right, it was just that she had learned young the wisdom of leashing them under her own control.

She gave her boss a brilliant smile. ‘I think everything’s under control … right down to a new outfit for the big occasion.’

She had chosen her interview outfit with care. It was a beautifully cut fine wool suit in a sludgy nondescript olive that was a perfect foil for her hair and skin. The jacket was tailored and workmanlike, the skirt slim with a provocative slit at the front and back, just long enough to give a glimpse of her long legs—the suit combined both provocation and discretion, and it had amused her to buy it, knowing as she did that it was a contradiction of itself. If nothing else it should keep them guessing she thought drily, trying to concentrate on everything that Robert was telling her.

When she got home that night there was a letter from Drake Harwood’s solicitors waiting for her. Mr Harwood was agreeable to seeing her, it told her. An appointment had been made on the day and at the time she had requested and that was a relief.

When she told Camilla, her sister pouted sulkily and complained that Emma was trying to make her feel guilty. ‘I’m trying to forget all about that …’ she told her, shuddering, ‘and now you’re trying to make me remember.’

‘I should have thought that was all too easy,’ Emma said drily, ‘especially when it involved a bill of several thousand pounds. Have you tried to talk to David about it.’

‘I can’t. He’d understand, but his mother wouldn’t. Do you know what she said to me today…?’

Emma closed her ears while Camilla set off on a long diatribe against David’s mother. The newly married couple were to make their home at the Manor with her. They were going to have their own wing, and Camilla was already planning how she would re-decorate and re-furnish it. If Mrs T. allowed her to have anything other than very traditional Colefax and Fowler plus assorted antiques, she would be very surprised, Emma thought, but kept her thoughts to herself. Camilla thought that by marrying David she was gaining the freedom to spend his money and buy herself all the things she had never had, but what she was really doing was entering a prison … However, it was her own choice.

She had decided to spend the night before her interview in London—that would save arriving there with her clothes all creased from the train journey. She had booked herself a room at a fairly inexpensive hotel. Her father was busy writing his sermon when she went to tell him she was going. He looked up and smiled at her. The Reverend Richard Court had a vague, appealing smile. There had been several female parishioners eager to step into her mother’s shoes, but he had managed to evade them all. Her father rather liked his bachelordom, Emma suspected. He had several friends at Oxford, dons with whom he spent long weekends re-living the days of their youth. He was also an avid reader. Outwardly gentle and mild, he possessed a core of inner steel. Emma suspected she had inherited from him. No one would ever persuade her father to do something he didn’t wish to do. In many ways he was extremely selfish, but he was so gentle and mild, that very few people realised it. He was kind though and extremely adept at distancing himself from arguments and trouble. He could always see both sides of an argument—something else she had inherited from him Emma thought.

‘I should be back tomorrow evening.’ Her interview with the TV people was in the morning and she was seeing Drake Harwood after lunch.

‘Camilla seems very anxious. I suppose it’s all this fuss over the wedding.’

‘She’ll make a lovely bride…’

‘Yes. Her one redeeming feature in Mrs T’s eyes, no doubt,’ he agreed, surprising Emma as he so often did by seeing what one had not believed that he had seen. ‘It’s lucky for her that she’s so malleable. Marriage to a man like David would never do for you Emma.’

‘No,’ she agreed with a smile, ‘I’m more likely to turn into another Mrs T.’

‘I don’t think so. No one could ever accuse you of being narrow-minded. I hope you get the job.’

Emma knew that he meant it, which was generous of him, because if she did she would have to find somewhere to live in London, and by removing herself from the vicarage she would deprive him of a housekeeper/secretary/general dogsbody. Being her father though, no doubt he would find someone else to take her place, with the minimum of fuss and inconvenience to himself.

She drove herself down to the station. It was only tiny and Joe the stationmaster promised to keep an eye on her car for her. ‘Hope you get the job,’ he told her, as he sold her her ticket. Everyone in the village probably knew why she was going to London—or at least thought they did. None of them knew of her appointment with Drake Harwood. It was ridiculous but she almost felt more apprehensive about that than she did about her interview for her new job.

The train arrived ten minutes late but was relatively empty. It took just over an hour and a half to reach London. Emma was both bored and stiff when it did. She allowed herself the extravagance of a taxi to her hotel, although she noticed that the driver looked less than impressed by its address. It seemed strange to think that if she got this job her face would be so familiar that almost everyone would recognise her. She wasn’t sure yet how she would handle that sort of exposure. She liked her privacy and working for the local station had been able to preserve it. Robert had warned her against stressing too much how she felt about that. Perhaps it was something that one just grew accustomed to.