The Second Woman Read online

Artemis was impressed. ‘What sort of business?’

  ‘Import/export, trading. All highly sexy. But it keeps me busy and I get to travel.’

  ‘You work alone?’

  ‘For now. My old pal Jeff does the accounts, and we share an office in London so I have some company.’

  ‘And this place, you’re not planning to live in it?’

  ‘God no,’ Clive said and then caught himself. ‘Not that … Sorry. It’s an investment. But I suppose it’s more than that. A contact of Jeff’s suggested looking at this island as a place to invest and something about it …’ He stopped and held her eye. ‘Well, the whole thing is quite enchanting.’

  Artemis felt her cheeks burn. Turning away from the intensity of his gaze, she placed her fingers on the handrail. Did she imagine it buckling under her weight?

  ‘And where do you live the rest of the time?’

  ‘In London. My parents both died within a year of each other and I inherited their house and some money and I decided to start my own business. I was working in the City before … But enough about me, I want to know about you.’

  She visibly clammed up, imagining the words spilling from her lips: I watched my sister die in an earthquake and did nothing to help her.

  She swallowed. ‘There isn’t much to tell. I grew up on the island. I was born in a house in the old village and then after the earthquake my parents moved down to the port and relocated their bakery. I work there five days a week, and … there’s little more to say.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Artemis glanced up at him, her cheeks growing hot.

  ‘You paint,’ Clive prompted her, after a beat. ‘And you speak excellent English. I mean, you could have warned me when I was trying to make small talk with you in my finest pidgin Greek.’

  Artemis laughed. ‘Why? It was entertaining. But yes, I’m interested in languages.’ She paused. ‘Reading is a good escape from reality, don’t they say? And I like to sketch and paint. Carolina, who owns the shop in the old village, lets me take the room at the back for free every Saturday in summer. Out of pity, I suppose—’ She broke off.

  ‘You’re very talented.’

  Artemis looked unconvinced.

  ‘What, you think I’m trying to seduce you by pretending to be interested in your artwork?’ He smiled. ‘Why would I bother? You’re already in my bedroom.’

  Clive held up his hands. ‘I’m joking – honestly, I’m joking. Sorry, poor taste. My mother was an artist, actually. Not professionally, but after the war, when she and her family escaped to England, she used to sketch. And honestly, your paintings … They’re mesmeric.’ He looked at her without breaking eye contact and she felt her cheeks flush.

  His tone changed then. ‘I tell you what, I was thinking of hiring a boat for the day tomorrow, but I’ll need a skipper. Why don’t you come with me? You can bring your paints.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. Her heart was thumping in her chest, for reasons she couldn’t explain.

  ‘Why not? You’ve already told me you don’t work on Sundays … See, you’re giving away too much already …’

  Artemis got the sense this was a man who got what he wanted. But for all his assertiveness, and yes, she saw it now, his arrogance, there was something magnetic about him. The men she knew of her own age were just as arrogant, and yet most of them with far less reason to be. And some of them weren’t just arrogant, they were cruel.

  She returned his gaze, a sense of anticipation building inside her. Why shouldn’t she go out with him? The sensation in her stomach was part excitement, part nerves. And yet what reason did she have to be nervous?

  She looked down, shaking her head in amused surrender. ‘I tell you what, a new restaurant is opening tonight and I’m meeting a friend there for dinner. You could join us.’

  Harry

  London, the day before Anna dies

  Harry has no way of recognising the woman he’s due to meet, but as soon as he spots her walking towards the park bench where he sits waiting, her coat drawn against the biting wind, he knows that this is Maria.

  Feeling his foot thrumming self-consciously against the tarmac, he stills his body, suddenly aware of how much he could give away. Pulling a cigarette from the packet and tapping it, out of habit, against the box, he lights up and sits back.

  The conversation from earlier that day has been replaying in his mind ever since he received her call. It had played out again and again in his mind as he made his way to Regent’s Park, the ramifications of what had been said rushing at him as he waited, with a growing sense of restlessness, to meet this stranger who knows a worrying amount about his life. And now she’s here, walking towards him, and the only thing he can do is to pull himself together and listen.

  Looking away, having a word with himself, he processes the few details he already knows of her, aside from her name – or at least the name she had given him. From this distance, he can see that the woman appears to be in her late twenties. He already knew from her accent on the phone when she rang him yesterday and asked to meet, that she was probably Greek. The call had been made from a payphone in Hampstead according to the number he had found when he re-dialled later, so even if she hadn’t told him upfront that her call was connected to Anna, he would have guessed at it. But he still couldn’t be sure what the connection was, or who had given this woman his phone number.

  ‘Harry?’

  He looks up at her, his eyes automatically moving over her shoulder, sweeping the park for signs of anyone else who might have been following at a distance, but the area is clear.

  ‘Maria,’ she says, reaching out and shaking his hand. ‘Like I said on the phone, I’m a friend of Anna’s. I also believe we have another person in common.’

  ‘Another person in common, you say?’ Harry replies, taken off-guard by the lack of foreplay. He softens his voice before taking a drag of his cigarette, hoping she won’t see his fingers trembling.

  Maria sits, taking a moment to gather herself.

  ‘Yes. I think until now, you and I have been working from different angles, towards the same common goal. And I think we could help each other if we joined forces.’

  Harry keeps his eyes on her, not yet sure how to play this. Does she know about the meeting he has just come from? She can’t, otherwise she wouldn’t be here. ‘Is that right?’ he says simply, waiting for her to play her hand.

  She looks down for a moment and then lifts her head, staring back at him. ‘If you’re anything like me, you’re not going to want to see him get away with it. After everything we’ve given to bringing them to justice …’

  ‘We?’ He pauses, working through the various meanings.

  ‘Yes, we …’

  ‘What are we talking about here?’

  Harry works hard to keep his expression cool, taking another drag of his cigarette as he looks out across sculpted hedges circling an ornamental fountain.

  ‘I assume you’ve heard about David,’ Maria replies, not quite answering his question.

  Harry raises an eyebrow, his voice measured. ‘I read something about it.’

  Maria leans forward, her voice quieter.

  ‘David’s not dead.’

  Harry’s expression drops.

  She half-laughs. ‘Now you’re listening? David is alive and is fleeing to the Maldives – tomorrow evening – where, as I’m sure you know, there is no extradition treaty, so once he is there, he’s free. MI6, they’re no longer interested. The African authorities, from what I gather, because of Nguema’s involvement and how much influence he has there, aren’t in a hurry to prosecute. If anyone does try to fit him up for it, there is a plan to lay the blame on Anna. So the way I see it, there are only two people left on this earth who care about bringing Clive to justice. And one of us has been asked to accompany David to the Maldives, as his mistress.’

  Harry cocks his head, feeling a wave of panic rising up inside him. What the fuck is going on?
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br />   Attempting to hold it together, to extract as much as he can whilst giving away as little as possible, he exhales a long line of smoke. ‘Well, I certainly didn’t get the memo. OK, now I’m listening.’

  ‘Anna is due to meet with Clive’s solicitors about the will. David and I are meeting at the airport tomorrow afternoon. He wanted to be sure everything went smoothly in terms of Anna’s reaction to the meeting she is due to have with his father’s solicitors tomorrow morning, so he has been lying low at his father’s flat, “getting his ducks in order”, that’s what you say. Right?’

  Harry looks at her, trying to read her expression. She’s beautiful, her direct gaze suggesting both a steeliness and a reserve that is the exact opposite of Anna in almost every respect.

  He laughs tightly. ‘I definitely don’t say that.’

  Maria pauses then, her expression changing, so that now she is the one surveying him. ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘All of it. I mean, there must have been easier ways to make money … Seriously, I’m intrigued. I know why I did it, but I can’t work out …’

  Harry pauses, his mind running over the events of the past few years, his memory hovering over the image of Anna the night he asked her to be involved – the look of triumph that passed over her face.

  How much of all this does Maria know, and how long has she known it? He doesn’t have time to contemplate it now. Besides, it’s not important. Something surges inside him and he blinks hard, rearranging his expression into a wistful smile.

  ‘But life’s not like that, is it?’ he says. ‘It’s not that straightforward. You must know that as well as I do. You make decisions as and when situations arise; you take steps and you never really know where they will take you. You just do what you think is right in that moment; sometimes you’re right, and sometimes—’ His voice stops abruptly, his face hardening as he thinks about what comes next. ‘Well, maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong. Maybe we all were. It just depends what angle you’re looking at it from.’

  Artemis

  Greece, the Eighties

  Athena was late. Artemis was sitting at a table nursing a beer by the time her friend finally arrived for the opening night’s celebration, a shield of bougainvillea acting as a screen between the garden of Nico’s restaurant – where locals and foreigners bustled between checked tablecloths – and the outside world.

  She winced inwardly at the sight of Athena’s hair as she moved between the checked tablecloths and baskets of bread. Artemis recognised the hairdo as an attempt at replicating the androgynous bobs the girls had pored over in a copy of American Vogue they’d found discarded on the beach a few days earlier. Inevitably, given the coarseness of Athena’s locks, the look hadn’t quite translated.

  ‘What do you think?’ Athena asked, tossing her head as she pulled up a chair. Torn between brutal honesty and the preservation of her friend’s feelings, Artemis prevaricated for a moment before spotting Clive walking up the steps into the restaurant.

  She felt her attention gratefully drift. Following Artemis’ gaze, Athena turned and they both watched him enter the bar, dressed in a pair of chinos and a pale-yellow polo shirt.

  ‘Who is that?’ Athena spoke slowly, to herself as much as to anyone else.

  Artemis sat straighter as Clive moved towards them.

  ‘Apologies I’m slightly later than planned,’ he said. ‘I got held up talking to one of the builders. You know what they’re like: why do today what can feasibly be put off until tomorrow?’

  Without hesitating, Clive leaned in and kissed Artemis on the cheek. She felt a shiver as their bodies touched.

  Athena coughed and on cue, he turned towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘I’m Clive, you must be Athena …’

  Artemis watched her friend flush, and for a fleeting moment she was grateful for what Athena had done to her hair. But then as Clive turned back towards her, focusing his full attention on her face, she felt any sense of schadenfreude dissolve. It was her he wanted.

  ‘Can I get you both a drink?’

  Clive moved to the bar and Athena spun to look at Artemis, her eyes glistening. Artemis shrugged coyly. ‘We met this afternoon, in the old village. He’s bought a property here; he lives in London and has just started his own business. I hope you don’t mind that I invited him along.’

  Watching Athena’s gaze swivel and follow him to the bar like a hawk marking its prey, Artemis cleared her throat.

  ‘He’s rented a boat, we’re going to take it out for the day tomorrow.’

  ‘Really?’ Athena attempted to toss her hair but it barely budged. ‘What time are—’

  ‘Just the two of us.’ The firmness of her tone surprised them both.

  ‘You came,’ Clive said the following morning, opening the door with a smile that stretched from ear to ear, his eyes bright despite the volume of drink he had knocked back the night before.

  ‘Did you think I’d change my mind?’ She leaned against the doorframe, breathing in the same faint smell of citronella.

  ‘I hoped you wouldn’t,’ he said, leading the way inside and picking up a bag of supplies.

  ‘After seeing your dancing I can understand your concern.’ She bit her lower lip mockingly.

  ‘Oh please, you loved it,’ he retorted, his self-belief undented. ‘Now, I have absolutely no idea what I’ve bought. I thought this was some of that smoked ham you lot do so well but on second inspection I think it might be raw bacon.’

  Clive held up the packet for her to read the label and Artemis laughed. ‘Yes, you might want to leave that one in the fridge.’

  There was a motorbike parked in front of the house, Artemis noted as she followed him back outside.

  ‘So the boat will be waiting for us when we get to the beach?’ she asked, putting on the helmet he passed her. ‘And you definitely know how to drive it?’

  Clive nodded. ‘I bloody hope so. Don’t you have a bike? How the hell do you get around this place?’

  ‘I have one. I just prefer to walk, unless I have to drive,’ Artemis replied. She didn’t add that she wasn’t going to risk being seen going around the island with a strange man on the back of her bike. Not with the eyes and loose lips that lurked everywhere. And yet part of her wanted them to see what she had, what they had never believed she was capable or deserving of achieving.

  Clive smiled. ‘OK, well you navigate. And don’t forget to hold on – these roads are laced with potholes.’

  Madeleine

  London, the day before Anna dies

  Madeleine arrives first at lunch the next day, ordering a large glass of wine, feeling a stab of pain as she spots her friend teetering on the pavement on the other side of the road.

  Holding her fingers tightly around the stem of her glass to hide the shaking, Madeleine watches Gabriela cross towards the restaurant, looking left and right and then left again, once more than necessary, as if expecting a freight lorry to emerge from behind the blind bend and crush her beneath its weight. Does Madeleine imagine a hint of skittish excitement in her movements as Gabriela curls a handful of hair behind her ear? The truth is, she’s really not clear what she sees when she looks at the woman she had until that morning considered one of her closest friends. At this point she might as well be a total stranger – and how much easier it would be if she was.

  Gabriela pulls open the door to Daphne’s restaurant and Madeleine feels herself flinch. Her friend moves towards the booth, a smile breaking across her face as she leans down to kiss Madeleine on both cheeks. Her skin is cold and Madeleine pulls back, moving into conversation before she has a chance to give herself away too soon, shifting her gaze to the table where her fingers cling to her glass.

  ‘What will you drink? Wine?’

  The waitress appears but Gabriela speaks directly to Madeleine. ‘Actually, I think I’d like something stronger. A brandy?’

  There is something almost vibrant about her face, the life bursting
from it as if in a final flourish.

  As the waitress disappears, Madeleine speaks more quickly than she’d intended, purging herself of the words. ‘Talking of something stronger, I’ve just been in your old neck of the woods. I drank so much vodka I think I can still feel it in my liver.’

  ‘Moscow?’

  She doesn’t even blink. Holy shit, you’re good at this, Madeleine thinks. You’re far too good.

  ‘What were you doing in Russia?’ Gabriela asks, her tongue running discreetly over her top lip. Madeleine holds her eye, willing her to crack, to show a chink of weakness, of remorse. Anything.

  ‘What am I always doing? Work,’ Madeleine says. ‘Is there anything else in my life apart from work? God, sometimes I wonder if I’m getting this living thing all wrong. But no, I shouldn’t say that, not now when things are finally coming together.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  Was there a shift then, almost imperceptible? An uncrossing of the legs, a rearrangement of hands under the table?

  ‘Anyway …’ Madeleine smiles stiffly. ‘We always end up talking about my work. I’m such a narcissist. Tell me about you, what’s going on?’

  There it is, a flicker in the left eye. As the waitress arrives and starts to dole out their drinks and a selection of starters on the table in front of them, Gabriela’s mask drops just a fraction. Not so much that Madeleine would have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking, but she is looking now – albeit too late – and yet she still can’t be quite sure what is staring back at her.

  Gabriela’s voice is slightly higher pitched when she speaks again. ‘No, tell me about Moscow. I’m interested, it’s been so long since I was there.’

  ‘Has it?’

  Gabriela looks up too quickly, her gaze meeting Madeleine’s and then focusing immediately away again, her cheeks turning red. It would be wrong to say that Madeleine is enjoying this, but at last she feels something start to tear, her fingers catching hold and pulling gently but persistently enough to rip through to whatever lies beneath.