The Soulmate, page 16
Infuriatingly, the landline chose this moment to ring, and I hurried down the hall to answer it. It was a phone survey, which I declined to take part in. I got off the phone as fast as I could then stood by the hall table thinking about what I’d overheard. They’d been talking about business, clearly; nothing out of the ordinary there. Yet the conversation had felt strangely charged. I hadn’t heard Max sound so upset since . . . since the business with Arthur Spriggs, I realised.
I was still standing there when the door to Max’s office opened.
‘Thanks, Mei,’ I heard Max say, his tone polite but brisk. ‘Baz will show you out.’
I’d almost forgotten Baz was in there. That was strange. Baz was responsible for our personal security; why would he be invited to a business meeting? I pretended to rifle through a drawer in the hallstand while Baz walked a young woman to the foyer. He gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement on his way back to the office. When he closed the door, I returned to my study, but the voices were faint now, and I couldn’t make out much of what they were saying. Eventually, I gave up and went to bed.
‘That was a late one,’ I said when Max joined me later. I was sitting up under the covers with a novel in my lap. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m not sure you want to know,’ he said, as he got undressed.
I raised my eyebrows to indicate that I did.
‘All right.’ He finished unbuttoning his shirt and sat on the bed. ‘You know the streaming service we acquired a few months back?’
‘Of course.’
‘It was very expensive. Getting the finance was tricky. For a while we thought it wasn’t going to fly.’
‘I remember.’
‘Gabe Gerard managed to pull it off, though. At the eleventh hour he found an investor who came forward with fifty million dollars.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, remembering how relieved Max had been. ‘It was a huge coup.’
Max sighed. ‘Yes, well . . . It turns out the investor wasn’t exactly the saviour we were looking for.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a group called A.S. Holdings.’
‘And?’ I prompted, but Max didn’t continue. ‘So, what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is’ – Max hung his head – ‘A.S. stands for Arthur Spriggs.’
51
AMANDA
AFTER
Max has a leather satchel over his shoulder and is walking with purpose. To the Gerards’ house, I assume, but then he takes the steps down to the beach and heads to the rock groyne that sticks straight out to sea, like a pier.
He removes his shoes. It’s a romantic sight, Max walking barefoot on the rocks. In another life, I would have photographed it. The beach is quiet, apart from a few dog walkers several hundred metres away. When he reaches the end of the groyne, he opens his satchel and removes the secret laptop.
Suddenly I understand what he’s doing. All his secrets are on that computer: falsified paperwork, documents linking him to Arthur Spriggs. It needs to be destroyed.
He lifts the laptop and brings it down hard against the rocks. It’s shocking how quickly it falls to pieces. No one on the beach pays him the slightest attention as he bashes it again and again, his face contorting with the effort. I imagine it feels cathartic.
Max had another call from the cops this morning, this time to ask if Gabriel Gerard was a former employee of his. Max replied that he had thousands of employees; he couldn’t possibly be expected to remember every single one. That was interesting. It made me wonder what kind of game he was playing.
Still, the cops are smarter than either Max or I gave them credit for. They didn’t simply accept that my death was a suicide, as I presumed they would – they were doing their due diligence. They’d already been keeping an eye on Max and his business dealings, but my death gave them a reason to poke into his affairs. Now, while supposedly investigating my death, they’d stumbled across another crime.
When he’s finished, Max tosses the remnants of the laptop into the water and watches them sink to the bottom. Now the computer is gone, Max is already looking more relaxed. He doesn’t know that the evidence still exists – at least, he doesn’t know for sure. But I suspect he has an inkling, so that final hiding place will be the next thing he looks for.
My USB.
52
PIPPA
NOW
It’s mid-afternoon when Gabe arrives home with the girls in tow, and I’m sitting on the couch with my laptop, catching up on some emails.
Mum left half an hour earlier, having made enough soup to feed us for a week. After my phone call with Gabe, our conversation had moved on to regular topics – the girls’ birthdays, Kat and Mei’s baby, Dad’s high cholesterol – but something about it felt forced. I was glad when she finally went home.
Mei has called twice since then, and I let both calls go through to voicemail.
‘Mummy!’ the girls cry, and I put my laptop aside as they scramble onto my lap. Asha’s knee gets me in the belly, and it is surprisingly painful, but I ignore it and hug them both and listen to their stories about preschool. Then they tell me that Daddy has promised they can watch a movie if they’re very good.
‘We are very good,’ Freya says earnestly.
I do my best to smile. I feel Gabe’s gaze on me. Like everyone’s lately, it seems. I don’t look at him. I can’t.
Gabe sets up a couple of beanbags in front of the TV and the girls drop into them like stones. Then he microwaves some popcorn and gives them each their own individual bowls. Once The Little Mermaid is playing, he sits beside me.
‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I saw Max.’
I hadn’t been able to tell him over the phone, with Mum here. But he had obviously heard the panic in my voice because he doesn’t seem surprised. ‘Where?’
‘At The Pantry. He was ordering a coffee.’
Gabe closed his eyes, swore softly. ‘Did he see you?’
‘No. I snuck out of there like a thief in the night.’ The tears fill my eyes unexpectedly and I quickly wipe them away. ‘Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
Gabe slides off the couch and kneels on the floor, between my legs. He makes it so it’s impossible for me to look anywhere but into his eyes. ‘It’s going to be all right, Pip. I promise you.’
In this cosy pod of security with our girls and the smell of popcorn in the air, it would be so easy to believe him. But I don’t. This is the one thing we’ve come up against that actually isn’t going to be okay.
‘Listen to me,’ he says, and I do, because more than anything I want someone else to take control. I want to be a bystander. I want to be like my two little girls, staring slack-jawed at the screen, my biggest worry that my popcorn will soon run out. ‘I know how difficult this has been. But you didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t need to lie or hide from anyone. You don’t need to worry about what the police will do.’ His face is pulsing with intensity. His cheeks are pink, and his eyes are desperate for me to hear what he is saying. ‘I was the one who lied to them, Pip. This is not your burden to carry.’
But I don’t believe him. I did do something wrong. And it is my burden to carry. Still, there’s something about hearing him say the words aloud, knowing that he is willing to carry this weight for me. For now, it’s enough.
It’s not lost on me that, despite everything, Gabe is the only one who can make it better.
The girls watch another movie after The Little Mermaid and I lie on the couch with a novel I don’t read while Gabe massages my feet. We keep the curtains drawn and, mercifully, no member of my family drops in to pay us a visit.
We order pizza for dinner and open a bottle of wine. The girls are lovely, delightful caricatures of themselves, which makes me think that Gabe must have bribed them to ‘be extra kind to Mummy’. I’m fine with it. If my soul was ill, this is my salve. Gabe is my salve.
He puts the girls to bed single-handedly. The stories are spectacular. There are costumes, singing and dancing, and a performance with several speaking roles. The girls laugh so hard I am sure someone is going to vomit, and equally sure that they are unlikely to settle before midnight. But I’m wrong on both counts.
When Gabe emerges from their room at 8 pm, I mute the television. I open my mouth to congratulate him, but he presses a finger to my lips. ‘Don’t talk.’
And so I don’t. I remain silent as he kneels between my legs and removes my underwear. This is exactly what I need. To disappear into a world of me and Gabe, a world where nothing exists except us.
I throw my head back and bury my fingers in his hair and give in to it.
53
AMANDA
BEFORE
‘How on earth did Gabe Gerard get involved with Arthur Spriggs?’
It was like a nightmare. A recurring one. Part of me was shocked to learn that Arthur Spriggs still existed. After he disappeared from our lives the last time, it felt like he was a character in a movie – like Freddy Krueger or Hannibal Lecter – someone who had been terrifying right up until the point he ceased to exist.
Max shrugged wearily. ‘Same way I did the first time.’
Apparently, it wasn’t a huge surprise that they’d crossed paths. Crooks, politicians and oligarchs all attended the same glamorous parties frequented by people working in investor relations. The only thing you needed to earn a place on the guest list, apparently, was power.
According to Max, Gabe was a lamb to the slaughter. After all, Arthur Spriggs wasn’t an idiot. He would have seen the young executive, eager to prove himself, and known exactly how to play him. Gabe forced the deal through, despite the red flags raised during the compliance process, and Max himself had signed off on it.
‘It’s my fault ultimately,’ Max conceded. ‘I approved it.’
‘Can you reject his investment?’
‘It’s too late. The deal is done.’
‘So . . . what happens now? What are you going to do?’
Max wouldn’t meet my eyes, which made me worry. ‘Same as last time,’ he said. ‘We have to be creative.’
There were several more meetings at the house between Max, Baz and Gabe after that. I didn’t eavesdrop on them again. I remembered how they’d involved Arthur Spriggs’s two-year-old daughter previously; I had no interest in knowing what they were planning this time.
Still, it was impossible not to notice the increase in security around that time. Baz brought on an assistant, a young guy who was almost as big and scary-looking as Baz himself, and who was either stationed outside the house or accompanied me wherever I went. For the first time in years, I had to start wearing my panic button again. And Max was always on edge, almost jumpy.
It was a Saturday night, around 9 pm, when it happened. Max had been tense all evening, constantly checking his phone. When it finally rang, he leaped up and ran to his home office. I’d known this was coming. I’d been on tenterhooks for weeks, waiting for this whole episode to be over, while fantasising that it would just go away on its own. No such luck.
I couldn’t help it; I had to know. I hurried down the hall and slipped into my study to listen at the wall.
‘Arthur,’ Max said. ‘I hope my team are treating you well?’
I was relieved to know that it was Arthur himself, and not his daughter, who was with Max’s ‘team’.
‘I understand – and they have been instructed not to harm you,’ Max said. ‘All we need is for you to sell your shares back to me and then you will be returned to your home.’
There was silence for a few seconds; I presumed Arthur Spriggs was favouring my husband with some choice words.
‘You’re in a van,’ Max said patiently. ‘Where we drive it is up to you. I’m hoping you cooperate, so we drive you home, after which we never have to cross paths again. If that’s what you want, you’re going to have to –’
Max stopped, presumably because Arthur had cut him off. After a moment, he said, ‘You don’t seem to understand that you’re not in a position to negotiate. I have no wish to harm you, but if you don’t cooperate, I will.’
Another silence. When Max spoke again, he sounded irritated. ‘Look, Arthur, we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. It’s up to you.’
Now the longest silence of them all. I wondered what was happening. Was Arthur calling his bluff? Surely not. But if he did . . . what did that mean? Max couldn’t actually kill him. He wouldn’t. Was that what Arthur was banking on?
When the silence continued, I found myself walking out of my study into the hall and through the door to Max’s office.
Max turned to face me, but his attention was elsewhere. It allowed me to get up close beside him and put my ear to the phone.
‘Fine,’ Max said. ‘Have it your way. Baz –’
‘No!’ I shouted, and then I heard the gunshot.
54
PIPPA
NOW
Mei calls while I’m still in bed. It’s just after 7 am – an ungodly time for most, but not a bad time to catch me. Gabe has gone for a surf; the girls are asleep. Normally I’d be in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher and getting a head start on the day, but I haven’t been able to motivate myself to get out of bed, not even for coffee. It seems as good a time as any to talk to Mei.
‘Hi,’ I say, settling back against the pillows.
‘You’re a hard lady to catch,’ Mei says. ‘I called twice yesterday.’
‘I know, sorry.’
I hear the girls stirring in the next room. It always starts this way, with Asha letting out a spectacular yawn. In a few minutes, she’ll roll over and try to rouse Freya, who will protest for exactly three seconds. Then they’ll scamper into the living room, bright-eyed and mischievous and aggressively hungry.
Mei still hasn’t spoken.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘You tell me,’ she says. ‘What’s happening with Max? And don’t say nothing. I saw him in town yesterday.’
I curse internally. Unfortunately, Portsea is a small place. If I saw him, it wasn’t really surprising that Mei did too.
‘I’m worried, Pip. I know I said I wasn’t going to tell Kat, but –’
‘You can’t, Mei. Please.’
‘I don’t want to, believe me. She’s still sick as a dog, and she worries enough about you as it –’
‘What? Why does she worry about me?’
‘Because you’re her sister,’ Mei says, as if it’s obvious. ‘And sisters worry. But now she’s pregnant, I’d rather not upset her.’
‘Then don’t!’ I say. ‘Honestly, Mei, everything is fine. Max probably has a holiday house down here, that’s all. What rich person doesn’t?’
Mei considers that. ‘So you haven’t see him?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Of course not.’
‘Good. Because Max Cameron is not the kind of enemy you want. He knows some dangerous people.’
Dangerous. That word gives me pause. Gabe had said something similar. Max Cameron isn’t the nice guy everyone thinks he is. I recall my night with him. The fact that I hadn’t sensed his dark side makes me question my judgement – about everything.
‘So Gabe’s still insisting Amanda’s death was a pure coincidence?’ Mei says, when I don’t respond.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘because it’s the truth.’
‘All right,’ she says, although it’s clear she isn’t convinced. ‘But if I were you, I’d be asking Gabe a direct question: Is there something going on that I don’t know about?’
‘You’ve got it all wrong, Mei,’ I say. ‘And, frankly, I’m a little surprised by how quick you are to cast aspersions on Gabe’s integrity. I thought you were friends!’
I hear the thump of feet on the floorboards. A moment later, two little faces peer around the doorframe. I wave at them, and they run over and jump onto the bed. But I keep the phone pressed to my ear, waiting for Mei to apologise, to assure me that of course she and Gabe are friends, that she would never think him capable of anything sinister.
Instead she says, ‘Ask him.’
And ends the call.
Ask him.
I’m still thinking about my conversation with Mei as I strap the girls into their car seats an hour later. Why does she keep saying that? It irritates me, because I can’t defend Gabe, and I can’t understand why she is so desperate for me to confront him.
I don’t need to ask him, I want to cry. Because Gabe isn’t the one who did something wrong – it was me!
But of course I can’t say this. I can’t say anything at all.
I’ve rescheduled the girls’ vaccinations for this morning before preschool, and since I don’t have a meeting this morning I decided to go to the appointment with them and Gabe. Once the girls are strapped in, I get into the passenger seat. Gabe is driving.
‘Why do I have to have a shot?’ Asha says apprehensively.
‘Because the shot is full of superheroes,’ Gabe says. ‘The nurse will shoot them into your body, so they can be there to fight against germs. These superheroes stop you from getting sick.’
The girls look doubtful.
‘You can have ice cream afterwards,’ I say.
‘Yay!’ the girls chorus.
I scan the streets anxiously on our way to the health centre. I can’t help it. Unfortunately, it’s Friday, and Max looks exactly like every other wealthy fifty-something man with a holiday home in the area. I see several men that could be him – each one causing a brief interruption to the blood flow in my body, or at least that is how it feels. But none of them is Max.
We pull up a few doors down from the health centre. The girls are reluctant to get out, so Gabe heaves them both onto his back in a double piggyback. They look like a scene from a movie – the two giggling girls and their handsome father. Passers-by steal looks at them and smile.
‘I had an appointment for my daughters this morning, but unfortunately I can’t find them,’ Gabe says to the woman on reception as we enter.
‘We’re here!’ the girls squeal from his back. ‘We’re here, Daddy!’
