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CHAPTER ONE
THE telephone started ringing as Rachel was coming downstairs after putting the twins to bed. She muttered something not very complimentary, hitched six-monthold Michael further up her hip, and rushed the final few steps which brought her to the hall extension—then stopped dead with her hand hovering half an inch above the telephone receiver, her attention caught by the reflection in the mirror on the wall behind the telephone table.
God, you look a mess! she told herself in disgust. Half her pale blonde hair was hanging in damp twists around her neck and face while the rest of it spewed untidily from a lopsided knot to one side of the top of her head. Her cheeks were flushed, her light blue overshirt darkened in huge patches where bathtime for three small children had extended its wetness to her also. And Michael was determinedly trying to wreak its final destruction by tugging at the buttons in an effort to expose her breast. A greedy child at the best of times, he was also tired and impatient now.
‘No,’ she scolded, gently but firmly forestalling his forage by disentangling his fingers from her blouse. ‘Wait.’ And she kissed the top of his downy head as she picked up the telephone receiver while still frowning at her own reflection.
‘Hello?’ she murmured, sounding distracted—which she certainly was.
So distracted, in fact, that she missed the tense little pause before the person on the other end answered cautiously, ‘Rachel? It’s Amanda.’
‘Oh, hi, Mandy!’ Rachel watched pleased surprise ease the frown from her face, and only realised as she did so that she had been frowning. That brought the frown back, a perplexed one this time, because she had caught herself doing that a lot recently. ‘Michael, please wait a little longer!’ she sighed at the small boy grappling with her blouse.
He scowled at her and she sent him a teasing scowl back, her blue eyes alight with love and amusement. He might be the most bad-tempered and demanding of her three children, but she adored him just the same—how could she not when she only had to look into those dove-grey eyes and see Daniel looking back at her?
‘Aren’t those brats in bed yet?’ Amanda sighed in disgust. She made no secret of the fact that she found the children an irritant. But then Mandy was the epitome of made-it-in-a-man’s-world woman. She had no time for children. She was a tall, willowy red-head who strode through her highly polished life on a different plane from the one Rachel existed on. She was the sophisticate while Rachel was the comfortable, stay-at-home wife and mother.
She was also Rachel’s best friend. Well, maybe that was going a bit far, she acknowledged. She was the only friend Rachel had kept in touch with from her school days. The only one of the crowd who now lived in London like herself and Daniel. The others, as far as she knew, had made their lives back home in Cheshire.
‘Two down, one to go,’ she told her friend. ‘Michael wants feeding but he can wait,’ she added, for the baby’s benefit as much as Amanda’s.
‘And Daniel?’ Amanda asked next. ‘Is he home yet?’
Rachel detected more disapproval in her friend’s tone and smiled at it. Amanda did not get on with Daniel. They struck uncomfortably hostile sparks off each other whenever they were in the same company.
So, ‘No,’ Rachel said, adding ruefully, ‘So you’re safe to call him all the rotten names you like. He won’t overhear you.’
It had been meant as a joke, and not a very new one either. Rachel had always given Amanda leave to vent her opinion of Daniel when he wasn’t around. It allowed her friend to get off her chest all those things she would have loved to say to his face only she never quite had the courage to. But this time just an odd silence followed the invitation, and Rachel felt a sudden and unaccountable tension fizz down the line towards her.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked sharply.
‘Damn,’ Mandy muttered. ‘Yes. You could say that. Listen, Rachel. I’m going to feel an absolute heel for doing this, but you have a right to—’
Just then, a pair of Postman Pat pyjamas came gliding down the stairs, the small figure within making out he was a fighter pilot, firing his forward guns. Michael shrieked with glee, his eyes lighting up as he watched his big brother come hurtling down towards them.
‘Drink of water,’ the pilot informed the questioning look in his mother’s eyes as he reached the hallway, and flew off in the direction of the kitchen.
‘Look—’ Mandy sounded impatient ‘—I can hear you’re busy. ‘I’ll call you back later—tomorrow maybe. I—’
‘No!’ Rachel cut in quickly. ‘Don’t you dare ring off!’ She might be distracted, but not so much that she hadn’t picked up on the fact that whatever Mandy wanted to say was important. ‘Just hang on a moment while I sort this lot out.’
She put the receiver down on the table then went after her eldest son, her long, beautifully slender legs moulded in white Lycra leggings which finished several inches above white rolled-down socks and white trainers. She was not tall, but she was incredibly slender and her figure was tight—surprisingly tight considering the fact that she’d carried and borne three children. But then she worked out regularly at the local sports centreswimming, aerobics, the occasional game of badminton when she could find the time.
‘Caught you red-handed!’ she accused her six-yearold, who had his hand lost in the biscuit barrel. Rachel sent him a fierce look while he went red, then sighed an impatient, ‘Oh, go on then—and take one for Kate— but no crumbs in the beds!’ she called after him as Sammy shot off with a whoop of triumph before she could change her mind.
The kitchen was big and homely, big enough to house the netted play-pen hugging one corner of the room. She popped Michael into it and gave him something messy to suck at while she went back to the phone.
‘Right,’ she said, dragging the twisted telephone cord behind her as she went to make herself comfortable on the bottom stair. ‘Are you still there, Mandy?’
‘Yes.’ The answer was gruff and terse. ‘Why don’t you employ someone to help you with those kids?’ Mandy asked irritably. ‘They’re an absolute pain in the neck sometimes!’
‘I’ll tell Daniel you said that,’ Rachel threatened, not taking offence. So Mandy was not the maternal type; she could accept that. Rachel was very maternal, and was not ashamed to admit it. ‘And we do employ help,’ she defended that criticism. ‘It’s just that I like the house to myself in the evenings, that’s all. Live-in help feels as though you’ve got permanent guests. I can’t relax around them.’
‘Become any more relaxed,’ Mandy mocked acidly, ‘and you’ll be asleep! For goodness’ sake, Rachel! Will you stop emulating Sleeping Beauty and wake up?’
‘Wake up to what?’ She frowned, totally bewildered as to why Mandy felt this sudden need to attack her.
A harsh sigh rattled down the line to her eardrum. ‘Rachel,’ she said, ‘where is Daniel tonight?’
The frown deepened. ‘Working late,’ she answered.
‘He’s been doing a lot of that recently, hasn’t he?’
‘Well, yes—but he’s been very busy with that takeover thing with Harveys. You know about it, don’t you?’ she prompted. ‘I’m sure I heard you both discussing it the last time you came to dinner…’
‘The Harvey thing was over months ago, Rachel!’ Mandy sighed.
Months? Had it really been months since Mandy had come to dinner? Rachel pouted, thinking back. Michael had been about—three months old, she recalled. That was three months ago! My God, where had the days, weeks—months gone to?
‘Hey!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ll have to come to dinner again soon. I hadn’t realised it was so long since I’d seen you! I’ll talk to Daniel and see which night would be—’
‘Rachel!’ The sheer exasperation in Mandy’s voice cut her short. ‘For goodness sake—I didn’t call you to wheedle a dinner invitation out of you! Though your dinners are worth attending when you bother to put one on,’ she added, with yet more criticism spicing her tone. ‘Not that I know how you find the time, what with a house and three crazy kids to take care of, not to mention a selfish swine like…’
She was off on her usual soap-box, Rachel acknowledged, switching off. Mandy hated the way Rachel liked to run her home virtually singlehanded, and she thought Daniel contributed little or nothing. She did not understand how busy he was, how hard it had been for him to scramble his way to the top and support a young family at the same time. Nor did she understand that Rachel did not mind the long hours he had to work, that she understood that he was doing it for them, herself and the children, for their future security.
‘…and I just can’t let it go on any longer without telling you, Rachel. You are my friend, after all, not him. And it’s time someone woke you up to what’s going on under your very nose…’
‘Hey, back up a little, will you?’ Rachel had switched her attention back to what Mandy was saying only to find she had completely lost the thread of the conversation. ‘I think I missed something there along the way. What’s going on right under my nose that you think I should know about?’
‘See?’ Mandy cried impatiently. ‘There you go again! Switching off when someone is trying to tell you something important. Wake up, for God’s sake, Rachel. Wake up!’
‘Wake up to what?’ Like Mandy, she was beginning to get impatient herself.
‘To that bastard you’re married to!’ Mandy cried. ‘Dammit, Rachel—he’s playing you for a fool! He isn’t working late. He’s out with another woman!’
The words cracked like a whip, bringing Rachel jerking to her feet. ‘What, tonight?’ she heard herself say stupidly.
‘No, not tonight in particular,’ Mandy answered heavily, obviously thinking the question as stupid as Rachel thought it. ‘Some nights,’ she adjusted. ‘I don’t know how often! I just know that he is having an affair, and all of London seems to know about it except for you!’
Silence. Rachel was having difficulty functioning on any conscious level. Her breath was lying frozen inside her lungs, as pins and needles—like a deadening drug administered to ward off impending shock—gathered in her throat and made their tingling way down to her feet.
‘I’m so sorry, Rachel…’ Sensing her shock, Mandy’s. voice softened and became husky. ‘Don’t think I’m enjoying this, no matter how…’ She had been going to say how much she resented Daniel and would enjoy seeing the mighty fall. But she managed to restrain herself. Mandy disliked Daniel. Daniel disliked Mandy. Neither of them had ever made a secret of the fact that they put up with each other only for Rachel’s sake. ‘And don’t think I’m telling you this without being sure of my facts,’ she added defiantly to Rachel’s continuing silence. ‘They’ve been seen around town. In restaurants—you know—being too intimate with each other for a business relationship. But worse than that, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. My latest has a flat in the same building as Lydia Marsden,’ she explained. ‘I’ve seen them coming and going…’
Rachel had stopped listening. Her mind had turned entirely inwards, seeing things—pointers that made everything Mandy was saying just too probable to be dismissed as malicious gossip. Things she should have picked up on weeks ago, but she had been too busy, too wrapped up in her own hectic routine to notice, too trusting of the man whose love for herself and the children she had never questioned.
