Anne Mather - Impetuous Masquerade

‘Well?’ Simon thrust his hands into the hip pockets of his twill trousers. ‘I’m here. What was so urgent it couldn’t wait until three o’clock?’

‘It’s almost that now,’ muttered Rhia childishly, and Simon sighed.

‘It’s half past eleven,’ he corrected her dryly. ‘Hmm, is that coffee I can smell? I could do with a cup.’

‘Haven’t you had any breakfast?’ demanded Rhia sarcastically. ‘I’m sure your mother wouldn’t send you out without the requisite number of calories.’

‘I have had some toast and marmalade,’ Simon admitted, somewhat defensively. ‘Rhia, what is all this about? I knew something was wrong last night, but you wouldn’t discuss it then.’

Rhia went into the small kitchen and poured two cups of coffee, curiously reluctant now he was here to actually broach what she had to say. How would Simon take it? Would he threaten to go to the police? How well did she really know him, when they were not even lovers?

‘It’s Val,’ she said at last, carrying the coffee back into the living room and handing him a cup. Simon had made himself comfortable on the couch, but now he put the paper he had been scanning aside and gave her his full attention. ‘She’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared!’ At least her words had the ability to cause Simon to halt in the process of raising his cup to his lips. ‘What do you mean—she’s disappeared? Has she been abducted—run away? What?’

‘Not abducted,’ declared Rhia definitely, perching on the edge of the chair opposite. ‘She’s taken all her things—at least, all the things she kept here, at the apartment. I don’t think a kidnapper would wait around for her to pack.

Simon stared at her. ‘And—you knew this last night?’

‘No. No, of course not.’

‘So what was upsetting you last night?’

Rhia sighed heavily. Then, in as few words as possible, she explained her meeting with Valentina the previous lunchtime, omitting only the fact that her sister had been driving the car.

‘My God!’ Simon was evidently stunned. ‘And you think she’s run away because she’s afraid she’ll be implicated?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But—what the hell! It wasn’t her fault. I can’t understand why she would feel the need to cut and run. It doesn’t make sense.’

Rhia bit her lip. ‘Perhaps—perhaps there’s more to it,’ she ventured.

‘But what?’ Simon was endearingly obtuse. ‘It seems to me she’d have done far better to admit that she was with him when the accident happened. The police are bound to find out. They always do.’

‘Do they?’ Rhia looked at him anxiously.

‘Of course they do. And in any case, it’s a silly thing to do, running away. It encourages people to think the worst, to imagine you’ve got something to hide.’

‘Perhaps she has.’ Rhia hesitated. ‘Perhaps—perhaps she was driving. How—how about that?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Simon sniffed. ‘Val can’t drive, you know that.’

‘But—what if she was?’ probed Rhia cautiously. ‘I mean, young people do crazy things.’

‘If I thought that, I’d have no sympathy for her,’ retorted Simon grimly, shattering once and for all Rhia’s hopes of confiding everything. ‘No, no. Val may have been reckless, a bit of a tearaway when she was younger, but she wouldn’t do a thing like that. Good heavens, that would mean she was guilty of manslaughter, if the chap dies.’

Rhia buried her nose in her coffee cup. She felt near to desperation herself, and now that Simon had proved so virtuous, where could she turn?

The sound of the doorbell ringing brought her head up however, and what little colour she had drained out of her face. Who was that? she wondered in dismay. The police! Having discovered Valentina was not at the hospital where she worked, had they come looking for her?

‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ Simon was looking at her in surprise. ‘You did hear the doorbell, didn’t you? Perhaps it’s Val. Perhaps she’s forgotten her key. Perhaps your fears were unfounded.’

Rhia had distinct doubts that this could be so, but she could not ignore the caller, whoever it was. If she didn’t answer the door, Simon would; he was already half out of his seat, as if growing impatient of her hesitation.

Putting down her coffee cup, Rhia smoothed her damp palms down over the seat of her jeans and walked determinedly along the hall. As she went, she mentally rehearsed what she was going to say, deciding with resignation that she could not pretend she didn’t know what it was all about. Valentina had disappeared, she would tell them that. What they chose to make of it was not her concern.

When she opened the door, however, it was not the blue uniform of a police constable that confronted her, but the grey suede waistcoat of a three-piece suit. And the man who was wearing it with such indolent assurance was the man who had briefly terrorised her the night before.

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