Dark Paradise

‘Do you feel as if you’re in prison?’ Kate set her empty cup back on the tray.

‘Yes, if you must know,’ Alison said shrilly, ‘I do!’

Kate felt her way carefully. ‘Have you told Jon how you feel? Perhaps …?’

‘Of course I’ve told him, but it hasn’t made an atom of difference,’ Alison said angrily. ‘He’s always been spoiled, of course. He’s had your mother, the classic happy drudge, waiting on him, and he thinks all women should be like her. Well, he’s wrong!’ Her voice rose sharply.

The biting reference to her mother caught Kate on the raw, but she controlled a hot rejoinder. She said, ‘If Jon’s views of marriage are old-fashioned, I think you need to go further back than that. His own mother walked out on him, if you remember.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Alison said rather sullenly. ‘And I can’t say I altogether blame her, if Jon’s father was as ridiculously possessive as he is.’

Kate was beginning to feel sick. Every word that Alison uttered seemed to be bad news. She tried to imagine Jon’s reaction when Alison told him what she was contemplating, but failed completely. For his wife to resume work at National Television would have been sufficient blow, knowing how he felt about Matt Lincoln, but this proposed trip to the Caribbean opened up a whole new dimension, she thought, horrified.

She said calmly, ‘I’ve never regarded my stepfather as being overly possessive, but then other people’s marriages are generally a closed book.’

‘How true,’ Alison agreed. ‘You’re quite a philosopher, aren’t you, Kate?’

Kate looked at her steadily for a moment, then she said, ‘You don’t like me, do you, Alison? I wish I knew why.’

‘Oh, but you’re wrong,’ Alison said, smiling. ‘It’s a great comfort to know that while I’m away with Matt, Sister Kate and the family will be around to give Jon consolation. Would you like some more coffee?’

‘No thanks.’ Kate got to her feet, buttoning her jacket. ‘I really have to be going.’

‘What a shame,’ Alison said politely.

The breeze had risen she found when she got outside, and the initial brightness of the day had clouded over, and she shivered as she walked along, conscious that Alison would be watching every step she took. She kept her head down and lengthened her stride.

She found she was shaking inside as she stood at the bus stop for what seemed an interminable time. Alison’s attitude bewildered her. Boredom might have made her sister-in-law resentful of the confines of marriage, but was that any real reason to rush on disaster as she seemed bent on doing? What had happened to the love she must have felt for Jon? Could that really have dissipated so quickly? And even if marriage hadn’t lived up to Alison’s illusions, surely after so short a time there was still something left to build on?

Or was Matt Lincoln’s power over her really so absolute?

Kate couldn’t be sure, but she told herself the fact that Alison hadn’t instantly accepted his offer had to be a hopeful sign.

‘Just as long as my interference doesn’t push her into doing something stupid,’ she thought gloomily, as the bus finally trundled into sight.

When she arrived back at the house, Maria was waiting for her.

‘Felix phoned,’ she said, holding out a slip of paper. ‘With the information you wanted.’

‘Oh,’ Kate accepted it gingerly. ‘That was quick work.’

‘I think he had the impression that there was some sort of crisis going on,’ Maria said drily. ‘Is there?’

‘Something of the kind,’ Kate admitted. ‘I wish I could tell you about it, Maria, but—but it’s a family matter.’

‘But not, thank God, the sort that Felix clearly imagines,’ said Maria, an underlying note of laughter in her voice. She gave Kate’s flat young stomach a long and meaningful look.

‘No, of course not.’ Kate was appalled. ‘My God, I hardly know the man!’

‘That could be best,’ Maria nodded. ‘That girl Felix mentioned—Lorna Bryce—apparently she was almost cut to ribbons when he finished with her, and Felix reckons that ordinarily she’s quite a tough cookie.’ She turned away, adding almost as an afterthought, ‘Clive may not set the world on fire, but he doesn’t leave charred remains behind him either.’

In the studio, Kate stood staring down at the piece of paper in her hand, sorely tempted to tear it into a hundred infinitesimal fragments.

But that wouldn’t solve anything. She had no idea how deep the problems between Jon and Alison were, but she knew that this offer from Matt Lincoln could not have come at a worse time. If Alison were to accept, Kate was sure it would finish all hope of them ever working out their difficulties together. The marriage would end bitterly.

And she didn’t believe for one moment that Alison was as indispensable as she had been led to believe. Matt Lincoln was an experienced and cynical man. He would know a discontented wife when he saw one, and know exactly what kind of lure to offer.

Drew had known too, she thought painfully. ‘You have an exceptional talent,’ she remembered. And ‘There’s this amazing quality of innocence about you, Kate …’

Tell a woman what she wants to hear, and she’ll follow you anywhere, she thought.

And this was how Matt Lincoln was treating Alison. But why? Because he’d only discovered when it was too late and she was married to someone else that he really cared for her? Kate’s mouth curled. Never in a million years, she dismissed. If he cared, then his first thought would be for her happiness—not a selfish desire to plunge her into the kind of ugly recriminations which were inevitable if she went away with him.

It was more probable that he wanted to boost his ego by proving to himself that he was irresistible. That he only had to beckon and even a bride of a year would run.

Distaste rose like bile in Kate’s throat. But she knew what she had to do. For once in his life, Matt Lincoln was going to have to think again before causing havoc in people’s lives. Slowly she opened her purse and slid the slip of paper inside.

The block of flats the taxi brought her to was a surprise. She had expected somewhere far more opulent and showy, but this place with its warm red brick, its balconies and windowboxes was positively old-fashioned, she thought as she paid off the driver.

She asked, ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ and he gave her a look, half indulgent and half irritable.

‘Do me a favour, love! The name’s on the wall over there if you don’t believe me.’ And he drove off.

Kate went in through the revolving doors. She stood for a moment assimilating her surroundings. Stairs on the left, she noticed, and lifts straight ahead.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ There was a long desk on the right, she saw, with a modern looking switchboard, and a uniformed man looking at her enquiringly.

She said lamely, ‘I’m just visiting someone …’

He nodded politely. ‘Of course, madam. If you could give me the resident’s name, and tell me whether or not you’re expected.’

The building wasn’t as old-fashioned as she thought, she decided drily.

She said, ‘I’ve come to see Mr Matthew Lincoln, and no, I’m not expected.’

‘Then if I might have your name, miss, I’ll just check whether it’s convenient.’ He sounded courteous but inexorable.

Kate swallowed a defeated sigh. ‘It’s Marston—Kate Marston.’

She stood, waiting and listening while he dialled and gave the message. He replaced the receiver and looked at her and she waited to be told that Mr Lincoln was not at home, or Mr Lincoln was busy.

He said, ‘If you’d like to take the lift, miss. It’s the second floor, and the door on the right-hand side of the corridor.’

She said dazedly, ‘I—see. Thank you.’

She took a deep breath as she pressed the button for the second floor and heard the smooth whine of the doors as they closed. There was no going back now.

The palms of her hands felt damp, and she wiped them surreptitiously on her skirt, trying to marshal her thoughts, decide on the best tactic to use.