‘The story with you and Julian. You do know that he was set up, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ she said, her eyes still blazing. ‘Set up by your newspaper.’
Rachel shook her head slowly. ‘No, it didn’t happen like that,’ she said evenly. She explained how Carl Kennedy had been sent the photos. ‘Remind me how you met Julian, Susie. Don’t miss out a detail.’
Rachel had a theory. A theory that had developed like a television picture on an old TV set coming into focus. She had no idea if it was correct or just a series of convoluted ideas born of her own desperation. But she had a feeling that she was about to find out.
‘We met in a nightclub in Chelsea,’ said Susie tartly. ‘Don’t you remember? It was all there for you to read in your newspaper. It went from there.’
‘What were you doing in a Chelsea nightclub? You were eighteen years old. I thought the Clapham Grand or the Fridge in Brixton would be more your style.’
‘Well I wanted to better myself, didn’t I?’
‘And you thought you’d do that by meeting a rich man.’
‘I grew up in Battersea in a crappy council flat and those Chelsea lights used to wink at me from the other side of the river. That was where I was going to get to, whatever it took. At first I thought I could do it by working hard at school. So I did; I was heading for A-levels and uni, all that. But then one day I was window-shopping in the King’s Road and some guy drove past me in a Porsche, tooted his horn at me. That was the moment I realised I was kidding myself. What was I going to do? Get some pointless degree, clock up a load of debts that I’d never be able to pay off and sit there and watch all the best jobs go to people with contacts and pedigree?’
‘So you decided to cheat.’
Susie curled her lip. ‘Call it that if you like; I prefer to see it as an alternative career path. I had my looks; that was my gift. I won’t apologise for using them. Look at your sister, she did exactly the same thing.’
Rachel was about to object, say that Diana’s marriage was a love match, but in the circumstances, that would sound a little hollow. Besides, Susie was right: their mother had spent most of Diana’s childhood telling her how she was going to meet a handsome prince who would carry her off to his glittering castle. A-levels weren’t exactly valued in their house either.
She still had a sense that Susie was holding something back. The younger woman’s eyes were shining, as if tears were forming but she was desperately trying to stop them.
‘Susie, you know what I am doing,’ she said more kindly. ‘I’m investigating Julian’s death. You know as well as anyone what sort of man he was. Do you think he was the type to commit suicide?’
‘No one knows what goes on in people’s lives, do they?’
‘If you want to help, now is the time to tell me what you know. Anything. Anything at all. I think he had enemies, I think someone wanted to hurt him.’
A single tear finally glistened down Susan McCormack’s perfectly made-up cheek.
‘Susie, please tell me. You told me about Marjorie Case-Jones. You want to help him, I know you do.’
Susie glanced around as if she were looking for an escape route. ‘I can’t,’ she said quietly, looking out of the window.
‘Yes, you can,’ said Rachel in a softer tone.
Susie perched on the edge of the desk and squeezed the bridge of her nose.
‘Julian wasn’t the first wealthy bloke I went out with, not by a long chalk,’ she said finally. ‘I knew I wanted to meet a rich man and I knew the places to go to find them: Raffles, Chinawhite, Boujis. But I learnt quickly that they might not want the happy-ever-after ending that I did. Most of them were just after a quick fuck with some gullible pretty girl who would open her legs for a champagne cocktail.’
Susie blinked hard and composed herself.
‘One day I met a woman at the bar of some club, I don’t even remember where. She had lovely clothes, expensive jewellery, she was obviously rich and connected. She seemed to take a shine to me and gave me her card, said we should meet for lunch.’
‘You went?’
‘Of course I went. That was what I was there for – to make contacts, to network.’ Susie smiled to herself, as if she was remembering a secret joke. ‘She seemed so keen, I thought maybe she fancied me herself, and part of me didn’t even object to that thought because there was something about her. Something magnetic that made you want to please her.’
‘Who was this woman?’ asked Rachel.
‘As if you didn’t already know.’
‘Elizabeth Denver?’
Susie gave a curt nod. ‘After a couple of weeks of lunches and nights out to these dazzling parties, I think Elizabeth knew everything about me: how old I was, where I was from, what I wanted from my life. That’s when she told me she had a job for me.’