Perfect Strangers

‘That boy ticked off a ton of people over the years, honey. He was always hustling people.’

‘Hustling people? How exactly?’

‘Whichever way he could. Let’s just say he could charm the birds down from the trees – and he often did.’

‘So you’re saying Nick was a con man?’ asked Ruth, her pencil poised over her pad.

‘Well that depends on your point of view, doesn’t it? Nick was a salesman, he could sell anyone anything – does that make him a con man? He was a businessman, I guess, but he sailed pretty close to the wind sometimes.’

‘Like what?’

‘One time we went to Dallas and he talked a Ferrari showroom into letting him “borrow” some bright red quarter-of-a-mil monster for the week while he decided if it was “up to his standards”. I had to send someone to take it back because I knew he was never going to.’

She gave a gentle, affectionate laugh.

‘But he was such fun. He made life fun and you don’t realise how seductive that can be. When I was with him, I felt we were like Bonnie and Clyde. Little old me, boring society wife.’

‘You’re married?’ said Ruth with surprise, then felt foolish. Of course she was married.

‘And not to Nicky,’ laughed Jeanne. ‘Although sometimes I wished I was.’

‘How long were you in a relationship for?’

‘About two years on and off. I gave Nicky the keys to my bachelorette flat in Houston and he stayed there when he wasn’t flying off around the world.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘About a month ago, I guess. I live in Dallas with my husband and only saw Nicky about every month or so for a night at a time – I think you can guess how it all worked. But lately he’d been spending a lot of time in Europe. I did hear things, though.’

‘You heard things? About Nick?’

Jeanne sighed.

‘What we had was barely an affair, we were both too busy for that. But in my world, people like to talk. This life, this society as they call it, it’s a tiny place. Each one of us, we live our lives in a fishbowl, everyone knows everything about everyone. So yes, people knew about me and Nick and they would go out of their way to tell me how they’d seen him in Megève with an American heiress or in Monte Carlo with some old countess. People are vicious, Miss Boden. Quite vicious.’

‘And do you know why he was in London?’

‘Not exactly, but I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and he told me he was going to be in England for a big business thing. He said if I heard on the grapevine that he’d been seen in London with a young, beautiful woman, I was not to worry because it was just work.’ She laughed again, but this time it sounded sad. ‘That was Nick; so sweet. He thought I didn’t know about the other women, wanted to spare my feelings.’

‘I’m so sorry, Jeanne.’

‘So am I,’ she whispered, her voice finally breaking. ‘So am I.’

26

Cannes was having one of its hottest days of the summer. In the harbour, the gleaming white yachts gently bumped together while the Mediterranean twinkled in approval, as if a thousand diamonds from one of the smarter jewellers on the quayside had been sprinkled over the tide. Sophie wound down the window of their taxi and closed her eyes, feeling the breeze in her hair, the taste of the sea on her tongue – she felt as if she was coming awake after a very long sleep. It was a day that made you feel glad to be alive, but for Sophie that feeling took on a quite literal meaning. She was still shell-shocked from their brush with the Russians and absolutely furious with herself for putting them both in danger.

Josh was obviously unhappy too. He had been silent for most of the forty-minute journey from the outskirts of Nice – still fuming from her revelation in the back of the van – and not even the sight of the bright Riviera streets, hemmed in by happy holidaymakers and chic residents on both sides, was enough to make him smile.

The taxi stopped at a crossing to allow a tall, beautiful woman in a leopard-print bikini to pass. She was wearing five-inch heels and was carrying a tiny dog in a Louis Vuitton holdall.

‘I’m not sure Cannes has heard about the global recession,’ said Sophie, trying to lighten the mood.

‘Russians,’ said Josh flatly as an image of the stony-faced hit men jumped into her mind. ‘The West might be in a recession, but for lots of countries these are boom times. Ten years ago this place was full of the wealthy French and a sprinkling of the Euro elite; now they call the Riviera “Moscow on Sea”.’

His expression softened as he pointed to the swish shops and hotels all along the Croisette. ‘I bet you every one of those places has someone who speaks Russian these days. They can’t afford not to.’

At the harbour, the taxi turned away from the sea and into the old town, stopping on a narrow lane faced on both sides by little boutiques and cafés, a high-rent area for wealthy patrons with sports cars and Range Rovers parked at the meters.