We turned into the waiting lift and I left civilisation and safety behind me.
I hadn’t been able to collect my handbag, so I had no mobile phone, no connection to the world. I didn’t even have my coat to keep me warm on this raw, wet November day.
Keane had child locks on the car doors or I would have tried to jump out at the lights. He and Ed were in the front, while I had the back seat to myself.
Nobody spoke for the duration of the tense ten-minute journey. It was raining hard as we stopped outside a large gated house for Keane to press a button on his key fob, opening the driveway.
‘You’re looking a little the worse for wear,’ remarked Ed mildly as we got out of the car.
‘You should see the other bloke,’ said Keane, then he turned to me. ‘How’s Crowley this morning?’ he asked, unsmiling.
I shrugged, swallowing my nerves as I passed through a handsome front door into a house that could be beautiful if its owner cared a little more about interior design.
‘Ramani,’ he bellowed. ‘Coffee for two.’
No coffee for me, then?
He shepherded me into a large square drawing room at the back of the house and sat himself in one of two armchairs either side of an ornamental fireplace. Ed took the other.
Keane pointed an uncompromising finger at the hearthrug.
‘Kneel,’ he commanded.
Was he serious? I looked imploringly at Ed, but he turned his face towards the mantelpiece with its ornamentation of brown envelopes and handbills.
I lowered myself on to the rug, which was at least a comfortable shagpile, and waited, my cheeks burning, for the hideousness to come.
‘So you had a fist fight with Crowley?’ said Ed in a conversational tone.
‘I did. On Maria’s front lawn, if you can picture it.’
Ed shuddered. ‘Police? Press?’
‘No, apart from your own trusty pair. I can’t answer for nosy neighbours taping on their phones, mind.’
‘God forbid,’ said Ed.
‘Shouldn’t it be in the paper?’ I said, my rebellious spirit roused by their quiet determination that it should be swept under the carpet. ‘Surely it’s headline news if the leader of the city council brawls in a garden with a journalist? At the house of a celebrated Dominatrix?’
&nbs
p; ‘Nobody asked you,’ said Keane. He shoved my thigh with a booted toe. ‘You conniving little bitch. I was going to give you so much. I really liked you.’
He sounded astonished and a little pained.
You stupid git, I thought.
‘You and Ella?’ said Ed. ‘You were going to…?’
‘Maria introduced us at the dinner party. I’d told her I was looking for a new sub.’
With a rattle of china, the housekeeper appeared, bearing a tray. I wanted to scramble to my feet, but Keane kept his foot on the top of my thigh, holding me down. Presumably Ramani the housekeeper saw this kind of thing all the time. I was well and truly down the rabbit hole now.
‘You’ve met Haydon, the editor of the Clarion, haven’t you, Ramani?’
The housekeeper assented calmly, handing cups and saucers out.
‘This little bitch is of no account,’ said Keane. ‘So I won’t bother to introduce her. She’s got one almighty heck of a punishment coming, though, so perhaps you could get me a few of my favourite things from the locker.’