“He feels your sister and I must spend more time together. As if time’s going to solve anything.”
Michael had been so busy working this year, he’d seen very little of Roxie, which he felt guilty about. On the rare occasions when he took a break from the business, he tried to spend as much time as possible with Summer, although even that was difficult, what with Summer finishing her journalism degree at NYU and Michael based three thousand miles away in Oxford.
“Are things no better on the Roxie front, then?”
“Things are the same. I open a door, your sister slams it.” Alexia smiled thinly, but Michael could see the pain behind the smile.
“Are you really opening doors, though, Mummy?” he asked cautiously. “You can be pretty short with Rox at times, you know.”
“I know.” Alexia sighed. “She frustrates me so much, sometimes it’s hard to keep my temper. But I am trying. I don’t want to give up on her, Michael, but it’s as if she’s given up on herself.”
“I know.” Michael sighed.
“Anyway, enough of that nonsense. How are you, my darling? How are things going with Daddy’s party?”
“Wonderfully, thanks.”
“Anything you need from me?”
“Nope.” Michael sipped his water. “You’ve done more than enough already. Tommy says to tell you if you ever tire of running the country, there’s a guaranteed job for you with us.”
Alexia laughed loudly. “How sweet of Tommy. Do give him my best.”
“You mustn’t give up hope with Rox, you know,” Michael said abruptly. “Look how much better things are with Dad and me now, versus a year ago.”
“That’s hardly the same.”
“It is in some ways.”
“Your sister’s never going to get over Andrew Beesley leaving her. I don’t know if she even wants to get over it, to tell you the truth. Sometimes I think she’s more comfortable being a victim than she is being happy.” Alexia took a bite of her fish. “Does that sound terribly harsh?”
It did sound harsh, although Michael had had the same thought himself, many times. Roxie liked being a victim and Teddy liked having a victim to care for. In some sick, twisted way, tragedy suited the two of them.
Michael’s face darkened. “I hate Andrew Beesley. I hate him so much it’s like a pain in my chest.”
Alexia looked at her son intently. “Do you?”
“Yes. I think how different things would be if Roxie had never met him. Don’t you?”
“No,” Alexia said truthfully. “I never think about the past. What happened, happened. It can’t be changed.”
“So you don’t hate Andrew Beesley?” Michael sounded disbelieving.
“No, I don’t hate him.”
“Because it would be okay to hate him, you know. It would be normal.”
Alexia laughed, more from nerves than amusement. Something about Michael’s tone disturbed her. “Would you like me to hate him?”
“No. All I’m saying is, I wouldn’t judge you if you did. Some people are just bad people. They deserve to suffer. They deserve to die.”
The mood at the table had shifted. Michael had been all sunshine and smiles when she walked in. Now suddenly he was so cold, Alexia felt a shiver run through her. She’d had the same feeling at Number Ten, when Henry Whitman had been so cryptic about her relationship with Sir Edward Manning.
Had Henry been trying to tell her something? Was Michael?
“How’s Summer?” Alexia asked, changing the subject to what she hoped would be a happier topic.
“Fine, I think.”
“What do you mean you think? Don’t you know?”
Michael fiddled uncomfortably with his napkin. “I haven’t seen her for a couple of months, to be honest. She’s in New York. I’m here. It’s not easy.”
“But you speak on the phone? You Skype?”
Michael nodded noncommittally.
Oh dear, thought Alexia. Trouble in paradise? She did hope not.
In the beginning Alexia hadn’t particularly shared Lucy Meyer’s enthusiasm for their respective children to become an item. But Summer had been good for Michael. She’d calmed him down and brought peace and contentment to the point where Alexia had begun to hope that perhaps the kids would get married. Certainly Summer Meyer would make a far more acceptable daughter-in-law than the motley parade of cocktail waitresses, models, and Lithuanian “students” that Michael had been dating before they got together.
“You’re still happy together, though, aren’t you?”
“Mmm-hmm.” The napkin twisted tighter.
“And she’s coming to the party?”
“Uh-huh. She’s flying over with Lucy and Arnie. Can we change the subject?”
“Of course.” Mother and son chatted happily for the rest of the meal, both making fun of Teddy’s utter obsession with the Kingsmere celebrations and with the great De Vere family history. By the time Alexia had to leave, Michael’s earlier odd mood had evaporated. He hugged her with his usual carefree grin.
“So, Paris tomorrow?”
“Paris tomorrow.” Alexia sighed. “I can’t remember the last time I had this much work on.”
“Can’t you?” Michael smiled to himself. His mother had been a rabidly ambitious workaholic since the day he was born, and almost certainly long before that. “Listen, Mum, I meant what I said about Roxie. Don’t give up hope. Deep down she still loves you. I know she does.”
Alexia kissed him on both cheeks. “Sweet boy.”
She swept out of the restaurant and didn’t look back.
The Paris trade meetings were as dull as trade meetings always were, at least during the morning sessions. In France, everybody drank wine with lunch, making the afternoons slightly more bearable for most. Unfortunately, Alexia was teetotaler, a concept so alien to her Parisian hosts that it became quite a talking point.
“But of course you ’ave wine in the evenings, madame?”
“No, no. I don’t drink.”
“Ah, oui, je vois. You are not drinking at work. I understand. This is a British habit, n’est-ce pas?”
“I actually don’t drink alcohol at all.”
“No, I am sorry. I don’t understand.”
“I don’t enjoy it.”
“Don’t enjoy it?”
“No. It’s not to my taste.”
“Ah, d’accord. But you will ’ave a little Château Latour, of course? This is not alcohol, madame. This is a great wine.”
Alexia was as sure as she could be that Kevin Lomax was behind the rumor that she didn’t drink because she was an alcoholic. But the last thing she wanted was to be drawn into a slinging match with Kevin, so she let it slide. Meetings with Lomax were stressful at the best of times, and the alcohol issue didn’t help. It was a relief to be able to escape for a couple of hours. While the trade and industry secretary toured the Renault Headquarters and enjoyed the CEO’s “déjeuner de bienvenue” alone, Alexia had taken herself off for a spot of shopping on the Avenue Montaigne. No doubt the other delegates would be three sheets to the wind by the time she got back to committee rooms. It did irritate her that so little was achieved in afternoon sessions, but she tried to focus on the job at hand: choosing a dress for Roxie. The assistants at Christian Dior were all male, all impeccably dressed in dark suits like nineteenth-century butlers, and had all mastered the art of efficiently unobtrusive service.
“ ’Ow may I help you, madame? You are looking for professional wear, or something for the evening perhaps?”
“Actually I wanted something for my daughter,” Alexia said. “A gift.”
She’d taken Michael’s advice to heart and decided to make more of an effort with Roxanne. Since communication of a personal, emotional nature had never been Alexia’s strong point, she thought she’d start with a peace offering. A present.
The assistant took her arm. “Well, madame, we ’ave some classic silk scarves, of course. Very chic, very beautiful. And our new collecti
on of sac-à-mains is just arrived.”
“I thought perhaps a dress? We’ve a summer party coming up and my daughter will want to look her best. She’s the same size as I am.”
“And as beautiful as madame, I am sure,” the assistant said smoothly.
An old feeling of irritation rose up within Alexia, but she suppressed it. It was not an attractive trait, to feel jealous of one’s own daughter’s youth and beauty, and she disliked herself for it. When all was said and done, she did love Roxanne and always had.
Hands were clapped, fingers clicked, and immediately Alexia found herself surrounded by swathes of rustling fabric, cotton and toile and slub silk and velvet and lace in every conceivable cut and color. It had been a long time since Alexia had shopped for clothes. These days she ordered everything from Net-A-Porter, or got her PA to pick things up for her. She realized she’d forgotten how much fun nonvirtual fashion could be.
She’d also forgotten just how obnoxious Americans could be, especially when on vacation abroad. In the dressing room next to Alexia’s, a very loud, very vulgar Texan woman was shouting at her husband to turn off his iPad and pay her some attention.
“I swear to Gaaawd, Howie, if you don’t turn that thing off right now, I’m gonna spend so much money in here you won’t be able to afford a cab back to the Georges V.” She pronounced it “George Sink,” which made Alexia cringe. Having eradicated her own American accent forty years ago, she recoiled at Americanisms now like a reformed smoker wrinkling her nose at others’ cigarette smoke. Clearly this woman felt the need to ensure that the entire store knew that she and “Howie” were staying at the most expensive hotel in Paris.
“Would you shut the fuck up, Loreen?” her husband replied boorishly. “I’m tryin’ to listen to the news here.”
“There’s news at the hotel. I am tryin’ to shop.”
“I mean real news, not that French communist baloney.”
“Real news” turned out to be Fox, probably Alexia’s least favorite media outlet. But, like the rest of the store, she soon found herself being deafened by the noise from Howie’s iPad, turned up to maximum volume, presumably to make a point and show his strident young wife who wore the pants.
The Dior staff, as ever, were scrupulously polite.
“Sir, I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to turn that off.”
“Ask away, Pierre,” the Texan said rudely. “I’m listening to the news and that’s that. Do you have any idea how much money I’ve spent in your store in the last forty-eight hours?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Yeah, well. It’s more than you make in a year. I pay your fucking wages, okay, Pierre? So back off.”
“Howie! Stop being such an asshole and help me pick a dress.”
As the marital argument wore on, Alexia found herself tuning in to the headlines on autopilot. The U.S. president had delivered a popular speech on the first day of his trip to Israel. American defense spending was up again, for the third quarter in a row. That’s a mistake, Alexia thought. The euro was down against the dollar. A flamboyant Miami businessman had thrown his name into the hat for the Republican presidential nomination next spring. But it was the last item, added by the newscaster almost as an afterthought, that made Alexia De Vere catch her breath.
“The mutilated body of a young woman washed up on the Jersey shore yesterday morning has now been identified as that of Jennifer Hamlin, a twenty-two-year-old secretary from Queens, New York.”
Jennifer Hamlin!
The name rang in Alexia’s ears like a hideously clanging bell. Her mind flashed back to last year. Billy Hamlin standing in Parliament Square, calling her Toni, begging her to acknowledge him. Alexia heard his voice now, as if he were standing right beside her.
“Toni, please! It’s my daughter. My daughter!”
He was frightened, frightened for his daughter, and he needed my help. But I turned him away. And now his daughter’s dead. Murdered, just like poor Billy.
In her guilt, Alexia clutched at straws. Perhaps it was a different Jenny Hamlin? Not Billy’s daughter at all? But she knew in her heart that the coincidence was too great. She remembered the file on Billy Hamlin that Edward Manning had compiled for her. Billy had had one daughter, Jennifer. The family was from Queens. What did Billy want to tell me, about his daughter? What was it that I was too afraid, too self-interested, to listen to? Could I have saved her? Saved both of them?
Alexia handed the dresses back to the assistant and left the store in a daze.
Outside on the Avenue Montaigne, she made a phone call.
“Billy Hamlin’s daughter’s been murdered.”
On the other end of the line, Sir Edward Manning betrayed no emotion. “I see.” He’d been exactly the same after Billy Hamlin was found dead last year, a case that the police had closed without identifying a single suspect. Cool. Calm. Unruffled. It was what Alexia expected of him, what she wanted, in a way. And yet, unreasonably, it still upset her.
“Is there anything you’d like me to do, Home Secretary?”
“Yes. Get me all the information on the case. All of it. Talk to the U.S. police, to the State Department, to the FBI. I don’t care how you get it and I don’t care who knows. I want a report on Jennifer Hamlin’s murder on my desk by the time I get back to London.”
“And if people ask why the British Home Office is so interested in an obscure American murder inquiry?”
“Tell them to mind their own damn business.”
Alexia hung up, shaking. Suddenly the trade talks and the stupid Kingsmere summer party didn’t matter at all anymore. All she could think about was Billy Hamlin and his poor daughter. Just as it had last summer, Alexia’s past had emerged to reclaim her. But this time she couldn’t resist it. She couldn’t stick her head in the sand and simply run away. People were dying. Because of me?
Alexia De Vere caught the Eurostar back to London that night, with a deep sense of foreboding on her heart.
Roxanne De Vere never did get her peace offering.
Chapter Twenty-three
Lucy Meyer sat down on the end of the bed and began carefully unpacking her suitcase.
“Why are you doing that?” Arnie asked her. “I’ll get the front desk to send up a maid.”
“And have some barely trained Eastern European slip of a girl put grubby finger marks all over my vintage Alaiia? No thank you,” huffed Lucy. “I’ll do it myself.”
Arnie laughed. It amused him that even here, at London’s über-luxurious Dorchester Hotel, where he’d booked them into one of the two royal suites (a genuine royal was apparently in the other), his wife was too distrustful of foreigners to let the staff help her unpack. Arnie had been married to Lucy for a long time, and had learned to find her idiosyncrasies endearing rather than annoying. At the same time, as an international financier who spent half his life in other cultures, he found it baffling that his wife could be so resolutely narrow-minded about all things European. As far as Lucy Meyer was concerned, if a thing wasn’t done exactly as it was done in America, then it was done wrong.
The Meyers had flown in for the De Veres’ summer party at Kingsmere next weekend. All the Pilgrim Farm neighbors knew that Teddy and Alexia were skipping their annual trip to the Vineyard this year because of some big bash of Teddy’s back in England. But it wasn’t until they landed in London that Lucy and Arnie realized exactly how high profile next weekend’s event was going to be. The British prime minister and his wife, Charlotte, were flying back from their holiday in Sicily in order to attend. Every English newspaper was running paparazzi shots of the various international celebrities congregating in London like exotic pigeons, all at the behest of Britain’s glamorous home secretary. Even more exciting, quite a number of said celebrities were spending the nights before the party at the Dorchester, getting over their jet lag and generally being seen. Lucy Meyer had already spotted Prince Albert of Monaco at the bar downstairs, and the Spanish prime minister and his wife h
ad checked in immediately before her and Arnie. Literally next to us at the front desk! as Lucy had written excitedly on her Facebook page.
“I hope Summer’s gone formal enough with her dress,” Lucy fretted as she hung up her own floor-length silver gown. “Do you remember last Christmas, at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, when she went knee length?” She gave a small, involuntary shudder at the memory.
“Summer always looks wonderful,” Arnie Meyer said loyally. “Besides, Michael’s organized this thing, hasn’t he? I’m sure he’ll have filled her in on the dress code.”
“I hope so.” Lucy sounded worried. “Even so, I think I might pop over to Harrods before she gets here and pick up a couple of backups for her, just in case.”
“Only a couple?” Arnie teased. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to buy up the whole designer-wear floor, honey? You don’t want to leave anything to chance.”
“You may laugh.” Lucy scooped up her quilted Chanel purse from the table by the door. “But it’s very important for a woman to look the part at these things.”
“I know that, sweetie.”
“After all, Summer’s attending as a potential daughter-in-law. Let’s not forget that.”
Arnie Meyer rolled his eyes.
Forget it? With Lucy’s wedding fever as strong as ever, there was no chance of that.
Summer Meyer waited by carousel number eight for her bag to arrive.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally she went to the help desk.
“Are you sure everything’s been taken off the plane?”
“I’m afraid so, miss. Do you have your baggage tag handy? It should be on the back of your ticket.”
Summer scrabbled around in her purse. As usual it was a total mess, full of makeup and pens and half-eaten candy bars and scraps of paper with ideas for feature articles scrawled across them. But no boarding pass.
“I must have left it on the plane.”
The man at the desk was sympathetic, taking down the description Summer gave him of her untagged suitcase (“black” and “large”) without so much as a smirk. But they both knew it would be a miracle if she saw the bag again. Exhausted and defeated, she caught the first Heathrow Express train to London, sinking down into the window seat, close to tears.