Heartbreaker by Susan Howatch Page A

I’m really, really sorry I came out with all that shit in front of—”
    “Face it, pet, I gave you a helping hand, didn’t I? I should have kept my mouth shut when I saw your eyes glaze over at the mention of Slaney’s religious interests!”
    But I know she’s shovelling on the sympathy to screw the whole truth out of me. Then she’ll unleash the big blast, but meanwhile I’ve got the chance to give my story a makeover, and this time I’d better be bloody sure I get it right.
    “It’s wonderful of you to be so understanding,” I say earnestly, “but I’m sure you want to know the real reason why I kept quiet about Richard’s St. Benet’s connection. It was because when he mentioned it to me last week he also asked me later on in that same session if I’d go sailing with him. So I think: oh boy, if I tell Elizabeth about Richard and St. Benet’s she’ll axe him from the client list and then my chance of sailing goes down the tubes.”
    “Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!”
    But I daren’t relax yet. More earnestly than ever I say: “Okay, I hate escort work, hate working on weekends, but I figured it would be worth it to get back on board a boat again. Richard said he had one of the new thirty-footers from Hunter with a self-tacking rig and a twin-keel option—”
    “Fancy!” says Elizabeth dryly, but she’s smiling at me.
    “—and so I thought: well, I
will
tell Elizabeth about the St. Benet’s connection—but not just yet. I thought—”
    “You thought: screw Elizabeth, I’ll play my own game here!” She’s still smiling as she turns up the heat.
    But I stay cool. I’ve provided the missing motive for my decision to withhold information, and the motive has the advantage of being true— more or less. I mean, the truth’s just been a bit edited, that’s all. Of course I’ve known about Richard’s St. Benet’s connection for months and I’ve been sailing with him six times, but I’m hardly likely to trot all that out to Elizabeth, am I? No way!
    Meanwhile as all this edited stuff flashes through my mind I’m protesting innocently: “Elizabeth, I never thought of it as playing my own game! I just didn’t want you axing him from the client list before I’d gone sailing!”
    But Elizabeth turns up the heat another notch.
    “Listen, pet,” she says, and now the smile’s vanished. “You took decisions that weren’t yours to take. Slaney was infatuated with you already, and if you’d gone sailing with him he might well have lost it altogether, run amok and ruined your vital reputation for leisure-working discreetly.”
    “But—”
    “Can you really have forgotten Langley threatening to top himself and Petersen having the nervous breakdown and Perrivale—no, I don’t even like to think of Perrivale screaming down the phone that he’d kill me unless I let him see you every day! Slaney was about to become an unacceptable risk, that’s the truth of it, and I’d have terminated him just as soon as those stocks and shares were in our hands.”
    “But Richard wouldn’t have flipped out like the other guys! He was an okay bloke, he wouldn’t have harmed me in any way, I was his friend!”
    “Oh, grow up, dear! Smart, classy, wealthy, successful men like Richard Slaney don’t have leisure-workers for friends! He wanted you for one thing and one thing only, and it would only have been a matter of time before he tried to cut me out and wreck your business in order to have you all to himself. You his friend? Don’t make me laugh! If you think he was your friend just because he wanted some fun on his boat, you’re deceiving yourself in the biggest possible way!”
    I try to keep my face expressionless as she unleashes this big blast, but after her last words I have to struggle to keep focused.
    “Now just you listen to me,” says Elizabeth, keeping her voice level but making sure every word comes out rock-hard. “I accept that you’ve come clean now about Slaney, but you