Heartbreaker by Susan Howatch Page B

should have been upfront with me from the start, and if you’re ever economical with the truth again like that I’ll be bloody angry.”
    “Darling, I’ll never let you down a second time, I swear I won’t—”
    “Asherton pays me good money so that you can report on your clients’ religious interests. If you keep mum when you should be speaking out, he’s going to feel short-changed—and I don’t like to think of Asherton being short-changed, dear, I really don’t. Short-changing Asherton’s not a good idea at all—and as for short-changing
me
by keeping quiet about a client’s St. Benet’s connection—”
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
    “Just remember that if Darrow ever finds out where I am, the whole bloody fiasco of 1990 will be raked up and the police will land on us like a ton of bricks. They may not be able to jail you for leisure-working but they’ll smash your business by tipping off the tabloids about the pretty-boy who’s got the City sussed, and don’t think either that your precious Cayman Islands bank account would survive! The police would drag in the Revenue to make sure you got done for tax evasion!”
    It’s no big effort to assume the required sober expression. In fact after all the facts I’ve edited during this conversation, assuming a sober expression is the easiest thing I’ve had to do for some time. Anyway, since I’ve heard this scenario before I’m a long way from being in total shock. On the contrary, the next moment my brain’s clicking into top gear again as all the neurons skewered by Asherton finally achieve realignment, and I’m realising that this could be my golden chance to find out more about the fiasco of 1990. I’m also realising how important it is for me to seize this chance with both hands because when I get going in a big way with Carta Graham, fundraiser
extraordinaire
for the St. Benet’s Appeal, it’ll be vital to know exactly what risks I’m running. Just how far do I believe Elizabeth’s nightmare scenario which she uses to beat me into shape?
    My difficulty here has always been the lack of a lever which would coax Elizabeth to open up further about what really happened in 1990. I’ll get nowhere by just saying: “Hey, I need more information to ensure I take St. Benet’s seriously in future.” Elizabeth’s left me in no doubt about how seriously I should take St. Benet’s and as far as she’s concerned there’s nothing further I need to know. Where the truth’s concerned about the fiasco of 1990, she’ll short-change me until she’s blue in the face.
    Suddenly I have a brainwave. It’s the word “short-change,” reminding me of the threat she’s just made about Asherton.
    Tentatively, very tentatively I say: “Darling, there’s something that’s puzzling me. I couldn’t help noticing that Asherton was as alarmed as you were when the subject of St. Benet’s cropped up. Was he somehow involved too in the fiasco of 1990?”
    The question works. Shit, she’s thinking, that’s a complication I don’t need, better toss him an explanation that’ll shut him up.
    Idly, willing to be cosy again after the big blast, she says: “Get me another glass of sherry, will you, dear? I think it’s best if I finally tell you everything.”
    She won’t, of course.
    But I bet she cooks up the helluva story.
    Before I get to Elizabeth’s story-cooking in 1992, here’s the story she cooked up for me in 1990 after she’d been forced to abandon her business as a psychic healer in Fulham, ditch the alternative identity she’d used there and shut herself up in the Lambeth house until it was safe to emerge for plastic surgery.
    Things went wrong (said Elizabeth in 1990) when one of the clients who came to her for healing accused her of being a fraud. Of course the client was mentally ill and of course facing false accusations is an occupational hazard for all healers, even doctors, but Elizabeth was still shocked. She was even