Chapter 2
SCARLETT
I made the right decision to take the first flight out, checking into an airport hotel once I left the Shard.
I held it together long enough to look sane at check-in.
Then I got to my room and broke down. At some point, sleep took over, because when Reception called to wake me for my taxi to Heathrow early the next morning, I was still dressed.
That was five weeks ago. I’ve gotten better. Since the first week, I haven’t cried myself to sleep every night. Now grief comes over me only in waves, though when it comes, it brings with it the same excruciating pain in my abdomen and the same crippling ache in my chest.
I’ve developed a routine in Dubai. Sunday through Thursday, I’m in the hotel gym around five in the morning.
I mull over the international newspapers in the main restaurant and take coffee with breakfast. Then I head to Mr Ghurair’s office around eight.
With two deals running concurrently, I have more than enough to keep me busy all day.
I’ve gotten used to the dry heat I’d found stifling when I took my first steps on Middle Eastern ground. Despite the winter, the temperature is in the mid-twenties Celsius and a dramatic hike from the below-freezing temperatures in England.
After work, I call Sandy or Amanda – or both – and head to dinner.
I try to rotate between the four restaurants in the hotel so I don’t get bored of eating the same thing, although half the time, I only push the food around my plate.
In fact, the chef in Hoi An, the Vietnamese restaurant, has started giving me smaller portions so I don’t insult him by leaving his food.
After dinner, every night except Thursday and Friday when it’s rowdy, I head to the outdoor pool bar.
I order a drink and sip it, sitting on a white leather sofa staring out at the lights of the Burj Khalifa.
The menacing spike of the building dominates the opulent skyline.
Like everything in Dubai, it’s big, it sparkles and it screams money.
On Thursdays and Fridays, I take my drink indoors, in Broadway, a 1940’s New York-themed restaurant/bar.
Quirky, dark wooden rails separate sections of the bar and there’s a stage at one end of the room where theatre shows take place.
It’s different to the marble floors and elegance of the other public areas of the hotel.
Tonight is Thursday, so I’ve enjoyed two small plates in the Michelin-equivalent Indian restaurant and now I’m making my way into Broadway.
I spot Paddy behind the bar and give him a half-smile, then hitch up the hem of my tight-fitting dress and slide onto a stool in the corner of the bar, placing the toes of my strappy heels on the rim. The lights are dimmed for a production of Chicago that’s about to start.
Paddy finishes making a Manhattan by topping the drink with a Maraschino cherry, then slides it towards a waiter to serve.
‘Hey, lady,’ he says with his cute Dublin accent as he makes a beeline for me, tossing a white cloth over his shoulder. With the back of his hand, he knocks a rogue brown hair back into his messy mass of chin-length waves.
He rotates shifts between the hotel’s pool bar and Broadway. He doesn’t like working in the pool bar when the DJs are pumping out tunes on Thursdays and Fridays, so he moves to Broadway those days. He’s not, incidentally, why I rotate but I can’t deny it’s nice to have someone to talk to.
‘Hi Paddy, how are you?’
‘Not bad. Tired. I’ve already worked breakfast and lunch today. How’re you doing?’
‘Fine.’
He shakes his head on a short laugh. ‘The lady is always fine.’
‘I’m not in the mood for counselling, Paddy.’
‘You never are, sweetheart, but one day, you’ll tell me who broke your heart.’
I lean a forearm on the bar and turn my stool, subtly angling away from him. ‘What makes you think I have a broken heart?’
‘Oh, let me see. You sit alone every night looking miserable, nursing one cocktail for an hour, sometimes two cocktails on a weekend, heaven forbid. You never want to talk about it. You’re always fine and those eyes of yours drift off to another place.
Ex-pats come to Dubai for two reasons. One: tax relief.
And you’re not getting that whilst you’re on secondment. Two: to cure a broken heart.’
‘Mmhmm, well I drink alone because you’re the only person I really know in Dubai. I am fine and I drift off because your conversation is monotonous.’
‘Oh, she’s feisty tonight. I like it,’ he says with a cheeky wink, making me laugh. ‘Dry or dirty?’
‘What did I have last night?’
‘Dirty last night, dry the night before that, dirty the night before that, dry the night be—’
‘Okay, I get the point. Dry then, please.’
‘Sure thing.’ He moves down the bar, pulling a bottle of Tanqueray and a bottle of vermouth from the mirrored wall. ‘My finest,’ he says when he places the cocktail on a black napkin in front of me. He plants his hands on the bar, waiting for me to taste test.
‘Fine,’ I say with a smirk as the first sip travels straight to my head.
‘You’re a tough woman.’
‘Thanks. So, what about you? Tax or heartbreak?’ He flashes me a look that says he’s not giving me an answer, so I change course. ‘What’s your real name?’
‘Why do you keep asking me that?’
‘Because I don’t believe you’re really called Paddy. Too stereotypical.’
He laughs and moves off to serve.
I sip my dry martini as the curtain rises on the opening scene of Chicago.
This is the most dangerous time of my day. It’s the time, without fail, that my mind finds Gregory and the pain comes back: my stomach, my chest, my head. It’s when I think about how lost I am, how nothing makes sense without him.
I miss everything about him. All his personalities and quirks.
The way he would pull the cuffs of his shirt slightly lower than the edge of his suit jacket.
That stance. His hips flexed slightly forward so his strong calves pull the material of his trousers taut.
His shoulders back, tall and broad. That half-smile.
God, he could liquefy me with that half-smile.
The way his hair feels like silk through my fingers when we’re making love.
I stroke my lips where I wish I could feel his soft skin again. The familiar lump is building in my throat. I swallow it away with a sip of dry martini. He could drive me wild with just a single touch. And his scent. Rich, fresh. I close my eyes, remembering.
The stage darkens and a spotlight shines on the actress playing Roxie as the band strikes up ‘Cell Block Tango’.
Her soft, blonde bob bounces and her innocence disappears as she sings, ‘He had it coming.’ There’s a sinister edge to her stage voice.
He only had himself to blame. She’s captivating.
It’s not enough to distract me from my thoughts.
What I crave more than anything is the feeling of completeness.
I never realised I needed something else in my life.
I don’t think I did, anyway. Not until I met Gregory and, maybe for the first time, felt awake, alive, truly alive.
Being near him was an adrenalin rush. Blood pumped in my veins, the way it does now.
Just thinking about him raises my heart rate and sparks something low in my abdomen.
I knew he was flawed. I just didn’t think he was…
Well, I guess I just didn’t think. I lost all reason with him.
I became a different version of me, a Scarlett Heath who operated in the grey.
I struggled to move away from right and wrong, the black and white I’d always known and clung to.
I’ve had five weeks to realise that I prefer that version of myself.
I prefer the grey. I prefer who I am when I’m with him.
Confident. Womanly. Sexy.
Our relationship was a mess, doomed from the beginning. We didn’t do anything in the conventional way. The takeover. My dad. Murder.
‘Scarlett.’
I jump as Paddy’s voice brings me back to real time. ‘Yes?’
‘Here.’ He slides a dry martini next to the one I’m currently drinking. ‘From table fourteen.’
‘Thanks but I don’t accept drinks from strangers.’
‘That’s what I told her.’
‘Her? That’s new.’
‘She told me to tell you it’s from Trina.’
I try to locate the name, then the face in my mind. ‘Trina. Katrina Martin?’
Paddy shrugs.
‘It’s nice to see you again, Scarlett Heath.’
She’s standing over my left shoulder. Her ill-fitting black suit and scuffed leather flats have been replaced with linen trousers and royal-blue deck shoes.
The belt that would normally host her police badge has been switched with a dark-brown buckled belt that’s too big and chunky for the delicate fabric of her trousers.
If I were to judge her on appearance alone, I’d say she’s a woman who wants to exude a sense of authority, severeness, unkindness and a fuck you attitude. Wait, that’s my actual, informed view.
‘I wish I could say the same,’ I mumble. ‘I suspect it isn’t coincidence that you happen to be at the Crystal Grand in Dubai.’
‘I knew you were smart.’ She smirks and pulls a neighbouring stool close to mine, uninvited, definitely not welcome, but sitting nonetheless. ‘That’s why I knew you’d leave him eventually.’
I take a sip of my cocktail, a delay tactic whilst I muster some composure. ‘What do you want, Trina?’
‘I wanted to let you in on a secret.’ She leans towards me, forearm resting on the bar, fingers wrapped around a half-pint of beer.
‘Yeah, well, I’ve had my fill of secrets. Thanks anyway.’
She leans back and pushes a hand into the pocket of her trousers. ‘There I was thinking Scarlett Heath is a good girl. That she was lured into something she didn’t understand. I guess I was mistaken. You were in on it all along.’
I drain my glass and step down from my stool. I make to walk past her but she clamps a sweaty palm on my wrist. ‘If I’m right, your career as a lawyer will be over.’
Does she know?
Snatching my wrist back, I growl through my teeth. ‘If you’ve got something to accuse me of, do it. Give me your best accusation.’
She smiles. A sadistic grin. Then takes a swig from her beer. ‘Sit.’
‘I’ll stand.’
She wipes her lips with the back of her hand and covers a belch. ‘I think your billionaire boyfriend paid off DI Barnes. And I think one or both of them paid off the CPS.’
I shake my head, trying to make sense of her words. ‘What are you talking about?’
That sardonic grin is back and I want to slap her face. ‘I was right. You didn’t know.’
My heart is pounding in my chest as my brain makes sense of her statement.
Gregory paid off DI Barnes? I don’t want to believe it.
I don’t believe it. I snatch up the drink Trina bought for me and take a gulp, then lean into her ear.
‘Katrina Martin, you’re full of shit.’ I place my glass to the bar with a thud. ‘Enjoy the rest of your stay in Dubai.’
‘Scarlett.’
I’m walking away but, for some unbeknown reason, I turn to face her.
‘I think you know I’m not talking shit and I think your breathing has quickened and the skin around your neck flushed pink because this is the first you’ve heard of it.
Bribes, Scarlett. Bribes of the most corrupt sort.
Bribes with government officials. Bribes that would ruin your career and put you all behind bars for a very long time.
Unless, of course, you wanted to make a statement. I could get you leniency.’
‘Fuck you.’ The words grate through my teeth and locked jaw.
She throws her head back on a laugh. ‘Yep, fuck me. But you just think about it. The CPS didn’t bat so much as an eyelid over a murder and, moreover, a murder with a gun?
Two ballistics reports are ordered for no good justification and what d’ya know, they conflict.
’ It’s her turn to drain her drink. ‘You’re a smart girl. ’
With that, she leaves and I stagger back towards my stool where I down the last of my second cocktail in one.
I want to think she’s a liar but there were things I brushed over, things I didn’t put my mind to.
Like DI Barnes’s connection to Jackson. The way he was nice to me when he turned off the tape during my questioning.
How pissed off he got when Trina started badgering me, digging deeper for answers.
He shouted at her. He ordered her out of the room.
Sunday night, after Gregory and I had returned from that godawful foxhunt, DI Barnes turned up unannounced at the Shard to tell Gregory and Jackson about the ballistics report.
How? Why? I’d thought he was just forewarning Jackson, being a good friend.
But I remember now that he was angry. He said they’d been lying to him, Jackson and Gregory, that they’d hidden things from him.
I raise a hand until I have Paddy’s attention, then I gesture to my empty glass.
‘Three in one night,’ Paddy says, sliding the third martini in front of me.
Without even thinking, I drain it. ‘Make it four.’
‘Whoa, steady on. Is everything okay? Do you want to talk about it?’
Whatever look I give him makes him hold up two flat palms. ‘To be sure. Number four’s coming up.’
I can’t believe I was so blind. So intentionally blind to what was happening.
Gregory said he went to the police for me, so I could move on.
He made me promise that if the Crown Prosecution Service made a decision not to charge him, I would accept that shooting Kevin Pearson was the right thing to do.
That I would accept the decision meant I shouldn’t be charged, that I did the right thing.
If Katrina Martin’s theory is true, it was all a lie.
Five weeks ago, I had Gregory. I deserved to be punished for what I did, for killing a man, but I thought I could get over it because I’d saved Gregory’s life.
For the last five weeks, I’ve been trying to make sense of everything that happened and the only conclusion I’ve drawn is that nothing makes sense without him.
Not my involvement in the hostile takeover, not my dad being murdered as a result, not my burning desire to seek revenge, and not my incurable need to touch and feel that man.
I’ve realised things may never make sense again without him.
I’m ruined for anyone else. Forget anyone else, I’m ruined in my own right.
But the one thing I’ve been able to cling to, the one thing keeping me from dropping off the cliff of sanity, is knowing that I didn’t lose all of Scarlett Heath.
I took that shot because it was the right thing to do.
Gregory escaping prosecution, escaping twenty-five years in a prison cell.
That was the world telling me I did the right thing.
Now it’s all unravelled. I don’t have him and I don’t have confirmation that I was on the right side of justice.