Chapter 14
Tara had a commission to finish: a burst of gleaming, silver fish leaping from the ocean.
Each of the fifteen glass pieces, and they were all unique, would be individually fastened to her client’s bathroom wall.
It was no good, though, her mind simply wasn’t on the job.
She gave up, switching off the kiln and closing down her studio.
Night had fallen while she’d been trying to work and the house was in darkness, apart from the gentle swirl of the screensaver on her laptop. She wandered over to the dining table and pressed a key to waken it.
Outside, the solar-powered lights around the dell were glowing, lighting the gentle curves of the ferns and the soaring reach of the trees.
A soft wind kept the garden in constant movement.
Directly below where she stood, a solitary spotlight picked out the bronze statue of the impossibly thin girl diving into one of the pools.
Tara had named her Hope, for no other reason than the word came into her head every time she looked at her.
Justin and the boys had nagged her many times about closing the drapes when she was alone at night, reminding her that someone could easily make their way across country and onto the house’s land.
Anyone, they’d warned, could watch her while she wandered the length of her huge living room at night; they could see her cooking, eating, curling up under a throw to watch TV.
They would know she was alone and unprotected.
The male campaign to unsettle her, she realised, to instil a creeping sense of unease, had begun long before Justin had moved out and started divorce proceedings.
Leaving the drapes as they were, Tara typed Logan Quick into the search engine.
He was a Cornish man. Born the youngest of two children to Sandra Quick, now deceased, he’d grown up with a single mother and a succession of foster families.
The identity of his father was unknown. He attended Redruth Comprehensive, leaving at age sixteen with no qualifications and thereafter holding a number of unskilled jobs, including bricklayer’s assistant, cleaner in a strip club, and shop assistant in a number of retail establishments.
An accident in his early twenties had resulted in spinal damage and, it was rumoured, mild cognitive impairment.
He spent three years unemployed, but a relatively modest National Lottery win in 1995, some five hundred thousand pounds, changed his life forever.
His current fortune was estimated to be in the region of five billion.
Tara’s phone, never far from her side since the boys had started school, began to ring. Lawrence.
‘Hey, baby.’ She put the phone onto loudspeaker.
‘Mum, Dad’s worried about you. He’s been calling you all day. He thought you might have had an accident in the garden.’
Tara stifled the sigh. An accident in the garden would suit Justin just fine.
‘I’m sound of limb, thank you. You had a good day?’
‘He asked me to remind you about Friday.’
‘Babes, you ever heard of Logan Quick?’ No sooner had the words left her mouth than Tara regretted them.
‘Who?’
‘Nothing. Just something I saw on X.’
‘Hang on.’ Lawrence fell silent. He was looking the man up on his phone. ‘Oh, the porno billionaire. Why you asking about him?’
‘Porno?’ Wikipedia had said nothing about porn, just that Quick’s early business dealings weren’t entirely reputable.
‘Made his money from sex shops and porn websites. Nice guy.’
‘He’s leaving me his fortune.’ Oh, why had she said that?
Lawrence gave a soft laugh. ‘He’s what?’
She was committed now. ‘I got a letter this morning. From a firm of solicitors. Apparently, I’m going to inherit a share of Logan Quick’s vast fortune.’
‘Yeah right.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Can you send me a picture?’
‘Of who? Logan Quick? No, there’s no photo attached to his Wikipedia page.’
‘Of the letter.’
‘If I must. It came with some sort of fancy coin.’
Tara positioned the token on the letter and took a photograph with her phone. She sent it via text message to Lawrence.
‘Funny sort of scam,’ he said, after a few seconds. ‘I mean, what’s in it for the scammers?’
‘Good question. I guess I contact the firm of solicitors and at some point I’ll be asked for my account details.’
‘Fair play, it’s a bit more original than the Nigerian prince. What’s written on the coin? I can’t make it out.’
‘Looks like Latin. So, anybody’s guess.’
‘You won’t do anything daft, will you, Mum?’
‘No, darling, I won’t do anything daft. And tell your father I’m trying to rearrange my schedule so I can make Friday’s meeting. He does not need to phone me through the night.’
‘He worries about you, Mum. We all do.’
‘I know,’ she lied. The boys, possibly, when they spared her a thought. Justin, not at all. Justin would love to get her out of the way.
Getting up, after she’d wished Lawrence a good night, Tara tucked the envelope away in the kitchen drawer beneath a pile of tea towels.
And then she remembered where she’d heard the name Logan Quick.
Grabbing the phone again, scrolling through her contact list, she found the number she was looking for.
‘Miranda?’ she said, when the call was answered. ‘It’s Tara Webb. I’m so sorry to bother you.’
A heavy sigh, then, ‘No worries. What can I do you for.’
The other woman’s voice sounded slurred; a TV was playing loudly in the background. A reality TV programme, judging by the language Tara could hear.
‘There was a woman I met at your drinks last Christmas. Lovely woman. Really interested in having one of my sculptures for her new place. I couldn’t get onto it straight away because I had a massive backlog but I’ve done some sketches and—’
‘Peregrine, get down!’ Miranda snapped. ‘No, leave that. Bad boy.’
‘Well, the thing is, I’ve lost her business card. I should have saved her number in my contacts, but things have been a bit hectic since Justin and I, well, you know—’
‘Is this going anywhere, Tara?’
‘You couldn’t give me her number, could you? I can call back, if you don’t have it to hand. Or pop round? How’s that lovely husband of yours? Arthur, isn’t it?’
Miranda’s husband, Arthur, fancied Tara rotten.
‘Maybe tomorrow night?’ she added, reaching for a pen.
‘Whose bloody number?’
‘God, I’m stupid. Amanda, she was called. Amanda Quick. Used to be a show jumper. Lovely woman.’
Amanda Quick née Holt was Logan Quick’s ex-wife.
‘Can’t stand her myself. Frightful slag. Hold on.’
Several seconds of silence followed. Then a number was read out. Tara scribbled it down.
‘Thanks so much,’ she began, but didn’t get to finish. The call had been ended.