Page 202 of Guilty Pleasures

‘OK, let’s show Cassandra your car quickly and then you must go back to sleep, deal?’

‘OK!’ said Josh, dashing off. The boy’s room was like a fantasy playhouse created by interior designers. His bed was in the shape of a fort, but there was a Hockney over the fireplace next to colourful drawings by Josh. Josh got inside a miniature black BMW and began pedalling furiously around the room.

‘Astrid tells me that you went to school with Rebecca Milford,’ said Cassandra to the nanny. Helen nodded and then smiled gratefully once she realized that Cassandra was just making polite conversation.

‘Yes, it seems a lifetime ago. We were in the same year actually, although I know you wouldn’t think it to look at us,’ she said.

Cassandra almost nodded in agreement. Helen looked as if she hadn’t been to the hairdressers in years. Her hair was flecked with grey and the undersides of her eyes were puffy.

‘Rebecca was always a beauty, though. You could tell she was always going to do well for herself. You know: marry well.’

Cassandra smiled, thinking it was all relative. She wouldn’t be happy with someone twenty years older than herself unless he was one of Forbes 400 wealthiest. But for a poor girl from the village, she supposed Roger would have to do.

‘Funny she ended up being Ruan McCormack’s boss though,’ said Helen.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Cassandra, intrigued.

‘Oh, she went out with Ruan for about two years when we were at school. He was a couple of years below us but he was very good-looking even then. Funny how she owns the company Ruan works for. Although it’s not surprising she ended up with Roger. Our PE teacher would take us running past the hall and she’d always stop and say, “I’m going to live there one day”.’

But Cassandra wasn’t listening. Suddenly something that had been staring her in the face seemed all too obvious. It was just as if bright stadium lights had gone on inside her head.

‘Helen, does Astrid keep her old magazines?’

‘You mean like Rive and Vogue? I don’t think so. But I do, what do you want?’

‘Do you have Tatler? About three issues ago. I want party pictures from the Milford launch party.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve definitely got that one,’ said Helen, leading Cassandra down the corridor to her room. ‘It’s not often I actually know people at a party in a magazine. And Jude Law was there, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Cassandra distractedly, as Helen rifled through a pile of magazines and found the right issue.

‘There,’ said Helen, flipping to the well-thumbed party section. ‘Is that what you wanted?’

Cassandra scanned the pages and, finding the picture she wanted, carefully tore it out and handed the magazine back to Helen.

‘Now I think you’d better get Joshua back to bed before he has a mini pile-up,’ she said, scooting back towards the party as Helen stared after her with a look of total confusion.

Back at the party, Cassandra found Molly glassy-eyed and talkative, a trace of white powder around her nose, but when she showed the party pictures to Molly, she instantly confirmed that Ruan McCormack was the man she had seen Rebecca with at the Chelsea restaurant.

‘I wouldn’t forget those eyes anywhere,’ she smiled. ‘Just gorgeous, very rugged and intense.’

The dinner guests adjourned into the library, but despite the convivial atmosphere Cassandra could not shake her feeling of disquiet.

‘Got somewhere else to go?’ asked Molly sipping an expensive Chateau D’Yquem. ‘If it’s another party, I’m coming with you. There’s not one single man here tonight. With the exception of you and me it’s all bloody couples. I’m not surprised. Astrid must be feeling frightfully insecure.’

Cassandra looked at her but didn’t take in a word Molly Sinclair was saying. Her mind had been mulling over what an affair between Ruan and Rebecca could mean. After Emma’s arrest Ruan had been made acting CEO of Milford. If she had been charged and convicted he would have got the job permanently. Rebecca was having an affair with Ruan; would she leave Roger and achieve her dream of living in the ‘big house’? Was burning down the Stables with herself in it some plan for Ruan and Rebecca to run Milford together too? Cassandra tried to look at every angle of it, secretly hoping that the driver who had forced Emma off the road in Gstaad would turn out to be Ruan or Rebecca and not her mother. But then Mother confessed, didn’t she? She reminded herself. It was all too much: she felt a sudden urge to speak to Emma.

She excused herself from Molly and went over to Astrid who was sitting on a sofa on her husband’s knee, her arm wrapped proprietorially around his neck.

‘Sorry darling, I have to go,’ said Cassandra, bending to kiss her on both cheeks.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, sit down,’ demanded Astrid, ‘I want to tell you all about Frégate.’

‘Sorry. Can I call a cab?’ said Cassandra firmly.

‘To get back to London?’ asked Astrid.

‘No, I’m going to Chilcot.’