Page 206 of Guilty Pleasures

‘You know on the night of the party there was a second call put in to the fire services telling them that the Stables was on fire? We’d traced the number back to Winterfold.’

‘You thought I’d made the call?’

‘I didn’t know what to think. Now I believe it was Ruan. He was still at the party.’

‘He didn’t want to kill Cassandra, did he?’

Sheldon smiled. ‘Emma, tonight I think you deserve to have the day off from thinking about it all.’

‘Does that mean I can go home?’

Sheldon looked over the room where Cassandra was standing at the bar pouring vodka and tonic into a crystal tumbler. ‘I think you all need to go home. We can finish off statements over there.’

Rob had found Emma’s coat and draped it over her shoulders.

‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘What about Cassandra?’

‘Go and ask her.’

Emma approached the bar. Cassandra’s tumbler was empty.

‘Do you want to come back with us to Winterfold?’

‘You know what happened last time you invited me to stay at your house.’

The two woman looked at each other for a moment; every feeling of anger, distrust and resentment they’d ever felt for each other was put to one side and they slowly smiled.

‘Come on,’ they both said in unison. ‘Let’s go.’

It was proving impossible to find Giles’s home. It’s a windmill, for heaven’s sake! she thought, annoyed. How hard can it be to find a building with enormous blades? For an early April morning, the North Norfolk coastal road was clear and bright, enough so that she could pull down the convertible roof of the car. And despite the cold on her cheeks – good for the complexion, darling – for the first time in a long time, Cassandra was feeling pretty good. Ever since their rooftop drama at Milford a month earlier, the job offers had been coming in thick and fast: launch editor of a new luxury news paper supplement in New York; editorial director of one of the biggest publishing companies in the UK. But the most intriguing offers had come from outside the magazine industry: consultancy posts and styling jobs for the biggest-name fashion houses. These were jobs that meant she could indulge her passion for clothes at the actual source; they were jobs which meant she would be flexible and could therefore spend more time with Ruby. Her daughter was sitting in the passenger seat, enjoying the drive. She was about to start a new day school in Kensington and had moved into Cassandra’s apartment permanently. They had both agreed it was best if Ruby left Briarton; she’d got caught up with the wrong crowd and had paid the price. In life, Cassandra had told her daughter, there were some friends you had to cherish and hang onto and there were others who pulled you down; friends you needed to keep away from.

‘There,’ screamed Ruby, pointing to a large cylindrical house.

‘That’s not a windmill,’ said Cassandra, annoyed.

‘I bet you it is, I bet you,’ insisted Ruby. ‘It just hasn’t got any blades.’

‘Well, what if you want to make flour or something?’ asked Cassandra.

Giles Banks opened the door to the windmill. Cassandra had first called him earlier in the week and it had been one of the most difficult calls she had ever had to make. It was a phone call of apology and regret. At first Giles had been offhand; gradually he had thawed but it wasn’t until that precise moment that Cassandra knew she had been forgiven.

For a few moments they just stood there and looked at each other, then Cassandra spread her arms and they embraced, a warm, genuine embrace that felt good to both of them.

‘Darling,’ said Cassandra with a touch of reproach in her voice. ‘You said it was a windmill.’

‘It is,’ said Giles.

‘So where are the blades?’

‘Not since about 1897.’

‘Typical,’ said Cassandra with a wink. ‘All style over substance.’

It was a beautiful home. The curved walls were painted ivory with big windows that let in lots of light. Giles introduced Cassandra and Ruby to Stephen, the man Cassandra recognized from the night she’d fired Giles. She didn’t say anything – there was nothing she could say. On an austere-looking desk by the window, there was a photograph of Giles and Cassandra taken outside a couture show the previous year and Cassandra looked up at Giles, a lump growing in her throat.

‘Hey, Ruby,’ said Stephen quickly, ‘would you like to help me mix a fruit punch? Come on over into the kitchen, we’ve just had it redone.’