“Well, how was it?” Barbara poured herself another drink. “Fill me in on all the gossip. I want a full report.”

  “No gossip. Very dull.”

  “Oh, come on. Something must have happened. I’ve been working hard all day, earning our daily bread. At least you can entertain me a little before bed.”

  I was in no mood to indulge her and remained monosyllabic. Barbara could sense my unhappiness. And, like a true predator, couldn’t resist going in for the kill.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” She peered at me.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re being very quiet. Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure? Tell me about it. What is it?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh, I bet I can guess.” Suddenly, Barbara laughed, full of glee—like an impish child delighting in a mean prank.

  I felt unaccountably nervous. “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s a private joke. You wouldn’t understand.”

  I knew better than to react. She was trying to provoke me, but there was no point in getting into a fight with Barbara. I have learned from bitter experience that you never win an argument with a narcissist. It doesn’t work like that. Your only victory is to leave.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “Wait.” She downed her drink. “Help me upstairs.”

  Barbara walked with a stick by then, which made climbing stairs difficult. I supported her with one arm. She held on to the banister with her other hand. We slowly made our way upstairs.

  “By the way,” Barbara said. “I saw your chum today. Lana. We had tea—and a nice cozy chat.”

  “Did you?” That didn’t make sense. They weren’t friends. “Where was that?”

  “Lana’s house, naturally. My, my, isn’t it grand? I had no idea you were so ambitious, duck. Mustn’t set your sights too high. Remember what happened to Icarus.”

  “Icarus?” I laughed. “What are you on about? How many whiskeys have you had?”

  Barbara grinned, showing her teeth. “Oh, you’re right to be scared. I would be, too, if I were you. I had to put a stop to it, you see.”

  We reached the top of the stairs. Barbara let go of my arm, as I handed her stick back to her. I tried to sound amused.

  “A stop to what?”

  “To you, duck. I had to put the poor girl straight. She doesn’t deserve you. Few do.”

  I stared at her, feeling frightened. “Barbara. What have you done?”

  She laughed, delighting in my distress. As she spoke, she hammered her stick on the floorboards, underscoring the rhythm of her speech. She was clearly relishing every word.

  “I told her all about you,” Barbara said. “I told her your real name. I told her what you were, when I found you. I told her I’ve had you followed—that I know what you get up to in the afternoons, and the rest. I told her you’re dangerous, a liar, a sociopath—and you’re after her money, like you’re after mine. I told her I caught you messing about with my medication not once, but twice, recently. ‘If anything should happen to me in the near future, Lana,’ I said, ‘you mustn’t be surprised.’”

  Barbara drummed her stick on the floor as she laughed.

  “The poor girl was horrified. Do you know what she said? ‘If all this is true,’ she cried, ‘how can you bear to live with him in the same house?’”

  I spoke in a low voice, flat, expressionless. I felt strangely tired. “And what did you say?”

  Barbara drew herself up and spoke with dignity. “I simply reminded Lana that I am a writer. ‘I keep him around,’ I said, ‘not out of pity or affection, but to study—as an object of repulsive fascination. Very much as one might keep a reptile in a cage.’”

  She laughed and pounded her stick on the floor repeatedly, as if applauding her witticism.

  I didn’t say anything.

  But let me tell you, I hated Barbara in that moment. I hated her so much.

  I could have killed her.

  It would be so easy, I thought, to kick that stick of hers and knock her off-balance.

  Then just the lightest of touches would send her falling backward down the stairs—her body thumping down the steps, one by one, all the way to the bottom … until her neck broke, with a crack, on the marble floor.

  9

  You’d be forgiven for thinking, after everything Barbara West told her about me, that Lana would never speak to me again. Friendships have foundered on less.

  Thankfully, Lana was made of strong stuff. I imagine how she reacted to Barbara’s character assassination; that cruel attempt to discredit me in her eyes, and destroy our friendship.

  “Barbara,” Lana said, “the majority of what you said about Elliot is untrue. The rest, I knew already. He is my friend. And I love him. Now get out of my house.”

  That’s how I like to picture it, anyway. The truth is, there was a definite coolness between Lana and me after that.

  It was made worse because we never spoke about it. Not once. I only had Barbara’s word for it that the conversation had even taken place. Can you believe it? Lana never mentioned it. I often thought about bringing it up, forcing her to confront it. I never did. But I hated that there were secrets between us now, subjects to be avoided—we, who had shared so much.

  Mercifully, Barbara West died soon afterward. No doubt, the universe sighed with relief at her passing—I certainly did. Almost immediately, Lana started calling me again, and our friendship resumed. It seemed as if Lana had decided to bury Barbara’s poisonous words along with the old witch herself.

  But it was too late for me and Lana by then.

  Too late for “us.”

  By then, Jason and Lana had embarked on their “whirlwind romance”—as the Daily Mail breathlessly called it. They were married a few months later.

  Sitting in the church, watching the wedding ceremony, I was keenly aware I wasn’t the only guest with a broken heart.

  Kate was sitting right next to me, tearful and more than a little inebriated. I was impressed she had brazened it out—in true Kate style—and attended the wedding, head held high; despite having ignominiously lost her lover to her best friend.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone. Perhaps what Kate should have done, for the sake of her mental health—and this goes for me, too—was to pull away and distance herself from Lana and Jason. But Kate couldn’t do that. She loved them too much to give either of them up. That’s the truth.

  And after Lana married Jason, Kate tried to bury her feelings for Jason and put the past behind her.

  Whether she succeeded is open to question.

  10

  I may as well come clean. I had known about Kate and Jason’s affair for quite some time.

  I discovered it by chance. It was a Thursday afternoon. I happened to be in Soho, for—well, let’s call it an appointment—and I was a little early. So, I thought I’d pop into a pub for a quick drink.

  As I turned onto Greek Street, guess who I saw, emerging from the Coach & Horses?

  Kate was exiting the pub, looking rather furtive, glancing from left to right.

  I was about to call out her name—when Jason emerged, just behind her; with that same sheepish look.

  I watched them from across the street. They could have seen me, either of them—if they had looked up. But they didn’t. They kept their heads low, parting without a word to each other. They hurried off in opposite directions.

  Hello, I thought. What’s going on here?

  What odd behavior. Not to mention informative. It told me something I hadn’t known before: that Jason and Kate were meeting independently of Lana.

  Did Lana know about this? I wondered. I made a mental note to ponder this further—and think how I might best use it to my advantage.

  I hadn’t given up hope, you see. I still loved Lana. I still believed that, one day, we would be married. There was no question about that in my mind. Obviously she was now married to Jason—which made things trickier—but my goal, as Mr. Levy would say, remained the same.

  When Lana and Jason got married, I assumed—like everyone else—it wouldn’t last. I thought after a few months of being married to a bore like Jason, Lana would come to her senses. She would wake up to what a terrible mistake she had made—and she would see me there, waiting for her. Compared to Jason, I’d appear as suave and sophisticated as Cary Grant in an old movie—reclining against a piano, cigarette in one hand, martini in the other, witty, self-effacing, warm, lovable—and, just like Cary, I’d get the girl in the end.

  But to my astonishment, their marriage endured. Month after month, year upon year. It was torture for me. No doubt it was Lana’s sheer loveliness that kept it going. Jason would have tried a saint’s patience; and Lana was clearly something more than a saint. A martyr, perhaps?

  Therefore, as far as I was concerned, this surprise encounter with Kate and Jason in Soho was nothing short of a divine intervention.

  I had to make the most of it.

  * * *

  I decided it would be a good idea if I started following Kate.

  Which makes it sound more cloak-and-dagger than it was. You didn’t need to be George Smiley to spy on Kate Crosby. She wasn’t inconspicuous; you didn’t lose her in a crowd—whereas I always melt into the background.

  Kate was appearing in a successful revival of Rattigan’s Deep Blue Sea, which had transferred to the Prince Edward Theatre in Soho. So it was just a matter of lurking across the street from the stage door, watching from the shadows; waiting for the play to finish, and Kate to emerge and sign autographs for the crowd of fans.

  Then, when Kate left and made her way along the street, I followed.

  I didn’t have to follow far—just from stage door to pub door. Kate walked around the corner and slipped in through the side door of—yes, you guessed it—the Coach & Horses. Peering through one of the pub’s narrow windows, I saw Jason waiting for her at a corner table, with a couple of drinks. Kate greeted him with a long kiss.

  I was shocked. Not so much by the revelation that they were lovers—which, to be frank, had a kind of sordid inevitability to it—but by their total, unbelievable lack of discretion. They were all over each other that night—drunker and messier as the evening wore on. They were so oblivious of their surroundings, I felt secure enough to leave the window and venture inside the pub.

  I sat at the other end of the bar, ordered a vodka tonic, and watched the proceedings from there. Appropriately enough, some old dear was sitting at the upright piano, belting out the chorus of “If Love Were All” by Noël Coward: “I believe the more you love a man, / The more you give your trust / The more you’re bound to lose.”

  When they finally left the pub, I followed. I watched them kissing in an alley for a moment.

  Then, having seen enough, I hopped in a cab and went home.

  11

  From then on, I kept a detailed record in my notebook of everything I saw—all the dates, times, locations of their clandestine meetings. I wrote it all down. I had a feeling it might come in useful, later on.

  Often, during my surveillance, I would ponder the precise nature of Kate and Jason’s affair—what they got out of it (apart from the obvious)—and why they were so intent on pursuing a course that, to me, seemed destined for disaster.

  Sometimes, I would apply Valentine Levy’s system to their affair, breaking it down, in terms of motivation, intention, and goal. As usual, motivation was key.

  Presumably Jason’s motive for embarking on the affair had to do with boredom, sexual attraction, or selfishness? Maybe that’s unkind.

  If I were being generous, I might say Jason found Kate easier to talk to—Lana was wonderful, but her habit of always seeing the best in you made you determined to rise to that challenge. Kate, on the other hand, was far more cynical in her view of human nature, and therefore much easier to confide in—not that Jason was entirely honest with her, either.

  But, truthfully, I believe the real reason for Jason’s infidelity lay in the darkest of places. He liked to think he was powerful. He was competitive and aggressive—he couldn’t even lose a game of backgammon without flying off the handle, for God’s sake.

  So what happens when a man like that marries a woman like Lana? A woman who is infinitely more powerful in every regard? Might he not wish to punish that woman; to crush her, break her—and call it love? His affair with Kate was an act of revenge on Jason’s part. An act of hatred; not love.

  Kate’s motive for pursuing the affair was quite different. It reminds me of what Barbara West used to say—that emotional betrayal is much worse than sexual infidelity. “Screw another woman, fine,” she would say. “But take her out for dinner, hold her hand, tell her your hopes and dreams—then you’ve screwed me.”

  And that’s precisely what Kate wanted from Jason—dinner conversations and held hands and passionate romance—a love affair. Kate wanted Jason to leave Lana and be with her. Kate kept pressing him on this.

  Jason kept putting her off. Who could blame him? He had far too much to lose.

  * * *

  Late one night, I followed Kate to a bar in Chinatown. She met a friend there—a redhead called Polly. They sat by the window and talked.

  I stood across the street, lurking in the shadows. I needn’t have worried about them seeing me—Polly and Kate were engrossed in an animated conversation. At one point, Kate was in tears.

  I didn’t need to be able to lip-read to work out what was being said. I knew Polly quite well. She was Gordon’s stage manager—and they had been involved in a lengthy affair. Everyone knew about it—except Gordon’s wife.

  Polly was a troubled person, in many ways. But I liked her. She was outspoken and direct—so I could imagine how her conversation with Kate played out. Kate confided in her, no doubt hoping for a sympathetic ear. From where I was standing, it didn’t look like she was getting one.

  “End it,” Polly was saying. “End it now.”

  “What?”

  “Kate. Listen to me. If he doesn’t leave his wife now, then he never will. It will just drag on and on. Give him an ultimatum. Thirty days to leave her—one month—or you end it. Promise me.”

  I suspect these words grew to haunt Kate. Because thirty days came and went and she didn’t follow Polly’s advice. As time passed, the reality of what Kate was doing started sinking in. Her conscience began to plague her.

  This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Unless I have spectacularly bungled my job, it should be abundantly clear that, despite her many faults, Kate was fundamentally a good person—with a conscience and a heart. This prolonged betrayal of her oldest friend—the heinous cruelty of it—began to torment Kate.

  Her guilt grew, obsessing her—until she became fixated on “clearing the air,” as she put it. She wanted to have it out with Lana and Jason. A frank and open conversation among the three of them. Which, needless to say, Jason was determined to prevent.

  Personally, I think Kate’s intention was naïve, at best. God only knows what she imagined would happen. A confession, followed by tears, then forgiveness and reconciliation? Did she really think Lana would give them her blessing? That it would all end happily? Kate should have known better. Life doesn’t work like that.

  In the end, it seems that Kate, too, was a romantic. And that is precisely what she and Lana, so different in every other regard, had in common.

  They both believed in love.

  Which, as you shall see, proved their downfall.

  12

  Considering how indiscreet Kate and Jason were being, I knew I couldn’t be the only one who knew about their affair. The theater world in London is not large. Gossip about the two had to be rife.

  Surely it would only be a matter of time before it filtered back to Lana?

  Not necessarily—for all her fame, and her immersive walks around London, Lana lived a quiet life. Her social circle was small. I suspected only one person in that circle knew the truth, or had at least guessed it: Agathi. And she would never breathe a word.

  No, it fell to me to break the bad news to Lana. Not an enviable task. But how to do it? One thing was clear: Lana must not hear the news from me directly. She might question my motives. She might decide to be suspicious—and refuse to believe me. That would be catastrophic.

  No, I must be entirely independent of this unsavory business. Only then could I appear as her savior—her deus ex machina in shining armor—to rescue her, and carry her off in my arms.

  Somehow, I had to engineer Lana’s discovery of the affair invisibly, undetectably; making her believe she had discovered it all by herself. Easier said than done, I know. But I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.

  I began with the simplest, and most direct, approach. I tried to contrive a coincidental, “accidental” meeting—where Lana and I would bump into the guilty pair unexpectedly, in flagrante delicto, as it were.

  There followed a period of high comedy—or low farce, depending on your taste—as I attempted to maneuver Lana into Soho on various pretexts. But this was a hopeless effort and, in the best tradition of farces, went nowhere fast.

  The obvious reason was that it was impossible to maneuver Lana Farrar anywhere inconspicuously. The one time I managed to coax her into the Coach & Horses, just as Kate’s play was finishing, Lana’s arrival caused a mini-riot of jovial drunks, surrounding her, begging her to autograph their beer mats. If Kate and Jason had even neared the pub, they would have seen this whole circus long before we ever saw them.

  I was forced to grow bolder in my methods. I began dropping comments into our conversations: carefully rehearsed phrases that I hoped would register and linger with Lana—Isn’t it funny how Jason and Kate have exactly the same sense of humor, they’re always laughing together.