untruthfully. ‘But it’s probably a task better suited to her family.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ The curiously pale eyes rested on her. ‘You mentioned something about money?’
She looked back at him, bewilderment mixing with her unease. ‘Yes—but I thought you were the landlord wanting his rent.’
‘Oh, dear, another disappointment,’ he said lightly.
‘You mean Evie owed you too?’ She drew a dismayed breath, bracing herself. ‘If you’ll tell me what it was for and how much, perhaps something could be arranged.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly put you to so much trouble,’ he said. ‘And it’s really quite a trivial matter. Besides, I’m sure Evie and I will be running into each other again. One of these days. When she’s better.’
He paused again. ‘Now I’ll leave you to your toil. Do tell Evie next time you see her that I was asking about her. You won’t forget, will you?’ Another swift smile, and he was gone.
Tarn stayed where she was, uncomfortably aware that her breathing had quickened, and the plastic sack in her hand seemed suddenly to be weighing a ton.
Oh, pull yourself together, she told herself sharply. He’s just a concerned guy from upstairs. You’re letting this whole Caz Brandon thing knock you sideways, make you imagine every man you come across is a potential threat.
On the other hand, as she went downstairs, she found the genuine article waiting for her, bald and tattooed in a football shirt and denim cut-offs.
‘Bernie Smith.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘You’re not the woman I talked to.’
‘No, that was Miss Griffiths’ mother.’
He grunted. ‘Got the rent?’
Tarn handed over the envelope and watched him count it.
‘Seems to be all there,’ he said. ‘Lucky I don’t charge for having the place cleaned. And the inconvenience—paramedics and police swarming all over. Gives a place a bad name.’
‘Difficult to see how,’ Tarn said, giving the hallway a disparaging look before dropping the keys into his hand.
‘No need to be so high and mighty,’ he called after her, as she left. ‘And I’ll be checking that inventory, no danger.’
But I shall not, Tarn thought, as she hailed a cab, be mentioning any of this to Aunt Hazel.
‘Are you sure you won’t come to Molly’s birthday bash tonight?’ asked Della. ‘She said you’d be more than welcome.’
Tarn shook her head. ‘I’m going to have a long bath, wash my hair, and go through the stuff in the envelope yet again, in case I’m still missing something.’
‘Like a proposal of marriage from Caz Brandon in writing?’ Della wrinkled her nose. ‘You can’t sue for breach of promise any longer.’
Tarn sighed. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. To correlate the weird flat with that amazing ring, the chainstore clothing with the millionaire lifestyle.’
‘A noble ambition,’ said Della. ‘And I’m sure Evie would do just as much for you.’
Tarn bit her lip. ‘But you must admit it’s strange.’
‘Strange is not the word. And at the risk of turning into Cassandra whose warnings were also ignored, I say again that you should drop the entire mess, and get back to your own life.’ She gave Tarn a minatory glance. ‘A decision that Mr Brandon may also have made.’
‘Apparently he was bankrolling her,’ Tarn said unhappily. ‘There were some nasty letters from the bank and a credit card company in the envelope, but a week later she’s writing in her diary that she no longer has any money worries, “thanks to C.”’
‘Exactly,’ said Della. ‘He must have realised she was a total flake, especially where money was concerned, and that he’d be lucky if she didn’t bankrupt him.’
‘But he was going to marry her,’ Tarn argued. ‘Why didn’t he sit down and talk to her if there was a problem? Try to work things out?’
Della shrugged. ‘Maybe he did, and found it was stony ground.’
‘There’s also a load of stuff about the MacNaughton Company,’ Tarn said, producing a sheaf of papers. ‘Whoever they are.’
‘Now there I can help,’ said Della. ‘They’re a cleaning firm, incredibly high-powered, lethally expensive, and very discreet, exclusively employed by the mega-rich and famous. They appear like good elves, perform their wonders and vanish.’ She frowned. ‘But from what you’ve said, Evie’s flat wouldn’t be their usual stamping ground, even if she could afford them.’
‘I gather from her diary that Caz Brandon fixed her up with them too,’ Tarn said wearily. ‘Though there wasn’t much sign that professional cleaners had ever been there.’
Della was silent for a moment. ‘The guy upstairs—was he attractive?’
‘He gave me the creeps.’
‘But you, honey, are not Evie. Could she have been two-timing her fiancé with the neighbourhood watch, do you suppose?’
‘Never in this world,’ Tarn said with emphasis. ‘No-one who was seeing Caz Brandon would give Roy Clayton a second glance.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Della said affably. ‘How very interesting that you should think so.’
She picked up her bag and walked to the door. ‘If you get tired of your mysteries, Sherlock, we’ll all be at the Sunset Bar,’ she threw over her shoulder as she left.
An hour later, Tarn was wishing she’d taken up the offer. Wrapped in a towelling robe, her hair curling damply on her shoulders, she was ensconced in a corner of the sofa, re-reading Evie’s diary and getting more depressed by the minute.
The contrast between the almost hysterical happiness at the beginning of her relationship with Caz and the agonised descent into despair when it ended was almost too painful to contemplate.
‘What can I do? I can’t go on?’ were words repeated over and over again. But Tarn had an odd sense from the later entries that Evie was not just wretched, but frightened too, because ‘What will happen to me? Where will I go?’ also cropped up with alarming frequency.
What did he do to her? she thought.
She reached for the beaker of coffee she’d made earlier, realising with a grimace that it was now cold. She closed the diary, put it on the floor with the envelope, and rose to go to the kitchen.
She was waiting for the kettle to boil when the door bell sounded.
Della must have forgotten her key again, she thought, although it seemed rather early for the birthday celebrations to have ended.
A teasing remark already forming in her mind, she
