actually been over there.’
‘It’s a very special place. Loughton was a village; now it’s a growing suburb but still has a village atmosphere.’
‘Will it take long to get there?’ She had no real idea of the outskirts of London; she rarely left the centre of the city.
‘Not at this time of night. Half an hour or so. And the great point is, we aren’t likely to see anyone who knows either of us so we’ll be able to talk without alerting anybody to what’s going on.’ He laughed curtly. ‘Although, of course, there are whispers already. If you start buying up shares, forcing the price up, the market soon knows what’s afoot. But as neither of our companies have given a statement to the press, so far the rumours are only that—rumours. The longer we can put off an announcement the better. It will only cloud the issue if we have the press on our backs.’
‘I agree. We don’t want press intervention, either.’ Bianca stared out of the car at the faintly dirty, shabby streets through which they were driving. This was a part of London she had never seen before. ‘Where are we now?’ Scraps of torn paper, crumpled drink cans, fastfood boxes blew along the gutters, and there was an air of decay and indifference on all sides.
He gave her an odd look. ‘Haven’t you ever been here before? This is the East End.’
She should have guessed. ‘Not very attractive, is it?’
‘You may not think so. Over the last hundred years it has looked like heaven to the immigrants from Europe, the Jews who fled from Eastern Europe, during the twenties and thirties, and now the place is home to Pakistanis and West Indians, not to mention some streets where you find nothing but Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish, and Africans whose countries are caught up in civil war. There are so many ethnic shops and restaurants here, it is like the world in miniature.’
‘Is Loughton like this?’
‘No, Loughton is way out of town, and much of it has been built since the war.’ He gave her one of his slow, amused smiles, and she couldn’t help noticing his charm, a quality Don really did not share. ‘You obviously aren’t a Londoner.’
‘No, I’m from the West Country…’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Dorset, actually—Lyme Regis.’
‘Ah, French Lieutenant’s Woman territory.’
‘That’s the place. It’s lovely.’
‘Did you grow up looking for dinosaurs? Aren’t there lots of them in the cliffs at Lyme Bay?’
‘Well, lots of fossils, yes. And we did do expeditions to hunt for fossils, from school.’
‘That would have prepared you for working for Don Heston. He’s a bit of a fossil himself—into moneymaking for shareholders rather than creating jobs for people. The red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist only cares about making money. A modern boss looks to making his company work for the people he employs, which means both making money and giving staff a good working environment.’
‘Don is a very good boss, Mr Hearne.’
‘Matt.’
She gave him a cool stare. ‘Matt. Don is very go-ahead and modern. I couldn’t ask to work for a better boss. He has encouraged me from the day I joined the firm.’
His long mouth curled mockingly. ‘Yes, I noticed the interest he took in you.’
Coins of red appeared in her cheeks. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Don’t try to tell me his interest is purely philanthropic because I wouldn’t believe you. You’re lovely, and Don Heston wants you.’
‘That’s insulting! But then men like you think women are only good for one thing, don’t you?’
‘Oh, I think women are good for many things,’ he drawled. ‘We can talk about that later. For now, tell me how you got the job with Heston? Did he pick you out of the typing pool? I know I would have done.’
Frozen-faced, she bit out, ‘No, I joined TTO straight from college.’
‘Which one?’
‘I went to the London School of Economics.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember reading that you were at the LSE.’
‘Don recruited me because my tutor was a friend of his and recommended me.’
They were driving through a suburb now, but as she stared out Matt Hearne slowed and queued up at what was clearly a motorway junction.
‘The M11—this is a fast route to Loughton,’ he told her as she looked around in some doubt. Where on earth was he taking her? How much further were they going? Before she could ask he said, ‘Do you know Heston’s wife?’
She gave him a wary look. Was he going to give her a third degree on the subject of Mrs Heston?
‘Not really. I’ve met her once or twice, but she prefers to live in the country, with their children, whereas Don spends the week in town, in his flat, and only goes home at weekends.’
‘From what Sara told me, he goes home very rarely.’
She turned to look at his profile and found it unusually sombre in the bright lightning flashes of the motorway light as they drove very fast along the outside lane. A lock of his light brown hair flopped over his temples; his mouth was straight, his jaw taut, his blue eyes hidden by drooping lids as he stared straight ahead.
‘You know her well?’ She had picked up something yesterday, at lunch. Don had been odd when Matt Hearne mentioned his wife and Bianca’s instincts had prickled with a sense of something not being said.
‘No, I only met her recently, but by a strange coincidence I found out she was at school with my wife.’
So that was it! thought Bianca. If Matt Hearne had loved his wife and still missed her it would have meant something important for him to meet an old school-friend of hers. What irony for Don to target Matt’s firm soon afterwards!
‘Sara Heston’s a very special person.’
Had he seen her again, since that first meeting, or had there only been that one occasion?
‘She deserves better than being married to Heston,’ Matt Hearne murmured, half to himself. ‘But maybe you don’t agree?’
Coldly, Bianca said, ‘I don’t know her, I have no opinion.’ Except that no woman deserved to be married to a selfish bastard like Don, but she would not say that to him.
Don was her boss, nothing more. She preferred to stay out of his private life.
He made no comment on that, slowing down and moving over to leave the motorway. ‘We’re turning off here. It isn’t far now.’
‘I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get there!’
They were out in the country a moment
