other people’s personal problems.
‘Lunch with me?’ Matt asked hesitantly. ‘Or have you another date?’
She hadn’t, and she didn’t particularly feel like eating, but she knew that she could not remain in her office thinking about Kieron Blake.
To her surprise Matt took her to a fashionable new restaurant which had recently opened, and had become a favourite haunt of Globe staff. It was inclined to be rather pricey, and since she knew that Matt was having problems making ends meet, Briony frowned, wishing he had taken her somewhere more modest. Now she would have to insist on paying for her own meal and he would be hurt and offended.
The restaurant was full apart from one table set for six and one vacant one for two next to it. The waiter removed Briony’s coat with a flourish and a look in his eyes which immediately made her own harden as she directed a freezing stare at him.
Matt dithered over the menu. He always did, and Briony had grown used to it. In contrast she had decided what she was going to eat immediately, and she gave her order coolly, while Matt cast anguished glances, first at the menu and then at the hovering waiter. It took all of five minutes and they still had to endure the fiasco of choosing the wine. Matt hadn’t a clue about wine and normally ended up hot and bothered and very obviously patronised by the wine waiter. Briony sat through it all with detached uninterest, throwing a cool smile at Matt when he eventually managed to make up his mind, which he accepted with the gratitude of a dog being thrown a bone.
They had just started on their main course when the table adjacent to them filled up. Briony was conscious of being scrutinised but refused to look up. Matt turned to say something to her, and upset his wine glass, an expression of abject apology on his face as the contents cascaded over the table and dripped on to her cream wool skirt. She stood up, shaking off the moisture and assuring him that no harm had been done. As she sat down again she realised that the occupants of the other table were Doug and Kieron, and four other deputy editors from the paper.
Doug grinned at her, but it was Kieron Blake of whom she was most aware, her hands shaking beneath the narrowed blue stare he turned upon her.
‘Come and join us,’ Doug invited, calling over a waiter to move the tables together. ‘We’ll soon catch up with you.’
Briony willed Matt to refuse, but of course he didn’t, and somehow she found herself sandwiched beween Doug and Kieron while Matt sat opposite her next to the Features Editor, Gail Wyndham.
Gail and Briony had never been particularly friendly. Gail was a tall blonde, a career woman first and foremost but one who made no secret of her enjoyment of the opposite sex. It was rumoured that she knew every attractive male on the Globe intimately, and watching her openly flirting with Kieron Blake Briony suspected that it would not be too long before he joined that list. He was letting Gail make all the running, his manner lazily amused, just enough awareness in it to encourage her, and Briony felt faintly sick as she watched them together. One of the other men tried to engage her in conversation, but she cut him off abruptly, shocked to discover that Kieron had switched his attention from Gail to her, his eyes alert and watchful, a cynical twist to his lips.
‘I’ve been dying to meet you for ages,’ Gail murmured softly, stretching out a plum-tipped hand to touch his arm. ‘You were quite a celebrity on the Street even before you went to the States.’
‘Oh?’
Under the table Briony gripped her hands together until her knuckles showed white. From the moment she had seen Kieron Blake in Doug’s office she had known this moment would come. It seemed ironic that after so many years of nightmares about it, the confrontation should arrive just when she had at last hoped she was over them. Inwardly she was shaking with mingled sickness and fear, but years of hiding her feelings and repressing them behind a blank wall helped her to concentrate on her food, although if anyone had asked her what she was eating she would not have had the faintest idea.
‘The Myers case,’ Gail continued in a husky voice. ‘It made newspaper history—the sort of scoop we all dream about. While the rest of the press were speculating about what part of the world James Myers might have disappeared to, you managed to discover that he was right here in this country all the time, posing as his sister’s boy-friend.’
‘The Myers case?’ Doug frowned. ‘Wasn’t he the crooked financier? The one who was reputed to have salted millions away?’
‘Yes. It wasn’t a very pleasant business,’ Kieron said coolly. ‘The man had been indulging in a form of legal robbery for years, but then he made a fatal slip and got found out. Everyone knew what was going on but no one could prove it, and before the police could build up a case against him it was rumoured that he’d skipped the country.’
‘Only you knew differently,’ Gail admired. ‘How on earth did you find out the truth? By all accounts he was quite a master of disguise, and had been coming and going quite freely for weeks, posing as his sister’s boy-friend.’
‘Yes. He was hoping to leave the country when things had cooled down a bit. I had a few lucky breaks.’
‘And a guillible informant, if all one hears is true,’ Gail laughed. ‘Didn’t you get most of the detail for the story from Myers’ sister’s flatmate?’
‘I never disclose my sources,’ Kieron told her, smiling to soften the words. Briony could tell that Doug was impressed by this apparent show of loyalty and she could feel Kieron’s eyes upon her across the width of the table, but she refused to look up. No matter what he might pretend to others, she knew the truth!
‘In that case you didn’t need to,’ Gail said frankly. ‘I wonder what on earth happened to that girl? There was some talk of her being tried as an accomplice at one stage.’
‘Tried? but.…’ Kieron caught himself up, but not before Briony had observed his momentary shock with bitter satisfaction.
‘Surely you knew?’ Gail queried.
‘As a newspaper editor you should know better than merely to assume the obvious,’ Kieron parried.
Because he had no other defence against the question, Briony thought angrily.
‘It was a very clever piece of reporting,’ Doug observed, joining the conversation, his words jarring a nerve Briony had thought long dead.
‘Clever?’ she burst out before she could stop herself, her eyes burning with resentment, a loathing in her voice she did nothing to hide. ‘Is that what you all think? That it’s “clever” to destroy someone’s life, just to get a front-page story? Well, I don’t. I think it’s despicable. Hateful!’ She broke off, realising that the others were exchanging puzzled and amused glances.
‘Come on, love, aren’t you taking it a bit personally?’ one of the other men commented. Briony knew Kieron was waiting for her to speak, but she couldn’t. How could these cynical, worldly people understand the effect of their sophisticated moral code on others less worldly? And Kieron’s attempts to pretend that he hadn’t known.… That he had actually cared.… God, how she hated him!
‘Something wrong, Briony?’ Kieron asked her smoothly, giving her name faint emphasis. ‘You don’t seem to be enjoying your lunch.’
‘The lunch is fine,’ she retorted bleakly, ‘but if you’ll all excuse me, I’ve got work to do.’ She glanced at Matt, not wanting to embarrass him in front of the others by offering
