Page 19 of Healing Hearts on Thistledown Lane: Part 4
‘I bet he does,’ Kirsty said firmly. ‘Or at the very least, his agent does. You have to tell him what’s going on, Maura. Once the story goes to print, it will be too late.’
With a heart that felt like a stone, Maura grudgingly accepted she was right. This didn’t just affect her and Fraser – Jamie was going to be dragged into it too, and that was the last thing he needed. Reluctantly, she reached for her phone and tapped out a terse message to Fraser giving the bare bones of what had happened. Pressing send, she waited for the single tick to become a pair. It did not. She did a quick mental calculation; it was mid-morning in LA and Fraser was unlikely to be asleep, unless he’d been out partying. She shook that thought away and stared down at her phone, willing it to change, for the ticks to multiply and turn blue, telling her Fraser had read the message.
‘Give it time,’ Kirsty said, seeing her frustration. ‘He might have no signal – you know what roaming is like. And try not to beat yourself up. You didn’t do anything wrong.’
Logically, Maura knew that was true. So why did it feel as though she’d been unforgivably naive?
Maura tried not to constantly refresh her messages in the hours that followed but anxiety made it hard to resist. Kirsty had left her just before eight o’clock, with strict instructions to tell Fraser the whole story as soon as he responded, followed by a promise to keep her in the loop with any developments.
Unable to bear the silence of the apartment once her sister had gone, Maura had taken refuge in the studio. She’d knownbetter than to attempt to make anything; the clay would undoubtedly pick up on her jitters. Instead, she’d set about sweeping every dusty corner of the room and scrubbing the floor by hand. Her arms ached, her knees were numb and her hair was damp with sweat, but it felt good to be doing something – anything – rather than staring at her phone.
A muffled knock at the door made her jump. She checked the time – almost nine-thirty, far too late for anyone she knew to be knocking. Whoever it was seemed to be waiting. They knocked again and she realised they weren’t at the door of the studio but outside the front door of her apartment. Her puzzlement deepened – who on earth could have a legitimate reason to disturb her so late in the day? It wouldn’t be Kirsty; she would be at home by now and, in any case, she had a key. It might be one of her neighbours, and that thought made her pause. Several were elderly – what if one of them needed her help? And then an equally unsettling possibility occurred to her: it could be someone she absolutely did not want to see. Charlie Fleming was a journalist, with access to all kinds of databases and records. If he wanted to know where Maura lived, she thought he could probably find out. But just as she decided to go and see who it was, they tapped on the door of the studio.
Not Fleming, she decided with a faint shiver of relief. To the uninitiated, the doors of the studio looked like all the others along the street – the entrance to a garage. Only those who knew Maura were aware that it was the entrance to her pottery studio. Wincing at the stiffness in her knees, she got to her feet and rinsed her hands in the sink before moving quickly to open the studio door.
The sight of Fraser took her breath away. ‘But you’re – how—’ She gripped the doorframe to steady herself against a wild burst of disbelief. ‘I thought you were in California.’
‘I was,’ he said, his expression uncharacteristically sombre. ‘But I came back early. Judging from your message, it’s a good thing I did.’
Maura hadn’t truly known how tightly wound she was until then. The shock of seeing him standing there, tired and grey-looking but solid and real, seemed to have loosened something inside her, allowing her to breathe properly for the first time since her hideous encounter with Fleming in the café. Tears bloomed at the back of her eyes but she dug her fingernails into her palms, determined not to cry. Stepping back, she opened the door wide. ‘You’d better come in.’
As she closed the door, it belatedly occurred to her that she must look an absolute mess. With horrified speed, she dragged her wayward curls back into their scrunchie, hoping her face wasn’t as flushed as it felt.
Fraser, meanwhile, was taking in the wet floor and the abandoned brush in the middle of the studio. ‘Have you been cleaning?’ He didn’t point out how late it was to be scrubbing the floor, but he didn’t need to.
‘Displacement activity,’ she offered. ‘I wasn’t sure if or when you’d see my message and I needed something to do while I waited.’
‘I was on a plane from Heathrow,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what had happened until I reached Edinburgh… I landed just after eight.’
The news generated a squirm of guilt. He must have come straight from the airport, after flying through the night from LA. No wonder he looked so rumpled and exhausted. ‘I didn’t mean to speak to Fleming,’ she burst out miserably. ‘He pretended to work for theTimes, said he wanted to talk about my pottery. It was only when he started asking about you that I realised what he was really after.’
Fraser shook his head. ‘It’s my fault. He accosted me last week, at one of my ghost walks. Things got a bit heated. He mentioned the same rubbish then but I told him I’d sue if he ever published the story.’ He ran a hand across his face. ‘I thought the threat would make him see sense. Obviously, I was wrong.’
Maura stared at him. ‘You knew about his accusations already? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I thought I’d handled it,’ Fraser said. ‘And then I had to go to LA at short notice, which was a gigantic pain.’ He hesitated. ‘And you’ve been a bit… well, a bit distant over the past few weeks. I didn’t want to bother you.’
And yet it had all blown up in her face anyway, she wanted to point out, but that seemed unkind. None of this was really Fraser’s fault and she couldn’t deny that she’d been harder to reach. Deliberately so, in fact. ‘You still should have told me.’
‘I know,’ Fraser said, his gaze wretched. ‘But I genuinely thought Fleming would drop it. I was horrified when I read your message – it never occurred to me that he’d contact you.’
And yet that was exactly what had happened, Maura thought, rubbing both hands over her too-hot face. ‘So now what?’
He puffed out his cheeks. ‘I spoke to a friend who’s been through this kind of thing. He recommended an urgent letter from my lawyer to theDaily Newslegal department, denying the accusations and warning them what will happen if they’re stupid enough to go to print with their lies. That letter is being drafted now.’
It was the same course of action Kirsty had suggested, but Maura could still remember the anger in Fleming’s eyes when she’d thrown her tea over his notebook; he had a score to settle and she wasn’t sure a letter would make any difference. ‘Will that be enough?’
‘My lawyer thinks so,’ Fraser said. ‘The paper would need to have evidence of an affair, or at least something to show they hadgood reason to believe it was true, and we know they can’t have anything like that because it didn’t happen.’
‘But Fleming mentioned a source—’
His smile was a grim line. ‘Naomi. She’s the only possible suspect.’
It made sense, Maura realised, although she wasn’t sure what Naomi stood to gain. Perhaps there was more to their break-up than Fraser had told her. ‘Fleming knew a lot of detail. He knew about the New Year party, mentioned Jamie’s drinking.’ She glanced at Fraser. ‘I did wonder if it might have been Zoe, but it didn’t seem like her style. She was never vindictive.’
‘No,’ he said with flat certainty. ‘Naomi isn’t great at handling rejection. I’m afraid this has her sticky prints all over it. But I don’t really care about that.’ His expression softened as he regarded her. ‘What I want to know is whether you’re okay.’
Wrapping her arms around herself, Maura slowly nodded. ‘I think so. Shaken up and worried, but otherwise fine.’
