Page 36 of A Bed of Broken Promises

“Andrew Harris,” he said, as always.

“Hello, Mr. Harris?” The polished, soft voice of a woman came through the phone and he almost groaned with impatience.

“Yes, yes, how can I help you?”

There was a pause and his annoyance stretched taut and thin. He looked out at the Mayfair streets below, waiting for her to speak, tempted to disconnect the call when she was silent for almost a minute. “Are you still there?” He said, finally.

“Yes, sorry, it’s just, you sound so much like him.”

Andrew frowned. “Like who?” But the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.

“Marcus,” she hissed. Despite having been married for half a decade, he knew what a pissed off woman sounded like, and this woman was past that. She was livid. “He is your brother, I take it?”

“Guilty as charged. And you are?”

“Someone who very much needs to speak to him.”

“That makes two of us,” he said quietly. “Do you know where he is?”

He could almost hear her frowning. “No. That’s why I’m calling you.”

“Sorry. ‘Fraid I just flew in myself, on a fact-finding mission. Perhaps you could help me fill in some blanks?”

As tempted as she was to tell Marcus’s brother what an absolute swine he was, she railed against it. “What I have to say is between him and me.” She couldn’t help the caustic tone. “Can you help me?”

“Look, I was just going to go sit by his apartment, waiting for him to show. You’re welcome to join me?”

She looked up to her mother, who was happily watching a trashy soapie with Maxie. “Fine. Just tell me where and when.”

He named a street about a block away from Harrods, a private street that lined Hyde Park. And she felt the now-familiar kick of hurt in her chest. He’d lied to her about so much. He was from a different world.

Before she could second guess what she intended to do, she made up a reason to leave. Rose, clearly not fooled, made no effort to stop her. Whatever was eating her daughter up had to be sorted out. She just hoped this would be the end of whatever it was.

Andrew Harris in person looked a lot like Marcus. He wasn’t as tall, nor as conventionally good looking, but he was very obviously from the same gene pool. She picked him from a hundred meters away, as she emerged from Knightsbridge tube and crossed towards the gated community that Marcus apparently called home.

“Hello. I only realized once we’d hung up that I didn’t get your name?”

“It’s Katie.” She tried to smile. After all, he wasn’t the one she was spitting-chips mad at.

“Hi Katie, pleased to meet you. Though I gather you’re a little less pleased to meet me. Coffee?”

She saw that he had two Starbucks cups in his hands and she took one gratefully, expelling a long breath and trying to let some of the tension go from her body. “Thanks.”

He lifted an eyebrow as she proceeded to say nothing. He could tell from her body language that she was freaking out, but she was resolutely silent.

“I feel I ought to apologize for my brother,” he said finally. Cecilia always said he had a terrible poker face, and she was right.

“Oh?”

“He hasn’t been the same since Iraq. We’re worried about him.”

She looked across at him, curious despite herself.

“Iraq?”

“He didn’t tell you? Well, I guess that makes sense. He doesn’t talk about it with us, but I thought, maybe with a stranger…”

And her heart turned over at the description, because they really were, in the truest sense of the word, strangers. “No. He was very guarded with what he told me.”

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