A Bitter Feast(72)

“I might be able to help with the London end,” said Gemma, hoping her idea would float. “I have a friend, a DCI at Kensington nick. I could give her a ring, see if she could check the place out. And maybe she’d be willing to track down Fergus O’Reilly’s former partner as well.”



“Can we talk somewhere away from the house?” Andy said, when Addie had gone in.

Nodding, Melody walked across the drive and Andy followed her. “How on earth did you get here?” she said, turning to face him.

“Taxi. From your little town where the train stops. Moreton-under-Puddle, or whatever it’s called.”

“I’d have fetched you from the sta—”

“Oh, right, when you got round to answering your texts or your phone calls? I’d have had a long bloody wait.”

“I was going to ring you. I just—”

“Doug told me he showed you the stupid paper. I can’t believe you fell for that crap,” Andy said, his voice tight.

“Did you see it?” Melody shot back, beginning to feel angry, too. “The pair of you looked like ‘love’s young dream.’”

Andy shook his head in disgust. “And how many hundreds of shots do you think it took that photographer to find one that looked like more than it was? You can’t be so naive. I told you from the very beginning that there was nothing between Poppy and me, and I’ve never given you any reason to doubt it. But you—you just flat-out lied to me, Melody.”

Her legs suddenly felt boneless. “What? What are you talking about?”

Andy leaned so close she could feel his breath on her face and punched a finger at her chest. “You said your dad was in the newspaper business.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Although I suppose you could say that, couldn’t you?” he added, dripping sarcasm. “So I look up this house when Doug gives me the directions, and I see it belongs to Sir Ivan and Lady Adelaide freaking Talbot. The Ivan Talbot.” He shook his head. “I’d feel really stupid for not seeing the connection, except why would it have occurred to me that it was more than coincidence, you sharing a last name with the owner of the bloody Chronicle?”

“He’s not the owner. The paper is legally my mother’s. Passed down from her parents. Dad’s just the managing editor.” Melody knew as soon as she said it that she’d sounded horribly prim and condescending, but she couldn’t take it back.

“Just the managing editor. Okay. Like this place is just a little weekend cottage.” Andy waved a dismissive hand at the house.

“The house isn’t that bi—”

“Oh, spare me,” Andy snapped, rolling his eyes. “You’re a freaking heiress, Melody, and you didn’t bloody tell me. Were you ashamed of me? Your working-class bit of fluff?”

“Oh, no. God, no! How can you think that?”

“Well, I do think. I think we’ve been going out, what, almost a year, and you said nothing. Were you ever going to tell me?”

“You don’t understand.” She reached out to touch him, but his look stopped her. Pulling her hand back, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and began to shiver. “I didn’t tell you at first because I thought it would frighten you off. Once they know, no one ever looks at me the same way—you’ve just given me proof enough of that. But the longer I put it off, the harder it got. And, then, I thought if it ever got out about us in the tabloids, then everyone on the job would know who I was—”

“Oh, right,” Andy broke in. “You can invite three cops home for your mum’s charity do, and not me?”

“It wasn’t like that.” She was pleading now. “They’re the only ones who know. I had to tell Gemma, and Doug found out. And I’d never invited anyone at all here, before this weekend.” She could tell from his face that she wasn’t moving him and she felt helpless, unable to stop this argument spinning out of control. “Look, I’m sorry I was upset over the photo, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my parents. Can’t you come in? We can talk about this—”

Andy shook his head. “No. I’m getting the next train back to London. I had the taxi wait in the village.” He gave an exaggerated shrug. “And, besides, I don’t have anything else to say. We’re finished, Melody Talbot.”

She stared at him, her stomach dropping. “You can’t mean that.”

“Give my regards to your mother. It’s been nice knowing you.” With that, he turned and started up the drive, his head down, his hands shoved in his blazer pockets.

“Andy, please,” she called after him, but he didn’t pause, and he didn’t look back.



Kerry Boatman put down her phone and pushed her chair back from her desk, still smiling after her conversation. The first thing Gemma had said was “Caught you working on a Sunday, didn’t I? I can hear the sirens in the background.”

“Just finishing up,” Kerry had told her. “The girls went to church with their grandparents, so I thought I’d get a head start on Monday. What’s up with you? I thought you were out of town this weekend, hobnobbing with the country set.”

She and Gemma had first met on a case a couple of years earlier, when Kerry had been a DI at Lucan Place Station in Chelsea. Now, sadly, the station had been sold off by the Met. Kerry had been promoted to DCI and moved to Kensington Station on Earl’s Court Road. Then, last spring, she and Gemma had worked together to solve the murder of a young nanny in Notting Hill. Since then, they’d become good friends.