Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [63]
The woman was, Deborah thought, quite exotic: olive skinned and dark eyed, with cheekbones defining an angular face. She had an abundance of coffee-coloured hair so wiry that it sprang from her head in a billowing mass, and enormous gold earrings shone through it when she moved. She was an odd match for Nicholas Fairclough, former drug addict and family black sheep.
Alatea crossed the room to her, a hand extended. She had large hands, but they were long fingered and slim like the rest of her. “Nicky tells me you seem harmless enough,” she said with a smile. Her English was heavily accented. “He has told you I have a concern about this.”
“About my being harmless?” Deborah asked. “Or about the project?”
“Let’s sit and have a chat.” Nicholas was the one to speak, as if worried that his wife wouldn’t understand Deborah’s mild joke. “I’ve made coffee, Allie.”
Alatea poured. She wore gold bangles on her wrists— first cousins to her earrings— and they slid down her arm as she reached for the coffeepot. Her gaze seemed to fall on the magazines as she did this, and for a moment she hesitated. She cast a glance at Deborah. Deborah smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging fashion.
Alatea said, “I was surprised about this film of yours, Ms. St. James.”
“It’s Deborah. Please.”
“As you wish, of course. It is small up here, what Nicholas is doing. I did wonder how you learned about him.”
Deborah was ready for this. Tommy had done his homework on the Faircloughs. He’d found a logical point of entry for her. “It wasn’t me, actually,” she said. “I just go where I’m pointed and do the preliminary research for the filmmakers at Query Productions. I’m not sure exactly how they decided upon you”— with a nod at Nicholas— “but I think it had to do with an article about your parents’ house.”
Nicholas said to his wife, “It was that sidebar again, darling.” And to Deborah, “There was a piece written about Ireleth Hall, my parents’ place. It’s an historic old pile on Lake Windermere with a topiary garden round two hundred years old that my mother’s brought back. She mentioned this place— our home— to the reporter and as it’s a bit of an architectural conversation piece, he trotted over to have a look. Not sure why. Perhaps it was a historical-restorations-are-in-the-blood-of-the-Faircloughs kind of thing. This place was given to us by my father and I reckoned taking it on was better than looking a gift horse. I think Allie and I would have preferred something new with all the mod cons in working order, though. Isn’t that the case, darling?”
“It’s a beautiful home,” Alatea said in reply. “I feel fortunate to live here.”
“That’s because you always insist upon seeing the glass half-full,” Nicholas told her, “which makes me a very lucky man, I suppose.”
“One of the film producers,” Deborah said to Alatea, “brought up the Middlebarrow Pele Project at an early meeting we had in London, when we were looking at all the possibilities. Frankly, no one knew what a pele tower was, but there were several people who knew about your husband. Who he is, I mean. As well as other things.” She didn’t elaborate upon those things. It was obvious to them all what they were.
“So this film,” Alatea said, “I do not have to be involved? It is, you see, a matter of my English— ”
Which sounded, Deborah thought, not only excellent but charming.
“— and the fact that Nicky has done all of this on his own.”
“I wouldn’t have done it without you in my life,” Nicholas put in.
“But that is another matter entirely.” She turned as she spoke and her hair lifted, that billowing effect caused by its wiry nature. “The pele project… this is about you and what you have done and what you are achieving on your own. I am only your support, Nicky.”
“As if that’s not important,” he said, rolling his eyes at Deborah as if to add, “You see what I have to put up with?”
“Nonetheless, I have no real part and I want