Love You Dead

10 Wednesday 18 February

Back in her suite in the Four Seasons, Jodie kicked off her shoes and sat down on a sofa, thinking hard. Weighing up the pros and cons of staying in the city for Walt’s funeral.

Her room phone rang. It seemed like it hadn’t stopped since she’d arrived in New York.

She answered it, hesitantly. ‘Hello?’

‘This is the front desk, Mrs Bentley. I have a Dave Silverson who’d like to speak to you.’

‘Dave Silverson? I don’t know anyone of that name.’

‘From the New York Post.’

Her brain raced for a second. ‘Er — no thanks. Thank you.’

She hung up.

The phone rang again almost immediately. It was a different voice this time. ‘Mrs Bentley, I have a Jan Pink from the National Enquirer. Can I put her through?’

Shit. ‘No,’ Jodie said, emphatically. ‘I did ask before, I want privacy, OK? No calls.’

Then her phone rang again. She let it ring on. Six rings then it fell silent and the red message alert began flashing. A few seconds later, it rang again. She sat on the bed, thinking. Someone had told the press where she was. Walt’s snotty children? That arrogant lawyer?

She let it ring on until it stopped.

Should she go to the funeral?

She would only be attending for appearances’ sake. And did they matter at the funeral of a man already totally discredited? There would be major press and media coverage, for sure, which she could do without. There was also the risk of her being arrested because of her association with Walt. The more distance she put between herself and New York, and the quicker she did it, the better, she decided.

Starting by getting out of this suite.

There was a hotel she’d stayed in a couple of years back, overlooking Central Park. She called them and to her relief they had availability. She checked out, and took the hotel’s limousine the few blocks to the Park Royale West Hotel.

Twenty minutes later, checked in under a carefully created alias she used on occasion, Judith Forshaw, and giving her address as Western Road in Brighton, she was comfortably installed in a suite on the forty-second floor. She phoned down to the concierge for the number of British Airways, and booked herself on the day flight to Heathrow, leaving Kennedy Airport at 8 a.m. the next morning. She also booked a limousine for 5 a.m. to take her to the airport.

Then she went to the minibar, removed the half-bottle of champagne that was in there, opened it, poured some into a glass and, ignoring the no-smoking warnings, lit a cigarette with hands still shaking with rage at smug Muscutt. At that bastard Walt Klein.

At the world.

She shot a glance up at the smoke detector on the ceiling, knowing from experience that the smoke from a single cigarette was not usually enough to set the alarm off, then she downed the contents of the glass in one gulp, refilled it, and went over to the window. She stood beside the tripod-mounted telescope that was part of the décor and, using another glass as an ashtray, stared down at the people, the size of ants, strolling, jogging, cycling or walking their dogs in the late-afternoon sunshine in Central Park.

Right now she felt no sunshine in her heart.

Months wasted.

As the effects of the champagne began to kick in, she gradually began to cheer up a little. ‘Never look back, girl. Only forward!’ she said aloud, drained the second glass, then emptied the remainder of the bottle into it and drained that, too. She flushed the cigarette butt down the toilet and rinsed out the glass, then sat on the edge of the bed. Walt Klein was history. She was now totally focusing on her next target, Rowley Carmichael.

She liked the name Carmichael a lot. She could already visualize her signature. Jodie Carmichael. Much classier than Jodie Klein would have looked.

And she liked everything else about Rowley Carmichael a lot, too. Most of all his listing, at equal number 225, on the most recent Sunday Times Rich List.

She took an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table, cut it in half with the knife provided, and bit into it, hungrily. Then, chewing, she opened the lid of her laptop, and smiled as she saw that another email from Rowley had come in.

Several months ago she had spotted his online advertisement:

Even though she had been engaged to Walt Klein, Jodie had responded using her maiden name. She was registered, under different names, with several online dating agencies for wealthy singles. She had, electronically, kissed a lot of proverbial frogs. But it was that one on Rich and Single that had caught her attention, a couple of months back. She liked the ‘and maybe more...’ To her trained eye, it had a subtext of a certain element of desperation.

Desperation was good.

She’d read it through a couple of times more, then pinged a carefully constructed email back, accompanied by a demure photograph, taken after she’d skilfully applied make-up, attached to the profile she had just created for herself:

Rowley Carmichael had replied less than an hour later.

Since then, in preparation for Walt’s eventual demise, she had secretly and very carefully been reeling Rowley Carmichael in. Now he was ready. And she was free! She never kept all her eggs in the same basket; although Walt appeared vastly wealthy she’d always had a plan B, and that was to get rid of him as quickly as possible and move on.

She yawned. It was just after 4 p.m. and it would soon be growing dark outside. She was increasingly feeling the effects of jet lag — and the champagne. At the same time she didn’t want to waste an evening in New York — you never knew what might happen. Maybe she’d meet someone for a one-night stand. Right now, she didn’t much care who, so long as he was good-looking and not a slobbering geriatric like Walt. This was a city of singles bars famed for one-night stands. That’s what she fancied right now. A one-night stand with a hunk, who would screw her brains out for a few hours. God, she’d not had decent sex for — a year. More than a year.

And the good news was that one of the city’s hottest singles bars was right here, downstairs in this hotel.

She set her alarm for 6 p.m., lay back on the bed and crashed out.