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  He covered his tracks from Idaho well, flying back to New York and then to London, taking Californian wine with him as a present for Caron. He didn’t bother to tell her when Jake informed him that Anita and John had been found burnt to death in their farmhouse and he very thoughtfully remembered to send Julia a huge bunch of white roses for the funeral. Unfortunately he didn’t remember to send a sympathy card to his own daughter on the death of her mother. But then Max had never had a lot of sympathy for Jasmine anyway. Nor was he likely to get a lot from her.

  CHAPTER 31

  Saz pulled over and got out of the car, relieved to stretch her legs. This wasn’t her first visit to the States but, as always, the sheer vast scale of the place had caught her off guard. When Rose had woken her after her long bath and a horribly short two-hour sleep with a travel schedule that took a little more than the next twenty-four hours, she’d felt tempted just to dig into the hillside and stay there. That however, was not part of her job.

  Rose managed to persuade her that even though public transport would take a little longer and go a less than direct route, it was more likely to get her safely to Anita’s sister than the more dangerous option of attempting to drive herself through the night again and Saz, still feeling jetlagged from the combination of flight and fancy, eventually acquiesced to the timetable that was pressed on her. They drove down to Sacramento where she just made it to a bus that took four hours to get to Reno, both the fabled city and the landscape conjuring up a million late-night movies in her head. In Reno she caught her breath for forty-five minutes before boarding another bus which, after sixteen and a half hours with two tedious “layovers”, and a night of painfully disturbed sleep, got her into Twin Falls, Idaho just at lunch on Wednesday. She then drank another cup of strong, sweet coffee and hired a car to drive herself the last leg of the journey to Julia’s farm near the tiny village of Bliss about forty miles north of Twin Falls.

  During the drive into Sacramento, Rose had told her all she knew about Anita and Jasmine. It didn’t amount to much but it gave Saz a better background on Jasmine. Anita had brought Rose in when the House was just getting started and, as Rose put it, she’d seemed the very epitome of a groovy European drop-out.

  “There I was, just a kid, pregnant and lost. She was only four or five years older than me in age but several lifetimes ahead in experience. She took care of me.”

  According to Rose, although the House had originally been Anita’s idea, it soon became clear that Max was really in charge.

  “You have to remember Sarah, feminism wasn’t really in existence then. It was still all talk.”

  “Yeah Rose, right. Not like now of course.”

  “No. Really, not like now. For all the talk of finding a new way of life, we were still pretty much stuck in our old patterns. The patterns of our parents. Pre-war attitudes. And, by the time Jasmine came along, Anita was more or less relegated to House mother. Not that she wasn’t damn good at it though.”

  When Anita and John decided they’d had enough of the House life, the two of them left together with Jasmine.

  “Max didn’t know if Jasmine was his baby or not, but in a way, we all were the parents – you know, like everyone shared the caring for Milly too – so he didn’t really seem to care. No, care’s the wrong word, he didn’t seem to mind. We were all trying to be very aware, very evolved – that thing of, you know, you weren’t supposed to be possessive in relationships. And more than that, Max didn’t really need a child of his own to father. He had all of us. Maybe it was a relief for him when they went. It gave him more time to devote to the Process anyway.”

  That afternoon, Saz arrived at Julia’s farm knowing nothing about the woman except that she was a prolific mother, had married a “straight down the line good ol’ boy”, and was, according to Rose, as far removed from the idea of her dead sister as could be imagined. So when the tall, slim, forty-something woman opened the door, dressed in what looked suspiciously like a Donna Karan suit and flicked back her sharp cut grey-blonde hair from a perfectly made-up face, Saz was a little surprised to say the least.

  “Ah … Julia?”

  The woman laughed and asked her into the house. Saz could only just make out a faint accent as she explained,

  “No doubt you were expecting the Beverley Hillbillies? Well, that’s geography for you, I believe they came from a little further south than here. Don’t worry, it’s a fairly common reaction when people come to visit. I do have an office in New York now, but very occasionally I still have to deal with the surprised ones. My middle daughter Tracy – she’s moved to LA – she has a good line about Twin Falls, says all the men round here have belt buckles bigger than their brains.”

  “Sorry?”

  Julia smiled at her ruefully,

  “Means she couldn’t stand most of the boys she went to school with and she got out of here the day after she turned eighteen. She likes LA, she’s an artist there. I like the city too, but … my Kevin is a farmer and so we’ve made it work for us.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “You weren’t. I live on a farm, my husband is a farmer. I’m not. I was once, when we were just getting started, we badly needed the money and we both had to work very hard, but I never enjoyed it – I’ve always preferred silk to denim – and, once the children were older, I found I was much more use to Kevin if I was earning my own money.”

  Saz looked around at the startling interior of the farmhouse, most of the inside walls had been removed and the space was white and huge and full of light.

  “I design homes.”

  “You’re an architect?”

  “No, unfortunately I have very little formal education – not a mistake I wanted my own children to make – I left school far too early so I could follow Anita here. I thought my big sister had all the answers. Well, that’s for later… I work with an excellent architect who creates wonderful shells for the designs I then lay on top. I make things the way I like and other people seem to like it too. And quite a few people are willing to pay me a lot of money for making things how I like them. I’m in New York one week a month and the rest of the time I work from a studio here. Which is all very pleasant.”

  Saz looked around at the huge room, vast windows in clean bare lines from floor to ceiling.

  “Yeah, it must be.”

  “Follow me to the conservatory and we’ll talk there. From what Rose said, I understand you don’t have much time and I want to make sure I tell you everything you need to know. It seems to me, things are starting to get a little messy and, as you can see,” she said, leading Saz down a skylit, white painted hallway through into another open, white room which was completely empty except for a dark green sofa and a carefully ordered bookshelf, “I don’t like a lot of mess.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Only once she was safely on the plane did Saz allow herself a moment to look back on what Julia had told her. Their conversation couldn’t have lasted more than two hours, but it was enough to send her straight back to Twin Falls to catch an internal flight to Boise, then on to another to San Francisco with only minutes to spare, where she checked into the airport hotel so she could be on the first available flight in the morning. She felt worried enough about events in London that she was prepared to spend rather more of Jasmine’s money than she would normally have chosen to. She called Molly from the departure lounge at San Francisco airport.

  “Moll? It’s me.”

  “Me? Which me might that be? Oh yes, me. The woman who moved into my home and then moved out just moments later. That me. Missing me?”

  “Yeah, too much. I’m coming back tonight.”

  “Really? Well, that’s thrown a completely different light on my aggravated tone. Angel of my heart, this is brilliant news, when do you get in? When will you be here? What airline are you flying and do you want me to pick you up?”

  “Are you pissed?”

  “Ever so slightly. Your nice mystery employer
had a rather nice bottle of champagne delivered this afternoon. And so I … tasted it for you.” Molly giggled.

  “Molly, listen to me,”

  “I’m listening, I’m listening, I love your voice, your delicately flattened South London vowels. Speak again sex kitten, which airport is it? I’ll get you from Heathrow, or from Victoria if it’s Gatwick, I don’t think I can bear driving round on the M25, not even for your sexy strong runner’s thighs – actually, on second thoughts …”

  “Molly! Shut up and listen!”

  Immediately Molly’s voice descended several notes to her serious doctor’s register.

  “Oh. Right. What’s wrong?”

  “I think you should go and stay with Judith and Helen.”

  Molly laughed uneasily.

  “Aha. I see. You’re kicking me out of my own flat? Are you bringing someone nice back with you?”

  “Molly, listen. Please? I think, just to be on the safe side, that you should go and stay somewhere else. I’ll follow you there. I don’t think your place is very safe.”

  “What do you mean, safe? It’s got double locks, window locks…”

  “The woman that’s employed me, I’ve found out some things about her. I think she’s the one who left the flowers and I think she’s been following me in London.”

  “Right, so she’s after you and she’s going to bump me off, is that it? Maybe this is poisoned champagne.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Come off it Saz, you’re starting to scare me, this isn’t very funny.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m not trying to be funny. I have proof that she’s been following me, she’s got the address to my flat and she’s got the address to your flat.”

  “Our flat. Anyway, we knew that already.”

  “I know, but I’m not … I don’t feel very good about it now. That’s why I’m coming home.”

  “Not just for my body then?”

  “No.”

  “My cooking?”

  “Christ Molly, will you take this seriously?”

  There was a silence and then Molly said wearily, “I’m sorry Saz but I honestly don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “She’s not after me, she’s after Maxwell North, but I think that she might be … well … maybe …”

  Saz’s voice petered out on the other end of the phone, Molly waited a while and then picked up the conversation, her voice now much calmer and colder.

  “Are you trying to say she’s dangerous?”

  “I know it sounds melodramatic, but yes.”

  “So I have to move out of my own home?”

  “Just until I talk to her.”

  “You don’t even know who she is.”

  “Oh yes I do, only too well.”

  Molly groaned.

  “Saz, I can’t stand this, I never see you and you keep waking me up in the middle of the night and it’s not for great sex!”

  “It’s not the middle of the night now.”

  “It is when you’re on night shift and you’ve got to be back on the ward in five hours.”

  “Then you’d better get sober pretty fast, hadn’t you?”

  “God Saz, give me a break. Look, I know relationships can’t maintain the fever pitch of the first few weeks, but this is ridiculous. Why couldn’t I just have fallen in love with a nice normal lezzie, someone who stays at home, signs on for a living and likes cats?”

  “Sorry babe, I don’t have time to go into my pet phobias right now. I’ll make my own way home and you just promise me you’ll go and stay with someone? For a couple of nights?”

  “Saz, I want to stay with you. I want your body, your skin, your smell. I miss you …”

  “I’ll take some time off after this. I promise. Look, I’ve got to go. Will you move out?”

  “If you say so. I’ll call Helen and see if they’ll have me. You’ll have to tell them all about it you know.”

  “Maybe not. Just tell them you got lonely. They’ll understand, they hate being apart. I love you Molly, I’ll call you when I get in. It’ll be fine.”

  “I suppose I don’t get my 49ers cap then?”

  “I’ll see what duty free has to offer. I’ll call you tomorrow. OK?”

  “As if I have a choice. Love you.”

  “You too. And babe, they’re Kent vowels, not South London. Bye!”

  Later on the plane, Saz regretfully turned down the uniformed barbie doll’s offer of a tiny bottle of wine with her plastic meal. She was still terribly tired and, much as she would have loved to devote the flight to eating, drinking and watching movies, she knew that what she really needed was as much sleep as possible to render her fit to deal with whatever was ahead. She swallowed a few mouthfuls of the dry chicken with soggy rice and then folded up the dinner carton to give herself a little more room. The man beside her was already on to his wife’s dessert and she could see him eyeing her untouched bread roll.

  “Help yourself, please. I’m really not hungry.”

  The elderly, fat man reached for her tray and placed it on top of his own.

  “Dieting huh? Very wise. Shame I didn’t try harder.”

  His wife on the other side of him looked up from her giant crossword smiling first at Saz and then at her husband.

  “You said it Jim, you sure said it!”

  The two of them then caused the entire row of seats to rock with their laughter. Saz, cowering against the rapidly icing-over window and desperate to avoid one of those “fly here often?” conversations, quickly pulled her file on to her knees and smiled sweetly at them both.

  “Well, I’m not so much not hungry actually as just very busy. It’s a working trip, you see, I’ve got a lot to get on with.”

  The old lady smiled at her and reached over her husband’s stomach to pat Saz’s hand.

  “Then don’t you worry darlin’. Jim and me, we won’t say a word. Not a single word. Now give me that after-dinner chocolate Jim, and shut up.”

  Saz, relieved, looked down at her notes and then spent the next two hours going through all she knew about Jasmine North/de Vries. It didn’t make very comforting reading.

  Jasmine, who from the photos Julia had shown her was definitely the same woman as the Janet from the Process workshop, was convinced that she was Max’s daughter. Julia told Saz she agreed with her. She’d never actually discussed it with Anita, but although there was only a remote possibility that Jasmine was John’s daughter, it seemed that both John and Anita had been happy to maintain the uncertainty. But, as Jasmine had grown older and more sure of herself, it was the driven Max not the laid back John that seemed most obvious in her character. So, she thought of Max as her father, which was not a problem as far as Julia was concerned. As she told Saz.

  “After Anita and John died, we became her family. Having lost both of them, it made sense that she wanted to make Max her real dad.”

  However this belief in Max as her father didn’t stop there. When she was nearly nineteen Jasmine had suddenly dropped out of college.

  “It was a real disappointment. Our own children are fairly bright, but nothing like Jasmine. She’s actually close to genius. We were so proud when she got into Harvard.”

  Jasmine had been accepted at Harvard Medical School. Julia expected her desire to go there had been as much to do with following in her father’s footsteps as anything else, but she’d made the mistake of contacting Max’s family. Julia was fuzzy on the details, but she knew Jasmine had a horrible altercation with Max’s father.

  “Apparently he was an ogre even when Max was young, but Jasmine just turned up unannounced at the home of this old man in his eighties. I understand he’s very proud of Max these days, but for a long time the relationship with his family was terrible. They never accepted Anita, they never even met her and when Max told them about Jasmine, they refused to acknowledge her as his child. As far as Max’s father was concerned, Anita broke up their family and took Max away from them. He may be world-famous
now, but I’d chance a guess that they’d still have preferred him to stay in Boston. So they never met Jasmine and they never wanted to. Apparently he wouldn’t even let her in the door. Just kept her standing on the step as he shouted at her. That’s when things started to go wrong.”

  Jasmine dropped out of college and came back to Idaho with just her bag and the clothes she’d been wearing the day she went to visit Max’s father. She stayed with Julia and Kevin long enough to take a shower and sleep for sixteen hours solid and then drove off in the morning. The next thing they heard she’d turned up at the House and told them she was moving in.

  “Jake called us so we wouldn’t worry. He said that of course they’d take her, in a way it was her family home. Kevin went to get her things from college and then, other than a monthly phone call and visits at Christmas and Thanksgiving, we hardly saw her for almost a year and a half until she turned up here at the end of last year.”

  Julia sighed and looked out at the late afternoon sun lighting up the land. She frowned out at her property as she spoke.

  “You know, Jasmine really did love Max. As a teenager she used to get the English magazines sent over to her and she’d cut out all the articles and little mentions about him. She must have filled about three or four scrapbooks. She thought he was a god. I guess that’s what comes of never having really known him. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she found out some stuff about him. I don’t know how, she wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened. She went through some old House records of Jake’s when she was staying there. It apears Max was in the States the week that Anita and John died.”