“I have somewhere I can go.” To hide.
“This is a dream come true for tabloids, Arden. This is going to be a shitstorm. You need to keep your head down and disappear until it’s all over. Do not say a word unless I tell you to, okay? I’ve dealt with this stuff before. I beg you, disappear off to a hotel or to France or somewhere – stay out of London – and wait until it’s all blown over. I’ll keep you updated.” With that, she hugged me tight, then hurried inside with the boys, already calling someone on her phone.
I looked around in a daze. I didn’t know what was happening.
A whine alerted me to Kenny. He was staring up at me with what was probably hunger, but right now it felt like concern. “C’mon, lad, we need to get home,” I said.
Ten minutes later, I slammed the door to the cottage and let Kenny run off for some food. I stood in shock. What the hell had just happened? What do I do? Should I run like Nigella said to?
Yes. Yes, that made perfect sense. But where? I couldn’t go to a hotel. I couldn’t leave Kenny in some kennel, and so few places took dogs. Oh, God, and the cats. Where would I put them? Fuck. The only place I could think of was Verity’s. But Nigella said stay out of London.
Oh.
I rang her as I ran upstairs and began throwing things in a bag.
“My love, I’m watching theEastEndersomnibus, so make it snappy.”
“Need to stay in your Surrey house. Is there a key?”
“Aha! Knew you’d come around and wanna flee murder village—”
“Verity, is there a key?!” I shouted.
“Alright, Ar—”
“No, it’s not alright,” I said, panicking. “Look, in about half an hour, or an hour, there’s gonna be a news story that breaks. It’s … it’s not good.”
There was a pause. I heard the distinct sound of a wine glass being put down.
“Do I want to know what you did?”
“I didn’t do anything, it’s … it’s a Tarquin thing. It’s starting all over again. There’s gonna be a field day.”
I needed her to not make a “good for sales” joke right now. I really needed her not to.
She came through. My best friend in the whole world. “Okay, babes, I can meet you tonight. I’ll change and make my way over there. I’ll try and get to the house for” – she paused, I assumed doing some mental calculations on traffic and distance and how sober she was – “10 p.m. probably? I’ll wait there for you.”
“Thank you, Vee.” I was so relieved I almost cried. “Sorry about yelling. I’ll explain it all when I get there.”
I hung up before anything else could be said and threw a few more T-shirts in a bag, and tried to concentrate. Whatelse? Pants, laptop, toothbrush, chargers … shit, where was the cats’ carrier case? How was I gonna get Kenny to stay still in a car for two hours?
The panic was on me in waves. I was sweating buckets. I felt sick. So, I did the only thing I could do – I made it worse.
I took out my phone and opened the email. The address was [email protected] and the title:Guy Frobisher TRUTH. Christ.
There must be forty-odd photos, and I waited for them to load. They were taken on a digital camera – the date was emblazoned in orange in the bottom right-hand corner, like it was on a million photos from that era.
7 Nov 2002. Guy and Tarquin would have been twenty-ish, in their second year at Oxford.
I knew they’d gone to different schools. Tarquin went to Stowe, Guy to Harrow, but they had vaguely known each other through loose acquaintances and sporting events during their teens. They’d been mates from day one at Oxford, in the same college, the same floor of their halls, doing the same degree. Both applying to be on the same sports teams.
Tarquin came out straight away – he’d already been open about his sexuality in school, whereas Guy had only taken tentative steps out of the closet and hung back in case of repercussions. Tarquin told me all this one night during pillow talk. They’d dated very briefly in their first few weeks of knowing one another and discovered there was zero romantic spark between them, but they were happy to be mates. “We hooked up a few more times through uni and in our twenties,” Tarquin had explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “Does that bother you?” It hadn’t at the time.
I scrolled through. The photos were … well, they didn’t leave much to the imagination.
Guy naked on a bed, his erection cupped in his hand, and several more photos of other acts, which Guy had clearly enjoyed to their inevitable climaxes.
There was a whole show here.
