Her eyes were physically hurting with the light. She found her way to a side room that might have been a study.
‘Do you need to see us to hear what we’re saying? A million.’ That was Tank’s voice.
At that moment Kim heard a sharp report, like a single clap. What were they doing, smacking a magazine at a wasp? She found her sunglasses and moved back into the open-plan area.
The other two were silent, staring at her.
It was a slap. The report had been hand on cheek. Had Tank just slapped his girlfriend? Kim goldfished, uncertain how to respond. Why would he hit her?
Ruhi and Tank had found sunglasses already and put them on. Their spectacles seemed to be a matching pair, the sort you get as fairground prizes, pink with Edna Everage wings on the upper corners. The match only made the statuesque woman and the squat man look even more unsuitable for each other.Standing away from the window, no longer blinded, but still heated by the oven-warmth of the huge window pane, Kim felt a shiver. She stared at the two.
What was she missing? Why would Thomas have suddenly slapped Ruhi?
Then she saw the mark.
But it was not on the woman’s cheek.
It was the man who had been slapped. Kim was speechless.
She found her voice at last. ‘I couldn’t hear – did you make an offer?’
Tank was quiet. Ruhi spoke. ‘A million.’
‘She’s the one with the money,’ he said, as if quietened.
The vast empty room was like a swimming pool full of light and she was drowning in it.A million?
A million pounds, a completely improbable duo, a moment of violence … what was going on here? Kim felt genuinely scared for a second. She removed her sunglasses and pushed them back into her handbag, because it was better to be blinded than to see this couple for who they were.
Chapter Five
‘It was really nasty. I had to get out.’
Barbara Sinker was silent at the other end of the phone, so her daughter felt the need to say it again.
‘What would it be, Mum? She hits him even though she works for him?’
‘Maybe he works for her.’
‘He suggested they were having some sort of secret affair.’
‘If it’s secret, why would he say that?’
Kim thought for a second. ‘Maybe everything they told me was a lie.’
‘She actually slapped him with you in the same room?’
‘I had nipped out for a second. It was so bright in that place I couldn’t see. I felt dizzy with all that light. I popped out, got my sunglasses, heard the smack, thought they were after a wasp or a fly, then I saw the mark on his cheek.’
‘If you want a guess from me,’ said her mother, ‘it could be crime.’
‘Crime?’
Kim had looked carefully to make sure the couple had gone. She was still creeped out by the way the man had sneaked up behind her at the start. Now she had to offload. The penthousewas behind her, glittering in the sun. Fire and Tank, or whatever their bloody names were, had gone their separate ways as soon as she had locked the front door behind them.
‘That was another sign,’ she told her mother. ‘They were so, like … professional with each other. Almost cold. That was a business meeting and they weren’t lovers.’ Kimberley had turned left onto the promenade now, her phone conducting heat into her ear. ‘What sort of crime gives you a million quid to burn?’
‘I don’t know. Parking?’
