‘Racing driver. Yep. That’s my dad.’
‘But he’s not Karli’s dad?’
‘Karli’s father was Nicole’s fourth marriage-Charles was the first. Brian was probably her biggest mistake. She married him while she was high on drugs and he hooked into her for what he could get.’ She hesitated. ‘Though it’s not fair to say he was her only mistake. All her husbands were after Nicole because of the fame thing.’
‘So you’re wealthy,’ he said slowly and she watched as his face changed. ‘You’re the daughter of Charles Svenson and Nicole Razor.’
What was she supposed to say to that? She’d learned early never to say anything. But he was waiting for her to respond.
With what? With sick humour-her only defence.
‘Poor little rich girl,’ she said mockingly, but his face stayed still and watchful.
‘So what happened?’ he asked.
‘Like Karli said-Nicole died yesterday.’
‘I don’t understand any of this.’
‘It’s easy.’ She hesitated. ‘No. It’s hard, but I’ll make it brief. Nicole didn’t want me and she didn’t want Karli. We were mistakes. Brian didn’t want Karli either, but, by the time they split, he and Nicole hated each other. The court gave Nicole custody and Nicole responded by putting Karli straight into an English boarding-school.’
‘Boarding-school.’ Riley’s brows snapped down. ‘What-at five?’
‘There are very few places now that take them that young,’ Jenna said bitterly. ‘You have to pay through the nose. And Nicole did. She was always touring, and the attraction of an English boarding-school was that it was in England. Brian is Australian. He couldn’t get near Karli. Nicole was playing at custody battles to try and hurt him further.’
It was history playing over, she thought bitterly. Her own father was American and Nicole had done exactly the same thing to her.
‘Hell.’
‘It was hell,’ Jenna whispered, but she couldn’t tell him why she knew exactly what a hell it really was. ‘I haven’t been in contact with my mother for years, but when I found out about Karli I realised her school was only an hour’s drive from where I work. I’ve been taking her home with me as much as I could. I just hated leaving her there.’
‘Why didn’t you take her permanently?’
Her eyes flashed up to his then. There was condemnation in his tone. Condemnation!
She wasn’t going to explain why. How dared he even begin to think of judging her?
Their eyes locked for a moment, anger meeting anger, but his eyes softened first. A duel over the dinner plates obviously wasn’t on the agenda. ‘So how did you get here?’ he asked, obviously deciding to let his last question go unanswered.
‘Brian rang me,’ she said, trying to swallow her anger and move on. ‘I’d never met Brian. A lot of the stuff I’ve been telling you about him I’ve only realised in the last few days. I hadn’t seen my mother for years and all I knew of her I read in the tabloids. I knew there’d been a custody battle for Karli and he’d lost, but that was all I knew. Anyway, I’d taken Karli out of school for the half-term holiday. Brian rang the school and they said she was with me. So he rang me. He said Nicole was in Australia. In Perth. I’d read in the paper that she was on tour so it made sense.’
His eyes were non-judgemental again. Watchful. ‘So you decided to come and see her?’
‘No one just pops in to visit Nicole.’ She hesitated, trying to remember the jumble of emotions she’d felt as Brian had rung. ‘But it was strange. Brian sounded really upset. He said Nicole was suffering from depression-which didn’t surprise me. She was always suffering from something, and after the life she’d led and the pills she’d popped a bit of depression would be the least of it. Anyway he said she wanted to see both of us and she was prepared to pay all expenses if we came immediately.’
‘So you came.’
‘I didn’t want to,’ she told him. ‘I mean…why would I want to see Nicole? I haven’t had anything to do with her for years. But Brian wanted Karli over here, and seeing Nicole was ill it was Brian who was making decisions on Karli’s behalf. If I didn’t come then she’d have to fly out on her own. And then Brian added further incentive. The train ride.’
‘Why the train?’
‘The story he gave was that this was too good a chance to miss,’ she told him. ‘Brian’s very plausible. He said he was desperately missing Karli and if we came by plane to Sydney and then had over three days travelling by train to Perth, not only would it be an exciting holiday for both of us, but it’d give him a chance to be with his daughter for a while.’ She hesitated, trying to remember why she’d agreed.
‘It sounded reasonable,’ she told him, thinking it through. ‘I knew Nicole would move heaven and earth to keep Karli and Brian apart. If someone didn’t do what Nicole wanted she could be…spiteful. So if this was a chance for Karli to be in Australia, then it made sense that Brian would be grateful for the opportunity to spend some time with her. Anyway, as I said, I didn’t want to come-but when I told Karli what was about to happen she disintegrated. In the end I couldn’t let her travel by herself. So I agreed. That was the start of my dopiness. It was all a huge, huge mistake, and it was based on an outright lie.’
There was a moment’s pause. Riley’s eyes rested on her face and she sensed that he could almost see the pain. ‘Tell me,’ he said gently. ‘Why was it a mistake?’
She felt sick. Telling him like this…it brought it all back and she felt the emotions of the last couple of days rise to the point where they almost overwhelmed her. But she forced herself to continue.
‘Brian was insistent that we come straight away,’ she told him. ‘He said he only had a few days off work, and Nicole would maybe leave Perth or change her mind and we’d miss the opportunity. So we came. He met us at Sydney airport and whisked us straight to the train. And he was nice. He was really nice. Right up until the moment we got on the train he was nice-and then he let it all drop.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He started drinking,’ she said. ‘And when he’d had a few drinks he was cruel. Not cruel to me. To me he was just plain slimy. He couldn’t keep his hands off me. But he spent the entire train journey putting Karli down. I couldn’t believe it. A grown man belittling a five-year-old, over and over again.’ She looked up at him, willing him to understand. ‘You’ve met Karli. Anyone can see that she’s fragile. She’s the loveliest little girl, but she couldn’t do anything right. It was almost as if Brian wanted to seduce me-as if he could, the slime ball-and he thought Karli was in the way.’
‘But you were stuck with him,’ Riley said, and she nodded.
‘Yep. We were stuck on the train and couldn’t get away. I thought of getting off the train when we went through Adelaide but…’ She hesitated. How to say she had no money to fly them to Perth? Their flight home was paid from Perth. Their train fare was paid for. She’d decided they’d just have to stick with it.
But she wasn’t going to tell Riley that.
‘But I didn’t,’ she told him, flatly, no longer caring what he thought. ‘So we travelled for another half a day and then the conductor handed Brian a message that had just been radioed through as urgent.’
He knew what she was going to say before she said it. ‘Saying Nicole was dead?’
‘Saying Nicole was dead,’ she said flatly. ‘The depression thing was a lie. And I hadn’t checked.’
‘So, what was it?’
‘She’d taken a drug overdose,’ she said, her voice flat and lifeless. ‘We didn’t know. But Brian knew. She went into a coma five days ago and she’d been on life support ever since.’
He frowned. ‘But-’
‘Nicole has no family,’ Jenna told him. ‘Apart from me and Karli and we…we’ve never counted. But apparently there was some glitch in the divorce proceedings with Brian, which Brian’s kept quiet about and hoped like crazy that Nicole didn’t realize. So he’s still officially her husband. Maybe he guessed with her lifestyle there was a good chance she’d soon end up dead. Anyway, he’s planned this from the time he knew her condition was hopeless. He stopped the hospital leaking her condition to the press. He got us both out here and as soon as he had us safely on the train he gave permission for her life support to be turned off.’
There was a long silence. Then… ‘I still don’t understand.’
He didn’t understand? She barely did herself. She lifted her water glass, twisted it round and round as if by
