The Deception Trap Read online

  Mrs Richards blushed. ‘Now and then. I’m afraid I tell him a few little white lies. I always say Tom’s good-but his back’s not the best or something like that. The sort of thing you’d say naturally, you know.’

  It was unbelievable, a bit ghoulish even.

  ‘If he finds out, your Mr. Warwick won’t like the fact that you lied.’

  Teressa was sorry she mentioned it. The van wandered to the edge, jerked back again, then staggered into Lyons Road. The Drummoyne traffic might never be the same again, Teressa thought as Mrs Richards left behind a squeal of brakes and a protesting klaxon.

  ‘Oh dear, yes. But you know how it is―I did it while I was worried and upset and meant to tell him but didn’t get around to it. It would sound so silly now. And after all, I see that he gets his money’s worth.’

  More than his money’s worth. Mrs Richards’ guilt went into the glossy shine on Warlord’s floors and the perfection of the carpets. She had repaid her deception a thousand-fold.

  ‘… and sometimes I help him out privately.’

  ‘Privately?’

  ‘He has a lovely apartment at Harbord. I went there once to clean for him because his regular woman couldn’t come. And once I went to Deception to his house-a lovely big place on the coast, down past Nowra. He entertains there a bit now and then …Deception Inlet…’

  Mrs Richards went on to praise her Mr. Warwick for his cleverness, his great kindness and his appearance.

  ‘Tall. I do like a man to be tall,’ she said in perfect seriousness. At five foot nothing the world was surely full of tall men for Thelma Richards, Teressa thought.

  ‘None of those neckchains and bracelets for Mr. Warwick,’ she said happily. ‘He’s a real man.’

  ‘Married? ’ Teressa asked. Who knows, he might have got a rich girl to the altar by now.

  ‘No, but word has it that he might be thinking about it. His girlfriend is a dress designer, a lass on Five was telling me last week. Lara Moore, she said her name was, and there are rumours that it could be serious.’

  Moore? Teressa frowned. Where had she seen that name recently?

  ‘Her father is as rich as they come and her an only child too. He runs that big concern you read about Promac or something like that—’

  Primac. Teressa saw the name a day later, tucked away in the business pages of the newspaper. Wallace Moore, Chairman. Moore. The name had appeared in Ashe’s file along with his astronomical sums. So he was at it again. And doing business with the rich girl’s father this time; that must be an interesting arrangement.

  She put the paper away. Even Ashe Warwick would have to tread carefully in that situation, otherwise he could miss out on the deal and the heiress.

  But he would manage, she supposed. Teressa pulled a face. There was nothing she could ever do to upset his very successful life. Ashe came from a family with background, he had brains enough to survive in the financial deep water of the city, talent enough to write a novel now in its second printing and looks enough to attract the daughter of a wealthy man, thus allying himself with more wealth and power.

  Whichever way you looked at him he was a winner. Oh well, she thought hopefully, he might be turning grey gracefully and he might have no paunch. But there was always dyspepsia.

  It was a week for communications. Jane Merrow, an old school-friend and a pen-friend these past years, phoned and asked her home to dinner. They had seen each other once since Teressa’s return, for a voluble reunion lunch.

  ‘Is it to be a formal affair, Jane?’ she asked, remembering Mrs Merrow’s meticulous entertaining style.

  ‘Heavens no, just the usual.’

  Which meant that Mrs Merrow would wear her pearls rather than her diamonds and only the second best silver would be set. What a cynic I’ve become, Teressa thought. Cynical and maybe even envious that the Merrows, like Ashe Warwick, were still living their comfortable lives. As if nothing had ever happened.

  ‘In a fortnight, Tess. Joel will come too if Mummy can twist his arm. I’m looking forward to seeing my big brother’s face when he finds you’ve come back from Perth a butterfly.’

  Butterfly? A wasp, more like. But she did rather look forward to seeing Joel Merrow again. She would get some satisfaction from reminding him of the rotten things he’s said to her in younger, plumper, plainer days. Yes, definitely a wasp.

  Teressa received several letters that week. Cecily sent a card from Rome using superlatives in her usual reckless fashion―some applied to the Eternal City and most to her new husband. Her letter, which arrived a day later, was scrawled in response to Teressa’s last aerogram in which she had mentioned the coincidence of taking a flat next to someone who knew Ashe. Cecily must have read her mind.

  ‘I hope you’ve put those childish ideas of revenge aside. Stay away from Ashe, he’s in a league of his own,’ her sister wrote. ‘As for that old affair, he’ll only tell you a farrago of lies—’ Teressa frowned.

  Cecily sounded odd, upset about it even, though she was ecstatically honeymooning with Mike. Folding the letter, she decided that Cecily might not, even now, be completely over that long ago rejection.

  ‘Damn you, Ashe; she muttered, and felt the familiar twist of frustration.

  Teressa’s third letter that week was from Tony. He was her new brother-in-law’s younger brother and as free with words such as ‘love’ and ‘forever’ as Cecily was with her superlatives. As she put it away she was glad that she had had the foresight to tell Tony and his family that she had no phone, otherwise she would have him bewailing their separation long-distance from Perth. It was an exhausting prospect.

  ‘It's a wonder you’re not married, Teressa; Mrs Richards said as they shared a morning tea in the old lady’s flat next door. Crammed with pot plants and photographs of three generations, It was rather like an overstocked curio shop. Ornaments and souvenirs occupied any spaces that the plants and photographs did not. Dan’s last postcard from the West Indies was tucked into the frame of his picture. The edges curled as if it had been handled a lot.

  ‘I very nearly was,’ Teressa grimaced, ‘But I got away just in time.’

  ‘He was the wrong man, then, if you feel that way about it.’

  Tony was the wrong man. But he didn’t think so. And as he was one of Cecily’s new in-laws, the whole situation had been―still was―ticklish to say the least.

  The Manettis, delighted when Mike married Cecily, felt certain that they were soon to welcome yet another Radcliffe girl into their effervescent midst, so it wasn't so much a matter of turning down Tony as his whole family.

  ‘I’m only going back to Sydney for six months, she’d told the lovable Manettis. With Cecily safely married she could afford to relax her public relations job on her behalf with the Italian family―sort of keeping up of the Radcliffe end of the relationship.

  Cecily was inclined to be a bit careless about such things, and Teressa, recognising the perfect match for her sister, had not wanted anything to jeopardise it.

  Unfortunately her involvement with the Manettis had given them and Tony the wrong Idea. In fact she wasn’t sure yet where she would stay permanently in Sydney. But at the end of six months she was hoping that he would have found someone else on whom to expend his excessive emotion. When she’d left there had been a great deal of Italian melodrama delivered in Tony’s incongruous Australian accent. Only the football grand finals―since won by his club with a heroic goal from Tony himself―and the needs of the family vineyards had kept him in Western Australia.

  Teressa hoped that with Mike away on his honeymoon, the business would hold Tony there for at least another month. By then she would have started the permanent job she had landed as a hotel receptionist and her free time would be neatly tied up.

  ‘Yes, he is the wrong man. I don’t intend to get married for years yet.’

  ‘We all say that, dear,’ Mrs Richards twinkled. She lifted her foot on to a small stool.

  ‘Is your leg playing up again Mr
s Richards? Would you like me to help out at Warlord again?’

  She was fine, just fine, the old lady insisted. And just as well, because she’d promised Mr. Warwick to go down to his coast house at Deception Inlet on Saturday. ‘I’ll stay until Monday.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather sudden?’

  ‘His regular woman can’t do for him because her children have measles and poor Mr. Warwick is expecting a houseful of guests. Naturally when he was caught short of help he thought of Universal.’

  Naturally.

  ‘―his girlfriend and her father will be there this time. They’re going down by yacht.’

  Teressa sat up at that. ‘Primae and his daughter?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the company name, Primae. There’ll be one of Mr. Moore’s associates too and two other people. Business and pleasure, Mr. Warwick described it to me―’

  Business and pleasure … Teressa thought of those handsome six-digit figures in the Primae folder … a whole weekend of treading carefully for Mr. Ashe Warwick. It would be a crying shame if something were to go wrong. What a pity she couldn’t be there to throw a spanner in the works … .

  ‘You rest your leg, Mrs Richards, and let me know if I can fill in for you any time. I’m free most evenings―’she laughed ostentatiously―‘and even weekends.’

  ‘Heavens, dear, I wouldn’t dream of it.’ But she would.

  It was fate, Teressa decided, when her neighbour told her the news. Fate. Mrs Richards’ daughter and family were making an unexpected trip to Sydney from Canberra, arriving on Friday just when Thelma was committed to work at Deception for the weekend.

  A spanner in the works, Teressa thought, grasping her opportunity..

  ‘It just happens that I’m free this weekend. Let me go to Deception.’

  The phrase had a premonitory ring to it, she thought on her way down the south coast the following Saturday. As if she might one day look back and regret it. But there wasn’t a thing she could do about it now. She was committed to work for Ashe until Monday morning.

  Mrs Richards had felt somewhat guilty a out sending someone in her place. She hadn’t seen Mr. Warwick in his office and had left him a note of explanation. But she hadn’t said whom she was sending, which was lucky, for Teressa had made up a name for herself. Hunter―Teressa Hunter. There was a certain irony in it. As she gazed around the flat, wondering about a name, her eyes had fallen on Ashe’s novel A Lonely Hunter. If there was something distasteful about using a phony name she had only to recall his falseness to justify it.

  The trip took her over two hours and it was almost nine o’clock when she drove through the stone-pillared gateway to Ashe’s coast house. Placed at an angle on a small headland, it was an old, gracious beauty. Its original shape had been extended with a modern wing that in no way clashed with the original bay windows, the wide stone verandas all around the lower floor, and its elaborately carved timber columns.

  Teressa took her bag from the car and looked about. Early morning haze hung in the sunshine. The lonely sound of a gull accented the rushing, hushing of the low tide on the sand and rocks that lay below the house beyond a sloping tangle of tree. A breeze stirred over the wind-strafed branches that had known its more forceful moods, and way, way off the horizon was mistily marked on a new November sky.

  The breeze ballooned Teressa’s long Indian cotton top. It had been bought on impulse years ago and its cheap charm had long worn off. Teamed with an equally limp skirt, it was a masterpiece of dowdery.

  Not that she’d set out to be dowdy―just nondescript.

  If she was going to observe Ashe and his guests she didn’t want to be noteworthy herself. Which was why she wore a scarf over her hair and hadn’t used any eye make-up. A nice, pleasant girl was what she looked one whom everyone could ignore quite properly.

  ‘You must be from Universal.’

  The voice swung her about, and all her planned opening remarks fled from her mind as she was confronted by Ashe Warwick clad in swimming trunks and a shirt carelessly open over a bare chest. A towel was ruched about his neck and he held on to it with both hands. He was just lifting a corner of it to pat a drip of salt water that ran from his sea-darkened hair when he recognised her. .

  ‘It’s you,’ he said with a certain look of enthusiasm. ‘What was your name again―Melissa, was It. ’

  ‘Teressa.’

  The topaz eyes ran over her unprepossessing appearance and he made a gesture of resignation. ‘It s too late now. We shall just have to make do with you, Teressa.’ He picked up her bag and led the way to the front steps. She followed and waited while he wiped his bare feet on a mat to rid himself of the sand.

  ‘What does the “R” stand for?’ he asked, and Teressa stared at him. ‘Your other name,’ he went on impatiently, and indicated the initials on her overnight bag…

  She searched for a name, could only come up with Hunter which wouldn’t fit, or her real name. She'd forgotten about the initials on her bag. Under that golden gaze Teressa could feel her nerve crumbling.

  He hadn’t always looked right through her, she remembered. Her hand went to her headscarf, tugging it forward.

  ‘You have got one?’

  ‘Yes,’ she croaked at last, ‘um-Richards. ’

  ‘ Ah, that explains everything,’ he said drily,‘ should have realised you were one of the family. ’

  Richards. Richards! Why on earth had she said that? Teressa mentally kicked herself as he followed him inside. Why hadn’t she just said she d borrowed the bag? She barely registered the elegant entry hall and staircase before they continued past into a long corridor.

  ‘Here’s your room for the weekend. He put her bag on the floor and tweaked curtains open to let light in on a cosy room of dark, old furniture and bright patchwork. ‘The bathroom is one door further on. When you’ve freshened up,’ he looked sceptically at her faded appearance, ‘I’ll show you where everything is.’

  She nodded, avoiding his eyes by focusing on his chest. But bare as it was, with tiny grains of sand clinging to the gold-brown chest hair, it proved every bit as disturbing, and she stared down at her clasped hands instead.

  ‘And Teressa,’ he added as he reached the door, try not to stare at the ground all the time. Your mother probably told you that you’ll be waiting on my guests—’ He paused, and she realised in sudden malicious pleasure that he was probably picturing this shrinking half-wit serving drinks to Primae and his daughter.

  Maybe it would turn out better than she thought.

  ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, staring at the ground.

  ‘Oh God,’ he said under his breath, and when she looked up he had gone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HER room opened via french windows on to the veranda. Cool shadows, mellow sandstone and, beyond that, the bulk of a fig tree making shade for misty maiden-hair and begonias run wild. No rough, salt winds here in the lee of the house and no ocean views. But the smell and the sound of the sea were subtle reminders of its near, massive presence.

  Teressa hung her clothes in the wardrobe and set out a few toiletries on the dressing table. Slipping off her scarf in front of the mirror, she ran a hand through her shoulder-length hair. Straight and thick and glossily dark, it would nevertheless have been unremarkable but for the startling streak of silver that sprang from just above her left temple… , ‘Some girls pay a fortune to get streaks like that’Mrs Richards had said, once she’d estabhshed that it was, indeed, natural. Teressa wished she’d paid a fortune for hers. It would have been cheap. Hers ad begun to grow at seventeen after Damien Radcliffe had been laid to premature rest beside her mother. A doctor had explained the phenomenon to her in dry medical terms and smiled tolerantly at the idea of it being the result of emotional upheaval. A coincidence, he’d told her. But it had seemed a reminder―a sort of permanent band of mourning.

  In these days of multi-coloured hair and streaks and punk effects, it was no longer the novelty It had been at first, but it gave her a distinc
tion that Teressa knew her averagely pretty looks would not otherwise have achieved. Her hair was more richly mahogany by contrast―her grey eyes, thickly dark-lashed and large though they were, would be less interesting without its silvery influence. Her hand went to the streak―a nervous habit she’d been unable to break, Then she unknotted the scarf and tied it securely on again. Right now she didn’t want to be distinctive, but forgettable.

  She went in search of her new boss, looking into the massive kitchen, the diningroom and the billiardroom. Perhaps he was upstairs, she thought, and curiously climbed the beautiful, carved staircase. There were enough bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs to open a small hotel. Teressa looked into a large suite dominated by a gleaming brass bed. A damp shirt was flung across the maroon coverlet and a pair of swimming briefs lay on the floor where their owner had stepped from them. There was the sound of a shower, but it stopped before she registered its significance and Ashe Warwick strolled―dewdropped and stark naked―frorn the adjoining bathroom.