It was a page from some kind of society webzine. Martha scanned through the text and Alex said, ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ said Martha, still reading. ‘Jerry Brook has announced he’s to marry long-time girlfriend Natalie Harrison next summer. He’s the next likely Governor of Kentucky, tipped as a future President – lowlife. It’s hardly likely to be the same Natalie Harrison. Oh, she is English though, a futures analyst.’
She pointed at the screen and Alex said, ‘Can you get a picture of her?’
She looked up at him, doubtful at first but saying, ‘I’ll look for photographs of Brook and see what we come up with.’
Alex stood looking down at the screen as Martha sat and trawled for pictures of Jerry Brook. He was certain too, that it wouldn’t be the same Natalie Harrison but he was edgy as the first picture downloaded onto the screen.
Natalie had teased him about Matt making a run for the Presidency, and she’d told him she was single. They were innocuous comments on their own but they’d develop a sinister edge if she turned out to be the same person they were looking at now.
The first picture showed a guy in his early forties who looked sleek like a salesman. There was a blond woman with him and they were both dressed for dinner, the picture taken at some fundraiser or charity ball. The woman wasn’t Natalie.
‘That could be the Natalie Harrison in question,’ said Martha, ‘but it doesn’t say anything in the caption.’
She kept trying, producing a handful of pictures of Brook alone, on a farm, touring a school, a factory, more society pictures, at the opening of some kind of medical facility. Alex took in each of the pictures, conscious of how strange it was that the two of them were doing this together.
They didn’t know each other at all and yet they seemed driven in trying to find out if the Natalie Harrison in that photograph upstairs was the same one who was engaged to a politician called Jerry Brook. Alex could understand why he wanted to know, why he needed to know, but not why Martha was so curious.
Another picture started to creep onto the screen and Martha sat back, taking her hands of the keyboard. It was taken at a formal party, Brook on the left talking to an elderly couple on the right, and between them looking on, almost in the shadows, a younger woman. Alex had to look closer this time, studying the face, the hair.
He stood back again and Martha said, ‘Is that her?’
‘No.’ He didn’t sound certain and she looked up at him. ‘No, it’s not a clear picture but I’m positive it isn’t her.’
Martha nodded but still didn’t look convinced. She turned back to the screen then and said, ‘Of course, we don’t know that this is the woman he’s engaged to anyway. Let’s try some more.’ She brought up a couple more pictures, none of them offering anything or anyone else, and as she continued searching she said, ‘What does your Natalie do?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Alex. ‘I know she works in the city. She could be a futures analyst I suppose. I just don’t know.’
‘What company does she work for?’
‘I don’t know that either. Sorry.’
She gave up on the search, turning to him as she said, ‘I don’t want you to worry or anything, but you really need to find out if this is the same Natalie Harrison.’
Alex didn’t like the sound of this, the way Martha was homing in on his own fears, even without the benefit of the information he had, the doubts about how Will and Rob had died.
‘Why would it matter? Look, I met her at Rob’s funeral and she said she wasn’t even seeing anyone.’
‘All the more reason to check. Two of your friends have died in the last two weeks. If that coincides with a third friend getting engaged to Jerry Brook then I think you have good cause to be uneasy.’
‘No,’ said Alex, refusing to contemplate it himself, not wanting to hear Martha grasping after the truth either.
She was too quick though, her voice flat but insistent as she said, ‘But you were all involved in a hit and run. You killed a girl and left the scene. If that got out it could really damage someone like Jerry Brook, even if it was his wife and not him who’d been involved.’
Alex laughed, the way Rob and Natalie had laughed at him.
‘Natalie isn’t that kind of person. She wouldn’t have someone killed. It’s ridiculous.’ It did sound ridiculous and yet he thought back to meeting her at Rob’s funeral and wondered how well qualified he was to say what she was or wasn’t capable of.
‘Maybe it isn’t her. Maybe all she did was tell the man she loves. Jerry Brook is a real family-values Republican with a fortune and big business links and an uncle who was deputy director of the CIA or NSC or something like that.’