‘Yes, Mum. It’s me. And I’ve brought a...friend to see you. Murat, this is Ursula—my mother. Mum, this is Murat.’
Ursula looked up at Murat and gave him a vacant smile. ‘You haven’t got a smoke on you by any chance?’ she said.
Catrin half expected Murat to turn around and walk straight back to his car, but he did no such thing. Instead, he shrugged his broad shoulders as if people asked him such things every day of the week.
‘Not on me, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘May we come in?’
Ursula looked him up and down before opening the door to let them in.
As they picked their way over the discarded shoes and empty plastic bags which were littering the small hallway Catrin watched as Murat followed her mother into a tiny sitting room which reeked of stale smoke. On a small table next to a faded armchair stood a half-empty tumbler of vodka. Beside the glass was a crumpled cigarette packet and an overflowing ashtray. A game show blared out from the giant TV screen and the sound of the canned studio laughter added a surreal touch to the bizarre meeting.
Catrin wanted to curl up and die but her shame lasted only as long as it took for her self-worth to assert itself. Because she had done nothing to be ashamed of. This was not her house, nor her mess. And Ursula was ill, not wicked.
She glanced up at Murat but the expression on his hawkish face gave nothing away. He glanced down to meet her eyes and gave her the faintest of smiles.
‘I wonder if you’d mind going out to buy a packet of cigarettes, Cat?’ he questioned calmly. ‘While I have a talk to your mother.’
The request threw her. Confused her. She wanted to refuse, but something told her that refusal wasn’t an option.
‘Okay,’ she said, and left her mother blinking in some bewilderment as she realised she was going to be left alone with the towering figure of the Sultan.
Catrin let herself out onto the narrow street and sucked in some of the damp, cool air. On the other side of the street, she saw a curtain twitch and she turned to trace some of the old, familiar steps of her childhood. The little corner shop was still there, hanging on despite the inexorable march of the out-of-town hypermarket, and she bought a pack of cigarettes and a carton of milk.
She didn’t have a clue what Murat was going to say to her mother but right then she didn’t care, because she trusted him to do the right thing. He might have been emotionally closed down as a partner, but she’d read enough about Qurhah to know that he was revered as a ruler, both at home and abroad. And in truth, wasn’t it a comfort to have someone else taking over like this, even if it was only for a short while? Hadn’t the burden of responsibility always fallen on her?
She’d spent her life trying to shield Rachel from the fall-out of this sordid and erratic life. She’d cooked meals from store-cupboard scraps and bought food at the end of the day from the nearby market, when they were practically giving the stuff away. She’d known survival in bucket-loads, but she’d never known comfort. She had always been prepared for the final demands landing on the doormat. Or the telephone being cut off because the money put aside for the bill had been drunk away.
Maybe that was what had made her so determined to hang onto what Murat had offered her. Like some urchin who’d spent her life shivering outside in the cold, hadn’t she also been attracted by his lifestyle, which had cushioned her in unfamiliar luxury?
By the time she got back with the cigarettes, she found her mother slumped in the armchair, but the ashtray had been emptied and the glass of vodka replaced by a mug of black coffee. Murat emerged from the kitchen, his jacket removed and his shirtsleeves rolled up.
‘What’s going on?’ Catrin questioned, handing her mother the packet of cigarettes and watching as she began to tear at the cellophane wrapping with trembling fingers.
‘Your mother has agreed to go into rehab,’ he said.
Waiting for the stream of objection which didn’t come, Catrin narrowed her eyes. ‘How can she?’
‘I wonder if I could have a word with you, Cat?’ Murat’s voice cut through her words as easily as a hot knife slicing through butter. ‘In private.’
She joined him in the kitchen where, to her astonishment, he had started making inroads into the enormous pile of filthy dishes which were piled up in the sink. Shutting the door behind her, she stared at him in confusion.
‘Is this for real?’
He nodded. ‘Completely.’
She swallowed, not wanting to believe it. ‘What did you say to her to get her to agree to something like that?’
‘I repeated exactly what you told me. I said that she was going to kill herself if she carried on that way.’ His black gaze was very steady. ‘I think I managed to convince her that you and your sister would be completely devastated were that to happen. I told her that you’d both already suffered enough by watching her wreck her life and her health. I asked if she wanted to save herself, before it was too late. And then I said that I was prepared to pay for her to go into a rehabilitation unit.’
Wildly, Catrin shook her head. ‘I can’t let you do that,’ she said. ‘I looked into it once. It costs thousands of pounds.’
‘Which I can easily afford, as we both know. The money isn’t important.’ He stepped forward, stemming her objection by placing a forefinger over her lips. ‘Let me do it, Cat. I want to.’
Angrily, she jerked her mouth away from the touch of that distracting finger, hating the fact that her body could react to him even in moments like this. ‘Why? You don’t even know my mother.’
‘I think we both know why. For you.’
‘As a kind of pay-off?’ she questioned bitterly.
‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose, although I’d prefer not to think of what we shared in terms of money.’
‘Really? Don’t you think you’re being rather naïve? It was a transaction, Murat,’ she said. ‘You know it was.’
He flinched, but the gaze he fixed on her face was steady. ‘Let’s not quibble about what our relationship was, or wasn’t. Let’s just think about your mother. Surely she deserves this chance?’ he persisted. ‘Especially when I can send her to the best place money can buy.’
Catrin pursed her lips together. Of course he could. Murat could buy anything he pleased. Anything and anyone. He had bought her, hadn’t he? Purchased her just as surely as if he’d walked into a store and asked for a woman who would be willing to begin a brand-new life as his mistress. And she had gone along with it. She’d almost bitten his hand off in her eagerness.
But just because her easy acceptance of that role now appalled her—was it really fair to refuse her mother this one last chance?
She thought of the woman sitting slumped in the armchair next door, her whole world centred around a bottle of liquor and her health declining year on year. She thought about the way her own heart froze every time the phone rang, wondering if this was going to be the call she’d spent her whole life dreading. Was she going to allow her own wounded pride to stop her from accepting this potential lifeline which might just save her mother?
She looked into Murat’s face, as stern and as implacable now as she’d ever seen it. Her gaze travelled down to the whorls of hairs on his powerful forearms, all damp from where he’d been washing up. He was trying, she realised. He was doing the best he could. He might not be able to offer her anything in the way of a future but he was using his considerable power to reach out and help her mother. What right did she have to turn that help down, just because her heart was broken?
‘Yes, of course she deserves it,’ she said stiffly. ‘And if you really mean it then I’d like to accept your kind offer.’
‘Good.’ He