IN THE SHADOW OF STRANGERS: A wealthy man is about to change her destiny …but it’s a secret.

by Wendy Reakes

  Earlier that day when he went to see Ben at the Corner, he’d sat at his usual table watching the lunchtime session, watching the staff and most of all, watching his stepson. Afterwards, in Ben’s flat upstairs, they’d had a ‘little family get-together’, as Frank liked to call it.

  Benjamin had simply owned up to it all when Frank confronted him. He said he needed the money to pay off previous debts, as well as a few lines of credit he’d accumulated over three years. He said he was sorry; that he didn’t think Frank would mind; that it wouldn’t happen again and that he’d pay it back.

  Frank didn’t believe him.

  Once they rob you, they’ll go on robbing you, until the day you kick their arses out, Frank pondered. Ben Corner was going to get what he had coming to him since the day Frank met his mother. But before that happened, Frank wanted his money back.

  Frank’s driver and side-kick, Harry Bell, was sitting in the front of the car watching Kathy’s, as Frank watched Kathy’s. “Didn’t we own this place once boss?”

  “Yeah, we did. Ol’ Benny had it for years.” Frank cast his eyes over the signage on the building over the road. “I shouldn’t have kicked him out, ‘arry. That’s probably what finished him in the end. It was all he had, this place.”

  “So why’d you do it?”

  Harry and Frank were buddies in the old days, when Harry worked the markets and Frank bought his first café. When Frank hit it big, he needed someone he could trust, so he took Harry on as a sort of P.A. Except he didn’t do no typing. No way! Harry did most of Frank’s heavy work for him. He took care of the things Frank couldn’t afford to be seen to be involved in. In turn, Frank very rarely kept Harry informed about the intricate parts of the business. They were a good team. It was all about trust.

  “I did a friend a favour when I needed some fast cash,” Frank said slowly. Now he was trying to piece everything together. Gordon Bentley hadn’t said what he’d wanted the café for. He’d just asked Frank to find him a site he could turn into an up-market restaurant. Frank hadn’t been interested in why he wanted it.

  There was a woman involved, Frank mused. He spotted her when she’d opened the door to let Ben in. He wondered who she was and how she fitted into the scheme of things. “You know the funny thing about all this, ‘arry? I needed the money to replace the cash I used to pay off the mortgage on the Corner, so that my ungrateful bastard of a stepson could put his name on the lease.”

  Frank wound up his window as they pulled away. “The little bastard!” he said again.

  Chapter 36

  “I’m famished. Can we stop for lunch?” They’d been on the motorway for over two-hours. Ben had been lost in thought for the entire journey, leaving Katherine to mull over her crossword.

  He glanced over at the folded newspaper on her lap. “Haven’t you finished that yet?”

  “We’re not all brain boxes like you, Benjamin Corner.” She was fed up with his bad humour. He’d been irritable with her all morning and frankly, she’d had enough. She’d promised him she would go with him to Manchester to meet his father, but with Kathy’s being as busy as it was, she’d only just managed to get away. She thought a little bit of gratitude from the arrogant one wouldn’t go amiss.

  Kathy’s had opened for business just over a year ago. She remembered how, on the first day, she’d paced around five-minutes before noon, adjusting forks and napkins and losing more confidence as each second passed. Watching the hands on an old school clock hanging above the door, she couldn’t help wondering how she would feel if no one turned up…How it would look! She knew she’d be a laughing stock if the restaurant was a flop.

  But at five-minutes-past-twelve, her first customer walked through the door followed by a steady stream of people that filled most of the tables. That’s when her team did what they were all trained to do; they cooked and served food, the likes of which Ealing had never seen before.

  She’d decided from the onset that she would serve only nouvelle cuisine at Kathy’s. It was the new way of presenting gourmet food, a technique circulating the restaurants in London. Even though the Savoy has yet to move onto it entirely, simply dabbling in it at that point, she was keen to move into the nineties with the new approach to food preparation and service. The skills required to pull off such a feat was the main reason she’d hired her chef, and assistant manager, Peter Blue. He was au fait with the system and he was keen to create new and sumptuous dishes.

  While sitting next to Ben driving up the motorway, Katherine recalled the first day of opening, when an incident threatened to tip the balance of her newfound confidence and the theory that the centre table should remain empty unless it seated eight guests.

  She’d taken a booking for the table the previous day for managers and their secretaries of a small local firm, celebrating their annual office party. When only seven people arrived, since one had dropped out, Katherine had no choice but to inform them they would have to be seated at a different table. The director of the firm became irate at her unaccommodating approach, but she’d stood her ground. She couldn’t go against the idea since she knew the staff would never have confidence in her again and the eight-person rule would lose all credibility. As luck would have it, the director of the firm had a notion to invite a client to join them thus allowing them to remain on the table they’d previously booked. The next day, Katherine received flowers and a note to say their client had been looking at taking her business elsewhere, until she was invited along to Kathy’s.

  After that, the ‘table eight’ rule became the talking point it was meant to be, thus providing the restaurant with more publicity. “I’d like to book table eight, please,” the patrons now said when they rang to reserve a table, and Katherine smiled every time.

  Already the restaurant was showing a profit. The turnover far exceeded her overheads and it made the rent she paid look small in comparison. The rent had been fixed for five-years, set to increase no more than twenty percent. She also had the option of renewing the lease if she decided to purchase the property after ten-years; the cost of purchase set at one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Even if she sold the lease within the ten-year period, the purchase deal would still apply to the buyers, giving her greater leverage to increase the value of the business and to up the cost of the transaction.

  “Do you want the answers or are you going to sit there struggling and getting on my nerves?” Ben said, looking over at the crossword on her lap.

  She picked up the newspaper and hit him across the arm with it. “Why did I even bother coming here with you? You’re an ungrateful…I should have left you to meet your father on your own.”

  “So let’s stop for lunch?” Ben said at last. “I’ve got to get off the motorway though. I can’t stand the pigs-swill they provide at the services. They call it food and then charge a fortune for it. Talk about taking highway robbery. Literally!”

  Ben took the next exit on the M6, sign-posted Knutsford. “I’ll get off the beaten track a little. We’re bound to find a nice little country pub en-route.” He took a few rights, eventually following a road lined with an old crumbling wall.

  “I wonder what’s behind that wall,” she said. “Some great old mansion I imagine, surrounded by acres of parkland.”

  “Who cares? It’s a pub we’re looking for, Kath. Stay focused will you?”

  She glanced sideways at him as he changed the tape on the cassette player. Why did she let him talk her into coming with him? As usual she was being taken for a ride by Ben Corner. Literally!

  As the wall curved off to the right, Ben made a left turn and suddenly, they were in front of an old country pub, on a crossroads in the centre of a little village. The old peeling signage above the windows read The Coach & Horses. It was a large red brick building, rendered at the front with the walls flaking and tarnished. The tiled roof spilled down to square paned bay windows, jutting out over old green window boxes, devoid of flowers.

  “Stop here,” she shouted witho
ut knowing why.

  Ben swiftly turned into the car park at the rear and switched off the ignition. “It looks like a real dump to me.”

  She’d already opened her door. She stepped out and slammed it shut before Ben ruined the feeling she had in her gut. She felt like she knew the place, that somehow being there was part of her destiny. It was the strangest sensation and she had no intention of fighting it.

  From the car park they walked into the side entrance, past a small annex housing the ladies and gent’s toilets. “It stinks.” Ben said pulling his handkerchief from his pocket and holding it over his nose.

  “That’s only the toilets. I’m sure you won’t be able to smell them when we get inside.”

  The pub was empty of people, except for someone playing on the slot machine in the corner. Standing at the bar in the centre of the room, Katherine brushed her heel over the stone floor. It was wet and greasy after being recently mopped. The worn slabs had been there for years. “This place must be four-hundred years old. What I could do with that floor. It’s sensational.”

  Across the room, the walls were yellowed-white, bare of pictures and bric-a-brac, except for an occasional vertical strap with horse-brasses. Red fixed-seating lined the room with rips in the leather, repaired with brown masking tape. In front of them were tables with small red leather stools. The place was an eyesore.

  The man at the fruit machine pocketed his winnings and went behind the bar to serve them.

  “Can we buy lunch here?” Katherine asked him.

  “Yes, but I’m afraid we can only do soup and a sandwich.”

  Ben leaned with his back against the bar. “Is that it?” he scowled rudely.

  “We were hoping for something a bit more than a sandwich, that’s all,” she said, embarrassed by her companion’s attitude.

  “I’m sorry,” the barman said, “We’re waiting a refurbishment, so the kitchen is closed. My wife will be pleased to offer you something though.”

  “In that case, a bowl of soup and a sandwich will be fine. Thank you for being so helpful.” She heard Ben cursing and the barman heard it too, but he was discreet and pretended not to notice.

  They walked over to a table in one of the window bays, looking out across the village green. “This place could be fabulous.” She looked at Ben’s sulking face. “Oh come on. Cheer up, will you?”

  “I can still smell the toilets from here.” He stuck his nose in the air. “An appetising cocktail of urine and Blue Duck.”

  Katherine sighed for the hundredth time that day as she watched him gaze morosely out of the window to the village green. “Anyway, I don’t care about this place. I’m meeting my father in two hours,” he says.

  “It will be okay, you know. Maybe he’ll be happy to meet you.”

  He smiled a wry smile. “Don’t be daft. Why would he be happy to meet me? This is real life, Katherine, not some soap opera. Do you think J.R would welcome an illegitimate son if he turned up at Southfork?”

  She laughed at the simile. “Bobby would.”

  “Bobby’s dead.” He gave her an exaggerated shake of the head. “You know you’ve got to keep up with the times, woman.”

  “Well, now that you mention it, any father of yours would be more like J.R, so I’m afraid you won’t be hitting the jackpot. You may as well give up now and go home, oh arrogant one.”

  “Very funny!” He looked down at the stone floor. He was suddenly serious and he caught her off guard. “I can’t go home. I’ve got to see it through now. I need the money.”

  “Why a hundred-thousand pounds, Ben? Why won’t you tell me what it’s for?”

  “I can’t…it’s nothing. Just forget it!”

  The barman brought their lunch. The soup was fresh and the sandwich surprisingly well presented. He noted Katherine’s approval. “We’ve got a kitchen in our flat upstairs, so we do the cooking from there. We shouldn’t, but we want to be able to serve something, even if it’s just a snack.”

  She saw Ben roll his eyes as he gazed out of the window while munching on a sandwich. “When are they doing the refurbishment?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure they are, now. The brewery has just had the planning permission refused again, so they may sell it now.”

  “Why was it refused?” She couldn’t help being intrigued about the future of the little pub.

  “The villagers objected. The company wanted to build a big family restaurant there with a child’s play area out back. It was all the rage at the moment.”

  “Frankly, I don’t blame them for objecting. It could be beautiful if they left it as a country pub with high quality food.”

  He shrugged. “It’s all about brands now. They’re rolling them out. It’s just about money at the end of the day. In another ten years there won’t be any decent pubs left.”

  “Katherine,” Ben rudely interrupted. “Can we finish our lunch? I’ve got a meeting in an hour.”

  She ignored him. “What’s the name of the brewery again?”

  The barman who had turned out to be the manager took their empty glasses. “Don Banks Brewers. They’re based in Manchester.”

  Chapter 37

  Doctor Lance Willington waited for Ben to take a seat at the other side of his desk. “Mr. Corner. What can I do for you?”

  “You could start by lending me a hundred grand,” Ben answered, smiling arrogantly. Truthfully, he hadn’t planned on saying it that way, but since it had come out of his mouth without any serious deliberation, he’d stuck with that initial statement.

  Lance Willington laughed. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know what? Don’t lend it to me…” The words just kept on coming. “…I’ll borrow it for now and then you can bequeath that amount to me…and some.”

  Lance Willington regarded him over his bifocals. “I’m sorry. Is this some sort of joke?”

  “It’s no joke!” Ben smiled and shook his head. “I’ve been told you’re my father.” He allowed him a pause to let the information sink in. “In view of the fact I am your long-lost son, I didn’t think you’d object to me coming here like this.”

  Ben was secretly admiring the man who he called his biological father. He was tall, like Ben, but the likeness stopped there. He was slim with completely grey hair and he wore bifocals on the tip of his nose as he stretched his eyes to see over the top. Above his left eye a bald patch was clearly visible and quite distractingly centred in the middle of his eye brow. He was tanned and he wore proper ties, not like Ben’s bows. Ben decided he got his looks from his mother, because this guy was way out of his category.

  Lance Willington sat back against his black leather swivel chair. The two men watched each other, silently. “I must say, I was wondering if you’d ever show up…” He looked at the file in front of him. “…Benjamin!”

  Ben shrugs. “Sorry about making the bogus appointment, but I thought I’d surprise you. Oh, and you can call me Ben. All my family do.”

  “I think we both know I’m not your family. Not in that sense of the word,” Lance Willington said. “Clearly, I’m your biological father but the question now remains, what do you want me to do about that exactly?”

  “How very pragmatic of you!” Ben puckered his lips. “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it. I want money! One hundred thousand pounds, to be exact.”

  “And what makes you think I’d just hand over such a large sum of money to you?”

  “Because you’ve got a family! A wife and two daughters, I believe. And I don’t imagine they know about me.”

  Lance raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Actually my wife knows I had an illegitimate child. I don’t have any secrets from her.”

  Ben winced at his father’s aloofness. He didn’t know why. “In that case, if you don’t give me what’s rightfully mine, I may have to strike up a liaison with one of your pretty daughters, and we all know what that means.” He watched Lance frown. “It looks like I’ve touched a nerve.”

  “It's n
ot that,” he responded coolly. “It just means I’ll have to tell my girls about you. It’s not serious. They’ll understand. We’re a very close family.” He stood up, indicating to Ben that he should go. “Now, if you don’t mind,” he said, offering him the door.

  Ben got up to leave. Frankly he couldn’t wait to get out of there. “Don’t think this is the end of the matter,” he spat. He was annoyed at the man’s lack of concern at his blackmailing threats. “I will be back, and I’ll bring my lawyer with me.”

  “Don’t you think you’re a little old for a DNA test?” Lance mocked.

  “I don’t need a DNA test. We all know who I am and there are plenty of witnesses to prove it. My mother is still alive in case you were wondering. She survived even though you abandoned her when she needed you.”

  “How very sentimental,” Lance Willington said. “Please don’t over-dramatise this, Benjamin. We all know what it was.”

  “Well, I promise it will be a big drama for you, when your patients and friends read the story in The Sun next week.” Ben took hold of the door handle, as if to leave.

  Lance placed his hand on Ben’s arm. “Look, why don’t you come to dinner tonight? You can meet my family yourself and we can talk more.” He handed him a card from his breast pocket “Here’s my address. We’ll expect you at seven o’clock. My wife would enjoy meeting you, so please, do come.”

  “Alright.” Ben pulled the door towards him and stepped out of the room. He turned and looked back at his father standing in the door way. “But only because we’ve got unfinished business.”

  After Ben left the room, Lance Willington closed the door and went to the filing cabinet on the wall behind his desk. He took a key from his pocket, unlocked the top drawer and pulled out a blue file. ‘Personal’ it said. ‘Benjamin Corner.’

  He moved over to his desk and opened the cover to a picture of Ben on the inside, atop various documents. After he shuffled through the papers and notes inside, he closed the file and pushed it into the top drawer of his desk. Ben Corner. Challenging, ambitious, resourceful…He recalled the discussion they’d just had and he smiled. Ha, Lance thought, it was almost like having an argument with himself.