Pearls

by Celia Brayfield

  Cathy’s mind relentlessly imposed a pattern on the confusion of vile information in front of her. Somehow it all seemed so much more horrifying in French. The passionate, precise language, well-adapted for sexual innuendo, conjured up visions of debauchery far worse than the evidence of the poorly focused photograph.

  She began to stack the reports in date order. ‘You’re right, there are too many of them,’ she said to Monty. ‘Look, here are two from the same rag, saying almost the same thing, within two weeks of each other. And there, the same thing again … and look, his name is the only one mentioned but there are half a dozen other men in this picture. This isn’t genuine reporting, this is an orchestrated campaign.’ She sat back from the table and made a tent out of her fingers while she thought, a pompous gesture which she usually tried to avoid. ‘If you’re right and she is also this Madame Bernard …’

  ‘And I am right, Cathy.’

  ‘I think you are. It makes sense, though it’s horrible to think about. Then she must be mixed up in this somehow. I cannot, I just cannot, believe our father would kill someone like that.’

  Monty was studying the photograph, trying to make out the other men’s faces. ‘Does he look familiar to you?’ she pointed to the most distant figure, a blurred shape wearing spectacles.

  ‘No. It could be anyone. Let’s look through the other stories, see if there are any names.’

  At last Monty found a whole page from a German magazine which contained, next to a story that the Queen was divorcing Prince Philip, a small update on the scandal with three names in addition to their father’s. Two of them Cathy recognized, but knew that the men were dead. The third was ‘Shroeton’.

  ‘Shrewton?’ Monty enquired. ‘That’s probably how they’d write it in German.’

  ‘If it is him …’ Cathy began, and then checked herself. ‘Why am I pretending? It is him. As a matter of fact, I’m glad. It looks as if Lord Shrewton’s almost the only man in my life who hasn’t lied to me for years. Whatever the bottom line is, he’ll give it to me, and he’ll make it quick and clean.’

  Cathy telephoned her former father-in-law and calmly pressed him into seeing them that afternoon in his office. He worked in the Migatto building only two days a week now, and was preparing to retire the following year.

  ‘You remember my sister?’ Monty, sleek in a wide-shouldered black jacket and tapered trousers, shook the old man’s soft hand, and they sat on the hard Jacobean chairs beside his table.

  ‘This must be very important,’ he said, offering them drinks, which his secretary poured. When the woman had left the room, Cathy came directly to the point. ‘This isn’t going to be easy for you, but you’ve always paid me the compliment of being direct with me, and I hope, you’ll be able to do that now. Monty and I took a decision to investigate the circumstances surrounding our father’s death. We became aware that because we were so young at the time we hadn’t been told the whole truth.’

  Lord Shrewton drew a breath of anticipation, and Cathy continued. ‘We’ve discovered that there was a scandal involving him with the killing of a prostitute in Paris a few months before he died. I wondered if you knew anything about it?’

  ‘You’ve a good idea that I do know something or you wouldn’t be here.’ He sipped pale malt whisky neat from a crystal tumbler. ‘You’ve a right to the truth, now you’ve read all the lies. I was with your father right through the night that it happened. He was unconscious. He’d been drinking. We found the girl in his room the next morning. She’d been horribly cut up and strangled.’ He paused, giving the two women time to take in what he was saying. Now completely white-haired, Lord Shrewton seemed as pale as death itself, but he was as incorruptible as a diamond and Cathy felt relief that she was at last getting a full account of her father’s affairs.

  ‘It was a set-up,’ he announced, his voice crackling with outrage still, more than twenty years after the event. ‘Someone wanted to blackmail him, and I stopped them. I got our embassy in and had the whole affair hushed up. For my own good as much as his, I have to admit.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you got on with him very well,’ Cathy prompted.

  ‘You have to get on with all sorts of people in business, but yes, you’re right, your father wasn’t my type. Not that I didn’t have sympathy for him. Second son – that’s a hard row to hoe. He’d done better than many of’em.’

  ‘If you hushed it up, where did these rumours come from?’

  ‘From her, from the woman who was after him. The woman he used to find all these party girls for his private celebrations. At least, I presumed it was her and he thought it likely. Lord knows what he’d done to deserve it.’

  ‘So you were never really certain who was behind it?’ Monty asked, disappointed that there was still so much uncertainty.

  ‘Not at the time, but later I found out because she tried to blackmail me as well. She telephoned me, but we never met. I told her to get lost. That’s the only way to deal with these people.’ Behind his spectacles, which were dusty and needed polishing, the astute old eyes flickered from one face to another. ‘I don’t suppose you think too much of your father now, eh? Natural, of course. It’s not a pretty story, even though he was absolutely innocent.’

  ‘But apart from the fact that it was the woman who sent him the girls, you never knew who she was?’

  ‘Never gave a name, of course not. The only thing I remember that was distinctive was the funny nasal voice she had.’

  ‘What did she want from him? Did you ever discover?’ Cathy was fitting together the final pieces of the jigsaw.

  ‘No, I didn’t even enquire. Nothing to do with me, the less I knew the better. But he had other troubles as well, I think it was the combination that brought him down. Debts, as you know, and he was mixed up in an exchange control fraud of some kind. He was desperate, you see.’

  ‘And what did she want from you?’ Monty demanded, and Cathy turned towards her sister as she spoke, astonished that she had not thought to ask the question herself.

  ‘Curious. Extraordinarily curious, considering the way things turned out. She said she didn’t want two innocent girls to suffer for their father’s wickedness, and wanted me to promise that I’d take care of you two if anything happened to him.’

  ‘What?’ the two women spoke in unison, amazement on their faces.

  ‘Yes. Cathy, my dear, I hope you know me well enough to trust me in this. Of course, when my son brought you to our house barely a year later I was suspicious, highly suspicious, but I saw at once that you were as innocent as a newborn lamb and that Charlie was mad about you – and no one could order my son’s affections, whatever was at stake. I don’t have to tell you, you know it well enough I dare say.’ He slowly rose to his feet and walked around the table to take a chair close to her. ‘I expect you’ll go away now and feel that everything I’ve done for you I did because someone was twisting my arm. It’s very important that you shouldn’t think that. After that first attempt, this woman never got in touch with me again. I think she knew that she’d met her match. I was, as you know, disgusted with the way my son treated you, and after the divorce I was sorry for you and I felt it would be right to offer you a chance to rebuild the life he had destroyed. But after that, my dear, you were on your own. I gave you nothing but what you thoroughly deserved, you must believe me when I tell you that.’

  Cathy nodded, feeling the prickling rush of tears again. She reached out and squeezed the pale hands which were spotted with the brown marks of age. ‘And you are absolutely certain you don’t know who this woman was, apart from having something to do with the girls? Did he ever give you a name?’

  ‘The girls came through that organization – Madame Bernard. He talked about her as if she were one woman; she might have been a whole business. Everyone knew about her in those days.’

  ‘And did you ever think all of this might possibly have had any connection with the Princess Ayeshah?’

  He gave her a quick, h
ard look of enquiry, then shook his head. ‘The Princess? No. Never occurred to me. She knows all sorts, the Princess, no doubt some of them not very savoury people, but I never had any reason to believe she was mixed up in this business. Her husband started doing business with me two or three years later, and …’ he paused, searching for words.

  ‘And what?’ Cathy urged, tingling with anticipation. Now she could see everything clearly, and her way ahead was open.

  ‘It always puzzled me, our association. He’d have been far better off with some of the other merchant banks. We weren’t really in his line, I was surprised when he approached us. But it was a happy business relationship, as long as it lasted.’

  ‘One last question.’ Cathy remembered that she had two fingers of whisky waiting to be drunk, and drained half of it in one gulp, thankful for the fiery spirit’s warmth in her throat which was dry and tight with tension. ‘You hushed up this affair at the time …’

  ‘I was about to become chairman here, last thing I needed …’

  ‘Of course. But now, if I tried to revive the investigation, how would you feel?’

  ‘Are you thinking of doing that?’

  ‘We haven’t discussed it together.’ Cathy looked at Monty, who stared back at her with unmistakable anger in her black eyes.

  ‘You’d be taking a perfectly right and proper course if you did,’ he rapped with something like his old severity. ‘I can’t say I’d welcome it, raking over old coals, but I’d support you, give whatever evidence was necessary. Ambassador’s dead now, so are most of the other fellahs. To some extent I suppose it’s been on my conscience.’

  They thanked him and left, walking back to the Barbican in a stunned silence. The apartment was quiet and empty, because Joe had taken Paloma out. They sat at opposite ends of the square black leather sofa.

  ‘I can see why you like him – he’s a fine man,’ Monty said at last, running her hands through her short hair.

  ‘There aren’t enough like him,’ Cathy replied, easing her shoulders out of the jacket of her dark red suit. It was tightly fitted, in the new season’s style, with a long, narrow skirt that flared below her knees. She kicked off her plain, black leather pumps and smoothed her stockings, black with a scattering of tiny dots, over her tired feet. ‘Do you realize what it all means, Monty?’

  ‘She must have been trying to get us back somehow.’ Monty propped her head in her hand and looked at her sister. Cathy was very white, but her characteristic serenity had returned and, with her perpetually smiling mouth, she looked almost contented.

  ‘Was she? Or was she simply trying to blackmail him for her own reasons?’

  Monty shook her head emphatically. ‘What reasons? Hussain must have been loaded, even in those days. She can’t have needed money.’

  ‘I’d guess Hussain’s business was still semi-covert in those days, maybe she was trying to get Daddy’s support for one of his deals …’ While she was speaking, thinking aloud, Cathy regretfully admitted that her father’s support in business would scarcely have been worth such an effort. ‘No, it can’t have been blackmail, you’re right. But if she had wanted us, wanted to see us or meet us, she could have done that at any time. She could have just driven to the ferry and been on our doorstep in a few hours, if that was all she wanted.’

  ‘Maybe she was afraid. She was nothing when he left her, don’t forget. OK, she’d come a long way from that village, but she must have felt intimidated by the power and the money all around him.’

  Monty gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘She wasn’t to know our father was broke.’

  ‘Wasn’t she? My guess is she had a damn good idea. She was trying to finish him. She wanted to kill him, she just didn’t have the nerve to do it herself. Do you know why I think he killed himself?’

  ‘Poor Daddy, he must have been so miserable. He knew he was going to hit the bottom. He had to lose us or lose everything else. No one can make a choice like that.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Cathy shook her head with maddening certainty. ‘That wasn’t it. He’d have found something to enjoy in being poor, you know. His friends would have rallied round and paid his debts, people always do in that situation. A scandal wouldn’t have killed him, he’d almost have enjoyed it for the grief it would have caused Didi and our … and Bettina. No, he didn’t just give up hope, despair and die. You remember Treadwell called him a survivor – he should have known if anyone did. I think Treadwell did know.’

  ‘Know what?’ Irritably, Monty crossed her legs, pinching the creases in her trousers to have an excuse not to look at Cathy. She was beginning to feel very angry with her sister.

  ‘He killed himself for our sake.’ Cathy reached across and took Monty’s hand, which held hers with distinct reserve. ‘He wanted to make absolutely sure that that woman would never have any claim to us. He wanted to make sure that we’d hate her, that even if she tried to deceive us we’d be able to find out, put two and two together, and realize what she was. She’s pure evil, Monty.’

  ‘You can’t say that, she’s our mother. Look what he did to her, look what they all did to her. What chance did she have? Wouldn’t you have hated any man who did that to you?’

  ‘Would you make those excuses for yourself? We’ve had some bad breaks, too. They took Jamie away from me, you were nearly put on the game yourself – and by Madame Bernard. How many other girls do you think she trapped that way, sending them down to St Laurent to run up a bill they couldn’t pay? And you didn’t have to pull your life around, she only gave you the opportunity, it was your strength, your motivation. We’ve both suffered but we made different choices.’

  ‘But she did save me, Cathy, and you too, when you’d just started and you needed money. She was there when we needed her, she was trying to be a mother to us.’

  Cathy released Monty’s hand. She felt absolutely calm, as if she were high above the world looking down on the meaningless affairs of people below her. ‘No she wasn’t. She was trying to buy us, trying to buy our love.’

  ‘You’re very hard,’ Monty told her. ‘Harder than she was. Can’t you find any sympathy for her?’

  Cathy shook her head. ‘Hard yes, cruel no. Monty, she’s killed people, she killed that girl, she had her cut up, sliced like salami and put in bed next to our father. She’s probably killed dozens of other people. She’s a criminal, a psychopath. She’s played with us for years, deceived us, lied to us, spied on us, manipulated us, tried to draw us into her web, make us grateful, force our love – can’t you see that? Sympathy? No, I haven’t any sympathy. She’s a monster, and that’s what she’s made herself.’

  Monty gave her sister a stony look. ‘You just don’t like to admit that you might owe her a few things – like the great success that you’re so proud of. Suddenly there’s a possibility that you had a little help with your life and you can’t take it.’ Swept by a wave of anger, Monty jumped up and stood over her sister. ‘Why don’t you examine your own motives before you start judging other people? You’re still in love with Daddy, you won’t blame him for anything. Instead you’re trying to blame her.’

  ‘Why are you always so stupid and emotional? It’s all there, Monty, as plain as the nose on your face. You’re the one who can’t face the truth, not me!’

  Like a brushfire after a drought, fury set their exhausted emotions blazing. Suddenly they were arguing, shouting at each other as they had never done in their lives before, saying things that they knew were untrue only in order to wound.

  ‘You’re just a frigid, dominating bitch, Cathy! All you care about is money and power, so you can’t understand anyone who doesn’t think the same way. You’re wrong, you’re wrong. Why can’t you accept it?’

  ‘Don’t scream at me as if I was one of your bloody entourage. You’re on a total ego-trip, you’ve been on it for years, you want everyone to obey you instantly, believe whatever you believe, do whatever you say. Well, I’m your sister, I’m the one you can’t fool. Don’t forget that! You’l
l never be a big star to me, just a snivelling brat who’s always in trouble.’

  The terrible tension of the past few weeks was breaking at last and rage swept through them, destroying everything in its path. Like children they were terrified by the power of their own anger, but unable to stop.

  ‘You can’t handle this because it’s about fucking, and that’s something you don’t like because in that area you’re a total failure,’ Monty snarled. ‘But fucking was all there was between our mother and father; and she made her fortune from it and he died because of it. What’s the matter, Cathy – can’t you face the facts of life?’

  Cathy jumped up, shoving her sister furiously away from her. ‘What facts can’t I handle? I’m pretty damn clear on the fact that that woman killed our father.’

  ‘Yes, but she’s our mother too, don’t forget, our own flesh and blood. Whatever she is, she’s part of us, flesh of our flesh. Now I think about it you look quite like her …’ There was a sharp crack as Cathy hit Monty full in the face, then hit her again, grabbing her by the lapel of her jacket to stop her moving away. Monty seized Cathy’s wrists and wrenched them furiously. ‘You don’t want to know – you can’t take it, can you? You want to be little Miss Perfect, all your life as tidy as your school cupboard, no dirt in any of the corners? We came from dirt, we were born in it, our whole lives are down to nothing but the worst things two people could ever do to each other …’

  Viciously Monty pulled Cathy’s hair and Cathy struck out again. The two of them were standing face to face, flushed scarlet with anger and trembling with the force of the emotion, when there was a rattle of keys and the noise of the front door opening at the lowest level of the duplex, announcing Joe’s return. Suddenly Cathy’s face crumpled in tears and she collapsed in a miserable heap on the floor. Monty, at once full of horror at her sister’s pain, flew downstairs to ask Joe to leave them alone for a while, and ran back to Cathy, quivering with remorse.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, darling Cathy,’ she murmured, her arms around the heaving shoulders, feeling their warmth through the thin, grey satin blouse. ‘I didn’t mean it, any of it, I didn’t mean to be so cruel.’