Deception and Desire

by Janet Tanner

  ‘Who?’ Dinah asked sharply.

  Jayne reached across to set her empty coffee cup down on the low rattan table, then stretched lazily.

  ‘Well, Ros, of course.’

  There was a moment’s startled silence. Then Dinah echoed: ‘Ros!’

  ‘Ros. Wouldn’t you agree she’s the most likely candidate? She had the opportunity, she had the contacts, and she’s missing!’

  Maggie had begun to tremble with shock and fury.

  ‘That is a terrible thing to suggest!’ she blazed. ‘ It was Ros who suspected a mole in the first place!’

  ‘We have only your word for that.’

  ‘And Dinah’s secretary. Ask her if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘So Liz is in on this too.’ Jayne’s eyes narrowed. ‘But perhaps Ros was just covering herself. She knew industrial spying was bound to be a runner once Reubens went public with our designs. What better way to place herself above suspicion than to plant the idea that she had already smelled a rat?’

  Dinah was becoming more and more upset.

  ‘I can’t believe that Ros …’

  Jayne shrugged. ‘What you choose to believe, Dinah, is neither here nor there. And I repeat – where is she now?’

  ‘She’s missing!’ Maggie cried.

  ‘Exactly. And you are here. Why? I ask myself. Have you come to take up where she left off?’

  Maggie glared at the strikingly attractive face, rendered speechless by the vitriol in the allegation, and Steve intervened swiftly.

  ‘I think this is all getting a little bit out of hand. I suggest we drop the subject – all this wild speculation is getting us nowhere. As I said, I’ll begin investigations tomorrow but until we have something definite to go on we keep this entire conversation where it belongs – between ourselves. Now, how about a game of charades?’

  ‘How very apt!’ Drew murmured. He was obviously enjoying the scene, much as an ancient Roman might have enjoyed watching gladiators fighting to the death in the arena. But the others showed little enthusiasm for the idea.

  ‘Count me out,’ Don said firmly. Dinah, still playing nervously with the chain around her neck, said nothing at all.

  ‘I really think I would like to go home,’ Maggie said. She was shaking with anger and her head had begun to throb dully again. ‘Could I use the telephone to call a taxi, please?’

  Dinah, standing motionless, seemed oblivious of anything that was being said, but Steve smiled with the same easy charm, totally ignoring the fact that anything untoward had happened.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing. I’ve given Richards the rest of the evening off. But you are my guest. I’ll drive you myself.’

  He ushered her into the hall, an arm lightly about her waist and the last thing Maggie was aware of as they went out through the door was Jayne, watching them with what was now undisguised hostility.

  ‘Don’t take too much notice of Jayne,’ Steve said when they were installed in his low-slung Jaguar. ‘She likes nothing better than causing a sensation.’

  ‘I could see that,’ Maggie retorted, ‘but it was unforgivable of her all the same.’

  Steve swung the car around a bend, then glanced sideways at her.

  ‘What made you raise the subject of an industrial spy with my mother?’

  ‘It was something I’d stumbled on. Perhaps it was wrong of me and I’m sorry if I upset her …’

  ‘When you know Dinah better you’ll realise she does tend to find contact with reality distressing,’ he interjected. ‘She prefers to cocoon herself in her dream world where the Touch of the Country equals luxury.’

  Maggie let the comment pass. She did not want to become embroiled in a discussion just now on what made Dinah’s tortured genius tick.

  ‘I’m afraid the only thing that really matters to me at the moment is finding out what has happened to Ros,’ she said. ‘She is my sister – and I’m very worried about her.’

  ‘Forgive me.’ He extracted a cigarette from a pack of Camels lying in the well of the Jaguar and lit it with the dashboard cigarette lighter. ‘ Forgive me; but why do you think something has happened to her?’

  ‘Lots of reasons.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to go through all of them now.’

  ‘And what exactly do you think has happened to her? No, don’t answer that. It’s obvious. You think she has been murdered.’

  Maggie shivered violently at the bald statement.

  ‘Look,’ he said easily. ‘I know you were offended by what Jayne said, and I must confess she didn’t put it very tactfully. But I have to say it seems a lot more likely than that she has been murdered.’

  ‘Not you too!’ Maggie flared.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he soothed her. ‘But look at it logically. The facts do fit awfully well.’

  ‘And I suppose like Jayne you think I am here to carry on where she left off.’

  He blew smoke, wound down the window and tossed the butt out.

  ‘Actually no, I don’t think that. I think you are a very nice, very uncomplicated person and you couldn’t be dishonest or deceitful if you tried.’

  ‘Implying Ros could.’

  ‘Implying nothing. But just ask yourself, Maggie, how well do you know your sister? Oh yes, you grew up together, of course. But you’ve been abroad for … how long? Three years? Four? A lot can happen in that time. People can change, their priorities and perspectives, almost everything about them. Maybe the Ros you used to know couldn’t have done such a thing. But maybe she doesn’t exist any more.’

  They had reached the cottage now. Steve swung the Jag on to the turnaround.

  ‘I’m sorry if this evening didn’t turn out as you’d hoped.’ He got out, coming around to open the passenger door for her. ‘I know you’re worried, Maggie, and I wish I could help. In fact, if I think of anything at all I’ll let you know.’

  He helped her out of the car, and it seemed that his fingers lingered on her arm a moment or two longer than was necessary.

  ‘Perhaps we should keep in touch anyway.’

  Something in the tone of his voice – a little too deliberately casual – and the continued pressure of his hand on her arm set warning bells jangling for Maggie.

  She might have been a married woman for three years now, but she still recognised a pass when she saw one. Steve had been making a play for her all evening, in a very sophisticated, laid-back way it was true, but making a play for her none the less. Dinah had noticed it and so, she thought, had the bitchy, self-confident Jayne. Complications of this sort were the very last thing Maggie needed, and yet … Steve was her only means of maintaining contact with Vandina. If Ros’s disappearance was connected in any way with her work then perhaps playing along with him was the best chance she had of learning the truth.

  With an effort she forced herself to smile.

  ‘That’s kind of you. Maybe we should.’

  ‘Good. I’d like the opportunity to redeem myself after dropping you into what turned out to be a less than successful evening. Can I phone you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  As she unlocked the door of the cottage she heard the church clock striking eleven, the chimes carrying clearly across the valley on the still evening air.

  Mike, she thought. I must let Mike know what has happened. Ring at any time, he had said, and eleven wasn’t late.

  She reached for the telephone, dialling the number he had given her and waiting with barely concealed impatience to hear his voice. But there was only the hollow sound of the bell ringing with relentless regularity.

  She let it ring and ring, feeling a sense of urgency and desolation build up inside her and it was only when she heard the click of the automatic cut-off and the resumption of the dialling tone that she realised just how much she had wanted to speak to him.

  The realisation frightened her a little, because she was uncomfortably sure that the longing was not entirely the desire to share the deta
ils of what had happened tonight. Or perhaps it was exactly that.

  She was beginning to want to share with Mike a little too much.

  When all her guests had left, Dinah poured herself a large tumbler of Glenfiddich, added some ice cubes, and carried it into the study.

  Whenever she was worried or upset there was nowhere she wanted to be so much as here in the room that reminded her so of Van. In his lifetime he had been her support and strength; now that he was no longer with her she drew comfort from the tangible effects he had left behind. He was still here, she felt, something of the powerful essence of him had impregnated the very walls so that she felt he was close, close enough almost to reach out and touch, close enough to curl up in his arms as she had used to do. Here in the comforting stillness she could hear his voice, vibrant and strong, inspiring confidence because it reflected his own supreme belief in himself.

  Had Van ever been afraid? Had he ever entertained doubts about the wisdom of his actions or his ability to overcome any obstacle that might be placed in his way? If so he had never showed them. Whatever the problem Van had known how to deal with it. He would certainly have known how to deal with this latest crisis.

  Dinah sipped her whisky, hoping that the smooth ice-cold fire would calm her nerves but feeling only sickness as it hit her stomach.

  She hated conflict and uncertainty, hated the feeling of betrayal that came from knowing that someone in her employ was less than loyal. It upset her to the core of her being, unsettling her precarious self-confidence, so that she shook physically, and she knew she would be awake half the night while the arguments raced around inside her head. She hadn’t wanted to believe that someone she knew and trusted could do this; even when the evidence was there before her very eyes she had tried to dismiss it, as if by refusing to acknowledge it she could make it go away. But now with all the arguments ringing in her ears she could no longer deny the very real possibility that there was indeed someone at Vandina who was not who they seemed to be, someone who was working principally not for her but for her rival, Reubens.

  It happened all the time in business, of course; she knew that with the part of her brain that could still think logically. But knowing it did not help. Because Vandina was an extension of herself she took the betrayal personally and was desperately hurt by it.

  As a businesswoman it was her Achilles’ heel, this inability to separate herself from the wheeling and dealing, the decisions that had to be made for the good of the company, the cut and thrust of the rat race. That was what Van had been so good at: he had cushioned her from it, removed all the worries and left her free to concentrate on her artistic vision – though there had been times when he had questioned even that, so that she wondered not simply whether Vandina would ever have existed without him (she knew it would not) but whether she herself was not something he had fashioned and created.

  Oh Van, I miss you so dreadfully! she thought. I have to hold it all together for your sake and I don’t know if I can do it.

  But at least she was not quite alone. At least now she had Steve.

  At the thought of him the warmth generated by the whisky began at last to creep through her veins. Thank God for Steve! He wasn’t ready to take over the reins yet, he didn’t know enough about the business, but already she could sense in him the same steely single-mindedness that had been Van’s strength, and it both comforted her and excited her oddly to know that she had given birth to a man such as him. Soon, she thought, soon I will be able to lay my worries on his shoulders as I used to lay them on Van’s.

  The warmth ran and spread and she sipped her whisky again, her hands steadier now around the glass. It was almost, she thought, as if her perception of the two men was merging, Steve becoming Van, Van becoming Steve.

  She glanced up at the portrait that hung over the fireplace, the commanding life-size portrait of Van in his prime.

  ‘If only you had known him,’ she said softly, then, almost as soon as the words were out she was regretting them with a rush of guilt that made her feel illogically as if she had committed sacrilege.

  Van had not wanted to know Steve. It had been Van’s decision that she should give him up. Through all the years, though she had grieved for her lost son, she had never questioned Van’s judgement and she did not question it now. Habit was too strong.

  ‘I’m sorry, Van – I didn’t mean it. You were right. You were always right.’

  His eyes looked back at her from the canvas – those deep-set eyes of such a dark blue that they were almost black seeming to hypnotise her from beyond the grave, and Dinah knew without question that all the heartache and the guilt counted for nothing. If she had her time over, she would do it all the same again.

  Dinah

  She was just twenty when she first met Van. She was also penniless – and pregnant.

  Dinah seldom thought now of those dark days – it seemed they might almost have happened to someone else and not to her at all. But when she did think of them she found she could remember with frightening clarity the way she had felt – helpless, trapped, abandoned and alone.

  Perhaps, she thought, it would not have been quite so bad if she had not led such a sheltered life and been so incredibly young for her age. It had been, after all, the start of what people blithely referred to as ‘the Swinging Sixties’. But as yet they had barely begun. The taboos of the past decades were still casting their long shadow, living with a man before marriage was still regarded as ‘letting oneself down’ and becoming an unmarried mother was a cause for shame and disgrace.

  These values had been deeply ingrained in Dinah by her mother, Ruth, herself the daughter of a Nonconformist minister. Dinah’s father had died of peritonitis when she was seven – ‘ Divine retribution’, Dinah had once heard her grandfather remark – and Dinah and her mother had left their home and moved to the rambling old manse occupied by her grandparents.

  Dinah disliked the manse. It was dark and musty with wood-panelled walls, overpowering Victorian fireplaces above which countless china ornaments sat on a dark oak mantelshelf, and cabbage-rose wallpaper yellowed by age and damp. The downstairs floors were flagstoned, apart from the parlour which had black-varnished floorboards around a faded carpet square, and upstairs was linoleum with a scattering of rugs. There were few mirrors to reflect what little light there was – mirrors encouraged vanity, Grandfather said – and no pictures, with the notable exception of a vast pencil drawing of John Bunyan which dominated the living room. His eyes seemed to follow you wherever you went, Grandfather said, and Dinah had thought it was true. Whenever she got up to mischief she would look nervously over her shoulder and meet John Bunyan’s unwinking stare.

  Not unnaturally, life at the manse was dominated by religion – not the joyous hat-in-the-air religion of Dinah’s best friend Mary, who was a Roman Catholic – and probably doomed to hellfire for it, according to Grandfather, who strongly disapproved of the friendship – but a stern and sober existence lived to honour a stern and sober God.

  There was little laughter – Grandfather had the weary sainted look of a man carrying all the cares of the world on his shoulders, Grandma scuttled behind him like a pale timid mouse, and her mother had stopped laughing after her father had died. When Dinah laughed she felt almost as if she were committing sacrilege and she would look quickly over her shoulder to see if John Bunyan had noticed.

  And that was on weekdays. On Sundays it was even worse.

  Sundays meant two doses of chapel, one in the morning and one in the evening. Dinah found it dreadfully boring, sitting in the front pew dressed in her best and then being patted and patronised by the ladies of the church, out to get on good terms with the minister. She amused herself by listening to Mrs Thomas, who sang the hymns lustily in her booming mezzo-soprano and held the last notes a beat or so longer than anyone else, or counting the times old Mr Henry coughed, or even watching Grandfather’s spittle sparkle in a shaft of sunlight as he spat out his sermon from the pulpit just a
bove her.

  Even worse were the hours between and after services. Practically every activity which helped to pass the time was forbidden, for the day was set aside for worship and contemplation. Reading was not allowed, unless it was the Bible or a book of Bible stories, sewing was not allowed, jigsaws were not allowed. Playing cards was certainly not allowed; Grandfather disapproved of them at any time, proclaiming them ‘ the works of the devil’, and once when he had caught Dinah indulging in a quiet game of patience he had confiscated the pack and thrown them into the fire beneath the great Victorian mantelpiece. Dinah, tears brimming in her eyes, had watched them turn brown and curl at the edges, until the flames finally consumed them as she imagined the flames of hell would consume her if she continued to offend the Lord God by flouting His commandment to keep holy the Sabbath Day. The radio – or wireless as it was called then – was turned on only for the weather forecast and Songs of Praise, and afterwards Grandfather would read aloud from the leatherbound family Bible which was kept in a cupboard beside the fireplace.

  Later, when she was in her teens, Dinah tried to rebel against the Sunday regime. Mary went to the coffee bar on Sunday afternoons, and one day Dinah dared to go with her, having made the excuse that she was going for a walk.

  She spent the afternoon in a state of nervous excitement, too afraid of the possible consequences of her adventure to really enjoy it, drinking cups of foaming espresso coffee and feeling guilty as she listened to the pounding music of the jukebox and chatted to the leather-jacketed youths who clustered around it. This was probably the start of the path to damnation, she thought, resenting Grandfather for making her feel an outcast, yet unable to shake off the pervasive feeling of wrongdoing.

  When she got home Grandfather was waiting for her, coldly furious.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded.

  ‘For a walk,’ Dinah whispered, quaking.