by Fern Britton
So there is a God, Christie thought as she lay back on the sofa. Or if not, something else must be watching over me. A day that had gone so spectacularly off piste hadn’t turned out so badly, after all. In fact, thinking of Libby’s change of heart towards Richard, things were better than they’d been that morning. He came in from the kitchen with the wine bottle and topped up their glasses.
‘What a night.’ He sat down heavily, as if he was never going to get up again, his long legs sprawled towards the fireplace, his arms out to the sides.
‘What you said in the car . . .’ Christie reminded him.
‘What about it?’
‘Did you mean it?’
‘No. I was only joking.’ He watched as her face changed from anticipation to surprise to disappointment, then relented. ‘Of course I meant every word. If you want us to be together, so do I. The last few weeks without you have shown me that. How do you think Libby’s taken it?’
As she told him of their conversation, he sat up, energised, leaning towards her. ‘But that’s terrific. You were right and I was wrong. All she needed was time.’ He reached out a hand to her. ‘So, Mrs Lynch, will you entertain the idea of a relationship with a war-battered veteran and his son? They come as a convenient two-for-one user-friendly package.’
She laughed. ‘Of course I will, you idiot. I can’t think of anything I’d like more.’
Chapter 30
By the weekend, the household had reverted to normal. Fred’s fears for his sister and Libby’s contrition over her disappearance had soon vanished into the ether and they were back to their usual bickering. That Saturday, Christie heaved a sigh of relief as Maureen accompanied Libby to London to meet Mel, who was taking her niece shopping and to the V&A to look at the fashion collection. At the same time, Richard had driven Fred and Olly to visit the lambing sheds at a neighbouring friend’s farm.
Without them, the house was wrapped in a blissful quiet. Taking advantage of everyone’s absence, Christie was going to use the morning for the long overdue chore of sorting out her finances with Ted. With her TV7 salary keeping her going, she’d allowed herself to put everything else on the back-burner until now. At lunchtime she was expecting Lily, who had phoned the previous afternoon to ask if she could come out to see Christie at the weekend. ‘I’ve got something I need to show you, and I can’t show you here.’ She had sounded slightly panicky, as if she was anxious to get off the phone, and wouldn’t be drawn on whatever it was she was bringing with her. Christie couldn’t imagine what could possibly demand such secrecy but had been forced to contain her impatience. Her accounts would provide the perfect preoccupation.
With a few hours to go before Lily would appear, she brought down all the paperwork from her office: receipts she had stuffed into a drawer, pay slips that had lain by a ring binder without being filed for months, the contract from Drink-a-Vit, and her diary, in which she’d kept a record of the sums she’d understood she was to be paid for the various engagements Julia had negotiated for her. By the time Ted arrived at ten thirty, scraps of paper were littered over the kitchen table. Her attempt to compare her records with those from White Management, which had arrived in the post from Lily, was still very much a work in progress.
Ted was dapper in a pair of gold corduroy trousers that were balding at the knee, a slightly too tight green sweater and a leather-elbowed tweed jacket. Despite his sartorial shortcomings, Christie still felt rather underdressed in her leggings, boots and a large sloppy jumper. His few strands of hair were Brylcreemed to his scalp and there was a distinct gleam in his eye as he anticipated getting to grips with Christie’s finances. However, when he saw the paper chaos, the gleam dimmed. Disorganisation was not what he was used to. But he shook off his dismay and, with a cup of tea and a plate of assorted biscuits at his right hand, rose manfully to the challenge. His scuffed briefcase contained a brand new block of squared accountancy paper, three perfectly pointed pencils, a sharpener and a large white eraser. He took them out, snapped the case shut and placed it on the floor at his side, then laid everything he needed in a neat row in front of him. This was a Ted Christie had never seen before and, despite herself, she was impressed. After a concentrated hour or so, they had managed to impose some sort of order on her affairs.
Then Ted looked through the White Management file, his spectacles perched on the end of his nose – he resembled a character in a Dickensian counting-house. He punctuated his concentration by pinching his top lip between his thumb and index finger and pulling it. Occasionally he’d tut and rub out a line of figures, then urgently reconfigure them in his spidery hand.
After a while, feeling like screaming with boredom, Christie gave up waiting for him to pronounce and went out into the garden. Although there was still a chill in the air, the spring sunshine was bright and the leaves were just beginning to emerge, smothering the branches in a gauzy green. Beneath the trees, drifts of daffodils nodded in the breeze while, in the flowerbeds, new shoots were pushing through. There was going to be a decent show of tulips, especially in the pots on the terrace, while elsewhere the hellebores were in full bloom and leaves were coming through on the swathes of wild geraniums. This was Christie’s favourite time of year, when winter had packed its bags and spring was knocking on the door. Her garden was coming back to life.
She heard her name called from the french windows. Ted stood framed between them, his sleeves pulled above his elbows, his cheeks flushed, the breeze lifting his comb-over from his head in a single sheet. He hurriedly patted it down. As she approached him, she felt a shiver of apprehension. From the look on his face, this was not going to be as straightforward as she’d prayed it would be.
‘I’ve been through the lot,’ he puffed. ‘In fact, your records are quite thorough, just disorganised – don’t worry, I can give you a few pointers to help you keep them tidy in future.’
‘Great,’ she said, trying to inject the word with the enthusiasm she didn’t feel.
‘But they simply don’t tally with White Management’s. A couple of pages seem to be missing from those, by the way. In certain instances, the fee you’ve noted in your diary doesn’t correspond with the payment received. And it would help if I knew when their cheque runs were – then I could see whether any further payments are due and whether the rest went through when you were expecting them.’ He scratched his head, disturbing his hair again. ‘I wouldn’t want to put the cat among the pigeons, but it looks to me as if there’s been some sort of fraudulent activity going on. I’d say, from what I’ve seen, that you’re definitely owed a considerable sum of money.’
‘Oh, God, Ted. Surely it’s a mistake.’ Faced with her worst suspicions, she didn’t want them proved right. The last thing she wanted was to be the person forced to blow the whistle on an opponent as formidable as Julia. ‘They’re a well-respected management company. They’d be mad to risk their reputation.’ And yet, and yet . . . She recalled the stories of Ben Chapman’s money worries and of Gilly allegedly badgering Julia for funds.
He rocked back and forth on his brogues. ‘They probably don’t do it to all their clients, just a select few: those they think may not notice or who can afford not to. And they probably don’t do it consistently, in the hope that such dealings might be missed or, if found, dismissed as a mistake. I’ve seen this sort of thing a couple of times before, when a company’s “borrowed” clients’ money to pay off their own debts.’
‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. They usually refund the money later when they’ve squared their books and before anyone’s noticed. That may well be what’s happened here.’
‘If you’re right, what the hell am I going to do?’ Christie could feel panic swelling inside her.
Ted, however, was calm and surprisingly reassuring. ‘For the moment? Nothing. Let me take these away to double-check. Then we’ll talk. You don’t want to make any false accusations without more proof.’
Checking his watch, he refused the
offer of another cup of tea – the bar at the Legion would be open by now, the chessboards set up and waiting. She waved him off, confident at least that her affairs were in good hands and that, whatever the outcome, Ted would shed light on what was going on.
Minutes after he had left, she saw a silver Fiat Punto turn into the drive with Lily behind the wheel. Moments later, Richard and the boys followed her. Christie hardly had time to greet her visitor before Olly and Fred spilled out of the Land Rover, describing in gory detail to anyone who’d listen how they’d seen two lambs being born. ‘And then – and then,’ Fred shouted, ‘we went into the kitchen and I fed a black one with a bottle. It was well sweet and its tail was wriggling like crazy.’
They both giggled, then raced down the garden to the trampoline, leaving Christie to introduce Lily to Richard. She took them round the house and into the repaired conservatory. The new white paintwork gleamed in the sunlight and the windows shone. They sat in the creaky rattan furniture, which Christie had covered with blankets to protect the cushions against Smudge attacks. Richard offered to get them a drink, which they both refused, before he disappeared inside.
‘The suspense is killing me,’ said Christie. ‘What have you got to show me?’
Lily was clutching a Jiffy-bag she’d brought from the car. She pulled out several A4 photos and passed them to Christie without a word. Richard returned with a can of beer and sat beside her as she flipped through them. Her interest gave way to uncomprehending surprise as she took in a series of images that were all of her, caught when she was looking her worst, among them the shot taken outside Angela’s consulting room and the one of her and Richard in a clinch on the alpine balcony. And there were also some she hadn’t seen before, of her and Libby standing by the car at school, of her and Richard walking together down the street, of her standing at her front door.
‘But these are all of me! And they must have been taken by the paparazzi. How have you got hold of them?’ She passed them to Richard so he could see while she looked to Lily for an explanation. ‘Why have you brought them here?’ The evidence that someone had been spying on her made her feel insecure, as if she had lost control of her life. She could more or less cope with the photographers she could see, but being photographed secretly was a much more disturbing invasion of her privacy.
Lily sat on the edge of her seat, twisting the end of her scarf between her fingers, unable to meet Christie’s eye. ‘I, er . . . I found them.’
‘Obviously. But where?’ Christie took the photos back, squared them up and slipped them back into the Jiffy-bag.
‘On Julia’s computer.’ At last she looked up, her face pale and worried. ‘I opened the file by mistake while I was hunting for a photo for another client. I shouldn’t have been on there at all.’
‘That’s impossible.’ Christie put the Jiffy-bag on the seat beside her. ‘How on earth would she have access to all these?’
‘There’s only one way,’ said Lily, quietly. ‘The photographers must have given them to her.’
‘They wouldn’t give them to her, would they? They’d want to be paid.’ Christie wasn’t sure she liked the picture that was emerging as, slowly but surely, the pieces began to fit together. ‘But there’s no reason for her to pay them, is there?’
Lily shook her head miserably. ‘The file was marked “Star Features”.’
‘One of the big photographic agencies,’ Christie explained to Richard, and waited for Lily to explain more.
‘I think she may be involved with them . . . as a partner, perhaps.’
‘But why? That goes against everything she stands for, surely.’
Richard appeared puzzled as he prised open his can of beer. ‘Damage limitation?’ he suggested. ‘If she has them, no one else does.’
‘But they do, though. We’ve seen some of them in print. That’s what I don’t understand.’ She took them out of the bag again. ‘Look. This one – and this. Remember when we came back from France?’ Then the last piece of the puzzle slotted in place. ‘Unless she’s the one who’s been placing the stories in the press and making money from the photos.’
‘But she’s your agent,’ Richard protested. ‘That really doesn’t make sense.’
‘I know. But she did say something about keeping my profile up while the show was off-air over Christmas,’ Christie remembered. Could Julia really have been responsible for placing those stories? As improbable as it seemed, she had been one of the very few who knew of Libby’s troubles and where Christie and Richard were taking the children at half-term. ‘But I can’t believe she’d stoop this low.’
‘Why would she?’ Richard remained the voice of reason as he tried to follow Christie’s train of thought.
‘To have control over me. To undermine my confidence and make me grateful for her skilful management.’ The idea was so ludicrous that she almost laughed.
‘That’s just daft. She’d ruin the credibility of the show at the same time.’
‘Not if it meant Gilly could come riding to the rescue.’ Christie spoke carefully, as if she was thinking aloud. ‘It would make her return to the show all the more welcome and, let’s face it, newsworthy. She’ll look more golden than ever by comparison. As will Julia by association.’
‘Don’t you think that’s being just a tiny bit paranoid?’
That word again!
‘Let’s ask Lily, then. She knows Julia far better than either of us. What do you think?’
Lily had been chewing her lip, staring at her lap as she listened to them. At last she came to life. ‘I’ve racked my brains as to why she’d have them and I can’t think of a good reason. I don’t want to, is the truth. But I know she does occasionally leak stories about her clients to the press.’
‘Really?’ muttered Richard, disbelieving. ‘I’ve heard her,’ Lily insisted. ‘Julia will trade one client off against another if it works to her advantage. She’s certainly not above persuading an editor to spike a story that’ll harm one client by giving them a scoop on another. I’d never have dreamed you’d be one of them, though.’
Christie remembered again the way the Marina French and Grace Benjamin scandal had conveniently broken after she had let slip her anxiety over Libby to Sarah Sterling. Julia had been so certain that she could prevent anything damaging appearing in print. But if that was true, why had she turned against her now? Christie could think of only one reason. She had been asking questions Julia didn’t like. That had been made quite clear. To react by destroying Christie’s credibility could only mean that she must be protecting herself against something. But against what?
‘You know that I’ve been chasing her about the money I’m owed,’ she reminded them. ‘Perhaps that’s got something to do with it.’
‘Darling, you’re getting hopelessly carried away.’ Richard took a swig from his can. ‘Too many detective novels.’
Nettled, Christie wanted to knock the indulgent, masculine smile off his face. She leaned forward as a new theory presented itself to her. ‘No, listen. I’ve had a couple of conversations with Frank about how Ben Chapman had money problems too. He told Frank that was what he wanted to talk to Julia about on the night he died. And Frank heard Gilly moaning about her cash-flow. Ted’s just been going through my books and he’s fairly sure he’s found some “fraudulent activity” – that’s exactly what he called it. He’s taken them away to make sure.’
‘From paranoia to conspiracy theory. You’re beginning to sound dangerously unhinged.’ Richard laughed as he crumpled the empty can in his fist.
‘I’m serious. Three presenters of Good Evening Britain with money problems and one common denominator – Julia. That must be why she set me and Gilly up against each other. If we’d been friends, we might have rumbled her. Do you think this is completely crazy?’ she appealed to Lily, who had been looking increasingly disturbed as the conversation progressed.
After a moment, Lily spoke. ‘Not entirely. Put like that it does sound a bit far-fetched, but
if you haven’t met her . . .’ she looked at Richard, who shook his head ‘. . . then you have no idea what she’s like.’
‘It beats me why you both got involved with her in the first place, then.’
‘Because she’s charming, convincing, successful and smart,’ Christie explained. ‘Her reputation in the business means she’ll advance you as fast as she can. I was flattered when I met her. God, how naïve was I?’
‘And I thought I’d learn everything I needed to know from her.’ Lily was as quick to justify herself. ‘But I didn’t sign up for anything like this.’
‘Too many things have happened for them all to be coincidences – the missing money, my forged signature, Gilly’s hostility, these photos, the press campaign against me. Julia must have planned everything for her own ends. But if only some of this was happening to Ben and he died . . .’ Christie began to articulate her thoughts, which were moving in a very unpleasant direction.
‘You are not about to be next,’ Richard said firmly, as if he’d read her mind. ‘Everyone knows his death was an accident. Don’t even go down that road . . . or I will have to have you certified.’
‘OK.’ She gave a small smile. ‘I agree that’s a bit melodramatic, but the existence of the pictures on Julia’s computer proves to me that she’s been acting against my interests, and I don’t like that one little bit.’
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ Practical as ever, Richard asked the one question to which they all wanted the answer.
‘I’m not sure. I don’t want to confront her until I’ve got more evidence. She’ll sucker me without it. I’d better wait until Ted gets back and then I’ll decide.’ She clenched her fists. ‘But she’s not going to get away with this.’
‘Spoken like a true warrior.’ Richard patted her back. ‘Now! Any chance of a bite of lunch? The boys were starving when I last spoke to them.’