by Ally Blake
Her smile was almost shy. Nick watched as she pleated the soft cotton of her skirt. ‘No.’ His answer surprised him. Amazingly, no.
‘I decided I didn’t have the temperament of a saint,’ she continued, her smile self-derisory, ‘so I had to find a different route. I was hopelessly naïve.’
He waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t he prompted, ‘Journalism isn’t what you hoped for?’
‘Human nature isn’t.’ She gave him a swift smile. ‘It’s painful sometimes to stand dispassionately on the sidelines reporting what you’re seeing, but doing nothing to actually stop it. I have a natural tendency to want to fix everything and it’s not always possible.’
‘Not always,’ Nick murmured in agreement.
An expression of sadness moved over her face like ripples in a puddle. If he’d been Wendy it would have prompted him to ask Lydia about Izzy’s overdose and everything surrounding it—but he couldn’t bring himself to intrude into what must be a deeply private place.
Or perhaps he wasn’t that noble, merely scared of Lydia’s reaction. Trust was something that was earned and he’d offered little by way of fair exchange.
‘Have you ever regretted it?’
She smiled. ‘Many times. When you say you want to be a journalist everyone warns you you’ll start by doing the obituaries.’ Her smile widened and the result was infectious. ‘That’s not far from the truth, although in my case I wrote the “What’s On” pages for the local Herald. Equally dull and certainly not what I’d planned to be writing about.’
‘But you didn’t have to wait long for your big break.’
‘No.’
‘You must have been very young when you went to work undercover in a care home,’ he prompted, wanting to know more about her.
‘They wanted someone who wouldn’t be suspected, so I posed as a student needing holiday work. What I saw was shocking …’ She broke off. ‘How do you know about that?’
He’d spoken without thinking. Nick felt as though the world had stilled around him and only the two of them were left moving. He decided on honesty. ‘I looked you up.’
‘You looked me up?’ she echoed.
He shrugged, half nonchalant, half apologetic. ‘I know you’ve a first in English and Politics from Cambridge, that your first job was on a local paper in Manchester, that your professed hobbies include hang-gliding and the theatre.’
There was silence while she assimilated what he’d told her.
‘Actually,’ she said slowly, ‘I don’t like hang-gliding.’
He hadn’t expected that reaction. ‘You don’t?’
Lydia smiled. ‘You can’t believe everything you read.’ Her lips twitched with suppressed laughter. ‘I was asked to do an on camera report about hang-gliding and I couldn’t do it. First time ever I’d bottled out of a job, but I’m totally scared of heights. It didn’t matter how safe they tried to convince me it was.’ Then she looked across at him, her incredible eyes full of mischief. ‘So you looked me up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you find the bit about the award I won?’
‘On the issues surrounding Third World famine? Yes.’
And then she laughed. She turned her sparkling eyes on him to ask, ‘Was it just idle curiosity or were you looking for something specific?’
Nick knew he’d been right not to relax. ‘Honestly?’
‘Of course.’
He hadn’t really expected any other answer from her. Not now. ‘I was looking for something that would convince Wendy to reject you as her biographer.’
The laughter disappeared from those amber depths and he almost wished the words unsaid. ‘Why?’
He looked down at his hands and then back at her expectant face. Honesty deserved honesty. ‘I remembered your name from the Steven Daly court case.’
‘Many people do,’ she said quietly.
‘I believed you were driven by ambition rather than … a sense of justice and …’
‘Go on.’ Her voice had a steely edge to it.
‘And there’s not much more to say. I thought you’d seen an opportunity and gone for it.’
Lydia sat back in her seat. His words had shocked her but, strangely, they hadn’t surprised her. They explained so much. ‘You thought I’d put Izzy through that … for me.’
‘Yes.’ He met her gaze unflinchingly. She had to admire him for that.
She let out her breath on a hiss. She’d wondered why he’d been so antagonistic towards her. Now she knew. His attitude towards her had seemed so unreasonable—but if he’d seriously believed she’d been capable of using her sister’s situation to build her career it made complete sense.
Lydia shook her head. ‘I would never do that.’ She was guilty of many things, but not that. ‘Why did you think I’d do that?’
Nick leant forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. ‘It was the way Isabel looked during the trial.’
She nodded. She could understand that. Izzy had been frightened and intimidated by the whole experience.
‘And then she disappeared from view.’
‘She was exhausted,’ Lydia said quietly.
‘Not surprisingly, now I think about it objectively.’ Nick pulled a hand through his hair. ‘But at the time … Hell! I don’t know what I was thinking exactly. I suppose I thought that, although Steven Daly was convicted on all counts of embezzlement and fraud, the only real winner seemed to be you.’
Lydia felt as if she’d been doused in ice-cold water. She’d never thought it could be seen from that perspective. She wanted to cry out that it was unfair, palpably untrue—and then she thought of the opportunities that had come her way because the case had been given such a high profile.
Steven Daly had been a tiny cog in a much larger machine. As she’d picked away at why he’d needed a quick injection of cash she’d uncovered a trail of deceit and fraudulent business practices. Lydia had followed every lead tenaciously, she’d called in favours from friends and used every skill she possessed to bring down an insurance scam far bigger than anything she’d dreamed of.
And what had Izzy got out of it? Nothing but the intrusive sympathy of strangers.
Whereas she …
Nick’s voice was low. ‘When I met her last week it was immediately obvious I’d misread the situation completely. I’m very sorry.’
Which explained the roses.
Lydia looked across at him earnestly leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He might have misread the situation in thinking she’d forced Izzy through the court case to further her career, but he was right in thinking that she hadn’t acted on her sister’s behalf.
The truth of that had been nagging at the back of her mind for the past couple of years. She forced her foot back into her sandal. ‘No, you’re right. I did it for me.’
His head snapped up. She hated the look of surprise on his face. It would be easier to accept his apology and move on, but that wouldn’t be fair—either to him or Izzy—and it wouldn’t be the truth.
‘I don’t think I fully realised it at the time, but it was my revenge, not hers. When I began, Izzy wasn’t in any condition to give an opinion on it and, if I’m honest—’ she looked out across the lawn ‘—I’m not sure I’d have asked her anyway. I hated Steven Daly and I didn’t even know one tenth of what he was guilty of. I’d no idea he’d stolen from anyone but Izzy.’
Nick sat silent and she appreciated that. Few people, if any, had ever allowed her to express how much she’d hated Izzy’s ex-boyfriend for what he’d done to her sister.
Hate was ugly. Hate gnawed away at you and destroyed you. She knew that, but hate had been her motivation. The charitable would say it was love for her sister, but she hadn’t acted out of love. It had been a desire for vengeance, and vengeance hadn’t healed Izzy.
Time had. Time and the self-worth her parents had instilled within her with years of loving. That had been the panacea. It had nothing to do with Lydia’
s meticulously researched investigation into her ex-boyfriend’s business practices.
Slowly, painfully slowly, Izzy had rebuilt her life because she’d found the inner strength to do it. It had all taken so long. Nothing had happened with the speed Lydia had wanted and she’d been glad she’d had another focus for her energy.
Izzy had made great strides forward only to slip back. It had been excruciating to watch but, over time, there’d gradually been more good days than bad. The loss of the man who’d lied and stolen from her was separated out from the miscarriage of her baby. With counselling she’d come to see them as different issues.
Izzy had needed time and space to grieve for the loss of her baby. Knowing she was carrying a new life had been the only thing she’d had to console her when her world had crashed around her ears—and it had been the final loss, the one she’d been unable to cope with.
‘She certainly doesn’t blame you.’
Lydia looked up, wanting him to understand. ‘I find that quite difficult to deal with because you’re right. She did hate the court case and I made her do it because Steven Daly was—is—’ she corrected herself ‘—a truly foul man.’
‘Many hundreds of people lost their life savings because of him,’ Nick said quietly.
‘I’m not sure Izzy was in any place to really care.’ Lydia twisted the fronds of her belt into a tight screw and watched them slowly unravel. ‘The thing she found most difficult was having to stand up in court and face him. I’m certain she wouldn’t have done it …’ Without me, she finished silently, aware that if she tried to say those words out loud her voice would have cracked.
She knew that Izzy would have buckled under the pressure if she hadn’t been there to propel her through the whole experience by the full force of her personality. Her sense of justice. Her need to see him suffer.
At eighteen she hadn’t been prepared to stay and look after Izzy. She’d felt she’d failed her and was determined not to fail her again. She hadn’t stopped to think whether it was what Izzy wanted.
She looked up. ‘I couldn’t bear it that he should get away with everything. So you were right … in a way. It was about me. Izzy is too gentle a person to think about revenge or punishment.’
Nick felt the slow burning of an almost incandescent anger towards the man who had hurt these women so much. If Steven Daly hadn’t already been safely behind bars he might have been tempted to see what he could do.
How could he have misjudged Lydia so much? Nick watched the pain pass across her face and wished he could do something to make it all go away. There was nothing. She’d said it herself—time was the only thing that could heal hurt like that.
Perhaps the only thing he could do for her was not offer platitudes and spurious comments of sympathy.
Nick cleared his throat. ‘Do you want to walk?’ As she looked up, her face unusually vulnerable, he felt his smile twist. ‘Wendy will wonder what I’ve done to you.’
She gave a half laugh and swiped at her eyes. ‘Do I look a mess?’
‘You look beautiful.’
He’d spoken without thinking and his voice resonated with honesty. He saw her eyes widen and then she said quietly, ‘A walk would be nice.’
‘I’ll take you to inspect my kitchen garden.’ Nick stood up and held out his hand. In the heartbeat before she allowed him to pull her up from the chair he wondered whether he should have done it.
As his fingers closed around hers he wondered what would happen if he pulled her in close and held her … for comfort. Only for comfort. She was so close he could smell the soft scent of her perfume.
Instead he let go of her hand and turned to face the sweeping west lawn. Lydia walked beside him. Every so often he felt the soft flick of her hair as it was blown against his bare arm. Once he glanced down to see if she’d noticed, but her eyes were fixed on a weeping willow in the distance. She was staring at the cascade of delicate lance-shaped leaves as though she’d never seen anything so fascinating.
Nick wanted to say something that would help her, something that would soften that hard edge of guilt. He settled on a quiet, ‘Knowing Steven Daly is in prison must have helped your sister’s recovery.’
Lydia turned to look at him, the soft breeze catching her hair and blowing it across her face. She raised a shaking hand and pushed it back. ‘I’m not sure it makes any difference to Izzy.’ And then she thought and added, ‘Perhaps. A little. Maybe knowing she isn’t about to turn a corner and walk into him has allowed her to heal, but …’ she shook her head ‘… he isn’t in prison because of anything he did to her.’
Lydia didn’t dare blink. Tears pricked hard behind her eyes and she felt as though a hard lump had settled in her throat. ‘I just can’t get my head round that. Where is the justice in someone being able to deliberately wreck another person’s life and there be no redress?’
‘There isn’t any.’
Lydia took a deep shaking breath. ‘Izzy voluntarily transferred the money from the sale of our parents’ house into a joint bank account. So if he hadn’t used the money to shield his illegal activities from detection I wouldn’t have been able to touch him. It made no difference to anyone that Steven is a vicious bully.’
‘Physically?’
Lydia smiled, but it was entirely without humour. ‘If he’d touched her physically I would have got to him long before I did. Domestic violence is a crime. There are laws in place to protect women from that.’
‘But nothing to stop him stealing an inheritance.’
‘His legal representatives argued very convincingly that there was no theft involved.’ Even now, after two years, that hurt. ‘It made no difference that he’d systematically set about breaking Izzy until she would do practically anything he asked her to do. We didn’t have any proof, so that was that.’
‘Did you know what was happening at the time?’ he asked quietly.
Lydia nodded. ‘Living away in London, it meant I saw the changes in her quite clearly. Over time she lost her sparkle. She began to change the way she dressed, stopped meeting her friends … Hundreds of little things that in themselves didn’t mean anything, but when you started to put them together they became much more sinister.’
‘Wasn’t there anything you could do?’
Lydia shrugged. Nick’s questions came in a calm, matter-of-fact voice that made it easy to answer him. At the time there’d been nothing she could do. Though it hurt to remember that. ‘Izzy loved him. Or thought she did.’ She wrapped a protective arm around her waist. ‘He could be very charming when he chose to be. Do you know the kind of man I mean?’
Nick thought about some of the corporate bullies he’d met. The smoothly manipulative ones who would act as though they were your best friend before stabbing you in the back at the first opportunity. He nodded.
‘Of course when I first met him I didn’t know anything about his business dealings; I only knew I didn’t like him.’ She smiled that tense, humourless smile again. ‘He didn’t like me either, but I can’t blame him for that. From the very beginning I was doing everything I could to undermine him. I advised Izzy not to live with him, not to have a joint bank account, certainly not to have a family with him.’
‘Did he know that?’
‘I imagine so. She told him everything.’ She gave a sigh and continued, ‘He managed to convince Izzy I was jealous of him—and of their happiness. I’d finished a fairly serious relationship about that time. It all sounded plausible enough.’
‘Except you knew you weren’t jealous.’
Lydia looked up and smiled. ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I don’t even know I knew that for certain. I may well not have liked anyone Izzy became so intensely involved with so young.’ She paused. ‘Though, to be fair to me, I specifically hated the pressure he put on her to sell our parents’ house.’
‘Surely you needed to agree to that?’ If the house had been left to them jointly? It must have been left in trust while Isabel had been a minor.
His mind started to think of everything that should have protected a vulnerable girl from becoming a target of a predator like Daly.
Her voice broke in on his thoughts, unusually toneless and edged with pain. ‘I didn’t have much choice. Izzy was nineteen by then and Steven convinced her they needed the money for their future. I dragged everything out as long as I could. I “forgot” to give the tenants notice, I insisted on marketing the house at too high a price …’
Nick smiled. It was easy to imagine Lydia doing that. ‘He must have hated you.’
‘He had his revenge. He used it as an opportunity to drive a wedge between Izzy and me.’
‘I can’t see that working. She idolises you.’
‘Now.’ She shook her head. ‘Not then. Izzy was twelve when our parents died and she went to live with my mother’s sister and her family. I went to university. We hadn’t shared a house for six years by the time Steven came on the scene. It wasn’t as difficult as you might think for him to insinuate himself into her life.’
She reached out and brushed away an angry tear. ‘Anyway, the house eventually sold and Izzy’s share of the money was transferred to her account. It took a few months longer for him to persuade her to put everything in joint names.’
‘And then he emptied the account.’
‘Basically.’ Lydia rubbed her hand along her arm as though she suddenly felt cold. It had nothing to do with the weather, which was still balmy and hot. ‘Izzy didn’t know and, even when she did, he managed to convince her it was a temporary business hitch. She certainly didn’t tell me until weeks later, by which time he’d left her anyway.’
Another swipe at her eyes and she took a shuddering breath. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.’
Nick did. He would never have described himself as a particularly imaginative man, but he was having no difficulty at all in empathising with everything she was telling him. There was nothing he could do to help her but listen.
‘Anyway, it was a life-changing experience. I’ve spent the last year or so concentrating on raising public awareness. Society needs to protect other women from men like Steven Daly.’