‘Oh, Mrs Channing, yes; I was about to leave. Mr Channing has just rung and asked me to tell you he won’t be back till Thursday evening. His boat requires major repair work.’
‘Oh,’ said Francesca. ‘Is that – I mean is there any other message? Does he want me to ring him or anything?’
‘No, Mrs Channing, that was the only message.’
‘Thanks,’ said Francesca, and slammed the phone down. ‘Damn you, Bard Channing,’ she said aloud, ‘damn you. Just don’t bother talking to me at all in future, get Marcia to do it all.’
The dentist was very skilful, very gentle, but even the examination hurt her a lot. He said it was probably an abscess, prescribed some very strong antibiotics, and told her to come back first thing in the morning. ‘I may have to take it out, if it’s no better. Or open it up and drain it. All right? Now you’ll need some strong painkillers as well, I’ll give you some.’
She came out into the sunlight slightly hazy with pain, got into the car and sat there for a while, leaning her head against the window. She felt rather sick and very unhappy.
Her mobile suddenly rang; she picked it up. Perhaps it was Bard, phoning after all.
It wasn’t Bard; it was Liam.
‘Francesca? How did you get on, how is it, your poor tooth?’
‘It’s terrible,’ said Francesca, and burst into tears.
Looking back, afterwards, she could see it was all absolutely inevitable from that moment on. That Liam should say he was going to come down to the house and look after her; that she should say he mustn’t, it was quite out of the question; that he should say well he would phone Sandie, tell her to have hot-water bottles, warm milk, all ready; that she should tell him, no, he mustn’t ring Sandie, it would be very foolish, very foolish indeed; that he should insist, and having rung Sandie, and spoken to Mrs Roberts, and discovered that Sandie had, of course, been given the Monday off in lieu of the Saturday she had worked in the country, had gone away in fact until Tuesday evening, discovered also from a worried Mrs Roberts that she was about to leave, and not even Barnaby was around to look after Mrs Channing; inevitable that therefore soon after Francesca arrived at the house, and was sitting in the kitchen, feeling a little better already as a result of the strong painkillers, a taxi should pull up outside and there would be a ring at the door, and Liam should be standing on the doorstep, a basket over one arm and a bunch of white roses in the other, smiling at her, tenderly, anxiously; that she should slightly feebly tell him to go away, and then allow him to come in, just for a moment, while she looked to see what was in the basket (a quarter bottle of brandy, some oil of cloves, some camomile tea, a video of Somersby and a copy of Couples – ‘Liam, I don’t know how you manage to remember everything I tell you.’ ‘It’s because I care about you so much’); that she should sit down, rather shakily, on the sofa and he should make her a cup of the tea, bring it over to her saying ‘Now I’m going to fill you a hot-water bottle, and you are going to lie there and watch Somersby while I watch over you’; that she should laugh and say no, he must go, she would watch it by herself, and could he put the roses in water, very kindly; that he should point out that they were white, not red, because although he might love her, their relationship was so pure, so sadly unconsummated that it had seemed the only colour. And then she had started to laugh, and because she was rather confused, to cry again, and then he had sat down to comfort her, had held her, kissed her gently, tenderly on her hands, hair, her forehead, ‘because I don’t want to hurt your poor face,’ and then suddenly, everything changed within her, and the pain of her tooth became part of something much more urgent, much more interesting, and all the hurt of all the rejection from Bard made her angry instead, and wonderfully, powerfully strong, and the gratitude for Liam’s sweetness, his gentleness, needed to be expressed, and the only way to express it seemed to be to kiss him back; and she did, tentatively at first, then hungrily, hard, and he pushed her head back suddenly, his hands in her hair and looked at her and said only ‘Francesca, I want you so much,’ and she was lost.
‘Not here,’ she said, ‘not here, in Bard’s house,’ and he said, white faced, his voice shaking in his urgency, ‘here, yes, it has to be, here, now,’ and they had gone upstairs, quickly, very quickly, and she had led him far down the corridor, away from her room, the room she shared with Bard, away from his dressing room, into the guest suite, and slammed the door, locked it and stood there, leaning against it, shaking with fear, fear and desire.
And ‘Oh, God,’ he said, ‘Oh I love you, I love you,’ and had pushed her back onto the door and begun to kiss her, as he never had before, harsh, hard, disturbing kisses, his hands moving on her breasts, pushing his body against hers. She returned those kisses, waiting for the guilt, the sense of wrong, and it did not come; she felt only hunger, a longing for him so acute it was like a great heavy pain, spreading outwards from her centre, piercing her; she closed her eyes, and heard herself moan, quite loudly, again and again.
‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘dear God,’ and pulled away from her and then they were on the bed, he tearing at her clothes, she at his, kissing, saying words that meant nothing, that meant everything, and then his naked body was against hers and she leapt quite literally within herself and cried aloud with the force of it. And he began then, and it was no sweet seduction, no tender, careful demonstration of love; it was a taking, a plunder of her body, that stunned in its violence and its speed and that she greeted in her turn with a raw, hot delight.
She felt something then, something that was not quite guilt, not quite fear, rather something extraordinary, a sense of abandonment of herself: it was not Francesca who lay on that bed in her husband’s house, with her lover, with her husband’s son, pushing her, forcing her with this strange harshness into a pleasure almost beyond endurance; not Francesca who welcomed the harshness, greeted, it liquefied, dissolved within herself at it; not Francesca who moulded, grew, tautened round him; not Francesca who felt the great mounting, invading surge, created with a swiftness, a savagery she had never known before; not Francesca whose body clenched and flexed and arched with pleasure; not Francesca who called and cried aloud as she came.
It was only afterwards as she lay looking at him, at peace finally with him, that she became Francesca again, and realised what she had done.
He left quite soon; she made him go. Terrifed that Sandie, Barnaby, would return, Bard even, his boat restored by some kind of swift sorcery, blown back across the sea by some fierce, malevolent wind. ‘When will I see you again?’ he said, and ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘How do you feel then?’ and ‘I don’t know that either,’ she said, and meant it. She did not know; part of her shocked, disturbed even, by what she had done, part of her joyfully, triumphantly defiant. She felt she had in some way repossessed herself and her life, ceased to be in Bard Channing’s thrall; felt guilt mixed with honour, shame with an odd, awkward pride, knew that what she had done was by any standards wrong, shocking even, and felt also that by some strange perversity, it was right.
Her tooth was hurting again; she took some more painkillers and went to her own bed, fell asleep, resurfaced into the memory, lay there for a long time forcing herself to think about it, to confront what had happened. The force, the violence of Liam’s lovemaking, had shocked her, even as she had enjoyed it (and been shocked that she could enjoy it); there was something close to cruelty there, oddly at variance with the man she had thought she knew. Bard, for all his toughness, his need to dominate, was most tenderly, patiently skilful in bed; he urged rather than led, took her with him, carried her into pleasure. It was very odd, odd and morally most uncomfortable to compare them; but she could not help it, it had to be done indeed, an inevitable consequence of what had happened to all three of them. And what the final consequence might be she dared not think.
Graydon Townsend and Teresa Booth had spent a long day sifting through Duggie’s complex affairs; now that they knew what they were looking for, it seemed sudden
ly rather obvious. There was an account entitled Channing Golfing and Leisure to which he and Bard were dual signatories (as indeed they were to most of the company accounts), and which made regular payments to a wide variety of people and organisations, including the Gleneagles Golf Club in Scotland, the Belfry near Birmingham, the Wentworth in Surrey and the manager of a timeshare complex on the Quinto di Largo in the Algarve. Other beneficiaries of this wing of the company were the owner of a ski chalet in Meribel, a house in Carmel, California, and an apartment and mooring in Il Cuppusco, on the Costa Smerelda, Sardinia.
‘What a lot of happy planning officers. Amazing they were able to do any work at all, spending time in all those places,’ said Terri. ‘Graydon, who else do you think might be involved in all this? At the company?’
‘Well, Pete Barbour without a doubt, I’d say. What Channing has undoubtedly been doing is moving funds around all his different accounts, as and when the need arises. You can’t do that without a very friendly financial director.’
She stared at him, clearly astonished. ‘Pete! Stuffy old Pete, with his waistcoats. I can’t believe that.’
Gray laughed. ‘You shouldn’t be deceived by appearances. You of all people. But I would say that’s probably all. Anyway, no-one else needed to know, they didn’t have any power. And the fewer the better, of course.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. You’re very up on all this, aren’t you?’
‘It’s my trade, Terri. I’ve seen a lot of it.’
‘So do you think the fact Bard Channing’s been locked out of that place means they’re suspicious?’
‘Yes of course. Raking over every tiny bank account. If there are any tiny bank accounts.’
‘Getting tinier by the minute, with luck,’ said Teresa.
‘Well, maybe. Is there any of that gorgeous Brie left? I could kill it if there is.’
‘Sure. Would you like me to make some soup or something?’
‘No thank you,’ said Gray, ‘it’s very sweet of you, but the cheese’ll do fine.’
He had sampled Teresa’s soup; you could taste the stock cubes. He thought wistfully and irrelevantly of Briony’s watercress soup, her speciality. Well, that was something he was unlikely to savour again. He hauled his mind determinedly back to the Channing Corporation and asked Teresa, not for the first itme, if she was quite sure Duggie had had no contacts in Jersey. Not for the first time, Teresa said he might have done, but she couldn’t find any: no names in his address books, no phone numbers, no bank accounts, no memberships of any golf clubs.
‘I reckon that’s our dog that didn’t bark,’ said Gray. ‘Anyway, I’m off there next Monday. I’m absolutely convinced I’ll find what I’m looking for.’
‘Which is what exactly?
‘I – don’t know exactly.’ He was never sure how much to tell her. ‘But I’ve got a lead of sorts, and like one of Macbeth’s witches, I have a pricking in my thumbs about it.’
‘Oh yeah? And what was that about a dog not barking?’
‘You know, famous Sherlock Holmes story: Holmes knew who the criminal was because the dog didn’t bark.’
‘Oh, that one,’ said Teresa, ‘yes I remember. My dog’s arriving next week,’ she added irrelevantly, ‘sweet little golden spaniel. It’ll give me something to do.’ She smiled at Gray. He looked at her carefully.
‘You really miss Duggie, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I really do.’
‘You sure you’re not going to mind all this coming out?’
She paused, then said, ‘No. Can’t hurt him now. And seeing Bard Channing brought down will be pretty good therapy. Excuse me, there’s the phone.’
She came back wearing her cat-got-the-cream expression.
‘That was Liam Channing. He’s been doing a bit of spying for me. Said he would. Apparently Channing and Clarke had a row the night Clarke was killed. And they’d been drinking. According to old Mrs Channing, he’s always been very guilty about it. Now what do you think that all adds up to?’
‘I’m not absolutely sure,’ said Gray slowly, ‘but I’ll tuck it into my back tooth, as my mother used to say, and see what happens. It does happen to tie in with a theory I have. Actually. Funny chap, isn’t he?’
‘Who?’
‘Liam Channing. I mean it’s very helpful of him to share his information with us, but hardly filial behaviour.’
‘He hates his father,’ said Teresa briefly, ‘and with good reason, I’d say. And a little bird told me that he and the saintly Mrs Channing have got the hots for one another.’
‘What!’ said Gray. This was one of the most extraordinary things he had ever heard.
‘Yeah. She’d been visiting him in hospital and – ’
‘Oh Terri really! That doesn’t mean a thing. She’s his stepmother.’
‘I know. But there’s visiting and visiting. There was a little nurse there who’d obviously got the same impresson. What’s more, Liam didn’t make the slightest attempt to disabuse me of it.’
‘How very interesting,’ said Gray. ‘God, I wouldn’t like to be Bard Channing. He’s got more enemies that I’ve had nicely seasoned dinners.’
He was hugely intrigued: not so much at the thought of Francesca having an affair with Liam, but at Liam encouraging people to think she was. The whole bloody family seemed more and more like the Borgias. Which reminded him, for no good reason, of Kirsten; he asked Teresa if he could phone her.
She shrugged. ‘Go ahead.’
He rang her office; a nice girl on the switchboard said Kirsten had gone home early. ‘She’s not well. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too. I’ll try her at home, then.’
He rang Kirsten’s number, but she didn’t answer and neither did her answering machine. She was obviously between the office and home. Unlike Kirsten to be ill; she had told him her father had never allowed her to be ill as a child, and certainly not to stay off school, and it had become second nature. He wondered what the problem was. Women’s stuff, probably.
Francesca woke up on Tuesday, her tooth much better. Clearly the antibiotics had worked. Her relief was intense; she wanted only to get away from the danger of being alone in London, alone in the house. As time passed, guilt and fear (of what Bard might say, might do, were he to find out) grew, mingled with something else. A longing, that was near desperation, to be in bed with Liam Channing again.
She went back to the dentist, who confirmed that the antibiotic was working, and said he wouldn’t need to see her again unless the pain returned; got into her car and drove rather too fast down to Stylings. She told everyone there she didn’t want to speak to anyone on the phone, apart from Bard, and devoted herself somewhat feverishly to her children.
By the end of the day, when Liam had not phoned, she felt, in spite of herself, rather bleak.
She slept badly, woke up feeling irritable. She was drinking a second rather strong coffee after endeavouring to exhaust herself with fifty lengths of the swimming pool, when her mobile rang. She had meant to turn it off and clearly hadn’t: Freudian, she thought grimly to herself.
‘Yes?’
‘Good morning. How are you today?’
‘Liam! I’m fine. Thank you.’
‘Tooth better?’
‘Yes. Much better, thank you.’
‘Come and see me, Francesca. Please!’ His voice was very serious, very intense. ‘I can’t think of anything else but you, making love with you. Come today, come now.’
The swiftness of the attack surprised her; she had thought he would be more circumspect.
‘I can’t, Liam. You know I can’t. It – it mustn’t happen again.’
‘And I know you can. And it has to happen again.’
‘Liam, no.’
‘Francesca, yes.’
She was silent.
‘Ah,’ he said, and he was more like the old Liam now, the one she knew. ‘You’re weakening. I knew you would. Darling Francesca, please.’
‘Don’t call
me darling.’
‘Why not? You are my darling. And why not? In the name of heaven, why not – ’
‘You know why not.’
‘No, Francesca,’ he said, and his voice was very intense again, almost sombre. ‘I don’t know why not. I know no reason why not.’
‘I have a husband.’
‘Yes, and you don’t love him.’
‘I do,’ she said staunchly. ‘I do.’
‘Oh dear,’ he said, and sighed, ‘we seem to be back where we were before. Only of course we’re not. Are we, Francesca? Darling Francesca.’
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Not quite, no.’
‘Please come and see me. We need to talk. If nothing else.’
‘If I thought it was nothing else,’ she said, and laughed, ‘I might come.’
‘Very well, it will be nothing else. I swear. We will talk and talk, we’re good at that after all, and see what we are to do about everything. Tell you what, let’s have tea at – at Brown’s Hotel today. There now. Nothing could be more innocent than that, I can hardly ravage you on the floor of their very expensive drawing room, can I? In front of a lot of old ladies eating scones.’
She hesitated. ‘I’m busy today. I’m taking Jack to a gymkhana.’
‘My goodness, what a hectic schedule you have. What about tomorow, then? Providing he’s not back, of course.’
‘Well – ’
‘That’s settled. My treat, don’t argue. I’ve never bought you so much as a cup of coffee. And then you can explain exactly why we can’t meet ever again, try and convince me even, and I’ll explain why we can. All right? Good, see you tomorow at four.’
The team from Muir Whitehead held a formal meeting at the end of Tuesday, and agreed that having talked further to Mr North from Methuens and with Jon Bartok of the Konigstrom Bank in Stockholm – and given the small but interesting matter of the purchase of the land and property in Scotland and the apparent disappearance of the £1.75 million which the company had paid for it, not to mention the rather timely sale of a large block of shares by a charitable trust in the Dutch Antilles, there now seemed to be a clear case for calling in their forensic division.
The Dilemma Page 56