In Search of Love, Money & Revenge

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘It was always dependent on certain factors,’ Banks said. ‘All I could ever tell you was October – there were always going to be problems.’

  Cindy handed Geoff his drink and sat down on the edge of a leather armchair with her own. She stood up and held out a plate of snacks to Joe. ‘Do try one of these, Councillor Banks – Japanese,’ she said.

  ‘No thanks, Cindy,’ Banks said gloomily.

  Geoff imperceptibly nodded her back to her chair. She sighed. They were supposed to be going to Portugal in September, which would be all right if the big contract started in October, as Joe Banks had said. But before he’d arrived Geoff had told her if he didn’t get some answers from Banks they could kiss Portugal goodbye. ‘You’re looking forward to a week in Clacton if I get the wrong answers,’ he’d said. She’d tried to point out that a cheap package holiday in Greece would cost them hardly any more than Clacton, but he’d interrupted her, ‘Look, darling, give me a rest about holidays. I know you’ve bought your outfits, you’ve been sunbathing for weeks in the back garden, but if the money’s not coming, it’s not coming. I’m doing my best.’

  She’d pouted, and said she was sad, and got him to promise they could go to Portugal anyway, but in the end she didn’t believe the promise. If this contract her father was involved in fell through, Cindy thought vengefully, she’d tell her mother what she thought and Mum would give her dad a hard time, and serve him right. He was late – where was he, anyway? The fact was she needed a holiday. Everything was getting on her nerves. It was time Geoff got round to making Vanessa give him a divorce, so they could get married, but he kept on saying he was too busy. Her mother was already planning the wedding; her cousin’s mother was selecting materials for the bridesmaids’ dresses, but where was the divorce?

  She got up to answer the door to her father. He should have commented on her tan and her new top, but he didn’t. ‘How’s it going in there?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Cindy said, nettled.

  Sam Abbott said, ‘All right, Cindy. What have I done wrong?’

  ‘You could’ve spoken to me, first, before you started asking questions about business.’

  ‘Sorry, love. You look very nice,’ Sam told her. ‘But I’m late. I’d better go in.’

  Cindy shrugged, twisted her head to make her hair swing out and followed him into the lounge-diner. Her eye swept the room. She took away Joe Banks’s ashtray, even as he smoked a cigar, and replaced it with a clean one.

  ‘Cigar, Sam?’ offered Banks.

  ‘Thank you, Joe. Very kind.’ Sam Abbott took the proffered cigar.

  ‘I was just explaining to Geoff about these hold-ups on Savernake,’ Banks said. ‘To sum up, the tenants are in revolt, the council report’s against us and the one unanticipated factor, the death of the Samco chairman, is also a bit of a problem. I’m just telling him there’s no cast-iron guarantees in this kind of business, but the odds were all right when we began and they still are. Bernard Fellows’s death does constitute a hitch. A very sad business. I knew him well, a brilliant businessman and a very pleasant man personally. But there we are. As far as Savernake goes it’s not the end of the world. Not to worry – and don’t tell me you’re going bust, Geoff,’ he said, looking round the room, ‘because I’m not going to believe you. Not sitting in this lovely home of yours—’

  ‘I’ve got to put it like this,’ Geoff began. ‘I don’t like this death. It’s bad news. If I can’t have a firm starting date soon, I’m going to have to make my own arrangements.’

  ‘That’s your choice,’ said Banks firmly. He had plenty to do without coming here to pat Geoff Doyle’s hand. He thought irritably that if Geoff had stuck with his wife instead of taking up with Abbott’s expensive daughter, he might have been better able to see the financial wood for the trees. Here was a contract worth approximately a quarter of a million to him, and he was nagging and fretting, instead of thinking and planning. That was what a wants-it-all little baggage like that could do to a man. He said, ‘All right, these are the details. The position is, Sir Bernard Fellows will have given his eldest son a major share of the business. Savernake’s a subsidiary, so Savernake’s involved. And they can’t find the eldest son. He’s been missing for months. He could be dead. It makes probating the will difficult and that holds up business. Basically they have to find this son, or prove he’s dead. They’re making every effort to resolve the situation and obviously they will. A team of lawyers is on it at the moment. The truth is, it doesn’t matter so far. At Kenton we’re not in a position to sell the property yet, and hopefully they’ll have the situation ironed out when we are.’

  At this point Sam Abbott decided privately he didn’t like the sound of all this. For the time being he’d stop pressing Vanessa and Annie to sell the Arcadia to him, and he’d reduce his offer drastically if they rang to say they wanted him to buy it.

  Geoff Doyle felt edgy. The chance to take on much of the building of the Savernake Village, which had come his way through Cindy’s father who knew what figures the other builders were tendering for the job, had seemed like a real opening, a chance to get into the big time. Now he had to decide whether to start taking on other jobs, or hang on hoping the Savernake project would get off the ground as and when planned.

  Joe Banks stood up. ‘There we are, gentlemen. I hope I’ve explained the situation to your satisfaction.’ He shook hands all round and left.

  ‘I don’t know what to make of all that,’ said Abbott despondently when Banks had gone. He poured himself a whisky at the bar, raised an eyebrow at Geoff, who signalled yes, and poured one for his daughter’s future husband.

  Cindy said, ‘I’ve got a roast in the oven. I hope you two aren’t going to sit there drinking all evening.’

  ‘Shut up, Cindy,’ said Geoff, in a neutral tone of voice.

  ‘Tsk,’ said Cindy, raising her eyebrows to the ceiling, and sat back in the cream leather armchair.

  Geoff said, ‘It doesn’t make sense, all this hanging on one bloke’s death. It may be a story they’re telling Banks to slow things down.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Abbott said. ‘I saw this in the paper. Samco’s a vast corporation, quite a few of the companies were still controlled by Sir Bernard and that’s where there’s a problem. It’s not just Savernake – a whole group of provincial newspapers are on hold while it’s sorted out, a pharmaceutical company, a chain of pizza parlours – you name it. Millions involved. It’s just one of those stupid things that happen. But like Banks says, probably it’s only a hold-up, not a disaster.’

  ‘Let’s hope they find this son, or his dead body, soonest,’ Geoff said uncomfortably. ‘And the silly buggers at the council pull their fingers out.’ He glanced sideways at Cindy who was pouting, and knew she was seeing Portuguese beaches receding. They’d have to go, he decided. At least she’d be in a good mood while they were there: that would help him relax.

  18

  Scandal

  One August afternoon Jasmine came into the Arcadia in a rush to persuade Annie to go with her to Yorkshire and accompany her to Sir Bernard Fellows’s funeral in the churchyard at Thrawn, the village in Yorkshire from which the Fellowses had originated and where many of them had been buried ever since. Sir Bernard’s sister, Elizabeth, still lived at Thrawn Hall, once a farmhouse but extended in the eighteenth century as the family fortunes improved.

  On this hot afternoon Annie and Vanessa were as usual doing the two hours’ intensive preparation necessary before a reputable restaurant, however small, opens in the evening. Vanessa was on vegetables and fruit, Annie on the rest. As Vanessa was swiftly coring twenty-one peppers and Annie putting the white from the last of a dozen eggs into the mixer Jasmine arrived and pressed the brass bellpush outside. Annie dropped the eggshell in the rubbish box, wiped her fingers and went to the door.

  Jasmine, dressed in pink, came in quickly and sat down. She looked up at her sister, still standing in an overall. Jasmine appe
aled, ‘I know you’re busy. Nigel’s father’s being buried the day after tomorrow. Please come with me. I can’t face it on my own.’

  ‘Jasmine. You won’t be on your own—’

  ‘No, but I really need a friend. Thrawn Hall’s so gloomy and everyone’s under such strain. Nobody knows what’s happening. Nigel’s terribly upset. And poor Mary! And Nigel’s sister Claudia is coming and everyone’s annoyed with her because she’s challenging the will. It’s ghastly, Annie. Please come.’

  ‘I can’t come to Yorkshire with you, Jas. I can’t leave Vanessa to organise the snack bar and the restaurant by herself.’ She went back to the kitchen, turned on the mixer and took a sharp knife from the holder above one of the counters. She got a whole salmon from the fridge and began to slice it into steaks. ‘I’m sorry, but you can see what it’s like.’

  Jasmine followed and stood in the kitchen doorway talking to her. ‘Oh – all right,’ she said reluctantly. ‘It’s not your business, I suppose. At least once poor Bernard’s buried it’ll be over. But,’ she added more resentfully, ‘I could have done with support, and actually it is your business. One of Samco’s subsidiaries is Savernake Developments. It’s controlled largely or completely by the family. Nigel said, ages ago, if they pulled off this Savernake Village complex you wouldn’t regret starting the Arcadia. You’d get loads more customers with money to spend.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Annie said.

  ‘I couldn’t. He told me not to. They were just getting the project organised.’

  ‘On the sly,’ Vanessa said.

  ‘That’s what business is like,’ Jasmine told her.

  ‘So’s bank raids,’ Vanessa said sourly. She began to behead and core large tomatoes, while Annie poured sauce from a jug over the salmon steaks and put the poacher in the fridge.

  ‘I thought you had a cook,’ said Jasmine.

  ‘We had to get rid of her. Couldn’t afford her.’

  ‘It’s a relief, in a way,’ Vanessa added. ‘She was very snooty.’

  Annie opened the freezer and began counting and checking items on a list. ‘I’d help,’ said Jasmine, ‘but I’m so tired. Poor Nigel can’t sleep since his father died. I’m trying to keep Mary company as much as possible. It’s made Sim’s disappearance seem worse. I believe she thinks he must be dead, or he’d have turned up when he heard about his father.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s somewhere where he wouldn’t have heard,’ suggested Annie, amending a list. She looked at Jasmine sharply. ‘There’s more, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes. There’s Claudia coming from New York. She’s already been on the phone, saying it’s illegal for Sim to get so much and Nigel the rest. She says she’s going to court to challenge the will. Mary’s trying to persuade her not to. She dreads the fuss, but Claudia says it’s 1990 now and wealthy families shouldn’t go on giving everything to the eldest son, the rest to the other boys, and just a pittance to the daughters. She says she doesn’t expect to marry a rich man who’ll keep her for the rest of her life, so she wants fair shares. Of course, Mary says it means breaking up all the big estates if this starts happening.’

  Annie was pulling out frozen food containers and stacking them on the counter. She said, ‘I thought the place was entailed. The court couldn’t overturn that, could they? OK on chocolate mousse, Vanessa.’

  Vanessa, chopping determinedly, just nodded.

  Jasmine said, ‘Maybe the entail couldn’t be disturbed, but there’s the rest.’

  Vanessa stopped for a moment. ‘There’s more?’ she enquired.

  ‘There’s tracts of Yorkshire for a start. And elsewhere,’ Jasmine told her guardedly.

  ‘It makes you think,’ Vanessa said, stuffing peppers and tomatoes.

  ‘If people knew,’ said Jasmine, dropping her guard a little, ‘there’d be a revolution.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Annie said. She added, ‘You can’t blame Claudia for wanting a fair slice of the cake.’

  ‘By the way,’ Jasmine said, ‘Nigel’s very upset about you putting that reporter on to us—’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Annie said. ‘He only rang for information about Sir Bernard. It’s his job,’ she said. ‘His editor asked him to find out. You know the Kenton Post’s very interested in the Savernake project. Ben simply—’

  Vanessa paused with the spoon in her hand. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’ she said indignantly. ‘Ben?’

  Annie pushed past Jasmine, went to the computer next to the till and began to tap in entries. ‘What’s this about Colindale, anyway?’ she asked.

  Jasmine said, ‘That’s the point, Annie. How did he know? You must have told him. Nigel’s very upset—’

  ‘I’m tired of hearing about Nigel’s being upset,’ snapped Annie. ‘Yes, I’m fed up, Jas. Shut up about inheritances and that egomaniacal family you married into! Ben was at your party.’ She turned to speak to Vanessa, now standing in the kitchen doorway, still holding her spoon. ‘I’m sorry, Vanessa. Perhaps I should have told you Ben was there but I thought I’d spare your feelings. As a matter of fact, he was drunk and saying how much he missed you—’ Vanessa looked more and more incredulous. She opened her mouth to speak but Annie swept on. ‘Anyway, Jas, Nigel invited Ben to that party through a PRO. Ben was standing behind me when you went back to Bedford Square after you heard the news. That’s where he heard you say Colindale. What’s it about?’

  Jasmine hesitated. ‘I can’t tell you, Annie. It’s not very pleasant. And nor are you.’ She sniffed. ‘I should have thought you could have been kinder at a time of family bereavement. I should have thought you’d have wanted to come to the funeral with me.’

  ‘Well, I can’t, because unlike you I’ve got a living to earn,’ retorted Annie. ‘So you can take your entails and Colindales elsewhere.’

  ‘Well, goodbye, then, Annie,’ said Jasmine in a wounded voice, and walked stiffly out of the restaurant.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Annie angrily. ‘I should have been nicer but what does she expect?’

  It was Vanessa’s turn to reproach Annie. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen Ben? What makes you think I want my feelings spared? Come on, Annie. Give me all the details.’

  ‘I will. While you get on with your popular boeuf en croûte.’

  While Annie recounted the story of the party in the kitchen at the Arcadia, Jasmine, in a taxi she’d luckily found in Foxwell High Street, felt her rage evaporating and a familiar sense of anxiety returning. Again she went over the circumstances of Sir Bernard’s death. Unpleasant, she had called them, but they were more than unpleasant. They were mysterious and slightly sinister.

  Sir Bernard Fellows had been found lying on a pavement in a side street in a north London suburb, recently dead. He was discovered by a local man walking his dog who called an ambulance. His undisturbed wallet proved his identity immediately but although all the signs indicated that he had died of a heart attack, there were small stab wounds in his chest and arms. The wounds were clean and his clothing was neither bloody nor cut.

  To the startled doctor who made a superficial examination, it looked as if this prosperous-seeming man had been stabbed repeatedly but ineffectually, either before or after his death from a heart attack. If he’d been alive at the time of the attack he’d washed his wounds and changed his clothes before his death. If he was dead when the attack was made there would have been no blood, but his clothes would have been cut, so somehow he had been re-dressed. Unless, speculated the doctor, the man had been naked at the time of death, in which case some other person must have dressed the body. He still wore an expensive watch and his wallet contained £120, so no attempt had been made to rob him.

  Jasmine and Nigel arrived at Bedford Square late that night very shaken, horrified by the phone call from the police and still only half believing the news. ‘Could it be some kind of cruel hoax?’ Jasmine had hazarded on the journey, knowing that the powerful are often hated. She had to open the door with Nigel’s keys, for his hands were sh
aking.

  Charles Head met them in the darkened hall, already in a dark suit and tie. ‘Nigel,’ he said, coming towards him. ‘I’m sorry. So very sorry.’

  Jasmine put her arm round Nigel. Tremors were running through his body. ‘The lights – why hasn’t anybody turned on the lights?’ he demanded.

  Charles Head quickly put the lights on. The large hall and great staircase sweeping upwards in a curve were suddenly illuminated. Jasmine saw the party as very small figures in all that space. She, Nigel, Charles Head and the housekeeper, Mrs Craven, coming forward grave-faced to offer condolences, seemed minute and unimportant.

  ‘The police are upstairs,’ Head told Nigel. ‘So is Hugh Brown. I got in touch with him as soon as Mrs Craven told me.’ He glanced at Mrs Craven, standing a little further off.

  ‘That was a bit premature, wasn’t it, Charles?’ Nigel asked, irritation in his voice, though Jasmine, still with her arm round his waist, could feel him trembling. He started for the stairs. Charles Head took his other arm to hold him back. Nigel moved on, prepared to pull them with him. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he muttered.

  Head turned to face him at the foot of the stairs. ‘Look,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I don’t know how to put this. Your housekeeper’s a very intelligent woman – you probably owe her a debt. When the police initially rang here she got the impression that all was not well—’

  ‘What!’ demanded Nigel.

  Jasmine murmured, ‘Listen to him, Nigel.’

  ‘How did he die?’ asked Nigel. ‘What happened?’

  Charles spoke to Nigel. ‘Your father was found dead in a part of London he never went to and had no reason to go to—’

  ‘For God’s sake, Charles—’

  ‘The police won’t give me, Brown or Nigel any information,’ Head told him softly. ‘But they told Mrs Craven that all the indications were that he’d had a heart attack. And then they asked her straight out over the phone whether he had any enemies.’ Nigel gazed at him. Charles Head went on quickly, ‘I don’t know what that means but I imagine they were trying to get an answer out of her before she had a chance to think.’