A Perfect Obsession (6 page)

‘Like I’d be able to send one, stuck away in here. So who’s it from?’

She shrugged, as though the subject bored her. ‘Don’t know. Don’t much care.’

‘Don’t give us that. Who d’you reckon it was? Who fancies you? One of those barristers you work for?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ She hesitated for a few seconds, then added, ‘It might have been Henry. He’s a bit soft like that.’

‘Him?’

She nodded, wondering whether it had been such a bright idea to mention Henry. Vince had met him a couple of times, and in Vince’s terms, Henry didn’t amount to much, so she’d hoped the idea that Henry might have sent the valentine would amuse him more than anything else. But Vince’s face was angry and sullen.

‘Little bastard. He knows I’m on remand, so he’s trying it on with you. He wouldn’t dare do that if I was around.’

Felicity laughed in astonishment. ‘You really get things out of proportion, don’t you? I don’t even know if it was him who sent it, and you’re getting uptight about it! It’s only a valentine, for God’s sake.’

‘I’ll bet it really made your day, though, didn’t it? I’ll bet you spend half your day giving him the come-on.’ One of the guards glanced in their direction, and Vince gave him a surly look in return.

Felicity sighed. ‘I didn’t come here for an argument, Vince. I’m off if this is how you’re going to be.’ She made as if to rise.

Vince stretched out a quick placatory hand. ‘All right, all right. Sweetheart, don’t go yet. Come on. I’m sorry.’ He covered her hands with his. ‘It really gets to me, being in here, you out there, getting up to all sorts—’

‘Vince! For the last time, I’m not! I went to the pictures with Mo on Saturday, and someone, I don’t know who, sent us one rotten valentine! OK?’

‘OK, OK …’

They didn’t return to the subject for the rest of the visit, but spent the remainder of the time going over what Vince’s solicitor had said, and weighing up the prospects for the
trial. They did this on every visit. It never changed.

Felicity got the bus home and sat on the top deck gazing out at the dark, depressing sprawl of Thamesmead. There was, she reflected, something completely static about her existence at the moment. With Vince on remand, she couldn’t move forward. She thought about the progress of her life up to this point. Three years ago, when she and Vince had got together, she had been a different person. A nineteen-year-old with seven GCSEs (not bad grades) and basic secretarial skills (debatable), living in a pretty squalid flat in Brixton with her brother, moving from one crummy office job to another, with not much hope for anything better in the foreseeable future. Now, thanks to Leo and with the help of Henry – with a bit of effort on her own part as well, of course – she was earning quite a comfortable living at 5 Caper Court, for a girl her age. She could afford a decent flat, the one in which she and Vince lived, and a few nice bits of furniture for it, she didn’t have to shop at Top Shop and Etam all the time. Life had turned around. It was as though everything about her existence had changed for the better. Except for Vince. Nothing had changed there. A good-looking charmer on the scrounge, a bit of a boozer who picked up jobs as and when he needed them, fiddled his benefit, lay around the flat watching the racing, with an occasional saunter down to the bookie’s or the pub. He had been a natural part of the old life. But now? They were disloyal thoughts, she knew, but sometimes, and especially of late, Vince seemed like a dreadful weight dragging her down. There had been a time a year ago, when he had realised that she was earning real money and he
was just wasting his life, when things had improved, when he had begun to study for his Knowledge with ambitions of getting his own black cab. That was dead in the water now. The only future he had to look forward to was prison, for the next few years – of that Felicity had no doubt. And then? And then … She would be there when he came out, she supposed. That was what you did if your bloke went inside. So that was her, stuck for however many years, her twenties disappearing, life on hold … all for Vince. Felicity supposed she loved him, but did she love him that much?

She thought about this for the rest of the journey, and on the short walk home, and still had no answers.

Rachel rang Leo first thing the next day. He was mildly surprised to discover that she was handling the Lloyd’s case, along with Fred.

‘I thought I mentioned it when you came to pick Oliver up a couple of weeks ago,’ said Rachel.

‘Did you? I can’t have been paying attention.’

‘Anyway, I’ll try to get the papers over to you later today. The first instalment, that is.’

‘So what are this lot like? As batty as the last, I presume.’

‘The Names? Oh, they’re a mixed bunch. The action’s being brought in the name of Lady Norbury, Henrietta, and she’s the biggest pain of them all. She must be well over seventy, she’s got all her marbles, but a few seem to be rolling about all over the place. She has some personal feud going with the Committee Chairman, Sir Stephen Caradog-Browne, would you believe, and if one of them is in favour of one course of action, the other’s sure to be against it. Which makes for slow going.’

‘Sounds about par for the course,’ sighed Leo. ‘In an ideal world, I’d rather never meet any of them, but I suppose I’ll have to.’

‘They’re having a bash at the Guards’ Club on Friday, seven-thirty. Sir Stephen’s hosting it. You should come along to that.’

‘I will,’ said Leo, pulling his diary towards him and opening it. ‘I was going to call you anyway, to discuss the arrangements for Oliver. How about ten on Saturday?’

‘That’s fine. By the way, I wouldn’t plan on trying to read any of the Lloyd’s stuff over the weekend. I made that mistake. I took a pile of statements home on Friday evening, thinking I’d get a chance to read them, but Charles is in the States at the moment, and Oliver’s at that stage where he wants you to be totally involved in everything he’s doing. I mean,
everything
, from putting his toy farm together to filling and emptying the Duplo box. He’s also not keen on taking his nap at the moment. I didn’t get much done.’

‘You should have rung me. I’d have taken him off your hands for a day. The access arrangement’s not set in stone, you know.’

‘I didn’t want him off my hands,’ replied Rachel rather abruptly. ‘That’s not what I meant. I like spending my weekends with him. The weekends I
have
with him, that is.’

‘Don’t sound so resentful. I am his father. I do have a right to see him every other week. I was merely suggesting that I could have had him for a few hours.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting that I wanted to get rid of him. You always misinterpret things I say. I sometimes think you do it deliberately.’

‘I deliberately misinterpret
you
?’ Leo sounded incredulous.

There was a painful silence for a moment. Each of them was thinking the same thing. Every conversation seemed to descend to this level.

Leo was the first to give way. ‘This is pointless. I’ll see you on Saturday morning.’ He put the phone down before there could be any further acrimony.

At her end, Rachel replaced the receiver slowly. Why, why, did things always end like that? It was pitiful, childish, to bicker the way they did. Always over Oliver. Well, if Leo wanted to be with Oliver so badly, he could have behaved like a decent husband and father in the first place. If he had, they might all still be together. But Leo was selfish, too busy satisfying his various appetites to care about his family. Rachel found tears welling in her eyes. She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed them away. Maybe it had been a mistake to let Fred instruct Leo, if she and Leo were incapable of conducting things on a civilized level for longer than five minutes. Still, it was done now, and they would all just have to live with it.

Lady Henrietta Ethel Margaret Norbury possessed a temperament admirably suited to membership of the Lloyd’s Names Committee. The experiences of a long and colourful life had shaped a disposition which made her a natural champion of the dispossessed. A privileged upbringing as the youngest daughter of the 11th Earl of Halstead had equipped her with a marvellous arrogance, so pure as to be well above snobbery, and an assumption
of the pre-eminence of her family and class. In her youth, she had enjoyed a reputation as a considerable beauty, which had enhanced her sense of self-worth and attracted the first of three husbands, Charles ‘Bozzy’ Bostick, a dashing American who drove racing cars and had made his fortune in the Chicago meat industry. The marriage, which lasted ten years, left her with an enduring passion for extravagant spending. It was no surprise, therefore, that her subsequent marriage to Monty Smallwood, a handsome good-for-nothing who played second piano in the Ritz Orpheans, ended shortly after Monty had squandered much of his wife’s divorce settlement in a variety of unsuccessful business ventures and failed cocktail bars. Monty, a man of immense charm but very weak character, died subsequently of alcohol poisoning. Lady Henrietta’s legacy from this union was a son, Gideon, a detestation of impecuniosity and a determination never to allow any subsequent fortune to be frittered away by the improvidence of others. At the age of thirty-nine, with the remnants of her dark-eyed beauty fading, she married Sir Henry Percival Norbury, a Shropshire baronet twenty years her senior, who never gave her a moment’s trouble, was fond of Gideon and dutifully attended to his education, who happily indulged his wife’s taste for lavish spending, and whose death ten years later left her in possession of a modest fortune, a manor house near Chesterton and an apartment in Belgravia.

That was in 1985. Sir Percy had taken it for granted that membership of Lloyd’s befitted a man of his wealth and standing. It was, perhaps, a happy thing for him that he died before he could witness the disaster that was to overtake
syndicates 727/418 and 317/661 and see the inherited wealth of three centuries disappear in a matter of years. It was Lady Henrietta who had to watch as, along with thousands of others, she was driven to near ruin by the follies of Messrs Meacock, Outhwaite and Merrett, and nameless others privy to the mismanagement of affairs at Lloyd’s of London. The Norbury fortune was all but swallowed up, the manor house and the apartment in Belgravia sold, along with furniture, paintings and jewellery. Small wonder that Lady Henrietta should be driven, if not to the brink of madness, at least to a state of obsessive bitterness. She regarded all men as her enemies now. Stripped of her wealth, she lived in a three-bedroomed flat in Pimlico, surrounded by remnants of the opulent furniture which had graced her former homes, by silver-framed pictures of her youthful self in Hartnell and Schiaparelli ball gowns, and nursed her wrath against Lloyd’s. She saw the litigation against Lloyd’s as the Armageddon, elevated far above the constant feuds she conducted with landlords and bankers, shop girls and traffic wardens. This was to the death.

Today she was breakfasting with Gideon, who was staying with her briefly while work was carried out on his own new house in Fulham. As usual, she was rehearsing a litany of complaints against the lawyers engaged on behalf of herself and the other Names.

‘It is unnecessary and entirely pointless to instruct an additional leading counsel. A complete waste of money, when we have little enough as it is! And I’m told he’s a Welshman – probably another crony of Caradog-Browne’s.’ Lady Henrietta lifted her coffee cup with a hand that
wavered ever so slightly. Her once lovely dark eyes were bright, quick with menace as she brooded on this new grievance. ‘The last solicitors’ bill alone was sixty thousand pounds. Sixty thousand pounds!’

Smoothing back the pages of his
Telegraph
, Gideon glanced speculatively at his mother. He was slender, of medium height, and the dark good looks which had faded and withered in Lady Henrietta were still vivid and clear in him, albeit touched with the slight pouching and fine lines of early middle age. His brown hair was crisply curled, untouched by grey, and his large, liquid eyes held a glint of something that approached childish mischief. Although his clothes were stylish and impeccable, his conversation and tastes erudite and sophisticated, there was in his smile and mercurial manner and movements something boyish and irresistible. In a man of thirty-six, the effect produced could, on occasion, be somewhat sinister.

‘Well, mother, if you want matters progressed and things brought on, you have to pay for it, you know.’

‘Yes, but we don’t seem to
getting
anywhere. Nobody listens to me, or pays any attention to the thing that matters
most
about this case.’

‘Oh, and what is that?’ murmured Gideon. He sipped his coffee, his gaze straying back to the paper.

‘The cover-up! The reckless way they behaved! Nobody seems to see it, even though they all admit the existence of the June 1983 letter …’

Gideon listened no more. His thoughts drifted to work. Would this be the day that they announced to the press the establishment of the new Ministry? Rumours had been rife
for weeks. And if so, would this be his chance for elevation? Gideon felt that the time had come for him to move from the rank of junior secretary to something with greater status, and more money. Money was a constant source of anxiety to Gideon these days. He had grown accustomed to a high standard of living throughout his younger years, and the losses which the family had incurred at Lloyd’s had hit him hard. Lady Henrietta had always been generous with her adored only son, and perhaps the extent to which she had been prepared to fund his affluent lifestyle – his bespoke suits, his gambling debts and his passion for good food and wine – had served to underscore the childlike side of his personality. Now, in these dark days, he was dependent on his salary as a grade-six civil servant with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to keep him afloat. Selling his house in South Kensington and moving to the smaller place (presently undergoing refurbishment to Gideon’s exacting standards) had released a certain amount of capital, but Gideon was always hungry for more. It was this hunger that had persuaded him to join his mother and the other Lloyd’s Names in their last-ditch attempt at litigation. If they won, the rewards could be great, and Gideon’s worries might be at an end. On the other hand …

‘… Gideon, are you listening to me? I need to know if you will come to the reception at the Guards’ Club on Friday.’

‘No,’ replied Gideon firmly. ‘That geriatric committee of yours simply depresses me. I refuse to spend my Friday evening in that dreary club with those dreary people.’ He folded his newspaper, rose, buttoned his jacket around
his slim figure and drained his coffee cup.

‘Don’t forget you’re a member of the litigation subcommittee. It’s your duty to meet this man Davies, make sure he’s steered in the right direction from the beginning.’

Gideon sighed. ‘Mother, unlike you, I have no desire to go around telling everyone what to do. I’m sure the lawyers know better than we do. Now, I have to get to work.’

As he passed her chair, she reached up a quick hand to grasp his. Her eyes moistened with fondness, beseeching him. ‘Darling, do come. I do so love to have you with me at these things. And it won’t be for long. Just a few drinks, meet this new QC, and then you’ll have lots of time left. Please. For Mummy.’

Gideon couldn’t handle much of this special pleading. It would only carry on into the evening, if he didn’t capitulate now. ‘Oh, very well. If Caradog-Browne is prepared to splash out on champagne for us all, I suppose I might as well drink it. But I won’t stay longer than an hour.’

Lady Henrietta smiled a meek and gratified smile. ‘Of course, darling, I know how precious your Fridays are to you.’

Lady Henrietta had no clear idea at all what Gideon got up to on Fridays. She only knew, in the short space of time that they had been living together recently, that those evenings were sacrosanct, given over to whatever nameless pleasures Gideon pursued until the very small hours. Saturdays were often the same. She didn’t care to think about the kinds of things he did, or the people he consorted with. There was a dark side to Gideon, and she had no wish to explore it. She had long given up any hope that he
might find a nice girl with lots of money, and settle down. Not that he was wild. Far from it. Throughout the week, he kept regular hours and seemed to work very diligently at his job. Lady Henrietta had only the very vaguest idea what civil servants did, and beyond wishing that Gideon could have made his way into the higher echelons of the Foreign Office, gave her son’s career very little thought.

Gideon bent to bestow a kiss upon his mother’s papery cheek. ‘See you this evening.’

‘Lovely. I’ll pop down to Harrods and get us something nice for supper from the food hall.’ There were some habits which impoverishment could not break, and although she regarded herself as nearly destitute, Lady Henrietta’s lifestyle was still better than most.

Gideon put on his overcoat and his cashmere scarf, then left the flat and set off on the fifteen minute walk to his office in Whitehall.

The announcement from the Downing Street press office of the establishment of the new Ministry for Artistic and Cultural Development came two days later at eleven o’clock on Friday morning. Tony Gear had been informed by the Prime Minister the previous evening of his elevation to the post of Minister in charge, and rose to greet the day in fine spirits. The hours ahead would be hectic. There would be consultations with senior civil servants, briefings, a press conference at lunchtime, and then a tour of the premises in Whitehall which had been assigned to the new Ministry. He’d have to get moving on arranging redecoration and the installation of suitable furniture for his new office – Tony
intended to stamp his personality and authority on this Ministry from the very outset. Tempting fate somewhat, he had dropped into Politicos bookshop a few weeks earlier and discreetly purchased a copy of Gerald Kaufman’s
How to Be a Minister,
and had in his spare moments dipped into this invaluable, if somewhat dated instruction manual for aspiring holders of ministerial office. He was keenly aware that the appointment of his private secretary was among the first and most important of his tasks. As the Ministry was a new one – Whitehall couldn’t line up their own squad of candidates – the job was in his gift, and Tony thought he knew just the man. For some months now he had observed Gideon Smallwood as he went about his duties as junior secretary in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and had been impressed by the man’s quick intelligence, discretion and general polish. Polish was something which Tony lacked, and he knew that it would greatly assist him in this new job, where he would be rubbing shoulders with thespians, directors of opera and ballet companies, as well as representatives from the Arts Council, to have by his side someone of Gideon’s sophistication. Gideon Smallwood could buff up, so to speak, the rougher aspects of Tony’s intellectual and artistic persona. Man was probably queer, but Tony thought he could live with that.