Almost a Crime (52 page)

have to go out. To meet my father. Something’s cropped

up. I’ll try not to be long. I’m meeting him at the Hyde

Park Hotel. Could you tell Melanie?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Charles Madison had finally remembered, through the

foggy inefficiency of grief, to buy some large strong brown

envelopes. After breakfast that morning, he went into

Anna’s room and picked out the prettiest half dozen of her

handkerchief collection, put them into one of the envelopes

and wrote a card to Octavia Fleming; he then drove down

to the village himself, to post the package. He was feeling

better; grieving no less, of course, but stronger at least.

Pretty soon now he would want to go back to work.

Louise seemed much better too; and she looked quite

rosy, was beginning to bloom. It was going to be a lovely

thing, the arrival of that baby: a lovely, restorative thing…’

So — I ask you again, Octavia. Is it true?’

‘Yes. Yes, it is, I’m afraid.’

‘I would like,’ said Felix Miller quite quietly, ‘to flay him

alive. After all you have done for him. All your loyalty.’

‘Daddy, I—’

‘To cheat on you in this horrible way. And then to come

to me for money. It’s obscene. How could you let him,

Octavia, how could you allow that? God in heaven, you

must be some kind of saint.’

‘I most certainly am not,’ said Octavia quietly. ‘I can’t tell

you how much I hate him. But—’

‘Of course you do. Well, I have to say I’m not surprised.’

‘No?’ She looked at him rather dully. This was the very

thing she had most dreaded, feared; the appalling self

satisfaction at knowing he had been right, that she had make

a mistake, that Tom was not good enough for her, was not

good at all. It was one thing for her to know he was a cheat,

a liar, to face that knowledge in the innermost heart of

herself; quite another to be told it, to have it spoken of,

recognised. And by her father of all people, who thought

she was perfect; who would look at her now, and realise

that this was not a universal view of her, that her own

husband did not find her anything like perfect, had looked

out of their marriage for distraction from her indeed, who

had wanted sex with someone else, the intimate company

of someone else. This was a fresh and very painful

humiliation; she felt diminished, a disappointment on a

most agonising scale.

‘Darling,’ he said, and he put out his hand to hers. ‘How

long have you known?’

‘A few weeks.’

‘Weeks! And you’ve gone on pretending, even to me?’

‘Well, I didn’t want to worry you.’

‘My darling child! That’s what I’m here for. What I’ve

always been here for. To worry. To take worry off you. I

can’t bear to think of you enduring this on your own.

You’ve always brought me your troubles, Octavia, always.

It pleases—’ he corrected himself swiftly — ‘it makes me feel

better. To be able to help you. Comfort you. Put things right.’

‘Daddy, you can’t always put things right for me.’

‘I can try. Don’t you remember, when those girls were

being so horrible to you, at school. You said it would make

things worse if I complained about it, went to the head.

You were wrong. It was better, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh - yes,’ she said, shuddering at the memory. It hadn’t

been better, of course; the girls in question had taken

hideous revenge, forbidding everyone else to speak to her,

organising events which included everyone except her,

sending her what she thought were invitations through the

post, had opened with shaking hands, only to read, ‘There’s

a party next Saturday, sorry, Fatty, you’re not included.’

‘I’ve always helped you, haven’t I?’ her father was saying

now, and she looked at him stupidly, jerked back into her

present misery from the ones of the past; and ‘Yes,’ she said,

‘yes, of course, you helped a lot.’

‘And I can help now. In lots of ways. Make it up to you.

And the first thing I intend to do is talk to Tom.’

‘Daddy, don’t! You’re not to,’ she said, her heart

seeming quite literally to rise in her throat.

‘Octavia, if you think I am going to let this pass

unremarked, you are terribly wrong. Apart from anything

else, I am outraged that he should have come to me for

money when he was cheating on you. And therefore on

me. He has no morals. No sense of honour of any kind. I

presume he’s still living in Phillimore Gardens? Or has he

had the decency to move out?’

‘He’s still there, but—’

‘Exactly what I would have expected of him. Dear God,

when I think — oh, my darling, you must have been so

unhappy.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Did you know when we

were all at Ascot? Is that why you were upset that day?’

‘Yes,’ said Octavia, flinching from the memory. ‘Yes, I

suppose it was.’

He sighed, looked at her. ‘Anyone else know about this?

Anyone at all?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘No one.’ She couldn’t bear the

thought of him approaching people, ringing them up,

leading them into a character assassination of Tom. ‘And I

don’t want them knowing. It makes me feel worse.’ ‘And do you know who …’

‘No. And he won’t tell me.’

‘Well - some tart, I suppose. Some vulgar little tart.

You’ll want a divorce of course.’

‘Daddy, I don’t know,’ she said, and found, to her

immense surprise, that it was true.

‘That’s absurd! You can’t stay married to a man who’s

cheating on you. Of course you must get a divorce. As soon

as possible. And get a really good lawyer, who’ll see to your

interests. Don’t worry about the cost, I’ll see to that for you.

God, I’d like to see him reduced to total penury.’

‘Look, I’m really not quite sure. He says it’s over.’

‘And you are prepared to believe a single thing he says?

Octavia, you have to stand up for yourself in this, let

everyone see that you—’

‘That’s the whole point! I don’t want everyone to see.

Can’t you see how humiliating, how appalling it all is?

What a failure I feel? A wretched, miserable failure …’

She started to cry: sitting there, in the bar of the Hyde

Park Hotel, and Felix put his arm round her, found a

handkerchief, wiped her eyes tenderly, hushing her grief.

‘There there, darling,’ he said, ‘you cry if you want to.

It’ll help. I’m here, I’ll fight your battles for you. Your old

daddy’ll make it up to you. Come on now, blow your nose.

That’s right. Good girl.’

He’s actually enjoying this, thought Octavia, through her

grief; enjoying having me back, being the white knight,

slaying the dragons for me again, and thought, too, this was

one of the things she had most dreaded when he found out.

And then, with a rush of horror, of realisation that there was

a crucial question she hadn’t asked, her tears stopped

abruptly, and she said, ‘Daddy, how did you find out? Who

told you?’

Zoe looked at the money. All one hundred pounds of it.

Sitting in an envelope, in her bag. They had been in the

kitchen in Cleaver Square, looking for a tin opener (having

found a tin of peaches and Ian saying they’d go down a treat

with some of the rum and raisin ice cream they had found

in the freezer and indeed already sampled). Zoe had rather

fancied the idea as well; they had had some extremely

energetic sex and she was tired and hungry. And very

lightheaded after smoking the extremely good grass Ian had

brought along.

The money had been in an envelope in the drawer, with

‘Mrs Kendall’ written on it. It was in ten-pound notes, and

it wasn’t even sealed up. There was a note inside that said,

‘This should be enough for the three weeks, but if you have

to pay for any cleaning materials, take it out of this and we’ll

pay you back when we get back. Thank you so much.

Lyndsay.’

‘Honestly,’ said Ian, looking over her shoulder at it, ‘you

lot. More money than sense.’

‘What do you mean, us lot?’ said Zoe.

‘You posh lot. The ones who have cleaners and that.

Fancy trusting her. Giving her all that up front. We haven’t

set eyes on her all the time we was working here.’

‘Well, surely that’s why. She wouldn’t come when you

lot were here.’

‘No, they said someone’d be in to do the ironing and

that. Water the plants. Anyway, better put it back, Zo.’

But she hadn’t. She’d slipped it into her pocket without

telling him. It would just be a loan: until Friday when her

allowance hit the bank. Get her out of this immediate hole

she was in. She could put a bit of it in the bank to shut them

up, use the rest. Fine. Simple. No problem. Absolutely no

problem at all.

‘You mean you got an anonymous letter? Telling you Tom was having an affair with someone? How absolutely bizarre.’

Another anonymous letter: dear God. But why tell Felix,

what possible point in that?

‘Marianne, I’m a little puzzled by your reaction,’ said

Felix. ‘I would have thought the information in the letter

was rather more important than its form.’

‘Not really. I mean, of course it’s very serious that Tom’s

having an affair — but, Felix, who would have done such a

thing? Why should you need to be told?’

‘Marianne, I am Octavia’s father. Don’t you think it is a

matter of great concern to me? All day I’ve been feeling so

wretched. So desperately sorry for her.’

‘Yes, of course you have,’ said Marianne quietly. He

looked dreadful, drawn and gaunt, as if it was he who had

been humiliated, betrayed, as well as Octavia. Well, he

would feel that.

‘Do we know who it is? Who she is?’ Maybe he knew

now, maybe this was going to release her from her moral

purgatory.

But, ‘No. Tom won’t tell Octavia. Shielding the woman,

I suppose. And you know, he had the gall to come to me

for backing. For his company? Only yesterday. Think of

that, Marianne, think of him sitting there, asking me for

help when he had been cheating on my daughter.’

Tom must be absolutely desperate, she thought, asking

Felix for money. In spite of herself, her sympathy with

Octavia, Marianne’s heart went out to Tom.

‘It must be true, then,’ she said, without thinking.

‘What must?’

‘Oh, that his company’s in trouble.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’ said Felix, staring at

her. ‘There’s been nothing in the press. I had no idea myself

until he approached me.’

‘Oh, I - I heard a rumour.’

‘Marianne, you’ll have to do better than that. This is

terribly important.’

She saw the pain, the hollow gnawing misery in his face,

and decided she must tell him what she knew. ‘I — that is, I

had lunch with Nico Cadogan the other day.’

‘You had lunch with Nico Cadogan? What on earth for?’

‘He asked me.’

‘Oh, I see. And you accepted. Without checking it,

clearing it with me?’

‘Felix, I’m sorry, but I had no idea I had to get your

permission to go out to lunch.’

‘Marianne, don’t play games with me, please.’

She opened her mouth to say she was not playing games,

but knew it to be untrue. Of course she was: and it was an

insult to him to pretend otherwise. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly, ‘I should have told you.’

‘Yes, you should. But I certainly don’t want to talk about

that now. What I don’t understand is why on earth you

were talking about Tom Fleming’s business.’

‘Nico is a client of his. As you know.’

‘Yes, I must make sure he ceases to be a client pretty

damn quick.’

‘Felix! You can’t do that.’

‘Why can’t I?’

‘Because whatever Tom has or has not done to Octavia,

his clients are his own affair. If he’s looking after them well,

if he’s a good businessman, then it’s surely up to the clients

themselves to decide what they’re going to do.’

Felix stared at her. ‘I cannot believe you said that,

Marianne. That you should consider any friend of mine

would wish to have any dealings with Tom Fleming now.

After what he has done to my daughter. Of course Cadogan

won’t wish to continue with the relationship.’

‘Well, I think you’re wrong,’ said Marianne, ‘actually.

But it doesn’t matter what I think.’

‘Of course it does. I find it very distressing that you can’t

see that. Anyway,’ said Felix, his face dark and brooding as

he looked at her, ‘how did you know the company was in

trouble?’

‘Nico received a sort of memo the other morning. So did

all the rest of Tom’s clients. Saying that the company was

about to go under, and they’d all be best advised to move

elsewhere. That was also anonymous.’

‘And you knew this, and you didn’t tell me?’

‘Felix, I tried to. I tried very hard, but you said you had

to go and meet Tom and you hung up on me, literally mid

sentence. I assumed he would have told you himself at your meeting. And I haven’t seen you since. You haven’t been overwhelming me with your attentions or with support

recently.’

‘Good God,’ said Felix. He ran his hands through his

thick white hair. ‘This gets worse and worse. Not only is