Betrayal (19 page)

I didn’t blame David for reducing his investment. The takeover had brought him some shares in Cumberland and a little cash, but the total was less than a third of what he could have expected a few years back if we’d sold HartWell at the height of its fortunes. And for all I knew he and Mary might need cash for other things: they might be planning early retirement, they could even be up to their ears in debt. David might have been my brother, but so far as his financial affairs went I hardly knew him at all.

Given enough sweat and tears, I could probably raise the extra money from the Chartered Bank, but I was loathe to go back to them cap in hand unless absolutely necessary. At best it would look as though George and I had failed to do our homework properly, at worst we would simply appear incompetent. Then there was the time element. Renegotiations could take weeks and I suspected that Cumberland would use the time to solicit a better offer from elsewhere and announce a tight cut-off date for final bids. When I really wanted to frighten myself I imagined that the juicy offer was already on the table and that Howard had planted his million-pound bombshell to raise the stakes, and, accidentally or otherwise, jeopardise our chances of success.

Three hundred and fifty thousand. It shouldn’t be too hard to find, so long as nothing happened to rock the boat. I tried not to think of the press and the positive storm they could raise without uttering a single word of libel.

I scribbled a line through my calculations and threw them into the bin. I heard Ginny approaching to summon me to supper, and an absurd bubble of contentment rose up in me at the thought of baked beans at the kitchen table with my wife.

‘Everything went into the wash.’ Already Ginny’s expression was taking on the defensive look she acquired whenever she thought she might have done the wrong thing. We were in the dressing room, standing in front of the open wardrobe.

‘What about the beige cords?’

‘They went to the cleaners.’

‘And you didn’t happen to notice anything in the pockets?’

‘No.’ She said it a little too quickly, and I guessed she hadn’t looked. ‘Was it something vital?’ she asked.

I shrugged, ‘Not really,’ and began to get undressed.

‘What was it?’

‘Just a receipt.’

‘What for?’

‘Oh – petrol, that’s all.’

‘But you have to find it?’

She had sensed something. It was ridiculous not to tell her. ‘The police want to have a look at it. To establish what time I was on the motorway last Saturday.’

This seemed to confuse her. ‘On Saturday?’ She half turned towards the wardrobe as though to start undressing, only to turn back with a frown. ‘
Saturday?
And it’s important, the time you got the petrol?’

‘The police think so.’ I threw my socks into the basket and reached for a robe. ‘I told them I arrived at Dittisham shortly after seven, but they weren’t inclined to believe me, not without some backup anyway. Not the most trusting of souls.’

‘And it’s
lost
, this receipt!’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s not essential.’ I explained how the information could be tracked down through the credit card company.

But something was still disturbing her. ‘What will it tell them, the receipt?’

‘Tell them? That I was somewhere near Bristol at five-thirty that afternoon. Well, I
think
it was five-thirty, but I’m not so sure now. I wish I hadn’t said five-thirty, in fact, in case I was wrong.’

‘Could you be wrong?’

‘Who knows? It wouldn’t be the end of the world anyway.’

‘You say that! But supposing it was earlier? Could it have been earlier?’

‘Well, maybe half an hour or so – not a lot.’

She was looking appalled.

‘Ginny!’ I laughed, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, really.’

But she wasn’t so easily pacified. ‘You
say
that . . .’

‘I
know
it.’

She cried, ‘You can’t
know
.’

‘You worry too much.’ I drew her into an embrace and rested my cheek against the richness of her hair. Her stiff body seemed to tremble in my arms, like a frail storm-tossed bird.

I began to rock her slightly and to murmur soft reassurances, as I had always done in times of stress or reconciliation. Her body did not yield.

I whispered, ‘It’s so good to be home, Ginny. You can’t imagine.’ I meant, good to be home with just the two of us and no hordes to be wined and dined, though I didn’t say that.

Eventually I pulled back a little and, cupping a hand under her chin, leant down to kiss her.

She didn’t retreat, but she didn’t kiss me back either.

I didn’t blame her, I didn’t expect instant absolution, but I did need to know that forgiveness wasn’t a total impossibility either.

‘Ginny,’ I whispered awkwardly. ‘Darling . . . if I caused you any grief then I’m—’

She gave a small cry and wrenched herself free. For a moment she agitated a hand at me, unable to speak. ‘Not now,’ she gulped, her eyes brimming. ‘I can’t deal with that
now
!’ She turned and hurried into the bedroom.

‘Ginny!’

But something prevented me from pursuing her, futility or weariness. Retreating to a hot bath, I stayed in it for a long time. I comforted myself with thoughts of a not-too-distant time when life would be more settled, when memories of this summer would have faded and Ginny and I would be established not too far from Hartford, in a country house that might look something like David’s, with land and gardens and an interior with enough potential to stimulate Ginny’s designer instincts, a time when we would have adjusted our lives to an altogether gentler pace and in some as yet unidentifiable way moved our relationship forward, into calmer waters.

It was after midnight when I finally went into the bedroom. The lights were off but I knew Ginny wasn’t asleep. Going softly round to her side of the bed, I leant down and kissed her head.

Her eyes glittered up at me.

I said, ‘Do you want me to sleep in the other room?’

‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t.’

My heart lifted. ‘Then I’ll stay.’

‘I don’t want to be alone.’ It was a statement delivered without emotion.

I thought of all the weekends when I had left her to go down to Dittisham. ‘No.’

‘I don’t think I could bear to be alone again.’

Was this the bargain then? A commitment to curtail my freedom?

I steeled myself to say, ‘I’ll never leave you alone again, I promise.’

‘That would mean so much. If you could manage it.’ There was no irony in her voice.

A little later, as I was beginning to doze off, she propped herself up on one elbow, and without switching on the light, shook a tablet from a bottle and washed it down with water. When she settled down again her foot touched my leg and she did not move it away.

It was a good twenty years since, as a fresh-faced graduate with more confidence than sense, I had undertaken my sales training under Ronald Simms and got my first inkling of what it was like at the sharp end of the business. Ronald Simms was a representative of the old school. He worked his patch to a hallowed schedule, he knew the names of the buyers’ children and the ailments of their wives, he wore white shirts with starched collars which did permanent battle with his Adam’s apple, and he called me Mr Hugh, just as he called my father Mr Richard.

Sitting in the lounge of the Churchill Hotel with the Packenhams buyer I was reminded of the time Ronald and I had been preparing to pitch a difficult sale. ‘You remember what I told you?’ he’d remarked. ‘That with the Hartford name there’s no such thing as a cold sale? Well, that doesn’t stop some sales from being a bit chillier than others.’

This sale was definitely on the chilly side. Miss Stevens, who with her doll face and timid posture appeared a disconcerting twenty though she must have been a good eight to ten years older, had been the Packenhams china and glass buyer for two years, and was showing no chinks in her considerable armour. She had de-listed Hartford Crystal five months ago because we had given Harrods a better price, and since walking into the lounge and offering me her limp handshake she had made it plain that she wasn’t about to relent.

‘Miss Stevens, I can only say I’m horrified by what happened. I can assure you quite categorically that it’s never been our policy to discriminate. I can only imagine it was an appalling error on the part of the sales people. The only thing I can do is to offer you my sincere apologies. And my personal guarantee that it will never happen again.’

Her unyielding look said: It’s a little too late for that now.

‘All I can tell you is that things are going to be different at Hartford once the buyout goes through. We’re putting everything we have into it – financially, I mean, as well as blood, sweat and tears – and we wouldn’t be doing that unless we believed one hundred per cent in the product. You see, we feel we have something really special in Hartford crystal. We feel—’ I broke off as another of Ronald’s maxims came back to rap me over the knuckles: Don’t tell them what to think, tell them what’s new. ‘What’s new,’ I said, ‘is that Hartford will be run by the people on the spot, the people who know the business backwards. And I can honestly say that we’re going to make a damned sight better job of it.’

Behind Miss Stevens’ spectacles something stirred, though it was hard to tell what sort of emotion it might be. ‘It wouldn’t be hard to make a better job of it,’ she commented in her wispy voice.

‘But, Miss Stevens, however successful we are – and we
are
going to be successful – none of it’ll be any good if Hartford crystal isn’t on sale in Packen-hams—’

My mobile phone sent up a warble from my briefcase. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said rapidly. ‘Only my secretary has this number and she wouldn’t call me unless it was extremely urgent.’

Miss Stevens looked at her watch as she reached for her coffee.

I snatched up the phone and growled, ‘Yes?’

‘
Sorry
,’ Julia hissed, ‘but there’s a photographer snooping around outside the office and your wife just called to say there’re a couple at Glebe Place too. Thought you ought to be warned.’

‘Hell.’

Above the coffee cup Miss Stevens’ eyes, enlarged by her lenses, watched me speculatively.

‘Have they phoned, the press?’

‘No.’

‘Well, let me know if they do. And don’t say a word to anyone about this, will you?’

‘Of course not,’ she said indignantly. ‘Oh, and George called to say he thinks he can raise another forty-five thousand.’

I dropped the phone into my case. ‘I’m so sorry about that. It was, umm . . . urgent.’ For an instant I imagined that the photographers had followed me here, that they were waiting for me to leave the hotel. ‘So . . . I was saying that . . .’ I groped for my thread. ‘Our plans . . . Yes, we’re going to advertise in the colour supplements over the three weeks leading up to Christmas, and what we’d really like to do is mount a special spring promotion with Packenhams.’ I brought out a folder and passed it across to her. ‘It’s all in here.’

Miss Stevens slid her cup onto the table and sat forward, preparing to leave.

‘Look,’ I said hastily, ‘I very much want you to change your mind about us, Miss Stevens. I’m not sure how I can achieve that, but – well, I’m going to keep trying!’

‘Mr Wellesley, I’ll consider your proposals. That’s all I can say.’ Her little-girl voice reminded me more than ever of a shop girl fresh out of school. Standing up, she smoothed the skirt of her bad suit. She hesitated before announcing, ‘My father risked our home for his business.’

I didn’t say anything.

‘He lost both the house and the business.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So were we.’

‘Miss Stevens – we’re not going to fail.’

She eyed me appraisingly. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t suppose you are.’ And in the moment before she turned away she gave me a look that wasn’t entirely unsympathetic.

‘They’re standing right outside the door,’ Ginny told me. Her voice faded and crackled in the earpiece as my cab swung along the Bayswater Road. ‘. . . Photographers and a reporter.’

‘How many?’

‘Three of them. I have to go out in a minute. But I know what I’m going to say to them.’

‘Ginny . . .’ I didn’t want her to realise how appalled I was. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to say nothing?’

‘Don’t worry – it won’t be much.’

I felt powerless. ‘Well, be careful, for God’s sake.’

‘I will.’ She sounded listless, or depressed; it was hard to tell with such a bad connection.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Me? Umm . . .’ She took her time. ‘Oh, all right.’

‘What about the doctor?’

‘That’s where I’m going, to see him.’

‘Let me know what he says, won’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t let him give you any old thing.’

‘No.’

She had slept most of the day before. When she’d finally got up we had spent the time like two battle-weary warriors home from the fray. After the tensions of the previous night we’d kept a respectful distance, speaking little and with caution. Over an early supper we had discussed the sale of Melton and its contents, and I had drawn some comfort from the prosaicness of our conversation. Later we’d watched television in bed and as we’d fallen asleep Ginny had made no objection when I’d slid an arm loosely round her waist.

I said, ‘You haven’t been to the police station then?’

‘I didn’t feel well enough.’

‘No, of course not. I left a message for Tingwall, to warn him you might not be up to it. He’ll square it with the people at Exeter.’

‘While you’re on,’ she said. ‘The petrol receipt, have you . . .?’

‘Julia’s still chasing it. But it’ll be fine, really.’ A roaring came over the ether as though we were entering a tunnel. ‘Take care,’ I shouted. ‘And do watch out for those people.’ I had a vision of the photographers pushing their lenses into Ginny’s face.

‘Don’t worry.’ Her voice was breaking up badly, but I thought she said, ‘I’m used to them, remember.’

Nearing the office I peered over the cabbie’s shoulder, but there were no photographers outside the building and no one loitering in the entrance. I strode inside with an itchy feeling between my shoulder blades and a powerful urge to look behind me.