Deception and Desire (59 page)

The next time he came ashore for his two weeks off Mac managed to hitch a lift from Aberdeen to Bristol with a commercial pilot who made the mail run five nights a week and with whom he had become friendly. It was dead of winter, bitterly cold, with snow in Aberdeen and thick heavy cloud further south. The pilot, concerned with making a safe flight in atrocious conditions, talked little and Mac was glad. Beneath his customary calm demeanour he was beginning to be apprehensive about the coming meeting and it was a relief not to have to carry on an inconsequential conversation.

The twin-engined aircraft put down at East Midlands Airport at 11 p. m. and was on its way again after a two-hour break. By 2 a.m. they were in Bristol. Mac stumbled out on to the apron where the plane had parked for unloading, muttering his thanks and wondering where he could spend what was left of the night.

‘Any ideas which hotel might give me a room at this hour?' he asked.

‘Any of the big ones in town, I suppose. I never use them myself. How do you plan on getting there?'

‘Taxi.'

‘Forget it.' His pilot friend fastened his flight bag and slung it over his shoulder. ‘You'd better come home with me. You'll have to sleep on the couch, but it'll be better than nothing. Now – let's get going. I'm frozen stiff and bone tired.'

Life on an oil rig had taught Mac to be adaptable if nothing else. The sofa was barely long enough to stretch out on but when he had wrapped himself in a tartan blanket it felt like heaven. He was asleep almost before the other man's footsteps had creaked quietly upstairs and he slept without interruption until morning when the pilot's wife woke him with a cup of tea.

‘Sorry to disturb you, but I have to get on.' Her tone was slightly cool – she was less than delighted to find a stranger in her front room, he guessed.

When he had drunk his tea he got dressed and folded the tartan blanket neatly. The pilot's wife, relenting a little, offered him breakfast but he refused – he did not want to impose on them any more than he already had and his friend the pilot was obviously sleeping in after his late-night flight. Mac had a quick wash and shave and left, catching a bus into town and booking into the first hotel he discovered. Then, fortified with a pot of tea and a plate of eggs and bacon, he telephoned Vandina and asked to speak to Van Kendrick.

‘This is Stephen MacIlroy,' he said when the receptionist put him through. ‘I wrote to you about the possibility of meeting Dinah Marshall.'

‘Ah.' The man's voice was deep, less than welcoming. ‘So – you came.'

‘I'm in Bristol, yes,' Mac said. ‘I flew down from Aberdeen last night.'

‘Where are you staying?'

‘The Unicorn. Just off the centre.'

‘I know where it is. Do you have transport?'

‘No, but I can get it. I can hire a car, no doubt.'

‘Very well. We'll meet this evening. Take down this address. It's an apartment in Cotham. Do you think you'll be able to find it?'

‘I expect so,' Mac said, irritated. ‘What time?'

‘Seven thirty.'

‘I'll be there.' Mac replaced the receiver, angry with himself for allowing the man to rattle him. If they did not want to see him they had only to have said so and he would not have made the long journey from Aberdeen.

He spent the morning wandering around Bristol, bought himself lunch in a pub, and hired a car. Then he returned to his hotel and took a nap to catch up on some of last night's lost sleep.

It was already dark when he woke again, and a thick shrouding fog had dropped over the city. Mac thought briefly of the mail pilot, making the flight to Aberdeen again in this peasouper. Then he took a long bath and wondered about the coming meeting. Meeting his mother for the first time in his life was a daunting prospect and he began to wish he had left things as they were. But it was too late now to change his mind.

He had a drink in the bar before setting out for Cotham but he still managed to find the address he had been given a few minutes before seven thirty. He stood on the pavement outside looking up at it – a tall period building impressive enough, certainly, to be the home of the founders of Vandina, but Van Kendrick had said an
apartment.
Mac checked the row of bell pushes and found one labelled Kendrick, but only one. This could not be the family's main abode, then. It must be some kind of
pied-à-terre.

Mac checked his watch, stamped his feet, and checked his watch again. Then, deciding not to wait until seven thirty on the dot, he rang the bell. After a moment Van Kendrick's unmistakable voice answered.

‘Who is it?'

‘Stephen MacIlroy. You are expecting me.'

A pause. Then: ‘Very well. You'd better come up.' The buzzer sounded as the remote control switch unlocked the door and Mac went inside. The house oozed an atmosphere of Victorian opulence: stained-glass windows, ornate ceiling cornices, sweeping staircase. Thinking he would prefer, right now, to be embarking on a five-hundred-foot dive to doing this, he started up the stairs.

The door on the landing opened as he emerged, and for the first time Mac came face to face with Van Kendrick. His first and overriding impression was one of power.

Van was not a big man but those meeting him rarely noticed it, and Mac did not notice it now. There was about him something which commanded immediate respect and that something was utter self-confidence. To his own surprise, however, Mac reacted to it not with awe but with an answering confidence that seemed to stem from his own quiet reserve of strength.

‘Mr MacIlroy,' Van said. ‘Do come in.'

‘Thank you.' Mac followed him inside.

The room was surprisingly large and airy, with more stained glass, more cornices and a beautiful Adam fireplace. It was furnished sparsely but with taste; wine-coloured curtains and covers, a huge multicoloured rug covering all but a narrow border of black-varnished floorboards, lamps – all lit – in gold and pale blue, an antique swivel chair in polished mahogany with an olive-green leather seat. The immediate overall impression, however, was of masculinity. Here were none of the touches a woman might have introduced – particularly a woman noted for her stylish femininity as Dinah Marshall was – and Mac thought he had been right to suppose the apartment was a
pied-à-terre
– Van Kendrick's own city bolt-hole. Of Dinah herself there was no sign. Mac glanced around, half expecting her to appear, but she did not.

‘Mr MacIlroy.' Van glanced at his watch, heavy silver Patek. ‘ I can spare you fifteen minutes. Can I offer you a drink?'

‘No thank you,' Mac said, affronted by the other man's brusqueness. ‘I'm driving.'

‘Very well. Then I suggest we get straight down to business. What exactly do you want?'

Again Mac's hackles rose, but he told himself he had no right to expect his mother and her husband to kill the fatted calf.

‘As I said in my letter I have recently obtained my original birth certificate and I thought I would like to make contact.'

Dark-navy eyes bored into his.

‘I see.' He paused. ‘ Let's not beat about the bush, MacIlroy. I can't help wondering if you would have been so eager to make contact, as you put it, if you had discovered your mother was a nobody, living in a council high-rise on social security.'

Mac controlled his rising anger with difficulty. ‘ That has nothing whatever to do with it. I simply wanted to meet her.'

‘Hmm. I wonder. Well, we'll let that pass and get to the crux of the matter, which is that although you may wish to meet your mother, your mother, I have to tell you, does not wish to meet you.'

Mac felt his stomach sink. ‘ You mean I've come all this way for nothing?'

‘I'm afraid so. Try to see it her way, MacIlroy. What happened was unfortunate but it was all a very long time ago, when Dinah was not much more than a child. It was a most upsetting period of her life but she has put it all behind her now. She doesn't want the past dredged up, doesn't want to be reminded of her past mistakes and indiscretions. Surely if you think about it you will be able to understand that.'

‘I understood right from the start she might feel that way,' Mac said. ‘What I don't understand is why you have let me come all this way to tell me so.'

Van crossed to a table where a decanter and glasses stood on an antique silver tray.

‘Do, please, have a Scotch, MacIlroy. I'm having one.'

He unstoppered the decanter, raised it invitingly. Mac, who felt he could certainly do with a drink, wavered.

‘All right.'

‘Good.' Van poured the drinks, added ice, and passed one to Mac. ‘I don't wish to appear inhospitable. I merely want to make the facts clear to you. That is why I allowed you to come to Bristol, so that I could tell you myself, face to face, the way Dinah feels. I hope now you will understand that she really does not want to meet you and rake up what is best forgotten.'

Mac sipped the whisky. As yet the reality of rejection for a second time had not reached him emotionally; he had not had time to weigh it up and register hurt and disappointment.

‘I hoped that by explaining it to you myself I could prevent you bothering her again,' Van said smoothly.

Mac bridled. ‘I don't feel I have bothered her, Mr Van Kendrick. One letter hardly constitutes harassment – and I would remind you I am here now at your invitation.'

Van Kendrick nodded. ‘That's true. But Dinah's well-being is my primary concern. She is not very strong emotionally – she never has been. Perhaps what happened to her left its scars, perhaps it is simply her nature to be highly strung, I don't know. But the fact is that Dinah simply cannot cope with this kind of stress. It makes her ill, physically and emotionally. She can't sleep, she can't eat, she can't work, and she is liable to suffer a complete nervous breakdown. I can't allow that to happen. That is why I asked you to come here – so that I could explain the situation. And why I am asking you now to go back to Scotland and forget any ideas you might have of meeting her.'

‘She asked you to tell me this?'

‘I am speaking to you on her behalf, yes.'

‘I see.' Mac tossed back what was left of his drink. ‘ In that case I won't take up any more of your time.' He moved to the door, turned, looked back. ‘There is one other thing I would like to know, Mr Van Kendrick. Who is my father?'

Van stiffened, setting his glass down on a small octagonal drinks table. But when he looked up his face was as pragmatic as ever.

‘I am afraid I can't tell you that. It is something we have never discussed. Now I am afraid I must ask you to excuse me.'

At that precise moment the door of the apartment opened. Neither of them had heard the footsteps on the stairs; now a young woman stood there. For a brief, unthinking moment Mac wondered if it was Dinah, changed her mind and come to meet him after all, then he realised it could not be.

Dinah must be in her forties at least; this woman was much younger, probably no older than he was. He saw dark hair, sharply cut and slightly damp from the fog, a clear-featured face, and scarlet lips which gave her colour and vitality. She was wearing a bright-red swing coat with the collar turned up against the cold so that it framed that bright, alive, glowing face.

‘Oh – I'm sorry!' she said. ‘I didn't know there would be anyone here.'

‘It's all right, Ros. My visitor was just leaving.' Van moved towards her, ushered her in, one hand lying proprietorially on her scarlet-wool-covered shoulder. ‘My personal assistant, Ros Newman. We have some work to catch up on – agendas for a meeting tomorrow and some correspondence that can't wait. I did explain when you arrived that I could only spare you a few minutes.'

Work my foot! Mac thought. If she's come to his city retreat to talk about agendas, I'm the Flying Dutchman! No wonder he was so anxious to get rid of me.

‘I'm sorry to have troubled you,' he said coldly. ‘You need not worry that I shall do so again. I will be on the train back to Scotland in the morning. And perhaps you would tell my mother from me that the last thing I intended was to cause her distress. Though of course she might also like to know that I have made a good life for myself without her help.'

He saw Van wince, saw the girl's puzzled expression, and felt only triumph. He shouldn't have said it but he felt he owed them a parting shot.

As he went down the stairs he heard the door of the apartment shut behind him. Outside, the cold, clammy fog closed around him, making him shiver, and he realised he felt totally numb.

So – that was it. End of story. Dinah did not want to meet him and who could blame her? He was a part of her life that she wanted to forget and he must forget it too. Mac resolved to return to Aberdeen and put the whole episode out of his mind.

‘Well?' Steve greeted him when he arrived back at the house they shared in Aberdeen. ‘ How did you get on?'

‘I didn't.'

‘What do you mean? What was she like?'

‘I never got to meet her. Van Kendrick, her husband, summoned me to his bachelor flat and warned me off in no uncertain terms.'

‘Oh.'

‘Yes – oh. Completely wasted journey. So that, I guess, is the end of that.'

Steve was silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘You think it came from her?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well – you think she knew that you were there?'

‘Of course. Why shouldn't she?'

‘The letter you had was signed by him, wasn't it? Perhaps she never got to see your letter. Perhaps he intercepted it.'

‘Why should he do that?'

‘I haven't a clue. But people do strange things and he could have his reasons. Could be he's the one who doesn't want the past raked up.'

‘Could be, I suppose. But he definitely said she didn't want to be reminded of her indiscretions. He was very protective.'