Mindsight (24 page)

‘Not exactly, but please let him know Clare Glazier is here. I can wait, if he’s busy.’

With eyebrows still raised she picked up the phone. ‘Please take a seat.’ I wandered towards the door that used to lead to the executives’ offices, feeling her eyes on my back, but she called out, ‘He’ll be with you in a moment.’

It was only a matter of seconds before the door opened and Matt came out, looking every inch the corporate man in his striped shirt, and blue tie. His smile was the same, though, and he seemed genuinely pleased to see me, grabbing me into the familiar bear hug. ‘Clare, this is a surprise, but you couldn’t have timed it better. I’ve just had a meeting cancelled and I need an excuse to avoid the paperwork.’

He led me through the door and along the corridor. His office was opposite the one Dad used to have, with new furniture, but otherwise just like Dad’s. ‘Come in, come in.’ He pointed to a black leather sofa and opened a door to call through, ‘Sandy, can you bring us a couple of coffees, please.’ He grinned back at me. ‘And make one of them very strong.’

He sat on the armchair opposite, his long legs stretched out. ‘I was really sorry to miss you in Cumbria, but I’m guessing this isn’t just a social visit.’

‘Did Emily tell you what I said?’

‘That you want to find out everything you can about the situation here at the time of the accident? Yes, she did.’ His secretary came through with the coffee and he paused, smiling and thanking her, before turning to me again.

‘She called it probing the wound,’ I said. ‘And it must seem like that to you but, I’m sorry, Matt, I have to do it.’

He sighed and picked up his coffee cup. ‘All that stuff about total honesty and facing facts has always seemed overrated to me, and I can still remember the way people were after the accident. It was awful, Clare, do you really need to keep reminding them?’

As I went to speak, he held up his hand. ‘Oh I know it was dreadful for you and I can’t begin to imagine how it’s affected Tom. But Emily was devastated too and so were her parents. And Emily thinks Alice has only begun to recover properly in the last couple of years. At the beginning we worried she wouldn’t get through it.’

‘And I suppose you think I’m too wrapped up in myself to care about the rest of you?’

He gave me a gentle smile. ‘It would be understandable if you were.’ He seemed to be waiting for me to speak, but when I didn’t he shook his head. ‘OK, you win, I know you’re trying to do what’s right for Tom. So ask away and I’ll answer if I can.’

I took a long drink of my coffee, put down the cup, and forced myself to meet his eyes. ‘First I should tell you, I’ve seen the DVD of your wedding. I borrowed it when I was at your house.’

‘Emily didn’t mention it.’

‘That’s because I took it without telling her.’

Another headshake and the hint of a smile, but this time it was grim rather than gentle. ‘I see. Well, neither of us has ever looked at it. The police had it for a while and when they finally gave it back to us we couldn’t bring ourselves to watch. So did it help?’

I didn’t blame him for being angry. ‘It confirmed that I was high when I left the reception, but seemed perfectly happy most of the day, which was only what I expected. There are other things, though, little things that might be important, and I need to look at them again.’

He carried on drinking his coffee, his eyes fixed on my face. I spoke carefully, making sure I said it the way I’d planned, making it sound more definite than it was. ‘Something I did notice was the tension between you and Dad. What happened?’

He stood and walked over to sit on the front of his desk, hands in his pockets. After a couple of minutes he raised his shoulders and let them fall again on a gusty breath. ‘It was a bad time here – you know that already. I’d always got on well with Robert and he was very pleased about Emily and me. But I saw what was happening with Dr Penrose, not to mention those poor devils affected by Briomab, and their families. I wasn’t supposed to do it, but I checked Penrose’s results and I was sure he was right. The final report had been altered.’

‘So did you tell Dad?’

‘Tried to, but he wouldn’t listen.’ He paced back to me. ‘And I was a fucking coward, Clare, and did nothing. Let poor old Penrose go it alone and get shafted.’ He sat opposite again, leaning forward with his hands clasped on his knees. ‘Then I found out about the huge payment to Gardner, the families’ rep, and I went to see your dad again. Same story, he told me I’d got it all wrong. Said it was all a pack of lies that Global was spreading to discredit the firm.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing, chickened out yet again.’ He leaned back, scrubbing at his face so that red blotches showed through the tan. ‘But that was when Global offered me a job. I think Robert found out and assumed I’d been having talks with them all along. He thought I was going to get out, then shoot my mouth off.’

‘Were you?’

‘Honestly? I didn’t know what to do. And then, of course, there was the accident.’

‘So you’re saying Dad was corrupt?’

‘I’m sure he didn’t think of it like that. He was fighting for the firm. I’ve been in the business world long enough to understand that sometimes you do have to be ruthless. But I was still just an idealistic young chemist in those days. I went into this work to help people, not to make money.’

I sat for a moment, until Matt moved beside me on the sofa. ‘And, you know, I still don’t really understand commerce, or like what it does to people. Despite all this,’ he waved a hand to take in the spacious office, ‘like I told you, I’m trying to get out.’

But he had certainly done well as a result of the takeover. ‘Global didn’t keep on too many Parnell staff, did they?’

‘And there were plenty of the old guard who called me a traitor, but after what I’d seen, what I suspected, I felt no loyalty to Parnell. So I make no apologies for that.’

Lorna’s hospital was a private place and her room looked out onto grass and trees. She was propped up in bed with one leg heavily bandaged. As the nurse showed me in, she held out her hands to me, her smile hesitant, ‘Hello, Clare, my love. Sorry, I can’t get up.’

I stayed at a distance. ‘How are you?’

Her hands fell back into her lap. ‘Pretty well, considering. They say I’m making good progress.’

I moved to look out of the window. I had been tempted to press Matt again about who might have had amphetamines at the wedding, but after his reaction last time it seemed pointless. And in any case that must be what Lorna wanted to tell me.

I turned to her and she cleared her throat. ‘Please, Clare, I need to know if we’re still friends.’

I sat on the chair next to the bed and looked into her dark eyes. This was still my dear, dear Lorna and who was I to judge her? I smiled, ‘Of course we are.’ My voice had trembled and when I touched her hand she gripped mine and closed her eyes. I did the same and we sat for a while, the squeaks from a trolley passing in the corridor outside the only sounds.

I cleared my throat. My stomach was churning because what she had to tell me must be something big. I had to make it easy for her to be completely honest. ‘Lorna, I think I know what you’re going to say. It’s about how I might have got the drugs, isn’t it? But please don’t worry, I won’t get angry and I won’t start accusing anyone. I just need to know. Emily said she thought there were people there who might be self-medicating and I could easily have pinched the stuff. If that’s the case then they wouldn’t be to blame.’

She glanced away from me, then back with a shake of her head. ‘You’ll have to ask her about that.’

‘So she never said anything to you?’

Lorna shifted and winced, her hand coming up to smooth her hair in that familiar gesture. ‘She did tell me something similar after the trial. She had an idea who might have had amphetamines at the reception. I think she tried to raise it with you when she visited the prison, but you wouldn’t listen.’

I couldn’t remember it, but then I’d been very angry with Emily in those early days because she seemed to be trying to persuade me to accept my guilt and I was still convinced there must be some other explanation.

Lorna took a deep breath. ‘But that isn’t why I asked you to come.’ She pointed to a notepad and pen on the little table beside the bed. ‘I was going to write to you, but how to explain something like this in a letter?’

I was scared now. ‘What is it then? Something to do with Dad?’

She folded her hands under her chin as if in prayer. ‘You know about Robert and me already. We were in love for so many years, but it petered out, and when your mother died it was long over. But we were still close and he knew how much I loved you and Alice, so we often talked about you.’ She twisted her fingers together. ‘Oh dear, this is so difficult and I’m still not sure I should be telling you.’

‘Lorna, please, what is it?’

She took a shuddering breath. ‘There’s no way to make this easy, so I’ll just say it.’

I looked into her eyes and the Earth stopped turning.

‘Clare, my love,’ she said. ‘You were, you are, your father’s real daughter.’

The world rocked, and I think I let out some kind of cry. The silence that followed her words was denser than any silence I’d known. It was as if I had been struck deaf and all I could do was stare at her.

The only thing that made sense at this moment was her smile – such a tender smile.

‘So you? You’re … ’

She shook her head. ‘Oh no, my darling, I wish so much I could say I was your mother, but, I’m not. I didn’t even know about it till he told me the last time we spoke properly.’

I fumbled for my bag, pulling out a bottle of water and swilling the warm liquid down my bone dry throat. Then I began to pace the little room, knocking my thigh on the end of the high bed. It hurt one of my old bruises and I was glad of the pain. ‘So my mother
was
Romanian?’

There was the ghost of a laugh in her voice. ‘I doubt it, but I don’t think she was from this country. He said he met her at a conference in Italy and they used to get together abroad whenever they could. She died, I’m afraid, and Robert felt he should take you on. The Romanian story was for your mum, for Elizabeth’s benefit.’

‘And to hide it from everyone else.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. But, Clare, he loved you. And he told me he loved this woman – your mother – too.’

‘Why didn’t he tell me then, when Mum died?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose it was difficult after so long, but he was going to tell you some time over the wedding weekend. I have no idea why he decided to do it just then either. Maybe it was that heart scare he had.’

‘And you’ve never thought to say anything to me or Alice during the past five years?’

‘Of course, I’ve thought about it, but I couldn’t because, you see, I’ve always wondered if he
did
tell you, and that was what sent you over the edge that night.’

A cold stillness came over me as her words penetrated and I saw what this meant. It was the answer to the question that had tortured me all these years. The thing that had been so shocking, so world shattering, that it could have turned me back into the angry teenager I had once been.

Lorna’s voice cut through my frozen brain. ‘You said you needed to know everything.’

All I could do was whisper, ‘Yes, I did.’

‘Maybe I should have spoken up before, but it wasn’t my secret to tell and I had no idea what damage it might do.’

I could hear her words, but there was a buzzing in my head, like a bad radio signal. ‘And I had the impression he was going to tell Alice first,’ she said. ‘Afterwards, after the trial, I talked to her, trying to give her a chance to say if she did know, but it seemed obvious she didn’t, so I guessed he’d changed his mind and I felt I had to respect that.’

We sat in silence for a while then Lorna reached for my hand and squeezed it. ‘Did I do the right thing in telling you?’

‘Yes,’ I could only whisper the word because it hurt so much. ‘It could explain everything.’

‘But remember, we don’t know if he did tell you.’

I wanted to scream at her, but I wasn’t sure whether it was to beg her to take it back – to unsay it – or to ask her why, oh why, she hadn’t said something sooner.

‘Clare my love, I won’t stop thinking about that night and the days leading up to it. If I can remember anything at all that might give you something more positive, I’ll let you know. I promise.’

It was a pointless promise. I guessed we both knew that. She’d supplied the missing piece, the reason I’d been searching for, the shattering news that could have sent me in search of chemical comfort. And nothing could change that.

I leaned over to kiss her as I said goodbye and she clutched at my hands and held them, looking deep into my eyes so I couldn’t turn away. ‘Goodbye, my darling. I hope I’ve done the right thing.’ I could only nod.

When I turned at the door she was leaning back in bed, still watching me, and I wanted nothing more than to run into her arms: to have her say everything would be all right, the way she always used to.

I was hardly aware of travelling back to Hastings, but somehow I got there. When I came out of the station I couldn’t bear to go back to the flat, but I needed somewhere to sit and think.

I remembered the little café perched on the cliff edge of the West Hill. The climb would take more energy than I had today but this hill, like its eastern twin, had an old funicular lift. I walked to the tiny station and bought my ticket.

Thankfully, I was on my own in the cabin as it clanked up the steep slope, the wooden bench hard on my bruises. But it was only minutes to the top and, as I’d hoped, it was almost deserted up here today. The café, though, was open and I took my tea and a bowl of soup out onto the small terrace that felt to be almost hanging over the cliff edge.

The sea was bright blue, as still as a piece of wrinkled silk thrown out along the shoreline. I sipped my soup, putting off the moment when I would have to face my thoughts. A gull landed heavily on the table next to mine, huge wings flapping for a moment as it fought to regain its balance, its eyes pinpoints of jet following the movement of my spoon. I groaned and pushed the soup away and the gull hopped onto my table, staring, with what looked like disgust, into my half-empty bowl.