Old Sins (105 page)

‘Good morning,’ said Phaedria. ‘It’s very good of you to see me at such short notice. Thank you.’

‘Joan said you sounded – well, not entirely happy. I do like to help when I can.’

‘I’m – well – I’m all right. It’s just that – well I do have a – problem.’

Margaret drew a pad towards her. ‘Let’s start with a few details, shall we? Now your full name is –?’

‘Phaedria Morell.’

‘And you’re – forgive me, but I do read the papers, Julian Morell’s widow?’ The dark eyes looked at Phaedria, politely non-committal.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so sorry. It must be a very difficult time for you.’

‘Well,’ said Phaedria, with a rather tight little smile, ‘it certainly isn’t easy.’

‘And you’re pregnant.’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you feel?’

‘Awful.’

‘I’m not surprised. Would you like some tea?’

‘No, thank you. Do you have any lemons?’

‘I do. In hot water?’

‘Yes, please.’

She ordered Joan rather briskly to bring in some hot water and lemon and then sat back in her chair. ‘Now then. Where should we begin?’

‘About fifteen years ago,’ said Phaedria.

‘I’m sorry?’

Phaedria smiled. ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry. I must be a terrible shock to you. There’s nothing wrong with me. At least I don’t think so. Not psychiatrically. It’s just that – oh, it’s such a bizarre story. I don’t know where to begin. You may not be able to help at all.’

‘Let me try.’

‘Well, about fifteen years ago, my husband came to see you.’

‘Yes, he did. Did he tell you that himself?’

‘No. His secretary told me. You see, my husband has left a very complicated will. This is – ? She looked awkward. ‘Confidential?’

‘Yes. Yes of course.’

‘Well, we are trying to trace someone. Someone he left an important legacy to. We thought you might be able to help.’

‘I can’t imagine how.’

‘Well, my husband was – well, rather a complex man. He was not at all straightforward.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Anyway, his secretary knew he had been seeing you in – oh, I think 1971. We thought – that is I thought – if you could tell me why, what he came about, it might throw a bit of light on his life.’

‘Possibly,’ said Margaret Friedman carefully.

‘Oh, I feel so silly,’ said Phaedria suddenly. ‘You must think I’m mad.’

‘On the contrary, I think you’re very sane. You should see some of the others, as they say. And I do assure you no story comes as a surprise to me.’

‘Well,’ said Phaedria, ‘let’s get down to basics. Do you – could you remember why my husband came to see you?’

‘I’m not sure. I’d have to look out his notes.’

‘Could you do that?’

‘Well, I could certainly look them out. I think before I committed myself to talking to you very much more, I’d have to know a bit more about you.’

‘Why?’ said Phaedria, her eyes wide with disappointment.

‘Well, you may seem very stable. I’m sure you are. But you must realize I might – I’m not saying I necessarily would be – I might be promising to tell you something which would make you very unstable indeed.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t anything really ghastly. It couldn’t have been. Someone would have known.’

‘You’d be surprised, Lady Morell – how people don’t know about ghastly things. Close their minds to them. Tell themselves they can’t be true. Of course I’m not suggesting your husband was a murderer or anything. But I can’t give you a blanket promise to tell you whatever it was he came to see me about without knowing you a little better . . .’ She smiled. ‘When’s the baby due?’

‘November.’

‘Then we must take care of you. Where are you having it?’

‘St Mary’s, Paddington. The Lindo Wing.’

‘Very sensible. Now, what I’d like to do is have a chat with you now, learn a little more about you, and then if you can come back in a day or two, I’ll have looked at your husband’s notes, and I can talk to you with a bit more confidence.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Phaedria, her voice suddenly shaky, ‘look, I can see that you have to be careful, but honestly I am very stable, I don’t need counselling, I just want to unravel this mystery. I can’t stand it much longer. I don’t see why you won’t help.’

She suddenly burst into tears; Margaret Friedman sat and handed her tissues and watched her sympathetically for a few
minutes. Then she said, ‘You may not need counselling, but you do need help. Why don’t you begin at the beginning? I honestly think it’ll make you feel better.’

When Phaedria had left, an hour later, she got out the files on Julian Morell. She felt she owed it to herself to check through them. But as she had known, there was no need. She could remember absolutely everything that was in them.

Phaedria was fast asleep when the phone rang.

‘Phaedria? It’s C. J.’

‘C. J., it’s two in the morning.’

‘I know. I’m sorry to wake you. But I have some news.’

He heard her snap into wakefulness. ‘What? C. J., what? Where are you?’

‘In New York, at Sutton Place.’

‘Oh, God, of course you are. I’m sorry. I’d forgotten for a moment. Well, go on, what have you found?’

‘Something quite strange. In Julian’s desk.’

‘What? For God’s sake, C. J., what?’

‘Well, I thought I’d wasted my time at first. Nothing in it remotely interesting. Then I was fiddling about with one of the small top drawers, it seemed to be too shallow somehow, and – well, it had a spring back, and there inside it, right at the very back, was a box. A locked document box.’

‘And?’

‘I’m afraid I forced it open and there were some pretty odd things inside.’

‘What sort of odd?’

‘Well, a few snapshots of a little boy. No name or anything.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘Fairly standard. Blond hair. Snub nose. Nice smile.’

‘And? What else?’

‘A card announcing his birth, at least I presume it was his birth. It was him, he was Miles. Miles Wilburn. Born 1958. In Santa Monica. Los Angeles.’

‘Oh, God. C. J., who is he? What is all this? Who was this card from?’

‘Someone called Dean. Dean Wilburn. Saying come and see us soon.’

‘Does it give an address?’

‘No. You know those cards, Phaedria, they’re just name, weight and date and time. Nothing helpful like an address, for us detectives to discover.’

‘You’re a great detective, C. J. You really are. You should take it up for a living. I can’t believe all this. But what on earth, what on earth does it mean? Does it say where he was born, this child?’

‘Yeah, St John’s Hospital, Santa Monica.’

‘Well, maybe we could track them – him down through there.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah, a cutting from a newspaper, an obituary of someone called Lee Wilburn. The usual thing, you know, after an illness, bravely borne. Beloved mother of Miles.’

Phaedria was silent for a minute.

‘Poor Lee, whoever she was. Poor Miles. What year was that?’

‘Um, let’s see, 1971.’

‘So Miles would only have been, what, thirteen. How sad. What about his father?’

‘No mention of him. Not even in the obit.’

‘Oh, C. J., I don’t understand any of this. None of it.’

‘Neither do I. And then there’s one more thing, a list of graduations from the University of Berkeley in 1980 listing Miles Wilburn. He got a summa cum laude in Maths. He’s obviously not dumb. Whoever he is.’

‘I always said he wouldn’t be,’ said Phaedria. ‘No more photographs?’

‘None. Julian obviously believed in keeping his memorabilia to a minimum. Whatever it was all about. Look, I really have to go and see my mother tomorrow, but I’ll fly straight back the next day. We can talk then. And decide what to do next. Go down to LA or whatever. I just had to let you know.’

‘Of course. Oh, C. J., what on earth do all these people have to do with Julian? It’s so mysterious. Oh, God, now I don’t know whether to be pleased or worried.’

‘I think you should be pleased. Otherwise, I’m wasting an awful lot of time and effort.’

She smiled, and he could hear her mood briefly lightening. ‘All right, I’ll be pleased.’

‘Good night, Phaedria.’

‘Good night, C. J. Sleep well. And thank you.’

Phaedria couldn’t go back to sleep. She lay tossing, uncomfortable, agitated, with visions of a small boy with blond hair dancing before her eyes, and the words ‘beloved mother of Miles’ flickering fretfully inside her head.

Roz looked round the boardroom. Phaedria was at one end of the table, Richard Brookes at the other. Susan, Freddy Branksome and George Hanover, sales director of the entire group, were sitting side by side with their backs to the window. They all, even Phaedria, had their eyes fixed on her face. She was, in that moment, Susan thought, extraordinarily like her father, determined, utterly in control, fixing their attention on her.

‘I want to discuss the pharmaceutical division,’ she said. ‘I think we could be missing some valuable opportunities for expansion.’

This was Roz’s latest game, and tactically important in her war against Phaedria. She would fix on some aspect of the company, study it fiercely for days, acquaint herself with every possible detail of its strengths and weaknesses, and then pounce, call a meeting to discuss it, with the least possible warning. She would ask for comments on profitability, potential growth, she would suggest investment programmes, advertising campaigns, plant expansions, training programmes, she would argue for diversification, she would demand absolutely up-to-the-minute reports on stock holdings, budget controls, market shares, she would criticize salary levels, and then at the end of it she would sit down with an expression of huge satisfaction on her face and ask someone else for their comments on the subject in hand.

The whole thing was a piece of theatre, and staged for the benefit of nobody but herself; the time it wasted was enormous, the benefit it brought to each of the companies minimal, indeed it was often disruptive, because she always insisted on some changes being made, albeit minor, but for a few hours every week she was absolutely in command, displaying her knowledge which was formidable, and her intellect which was considerable. It also left Phaedria visibly confused and
demoralized, her modest knowledge of the company and her lack of the skills, knowledge and the politicking power of her rival openly displayed.

She was clearly losing confidence now; she would make a statement, Roz would contest it, express a view, have it demolished. Richard and Freddy and even Susan, with her determined fondness for Roz, her support for her cause, watched this slaughter with distaste. Roz had the big guns on her side; Phaedria was confronting her with an elegant but ineffectual blank-firing pistol.

Phaedria made her way wearily up to the penthouse and let herself in. She drank the iced Perrier Sarah had left for her, ignored the prawn salad, and lay down on the bed in the small room off the main office. She wondered how much longer she could go on. How much more public humiliation she could take, how many more blows at her self-esteem she would have to force herself to endure.

And besides, what was she doing it for? C. J. had been right, she could so easily give in, let Roz have the company, just go away somewhere and enjoy herself, have her baby in peace, bring it up somewhere far removed from this nightmare of intrigue and politicking and self-doubt.

It was a monstrous legacy, and one that had very little to offer her. And just where was bloody bloody Miles Wilburn, was she ever going to find out what his part was in the nightmare, and even if she did, then what? What good did she think he could do her? How was she to get hold of his two per cent anyway? Would she have to marry him? Buy him? How could you have done this to me, Julian Morell, she thought, exposed me to this pain, this humiliation.

How he must have despised her. He certainly couldn’t have loved her. Bastard! She found herself thinking in these terms more and more these days. If he walked in here now, she thought, I’d kill him! Then the irony of that struck her and she smiled suddenly; she relaxed on to the bed. Deep within her the child stirred, the strange sweet fluttering she waited to feel day by day, entranced by its increasing strength and urgency; it made the whole thing somehow bearable; worth while, important.

‘We’ll do it,’ she said aloud, looking down at the considerable hump which was now situated where her flat stomach had been, stroking it tenderly, smiling at it. ‘We’ll do it. For your daddy’s sake. No, not for your daddy’s sake, forget I said that. For your mother’s. I’m the one that counts around here. Don’t you forget it.’ She closed her eyes; she felt her head slowly skimming into the lack of coherent thought that means sleep is imminent. She allowed her mind to wander; she thought about the little boy with blond hair, the woman, the beloved mother. Poor Lee, she thought drowsily, poor Lee. Dying so young. In – 1971. The words formed a refrain in her head: Dying so young in 71, dying so young in 71.

And then she sat up suddenly alert, her heart thudding, her hands damp. In 1971. Lee had died in 1971. The year Sarah had said Julian had been so depressed. When he had begun to go to Doctor Friedman.

She turned on the bed, reached for the phone, dialled Doctor Friedman’s number feverishly, her mind a tumult.

‘Mrs Durrant? Could I speak to Doctor Friedman, please? This is Lady Morell. Yes, it’s very very urgent. Very urgent indeed.’

London, Nassau, Los Angeles, New York, 1985

‘
NASSAU
?’
SAID ROZ
. ‘Nassau? Are you sure?’

Andrew Blackworth was used to being patient. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m quite sure, Nassau is where Bill Wilburn last saw his nephew.’

‘Well, go to Nassau, of course,’ said Roz impatiently. ‘I don’t care in the least how expensive it all is. You seem to be doing quite well. Do you have anything further in the way of information, or is it just Nassau?’

‘Nothing at all. But I don’t see that as an insurmountable obstacle.’

‘No, I would hope not. Yes, do go on down there, Mr
Blackworth. At least for a few days. Keep in touch though, won’t you? I don’t want you to disappear utterly.’