Old Sins (116 page)

Henry Winterbourne had just come in to the office when Miles called. He and Caroline had been celebrating their fourteenth wedding anniversary the previous evening; the combination of the effect of a bottle of champagne each, a bottle of beaune over dinner, several large brandies, and Caroline’s refusal to mark the occasion in what seemed to him a more appropriate manner later in bed, had left him bad-tempered as well as severely overhung.

He snatched up the phone when it rang, and nursing his head with the other hand, spoke tetchily into it. ‘Yes?’

‘Er, Mr Winterbourne,’ said the temporary secretary, who was filling in until Jane came back from holiday on Monday, and easily frightened. ‘There’s a long distance call for you. From Miami. The name is Wilburn, Mr Winterbourne. Miles Wilburn.’

Henry forgot his hangover.

‘Good Christ. Put him on.’

The voice that came three thousand miles over the wires to him was a charming, slightly husky, Californian drawl.

‘Hi,’ it said.

‘Er, good morning,’ said Henry.

‘This is Miles Wilburn. I believe you wanted me to contact you.’

‘I did. Where are you calling from?’

‘Coconut Grove, Miami.’

‘Would you – shall I call you back? Give me your number.’

‘Oh, you can’t do that, I’m in a call box.’

‘Then ring off and call me back, reversing the charges.’

‘OK. That’s really nice of you.’

Whoever he was, Henry thought, he had nice manners.

‘Right,’ he said, slightly more himself by the time the international operator had put Miles through. ‘Tell me why you’re calling now. We’ve been trying to reach you for months.’

‘Oh, it’s a long story. I only just heard you were looking for me. My grandmother’s friend had been keeping letters and stuff from me. She’s a little confused.’

‘I see. Do you have any idea why we’re looking for you?’

‘None at all,’ said Miles.

‘Have you ever met – did you ever meet – Sir Julian Morell?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sir Julian Morell – did you know him?’

‘No I didn’t. I never even heard of him. I kind of thought this must be something to do with Mr Dashwood.’

‘Ah.’ Henry thought quickly. The mysterious Mr Dashwood surfacing again. Who the hell was he? Why did all these Americans know him? ‘Was – is Mr Dashwood related to you?’

‘He certainly isn’t.’ Miles sounded just mildly put out. ‘He’s just – well, what you might call a family friend. I suppose.’

‘I see,’ said Henry again. His headache was returning. ‘Well, Mr Wilburn, we obviously have a lot to talk about. Can you give us evidence that you are indeed Miles Wilburn?’

‘I have a birth certificate. Would that do?’

‘Very probably,’ said Henry carefully. ‘I think that you should come to London. My secretary will book you a flight immediately. Do you have a passport?’

‘I certainly do.’

‘Excellent. Then I suggest you come straight here on Monday. Providing we can get you on a flight on Sunday. From – where? Miami?’

‘No,’ said Miles. ‘I’ll be in Nassau.’

‘Fine. And I will have a car meet you at London Heathrow.’

‘OK,’ said Miles. ‘That’s really nice of you. Goodbye, Mr Winterbourne.’

Henry thought he had never, in twenty-five years of practice, come across anybody quite so unemotional. Or what was the expression they used in California? Laid back. Yes, that was it.

Well, how extraordinary. After all these months. Good God, he must let Roz know. He rang the Morell offices to discover that she was in New York. What about Phaedria: she would like to know. But it was the middle of the night in California; he would ring her later. Meanwhile he wanted his coffee extremely badly.

Later, Phaedria was out; she had taken the car and not said when she would be back. She was usually back by evening, would they have her call him?

But he and Caroline were leaving for Paris for the weekend,
to further celebrate their anniversary. No, he would surprise everybody on Monday morning.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s all right. No message.’

‘Stay there,’ said Roz, jumping up, holding up her hand as if to prohibit him from suddenly vanishing again, ‘don’t go away.’

‘I just flew three thousand miles to come to this place. I’m not going away until I find out what I’m doing here,’ said Miles with a second, yet more dazzling smile.

‘Would you like a coffee?’

‘I certainly would. Black, no sugar.’

‘I’ll go and get it. Just wait here.’

Miles looked after her as she disappeared down the corridor, puzzled by her agitation, and then shrugged. He had heard the English were a little tense. Old Hugo had always seemed rather stiff and awkward. If they were all as uptight as this girl, he wasn’t going to enjoy them too much. She was interesting-looking, though. Not good-looking exactly, but she had a lot of style. She reminded him of someone and he couldn’t think who.

Roz came back into the office, a coffee cup in either hand.

‘There,’ she said. ‘I hope it’s OK.’

‘It will be. Pan American coffee tastes like gnat’s piss. Not,’ he added, smiling at her, ‘that I’ve ever actually tasted gnat’s piss.’

Roz sat down again at her desk and gazed at him in total silence. She couldn’t stop. Partly because of his remarkable looks, and partly because she couldn’t believe he was really there. Miles met her gaze steadily, a sliver of amusement in his dark blue eyes; then finally he smiled. ‘Will I do?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Do I pass? Have you examined me enough yet?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Roz, smiling back. ‘Do forgive me. It’s just that – well, we’ve been looking for you for so long, it seems odd that you should just – well, materialize. Like a ghost or something.’

‘Nothing ghostly about me,’ said Miles cheerfully. ‘Feel.’ He held out a brown hand. Roz took it, shook it, laughing.

‘How do you do. I’m Rosamund Emerson.’

‘Pleased to meet you. You know who I am. So you’re not one of the Morells?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Roz quickly. ‘Yes, I am really. I’m Julian Morell’s daughter.’

‘Ah. So who is this guy?’

‘You really don’t know?’ said Roz, astonished, disbelieving, even after all the accumulated evidence, that the link between Miles Wilburn and Julian Morell was still so absolutely inexplicable.

‘No. Why should I?’

‘Well, because –’ Roz stopped, suddenly aware of the need for a degree of caution. ‘Oh, it’s terribly complicated. The lawyers should really tell you.’

‘Oh God!’ He put his hand to his forehead in horror. ‘I forgot. I was supposed to be met by your lawyer’s car this morning at Heathrow. But I got an earlier flight out of Nassau. He’ll be sitting there wetting himself, I would imagine. Can we do anything about that?’

‘Oh, so Henry knew you were coming?’ said Roz. ‘Why the hell didn’t he tell us?’

‘I really don’t know that. But what about this poor guy in the car?’

‘Oh, you don’t want to worry about him,’ said Roz briskly. ‘He’s paid to sit and wait for people.’

‘Some job,’ said Miles. ‘I don’t envy him. Well maybe we should try and tell your lawyers anyway.’

‘Yes, we should. But Henry won’t be up yet even. He keeps academic hours. Don’t worry, we’ll call later. Are you hungry?’

‘I certainly am.’

‘I am too. Let’s go and get some breakfast. Now let’s see –’ she looked at him doubtfully – ‘they won’t let you into the Connaught in those clothes. Or the Ritz. Oh, God, where can we go?’

‘Mrs Emerson, I only want a coffee and some bacon. Do you have to wear a dinner suit for that in England?’

Roz laughed. ‘Sorry. Practically yes, if it’s high-class coffee and bacon.’

‘Then let’s go find some of the lower-class kind.’

‘All right. We’ll go to Shepherds’ Market. And I don’t really answer to Mrs Emerson. Call me Roz.’

‘OK.’

‘What I want to know,’ she said as he swooped hungrily into a plate of bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried bread at one of the early morning sandwich bars in Shepherd’s Market, ‘is how you found us in Dover Street?’

‘Oh, well, your stuffed shirt of a lawyer kept mentioning Morell. I got into Heathrow early, didn’t know what to do, checked through the phone book and there it was. The Morell Corporation, Julian Morell Industrials, God knows what else. I decided it was worth a try. That somebody might be here. And I was right. Which was nice,’ he added, smiling, ‘very nice.’

Roz was suddenly aware of a warmth in her, comforting her, cheering her. ‘Nice for me too,’ she said. He held her gaze for a moment with his lazy blue eyes; just slightly discomfited, she looked away.

‘So where is Mr Emerson?’ asked Miles, pushing his empty plate back, looking hopefully in his empty coffee cup. ‘Don’t they do refills round here?’

‘Mr Emerson is in New York,’ said Roz in tones that totally discouraged further questioning on the subject, ‘and no, I’m afraid England has not yet discovered the secret of eternal coffee. Not yet. Some of us are working on it. Let me get you another one.’

She picked up his cup and walked over to the counter with it. Miles watched her. She certainly had a great pair of legs. Nearly as good as Candy’s. No, correction. Better than Candy’s. Miles was a leg man.

‘There. Good and strong. How are you feeling?’

‘Fine.’ He seemed surprised by the question. ‘Shouldn’t I be?’

Roz smiled. ‘Most people complain about feeling tired when they’ve done a ten-hour flight.’

‘Yeah, well I’m young and strong.’ He grinned at her. ‘Could I have some toast or something?’

‘Yes of course.’ She called over to the girl behind the counter. ‘Three rounds of toast please. With butter.

‘Just exactly how old are you anyway?’ she said, turning back to him.

‘Twenty-seven.’

‘You look younger.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘You look older.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean to be rude,’ he said hastily. ‘I’m sorry. But you do look kind of – well, shot up. Tired. You look like you could do with some Californian sunshine.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Roz, ‘I would just adore some Californian sunshine.’

‘You should go there. Seriously. It would do you good.’

‘That’s where you come from isn’t it?’

‘Now how do you know that?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you’d be surprised what a lot we know about you.’

‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘Why do I matter so much?’

‘I swear we’ll tell you very soon.’

‘So how did you find out where I came from?’

‘A roundabout route. From your uncle is the short answer.’

‘Who, old Bill, up in San Francisco? How on earth did you track him down?’

‘He answered the advertisement in – let’s see, July, I suppose it must have been.’

‘Old bastard,’ said Miles. ‘He didn’t tell me.’

‘Why, when did you see him?’

‘Heard from him about then. No, maybe it was the end of June.’

‘I’m very sorry about him,’ said Roz.

‘What about him?’

‘Oh, Miles, I’m sorry. Didn’t you know? He – he’s dead.’

‘Dead! He can’t be.’

‘Yes, he is. He was killed in a car crash.’

‘Oh God,’ said Miles. ‘No, I had no idea. But why didn’t somebody tell me?’

‘I don’t know. Who could have told you? He didn’t seem to have anybody in the world.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe somebody did, and the letter got holed up with all the others by old Marcia.’

‘Who is Marcia?’

‘A crazy old woman my grandmother lives with. She had a whole stack of letters addressed to me and my grandmother, all the newspaper cuttings people had sent from all over. Oh, God.
Poor old Bill. He was good to me. He’d just lent me some money.’

He looked upset; his brilliant blue eyes were distant, shadowed. Roz put out her hand and covered his. ‘I’m really really sorry.’

He smiled at her slightly shakily. ‘It’s OK. We weren’t that close. Just a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

‘How exactly was he related to you?’

‘He was my dad’s cousin.’

‘And you and your dad and your mother lived in LA?’

‘Yup. Santa Monica.’

‘But they’re both dead?’

‘Yup.’ He looked at her and grinned. ‘It’s all right, I don’t really feel like the tragic orphan. It was so long ago. I can hardly remember my dad dying. My mom – well that was a long time too, but I remember it – her more clearly.’

‘Tell me about her,’ said Roz.

‘Oh, she was really pretty. She had blonde hair, and very blue eyes, and she was kind of fun. She was always laughing. She gave me a real nice childhood. She loved the beach, we were there a lot. We lived very near the ocean.’

‘And she died of – what?’

‘Cancer.’ He was silent, for a moment, the memory suddenly brought sharply into focus. ‘She was awfully young, only forty-three.’

‘And you were – what?’

‘Thirteen. Just a little bitty boy.’ He sighed, then smiled at her. ‘It was very very sad. I remember just longing to die too, so I could be with her again. I missed her so terribly.’

‘So after your mother died, you and your grandmother lived in Los Angeles?’

‘For about three years. Then we went out to Malibu. This old guy, Hugo Dashwood, he thought I was getting in to bad company in Santa Monica. He bought the house in Malibu for us.’

‘He sounds a very generous person,’ said Roz thoughtfully. ‘Who was he?’

‘Oh, a friend of my parents.’

‘He must have been quite rich.’

‘Yeah, I guess so. He paid for me to go through college as well.’

‘This man – this Hugo Dashwood. What was he like?’

‘Oh, he was English,’ said Miles. ‘Very English.’

‘Where did he live?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know! He bought you houses and sent you to college and you don’t know where he lived? When did you last see him?’

‘Well, I did write to him quite recently. I’m not very proud of it, but I did.’

‘How recently?’

‘Oh, back in the summer.’

‘Why?’

‘Well – well, I needed some money really badly. I’d done something silly.’

‘What? Not drugs?’

‘No, no not drugs. But I’d – borrowed some money on the house in Malibu, and I had to give it back. I didn’t know where to turn. I wrote to him. He wrote me a letter back and said he was coming to Nassau to see me in June. But he never did. I never heard from him again. That’s when my uncle lent me the money.’