Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage (36 page)

‘The word of your daughter,’ Viv said.

‘You aren’t our daughter,’ he replied. His lip curled at such a disgusting thought.

‘I think you’ll find the DNA analysis says I am. A legitimate heir, too, if I chose to announce myself.’

Something came to Nicholas that confused him. ‘Wait a minute. So, let me get this right. What do you get out of all this?’

‘Nothing,’ said Viv.

She didn’t want anything. Well, okay, millions of pounds would be good but in order to get them she’d have to either destroy the Leightons’ reputation or resort to extortion and she wasn’t that sort of person. Her blood might have made her a Leighton, but in her heart she was all Blackbird.

‘I will give you my word and my guarantee, as God is my witness, that if you agree to let Heath Merlo keep the land and’ –
this just came to her, but she was glad it had
– ‘as a worthy charity cause, you encouraged donations to it for the animals since, after all, it would make sense for their local friendly Ironmist estate to support them financially . . . I will forget that I was born with your name. If you attempt to destroy my friends at Wildflower Cottage, then I will destroy you.’

The Leightons considered her words then Nicholas exploded. ‘This is preposterous.’

‘You have no choice, is what I’m saying,’ said Viv, her tone firm but quiet, cement and velvet.

Nicholas Leighton rested his hands on his hips and stared hard at Viv. But she’d been stared at by worse. Ursula for one.

Then he exhaled and on the breath he said the words, ‘All right.’

‘Nick . . .’

‘What can we do?’ Nicholas rasped at his wife.

‘I want you to visit Heath Merlo within forty-eight hours . . .’ Viv chose that time-scale because they always said it in films. Then she looked at her wrist and only just stopped herself from laughing as she thought of saying,
let’s synchronise our watches
. ‘ . . . Let’s make it twelve noon on Wednesday, and tell him what action
you’ve
decided upon. You’ll get all the credit for it. I will pretend that it is as big a surprise to me as it will be to them. Feel free to get the press involved for your benefit. It will make you a community hero. The people of Ironmist are lovely, you know. It wouldn’t do you any harm for them to think better of you.’

Nicholas stared hard at the young woman in front of him. He did not recognise her as one of his own but if he had, he would have commended her ability to checkmate him so absolutely. She had reminded him of someone when they first met and now, after this prolonged encounter, he knew with certainty who it was. Her summer-blue eyes and her bronze-golden hair were just too similar to Cecilia Leighton’s for comfort. He thought that he would have the portrait of her that hung on the grand staircase removed with immediate effect.

Nicholas opened the car door for his wife and she clambered in. He turned to Viv, punctuating each word with a stab of his finger, ‘If you ever . . . ever even think of . . .’

A full threat display,
thought Viv, likening him to one of the birds of prey at the sanctuary. But this ruffle of his feathers had no effect on her. Her family honour had been her shield today. The Blackbird honour.

‘If I have nothing to fear from you, you have nothing to fear from me,’ she returned.

Nicholas crunched over the gravel to reach his side of the car.

‘Now get off my land,’ he said and sped off the same way he had arrived.

Chapter 81

Mick Pollock’s internment arrangements were typical Gaynor Pollock-style.

‘Bloody hell, have we got the wrong church and turned up at Winston Churchill’s funeral?’ asked Linda, as the hearse arrived at the church draped in a Union Jack flag. The others bit their lips and tried to stay sombre. There was something about the solemnity of a funeral that spawned a breeding ground for inappropriate humour.

What Gaynor called a ‘simple cross’ contained half the blooms of the Chelsea Flower Show. Gaynor, Leanne, Paula and Mick’s brother and his wife followed in a black Daimler so shiny that it looked like a huge beetle. Gaynor emerged from it in a stunning black ensemble and a hat the size of a spaceship. Leanne’s longline jacket was at least a foot longer than her skirt and her heels were so high that Linda’s feet ached just looking at them.

Inside the church, a local opera singer in a long black frock sang a moving rendition of ‘Bring Him Home’ which set off a Mexican wave of handbag-opening for tissues. Then the vicar began the service. The organist played ‘Love Divine’ in too high a key so that everyone either mimed or stretched painfully for the notes. Mick’s brother read the eulogy – a glowing and tender tribute to a dear brother, husband and father. A flawed man, but essentially a good one, with a love of home comforts, David Bowie and football. Then the Old Spice Girls clambered into Linda’s seven-seater and set off for the crematorium.

‘You know, your face is so much better with make-up on it, Stel,’ said Iris. ‘You’ve looked like death warmed up these past couple of weeks.’

‘You’re subtle, Mum, I’ll give you that,’ sighed Linda.

‘You feeling better, Stel?’ asked Caro. Stel didn’t look right to her. Her eyes were dull and there was a cold sore at the side of her mouth which she’d attempted to cover up with foundation.

‘I’m improving,’ said Stel with a fluttery smile.

They had to skim past Ketherwood to get to the crematorium. Ian’s house was somewhere around here.

‘Linda, where’s Crompton Street?’

‘It’s coming up on your right.’

‘Have we time to drive up it?’ asked Stel.

‘I can do a loop,’ said Linda. ‘What do you want to go up there for?’

‘There’s a house for sale that took my eye in the
Chronicle
,’ lied Stel.

‘You wouldn’t want to live here, surely?’ said Iris. ‘You’ve got a lovely house. And that nice lad next door to look out for you.’

‘Al’s a bit off with me at the moment,’ said Stel. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.’

‘Ask him then,’ said Linda. ‘You’ve only known him forty-odd years. What number do you want? God, I wouldn’t have one of these houses given to me.’

‘Forty-three,’ said Stel.

‘He’s a lovely man is Al,’ said Caro. ‘I wish you and him would have got it together. He’d have looked after you and you’d be living in the lap of luxury now.’

‘Any decent man is blocked by her radar,’ said Iris. ‘Only the idiots get through. Apart from now maybe?’ She cast a sideways glance at Stel. Stel didn’t reply.

‘Forty-three,’ Linda pointed. ‘Ugh.’

Forty-three Crompton Road was a shabby mid-terrace of five. The left end one had its windows boarded up and a large rectangle of chipboard nailed over the door.

‘I can’t see a For Sale notice,’ said Caro.

‘Just stop for a second. I’ll be quick as I can,’ said Stel.

She got out of the car, hearing a female chorus of ‘what the hell’s she doing?’ behind her, and peered through the front window of forty-three. There was a grotty black sofa in the middle of an otherwise empty lounge, and it had the air of an abandoned property. The door to forty-one opened and a painfully thin man, who looked much older than he probably was, appeared on the doorstop.

‘Who you looking for, love?’ he asked.

‘Er, John,’ Stel picked a random name. ‘He’s renting the place from the owner.’

‘You’ve got t’wrong place. Housing Association own all these,’ said the man. He had no teeth, Stel noticed. He couldn’t have been over twenty-five. ‘Last bloke left a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Are you sure? I could have sworn he said he was staying here.’

‘Someone called Ian had it last.’

So there was no friend who had been staying here then. Ian had lied.

‘Thank you.’ Stel felt slightly sick.

‘Who’s your new friend?’ asked Linda, when Stel got back in the car.

‘I think the
Chron
put the wrong picture in,’ she answered.

*

Lots of Mick’s present and ex work colleagues had gone straight to the crematorium rather than join the church service. Gaynor was glad that plenty of people had turned out for him, it made her proud that he was so well thought of. Everyone was respectful to her, shook her hand and said that they were sorry for her loss. No one said ‘I thought he’d left you and buggered off with a young lass.’

Gaynor had held up very well all day. Her brain had resolutely stuck in organising mode, making sure that everything went as planned with neither hiccups nor unwanted Bellfield guests. But as the vicar said his final words, his Irish voice soft and rich and gentle, Gaynor’s composure began to slide.

‘As we say goodbye to Mick, take a moment to remember the best of him. Keep that memory in the scrapbook of your heart. Let the Mick you know, go on, with your love.’

The final music choice started up: ‘Ashes to Ashes’, Mick’s favourite Bowie track. Gaynor remembered him trying to dance to it at a wedding during his New Romantic days and making a total pig’s ear of it. He was such an appalling dancer, but he did carry the frilly white shirt off well.

Let him go on with your love.
She imagined him floating up to heaven in that shirt, looking like Adam Ant’s more substantially-built brother. The further up he floated, the more like an angel he appeared.

She felt her mother’s arm slide around her shoulders as the guests began to file out, dropping notes and coins which would be sent on to the British Heart Foundation onto the plate at the door.

‘Come on, love. You’ve done him proud,’ said Paula to her daughter.

‘I need a drink,’ said Gaynor.

Chapter 82

For so long now Gaynor’s focus had been either on getting Mick back or kicking him in the bollocks. Then after he died, arranging his funeral absorbed all her attention and now it was done with, there was just a void in her life. Today, she filled that void with wine. A lot of wine.

Gaynor was washing her hands in the ladies when Leanne appeared at her side, all hair extensions and spray-tan, towering over her mother in skyscraper heels.

‘Mum,’ said Leanne with a sad smile and put her arm around Gaynor’s shoulder. Touched, Gaynor turned her head into her daughter’s shoulder and stood there, breathing in her daughter’s Dior Poison perfume. She had her father’s square shoulders and his hazel eyes. Gaynor squeezed her tightly, knowing that as long as she had Leanne, she would always still have Mick, too.

A few seconds later, Leanne asked, softly and tentatively, ‘Mum, any chance of having my share of Dad’s money sooner rather than later?’

Gaynor pulled away. ‘What?’

‘He did leave me some money in his will, didn’t he?’

‘Well, he left some in trust—’

‘It’s just that I could really do with a cash injection. Everything is so expensive in London.’

Alcohol muddies brains, but it can also unlock zones where clarity reigns supreme. Leanne might have looked like her dad on the outside, but inside was a very different story. There was no softness about Leanne at all. Selfishness oozed from every square millimetre of her. For all his faults, Mick had been a giver, not a taker. He had a great capacity for tenderness and love and in all those things they had been a true match. Leanne Pollock was not the sum of both parents. Gaynor felt as if someone had thrown a bucketful of disappointment over her which drenched her down to the bone marrow.

‘Do we have to talk about this now? On the day of your father’s funeral?’

‘Well, I’m leaving in about half an hour. I’ve got a taxi booked so I can go and pick up my suitcase from the house and—’

Gaynor’s mouth had dropped open in an O of incredulity. ‘You’re not staying with me? I’ve aired your bed. I’ve bought food in . . .’

‘No. I’m working. I’m doing some catalogue shots on Friday . . .’

‘But this is Monday.’

‘I’ve got to prepare, Mum. You don’t know how these things work. My car is getting old. It’s not worth repairing. Dad would want me to be safe on the roads.’

‘Your car’s less than three years old, Leanne.’

She knew that because Mick had bought it new for Leanne’s twenty-first birthday, a neat little Toyota Aygo. It couldn’t have had above twenty thousand miles on the clock. She hardly drove it around central London.

Gaynor suddenly understood. ‘You mean you want a bigger car. A grander car.’

‘Image is everything in my work. People look at what you wear, what you drive. I need it. Dad would have wanted me to benefit from his death.’

Gaynor looked at her daughter, really looked at her and she felt ashamed. How had Leanne turned out to be such a self-obsessed little cow? Yes, they’d given her the best of what they could afford, but they’d tried to make sure she appreciated how lucky she was, too. They’d hoped to instil good values in her and thought they’d led by example. They’d given her freedom to grow but within reasonable boundaries. They’d made sure she knew she was loved. But still she had managed to grow up a cold fish, making sure she was all right Jack and sod everyone else. Gaynor thought her daughter had been crying in church but her eye make-up was immaculate. The dabbing of her handkerchief at her eye had been just for show – just like everything Leanne Pollock did. There was nothing below that orange tan but greed and more greed.

Gaynor straightened her back and asked, ‘What happened to the twenty thousand your dad gave you when your nan died last year?’

Leanne tutted. ‘It just went, on things.’

‘Do you still have her jewellery or did you sell it and that went “on things” as well?’

‘Oh for God’s sake. Look, can I have some of Dad’s money, please? Now, when I need it, not later when you’re . . .’

‘Dead.’ Gaynor filled in the missing word for her.

Gaynor noted Leanne’s pouty, inflated lips, the Hermes scarf at her neck and the ridiculously expensive handbag over her arm. She’d spotted the scarlet-soled shoes earlier. These were the essential ‘things’ of her daughter’s life. Trying to keep up with Victoria Beckham. The fur coat and no knickers brigade, as Iris would have put it.

‘I think it’s about time you stood on your own two feet, don’t you?’ said Gaynor.

‘Legally I think . . .’ Leanne shut up as quickly, realising that she was in gross danger of overstepping the mark.