Take No Farewell - Retail (32 page)

‘I’ve given a great deal of careful thought to your position,’ I announced, as he followed me into my office.

‘So have I, Mr Staddon, and I’d like to offer you my sincere apologies for what occurred. My behaviour was inexcusable.’

‘I’m inclined to agree with you.’

‘Does that mean … you’ll be dispensing with my services?’

‘No, Giles, it doesn’t.’

‘Then … what?’

I sat down and waved him into a chair. ‘I’ve no wish to ruin your career on account of one isolated instance of misconduct. For that reason, I’m prepared to overlook last night’s events – to forget about them altogether and to mention them to nobody – just so long—’

‘Mr Staddon!’ He jumped up, smiling broadly. ‘This really is extremely understanding of you. I can’t thank you enough.’

‘Sit down, Giles!’ I waited until he had done so, then resumed. ‘I shall expect something of you in return for my forbearance. You should hear what it is before showering me with thanks.’

‘Name it.’

‘My … discussions … with Senhor Pombalho were less than fruitful. I was unable to establish why he wanted the plans of Clouds Frome and we parted on a note of some acrimony. He simply wouldn’t listen to me. That’s where I believe you can be of assistance. I require the services of a mediator, you see, somebody who can speak to him on my behalf without arousing his hostility. I wish to make him an offer. If he will explain his reasons for wanting the plans, I will consider recreating them from memory.’

‘And you want me to put those terms to him?’

‘Precisely.’

‘May I ask … what this is all about? It would be helpful if I could—’

‘You may ask nothing. I’ve told you all you need to know.’

‘If I refuse, you’ll recommend to Mr Renshaw that I be dismissed?’

The position in which I had placed him was an unpleasant one. I knew so from my own recent experience. Yet I could afford to show him no mercy. ‘You’d leave me no choice in the matter, Giles. No choice whatever.’

He smiled wryly. ‘In that case, Mr Staddon, you’ve found a mediator.’

I set off for Surrey on New Year’s Eve leaving Giles with a great deal to occupy him. We had agreed to let Rodrigo brood for a few days before making contact with him, but I had left Giles in no doubt that I would expect progress to have been made by the time I returned. I had also instructed him to telephone every builder we knew in London – and they were legion – in search of one who had recently employed a carpenter named Malahide. I had concluded that Malahide would not
approach
a newspaper until nearer the trial, reasoning that he could thereby strengthen his bargaining position. If I was right, there was still time to track him down.

Preparations for one of Sir Ashley’s famous parties were well underway when I reached Luckham Place. Temporary staff were moving furniture and polishing case-loads of champagne glasses. Yet more streamers and balloons were being pinned to already burdened mantels and picture-rails. A jazz band was setting up its instruments. And a gathering of overnight guests – hardly any of whom I recognized – had occupied the drawing-room. In response to an enquiry about my wife’s whereabouts, I was told she had taken a visitor for a drive in the neighbourhood and was expected back shortly. Meanwhile, the grinning Clive announced, his father would appreciate a word with me in the privacy of his study.

‘Come in, Geoffrey, come in. A drink, perhaps?’

‘No thanks. A bit early for me.’

‘You’re probably right. A long night ahead, what?’

‘No doubt.’

Even in the time I had known him, Ashley Thornton had changed. The character of most men is settled by their middle twenties, but my father-in-law did not believe in fixed values of any kind. His origins were veiled in reticence. What little Angela had let slip suggested East Midlands roots at the upper end of the working class. What he had contrived since was an ever accelerating progression towards the aristocracy. He had once been proud of his hard-won success. Now it seemed he preferred people to think he had gained his wealth almost without effort and that what he had founded was less a business than a dynasty. It was a dynasty, moreover, in which an unfashionable architect with a blemished record had no obvious role.

‘Clive said you wanted to see me.’

‘Indeed. Now … Sure you won’t have that drink?’

‘Quite, thank you.’

We regarded each other across his empty desk for a few moments, then he said: ‘I’ve never entirely abandoned the idea of rebuilding the Thornton, you know. On a different site, that is.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it.’

‘It would have to be completely different, of course, in tune with the altered times. We all have to be that, don’t we?’

‘I suppose we do, yes.’

‘I was in California earlier this year. I stayed at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. It’s only just opened. Do you know it?’

‘I’ve seen photographs of it in the architectural press.’

‘What’s your opinion of it?’

‘Overwrought and overdone.’

He smiled. ‘I was impressed. It’s the future of hotel design, take it from me.’

‘Not in London, I think.’

‘As to that, I must disagree.’

‘Surely my opinion of the Biltmore isn’t what you wanted to talk to me about?’

‘No, it isn’t. But it’s indicative, don’t you see? Symptomatic of so much else.’

‘I don’t see, actually.’

He sighed. ‘Angela has told us of your recent disagreements.’

‘What disagreements?’

He leaned across the desk, treating me to a look he no doubt reserved for recalcitrant employees. ‘Any
liaison
you may have had with a married woman prior to meeting Angela is, of course, no concern of mine. We are both, I hope, men of the world. But such involvements must be forgotten, set aside, expunged … I cannot allow a son-in-law of mine to indulge in tasteless crusades on behalf of former mistresses who have taken to poisoning their husbands.’

Perhaps he expected me to be angry or ashamed. Perhaps he hoped to arouse my indignation or appeal to my sense of propriety. Whatever the case, the only reaction I felt was
weary
disappointment that Angela had whispered our secrets in his ear. ‘A tasteless crusade is what Angela called it. Did you intend to quote her exact words – or is it just habit?’

His face froze. I had treated him to something he seldom encountered in these days of his dubious pomp. ‘If one word of your involvement with the Caswell creature – then or now – reaches the papers,’ he hissed, ‘if one, just one, of my business associates mentions it to me over lunch; if I discover that you have sullied my family name by perpetuating this nonsense …’

‘Yes? What then?’

He sat back in his chair. ‘Don’t do it, my boy. Don’t do it, for your own sake.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘I don’t need to. You should be grateful to Victor Caswell, not working against him.’

‘I owe Victor Caswell nothing.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. And let me remind you of some other sober facts. 27 Suffolk Terrace is Angela’s property, not yours. If she should leave you and sell it, you could have no complaint. As for your practice, well, you don’t need me to tell you how it’s slipped since the fire. Mud sticks, but, in the architectural profession, ash clings far longer.’

‘That’s suited you well enough, hasn’t it? There was no danger of Thornton Hotels being blamed once I’d been appointed whipping-boy.’

‘I had no hand in that, Geoffrey. You’re a fool if you think otherwise. And you’re a fool if you don’t take my advice. As an architect, you’re out of date and short of business. As a husband, you’re little better than a kept man. And your keeper is on the brink of giving you notice. I’ve made allowances for your … bereavement … long enough. Angela deserves better of you than this. So do we all. My advice to you is simple. Start behaving as we have a right to expect. Otherwise you may jeopardize your marriage – and much else besides. Do you understand?’

What answer I gave Sir Ashley – how I ended our interview, with what words I left him – I cannot now recall. Anger blots out memory as well as reason and perhaps that is for the best. Certainly I gave him none of the assurances he had sought, though that may not have surprised him. He may have calculated I would see the wisdom of compliance after a period of reflection and, for that matter, he may have been right. In the event, however, no such period was to be afforded me.

I walked straight out of the house after leaving the study, hardly trusting myself to encounter another member of the Thornton family till I had breathed some fresh air and walked off some of my resentment. Dusk was settling over Luckham Place as the sun sank, red and swollen, beyond the North Downs. I set off along the drive, walking as hard and fast as I could, rehearsing under my breath the wounding retorts I would have given Sir Ashley if only I had thought of them sooner. At first, I hardly noticed the motor-car that had turned in off the Guildford road and was heading up the drive towards me, visible in snatches between the well-spaced elms. More guests, I assumed, more vapid recruits to the Thorntons’ ever-widening circle of acquaintances. Then, as it rounded a bend fifty yards ahead, I recognized it. I stopped in my tracks and, as I did so, the driver sounded his horn in acknowledgement. It was Turnbull’s Lanchester.

‘Not deserting us, Staddon, surely?’ Turnbull grinned down at me from the driver’s seat as the car drew to a halt beside me. ‘I’m told Sir Ashley’s parties are memorable affairs.’ He was clad in a huge double-breasted overcoat, gauntlets and a deerstalker. On his other side sat Angela, remote and regal in an outfit I did not recognize – a grey swagger-coat trimmed with black fur and matching fur hat. She did no more than glance at me, then gazed straight ahead towards the house between half-closed lids, her face as pale and expressionless as Turnbull’s was flushed and jubilant.

‘What are you doing here, Major?’

‘Didn’t Angela tell you? It was all arranged before she left
Nice.
Sir Ashley kindly invited me to stay with him for the week.’

‘I knew nothing about it.’ I stared pointedly at Angela, but she did not respond. ‘It must have slipped her mind.’

‘Quite so.’ Turnbull’s grin broadened. ‘Well, we must get on. See you at the party.’

I watched the car roar away along the drive, then felt misery and a strange foreboding close upon me in the silence that followed.

Angela’s disclosures to her father had evidently not extended to our separate sleeping arrangements in Suffolk Terrace. At Luckham Place, we were still expected to occupy the same room. When, three hours and several stiff drinks later, I went up to change, I found that she was in the bath, door bolted, leaving a shot-silk ball-gown lying in readiness across the bed and a brooch I felt sure I had never seen before prominently displayed on the dressing-table. It was gold, fashioned in the likeness of a monkey, the clasp disguised as a pole to which he was clinging. Two tiny rubies served as his eyes and the expression on his face reminded me all too strongly of the grinning stone monkeys who stood sentinel over the garden gate at the Villa d’Abricot.

It was as I was staring at the brooch, admiration of its beauty blending with disgust at its significance, that there came a knock at the door. I opened it to find Bassett, one of the footmen, standing outside, looking distinctly uneasy.

‘What is it, Bassett?’

‘You have a visitor, Mr Geoffrey.’

‘A visitor? Surely the house is full of them.’

‘He’s asked specifically for you.’

‘Who is this gentleman?’

‘Not a gentleman at all, Mr Geoffrey, if you don’t mind my saying so. Not the kind of person we’re used to receiving at the front door. I’ll happily send him on his way if you give the word.’

‘But who is he?’

‘Gives his name as Malahide. Claims you know him. But I expect there’s been some mistake.’

Bassett had left Malahide in the billiards-room, about the only room in the house where he could neither offend the guests nor filch the silver. He was wearing the same clothes as when we had previously met, although there was no sign of cement-dust on this occasion. He was idly bouncing a ball around the cushions of the table as I entered.

‘What the devil do you mean by coming here?’ I demanded.

He let the ball roll to a halt, then leered across at me. ‘Fancied a breath of country air. Nice place your pa-in-law’s got here. Very nice.’

‘If you’d been a little more patient last Friday, our business would already have been concluded.’

‘Is that a fact? Well, I’m getting too old for stooging round river-bridges on cold nights. You were late, Mr Staddon, if you were there at all. In other words, you broke our agreement.’

‘I didn’t intend to. There was an emergency at my office.’

‘Well, there’ll be a bigger bloody emergency when your name’s spread all over the papers, won’t there?’

‘You don’t understand. I’ve been trying to contact you ever since we missed each other that night. I’m quite happy to buy the letter at the price we agreed.’

‘The price has altered.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve had to increase it on account of being messed around. It’s a hundred and fifty now.’

‘That’s outrageous.’

‘It’s the going rate.’

I took a deep breath. Argument was useless and we both knew it. ‘Very well. A hundred and fifty pounds. I’ll write you a cheque.’

Malahide sniggered mirthlessly. ‘I don’t deal in cheques. Cash only.’

‘As you please. But I don’t have that amount on me.’

‘When are you going back to London?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘I’ll give you two days, then. Wednesday night. Same time, same place. Don’t be late. Not so much as a minute. You’ll get no more chances. Take my meaning?’

‘We understand each other perfectly, Malahide. I’ll be there.’

He nodded. ‘Good. Well, now that’s settled, I’ll be pushing along.’ He moved round the table and paused alongside me. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find me own way out.’

‘Do that.’

‘Happy New Year, Mr Staddon.’ He smirked and patted me on the shoulder. Then, before I could even recoil, he was gone.