The Legacy (27 page)

He laughed and Christina couldn't help laughing with him.

‘I can't wait,' she said. ‘I'll have to think of an excuse to go home …' A gust of wind swept across the open fields and she shivered. ‘I think we might turn back,' she suggested, ‘before we do end up dropping over the edge into the sea. So how near is the sea anyway?'

‘Oh, God knows, miles over there somewhere. It just sounded a bit dramatic, I thought. Right then, back we go. You can make the tea and toast the crumpets while I murder my interfering mother.'

She stopped in alarm. ‘Harry! Harry, you're not to say anything to Jane!'

He urged her forward. ‘Bribe me,' he suggested.

‘I won't tell your brother's wife you said she doesn't know how to bring up her children?' Christina offered.

He gave her arm a light squeeze. ‘Bargain struck!'

‘Bargain,' she agreed. He had a gift for making her spirits rise, she thought suddenly. Not even Richard had been able to dispel doubts and anxieties the way his cousin Harry did. When they came in, Jane looked up from her newspaper—she always saved it till the afternoon—and said briskly, ‘You look perky Christa … had a good walk?'

‘Very good, thanks,' she smiled back.

‘Didn't let Harry walk your legs off? He tries with most people.' There was a question in her eyes. Christina answered it. ‘He tried to, but I wouldn't let him. Don't worry.'

Jane put down her beloved
Telegraph
again. ‘Oh, there was a message from your lawyer, Rolf Wallberg. He's coming down here tomorrow to see you. He said it was urgent.' Then she went back to her newspaper.

‘Sit down Humfrey.' Ruben Stone knew by the pinched lines around his mouth that his nephew, Humfrey Stone, was worried. His unshakeable calm was part of his professional persona; it didn't change in front of family in the office.

‘Now tell me, what's so urgent this morning?'

Humfrey looked at him. ‘I had a call from Wallberg. I'm sorry to disrupt your meeting, Uncle, but this is really urgent. He's discovered something that could lose the Farrington case.' Ruben didn't even blink.

‘Whatever it is, my dear boy, I'm sure it could have waited another hour or two. You must learn that there's no such thing as an emergency unless it's going to happen in the next five minutes. However, tell me about this disaster, whatever it is.'

He wasn't being unkind. He was devoted to Humfrey and to all his family, he merely wanted to teach the young man his own brand of oriental-style patience. It was going to be very difficult; Humfrey was volatile and emotional by temperament. He accepted the rebuke.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I was hasty, but it was such a bombshell.'

‘So tell me,' Ruben repeated. It didn't take long.

Once Humfrey broke off to ask a question. ‘Is it possible? Is Wallberg right?'

‘Yes, there's no other explanation, except that Alan Farrington is insane and he's certainly not that. Wallberg is right.'

There was a silence when Humfrey ended his report.

‘You know, Humfrey,' his uncle said after a pause, ‘I didn't expect him to stay on; I didn't want him to stay. I thought he'd go back to Sweden. Now I suppose it's lucky he didn't.'

‘I never understood why you took him on in the first place,' Humfrey ventured. ‘I don't like him and I can see you didn't like him either. I don't know what it is about him …'

Ruben Stone said softly, ‘I know. There's something in him that we recognize subconsciously and it makes us uneasy; he calls up echoes of the past. Why did I take him on? Because an old friend asked me, as a favour. In the end we may be grateful, but I'm not sure. In my heart I'd rather we lost the case and he'd gone back where he came from.' After a pause he said, ‘Humfrey, put a call through to Simon Hart. We'd better double-check this. He's the expert; he'll have the answers. And now', with a slight irony, ‘I shall go back to my meeting.'

Humfrey hurried out, too preoccupied to realize that his uncle had not answered his question.

Christina and Rolf Wallberg were alone. There had been an instant antagonism between him and Harry when he walked into the Spanniers' house; two males bristling on eye contact. The impact was so obvious that Harry forgot to be flippant. Rolf hadn't wasted time.

‘No thank you, Mrs Spannier, I won't have coffee. I have to get back to London after I've spoken to Mrs Farrington.'

The formality didn't deceive Jane; she saw the way he looked at Christina and his hostility to her son. She found him disconcerting, peremptory, almost rude. As if he sensed her criticism, he said seriously, ‘Please excuse me; it's very kind of you to offer hospitality, but something very urgent and unexpected has come up and I must talk it over with my client.'

Christina said, ‘What is it? What's happened? Jane, can we use the study?'

‘Of course, and if you need me, or Harry, we'll be about. Peter will be back at lunchtime; we were hoping you would stay. In here.' She opened the door and closed it behind them. Harry hadn't moved.

‘The noble Swede,' he said, almost to himself.

‘Not at all what I expected.' His mother looked at him.

‘What did you expect then?'

‘A sort of smoothie, a Nordic sexpot. I'll have to give him a new name: Attila the Hun.'

The study was an untidy place. Jane's desk was piled with papers; magazines, sporting and agricultural, were heaped on the floor; and one of Peter's ancient English setters was sprawled, snoring, on the sofa. Rolf looked round, then he said quietly, ‘You allow dogs on the furniture?' Then before she could answer he said, ‘I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm not very good with animals. Will you move that dog so we can sit down?'

‘Sally, off! Get off the sofa.' Sally obeyed with a reproachful look and jumped up onto a chair instead.

‘Rolf,' Christina begged. ‘Rolf, what's happened at RussMore?'

‘Nothing, I got excellent statements from the Mannings and Thorn, and your doctor. It was all going so well, then this extraordinary thing happened; I spoke to the undertaker who buried Richard. He was in the pub and we had a drink together. Christa did you know that Alan went to the chapel to see his father the night before the funeral?'

‘He didn't! No, of course I'd no idea … It's the last thing he'd have done. He hated Richard.'

‘Oh, yes,' Rolf agreed, ‘he certainly did. This man, Garrett, the undertaker, told me that when he went to close up the coffin, he noticed something, something he described as horrible. There was a raw patch on the scalp, where someone had torn out a handful of hair.'

Christina's hands flew to her face. ‘Oh my God. Oh God …'

He said gently, ‘Don't let it upset you. Richard was dead.'

‘It was desecration,' she exclaimed. ‘He's mad, he must be, to do such a thing. Why would he do it?'

‘No, not mad at all, far from mad. He knew what he was doing; he's got material for a DNA test, and he'd taken medical advice, because cutting the hair would not have been any use. Hair is dead, like nails. He tore it out because he needed skin attached to the roots.'

‘I feel sick,' she whispered. ‘Stop, please, I don't want to hear any more.'

He had noticed a tray of drinks. He got up and poured a measure of Peter Spannier's favourite after-dinner brandy. ‘Here, drink this … no, you must. I'm sorry, but I had to tell you.' Slowly Christina sipped the brandy. She felt his arm around her shoulders; it was a gentle comforting embrace, and she didn't move away.

‘All right,' she said. ‘I'm all right now. What does it mean, Rolf?'

‘It means that he can demand a DNA sample from Belinda,' he said. ‘That's why he's been so confident, why he opted for a quick hearing in the High Court, instead of bleeding you financially. If the DNA doesn't match, then Belinda can't inherit under the terms of the trust. If it does, he's lost, of course. That is the choice you have to make.'

She put down the glass and turned to face him. ‘I will never put Belinda through that. I will never chance her finding out that Richard wasn't her Father,
if
he wasn't. I told you, I don't know. Nothing in the world would be worth putting a doubt in the mind of an eleven-year-old child, even if the DNA matched. I will never expose her to anything like that, so there isn't any choice.'

She got up; she was still very white, but suddenly calm. ‘What a vile revolting man,' she said slowly. ‘I wish there was a God, so he could punish him. We have to work out how to settle. I'd better come to London.' He stood beside her.

‘You may change your mind,' he suggested. ‘Don't do anything in a hurry; think it through.'

‘I have,' she answered. ‘If she was your child, Rolf, would you subject her to that test?' He didn't hesitate.

‘No,' he said, ‘I wouldn't. You're right, I shan't try to persuade you … But don't initiate anything just yet. There's no date set for the court hearing. Let me look into the details, consult with Humfrey and Ruben Stone. That swine doesn't know we've found out what he did; he mustn't know. So you keep calm, stay on here and leave me to work something out. Please, Christa, let me take care of this.'

They were so close they were almost touching. She felt his arms go round her and she held on to him. The passion she feared didn't flare up; it was different this time—deeper and more disturbing. He said in a whisper, ‘I love you, Christa. I've never said that to any woman in my life before. I love you, and I owe you. I'm not going to let this happen.'

When she told them what Alan had done, there was a shocked silence.

‘He tore the hair out of his father's head …' Jane Spannier repeated. ‘It's unbelievable. Oh, Christa, you poor girl …'

Harry moved towards her. Christina said quickly, ‘Harry, I'm all right. It was a terrible shock, but I got over it. Please don't say a word of this to anyone. Rolf's going to consult with the other lawyers, and he's asked me not to say or do anything till they've discussed it. At least Alan doesn't know we've found out.'

Jane's rather square jaw jutted pugnaciously; she had recovered herself. Two angry red blotches burned on her cheeks. ‘You're not going to give in? You're going to fight him? Christa, you've got to fight him!'

Christina said firmly, ‘No, think of Belinda.'

‘But it's a lie,' Jane burst out, ‘of course she's Richard's daughter.'

‘I'm sure she is,' Christina answered, ‘but no inheritance is worth what it would take to prove it.'

‘He wouldn't dare to admit to such a filthy sacrilege,' Jane insisted. ‘He'd be crucified … think what the press would make of it!'

‘Think what a clever counsel like John Cunningham would do to Christa,' Harry spoke for the first time. ‘She's right, Mum, she can't let the case go ahead.'

‘I'm going back to RussMore,' Christina told them. ‘I can't stay here. Please understand, won't you? I need to go home.'

‘Of course,' Jane said readily. ‘Of course you do. What a swine! What an utter shit!'

Peter came back early to say goodbye to her; she wouldn't wait till the afternoon. She wanted to get away from the kindly indignation of Jane and Peter, and the concern of Harry who had said he loved her, as that other man had done. She needed her own space, and she needed to go back to the house where she had been so happy, the home she had to leave to protect her child. She hardly noticed the drive; she felt numb, as if her feelings were suspended. Turning through the gates, the afternoon sun starting to sink in the sky above the rooftops, she seemed to see RussMore for the first time, all over again, as if the years had rolled back and she was driving there beside Richard, full of excitement. ‘Oh, but it's so beautiful, darling, and so big.' He had squeezed her hand and smiled at her, so proud and happy that she liked what he loved best.

‘It's your home, sweetheart. Houses have their own spirit. It'll love you as much as I do.'

And he was right. RussMore had welcomed her, and glowed with new life under the changes she made. She drove to the rear and parked the car, and Manning came out to bring her case inside.

‘Mrs Spannier phoned to say you were coming, Madam,' he said. ‘Nice to have you back.'

No, Christina told him, she didn't want tea, she was going for a walk round the gardens before the sun set. There was the rose garden she and Richard had planned, and the little eighteenth-century marble Cupid on his plinth in the centre, aiming an invisible arrow at the passer-by—he'd given her that for a birthday. They had sat there together on warm spring days when he was well enough. The rose beds were all underplanted with narcissi and grape hyacinth, making a bright show of colour; he had died before the roses came into bloom. On through the rose garden, up the steps between the tall clipped yews, through into the long herbaceous border walk, with the sheen of the lake at the end.
We have swans and ducks, geese too, at home
. Words spoken in a park in Stockholm by a stranger who married her before the month was out. The borders blazed with purple shades of Michaelmas daisies, and the rich reds and yellows of chrysanthemums. She had learned all the English flower names, joining Richard in his passion for planting and improving his garden. He was the expert on trees; he spoke of planting for the future, as his ancestors had done.

‘You don't expect to see it, but your grandchildren will.'

To the right was the walled kitchen garden. It had been the swimming pool, built to please his first wife, and she had died in it, a miserable death by drowning, insensible from heroin and drink. As soon as Richard and she came home to England, he had had the place filled in, levelled and returned to its original use. Christina noticed that he never went there, not even to oversee the work. She didn't go there now, though it held no memories or ghosts for her. It was growing cold and the sky was flaming with the sunset, so she turned back to the house and went inside. The lights were switched on and the fire was alight in the red study. Christina went in and the nameless Tudor Farrington, who had died in childhood, gazed down at her, his plump little hand perched on his own skull. She did something untypical; she poured herself a drink and didn't drown it. She stood by the fire looking up at the picture; Richard had left it to her as a special legacy, and as she drank she realized that she was shaking with anger. She was filled with such a sense of fury and outrage that she suddenly wanted to smash the glass into the grate.