The Real Katie Lavender (20 page)

‘Just a few more moments, Lloyd,’ she said.

‘Do you want me to stay with you?’

She shook her head. ‘See to everyone else.’ She watched him walk away, saw him say something to Stirling and Gina, and then returned her attention to the polished mid-range casket that contained her husband’s body. She thought of the clothes she and Lloyd had chosen for Neil to wear – a dark charcoal suit he’d had made last year, a pale blue shirt and a favourite pink and silver silk tie. She hoped he approved.

She regretted now that she hadn’t gone with Stirling to identify Neil’s body. Regretted too that she hadn’t been brave enough to go with Lloyd to view the body at the undertaker’s when it had been taken there after the post-mortem had been carried out. Laid to rest, they called it, the body made all neat and tidy and reassuringly presentable, as if it had never been touched by a scalpel, much less by death.

She should have gone, if only so she could have said goodbye to him properly. But she hadn’t wanted to see him that way for fear of being haunted for the rest of her life by the memory of his cold, inert body. She was paying for that decision now. That and not telling him how much she still loved him. She hadn’t expressed her love for him in a long while. It was a mistake too many people made. One always thought there would be time to say all the things one wanted to say. But life didn’t play fair. And once that chance was gone, it was gone for ever.

Had Neil doubted her love? Was that why he had found someone else and had begun to think about leaving her, as Stirling seemed to think was the case? As indeed the newspapers were hinting at. How had they got their story? she wanted to know. Where did they get their information? Did they hang about the police station waiting for interesting titbits to come their way? Or were they guessing? So far they had spoken in vague terms of another woman being involved, and probably that was merely to spice the story up to sell more copies. Surely they had no actual evidence?

Her breath suddenly became short, and there was a tightness in her chest. She fought the tears that were threatening to destroy her self-control. Only moments ago she had thought the worst was over; now she feared the worst might be yet to come. Back at the house, she would have to face everyone; she would have to exchange more than just a polite nod in response to offers of condolence. The mood of the guests would have picked up a beat; in turn she would be expected to do the same. People much preferred backbone and spirit to an embarrassing scene. A widow could dab her eyes decorously with a glass of dry sherry in her hand, but a hysterical weeping widow was just plain awkward.

She wasn’t used to being in the limelight, but today she couldn’t have been more centre stage. She hated to think that people would be trying to imagine how she felt about Neil. Was she angry? Had she known? Did she want revenge on this other woman?

None of which was the case.

Even though Neil had always been popular and well known in the area, Pen hadn’t expected such a large turnout today. Friends and neighbours had filled the church, along with people from the hospice that she raised money for. Work colleagues and long-standing clients had come – though understandably, not the ones Neil had stolen from. There were also his sailing friends, about twenty of them, and a lot of other people Pen had never set eyes on before. She was concerned she wouldn’t have enough energy to make the right responses to them all.
Thank you for coming . . . I’m glad you could make it . . . It was good of you to travel so far
. . . How many times could a person say thank you and sound sincere? Should she even worry about such a thing when she knew that not everyone here was being genuine? There would be those amongst the guests who would be revelling in the scandal, perversely cheered by the downfall of a successful man, all too ready to call him a criminal.

There had been some cruelly barbed letters sent to the editor of the local newspaper. One local man had gone so far as to say that Neil’s deception – not just of the clients he’d robbed, but of those who’d known and trusted him – epitomized everything that was wrong in today’s society: the dishonest-self-seeking-snatch-and-grab-winner-takes-all mentality that was depriving the world of all its ethical values. It so happened that the writer of the letter had approached Neil at a charity ball last year and, bold as brass, had asked for a contribution towards funding his daughter to go trekking through Costa Rica on her gap year. Would he now be returning Neil’s generous donation? Pen wondered.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but—’

Pen started violently. So lost in her thoughts, she had been oblivious to the approach of one of the guests. She turned and found herself staring into the tear-filled eyes of an attractive dark-haired woman. Pen knew at once who it was. She swallowed and opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman repeated. ‘My name is Simone Montrose, and I just wanted to thank you for letting me come here today. It means . . . it means a lot to me.’ She put a handkerchief to her mouth and stifled a sob.

Pen automatically opened her arms wide. ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ she said.

The other woman didn’t hesitate; she sank into Pen’s embrace and cried without restraint.

‘It’s all right,’ Pen soothed. ‘You’ll get through this. We both will.’

Gina was horrified. She simply could not believe what Pen had done. Admittedly, grief could make a person behave strangely, but in this instance Pen was making an embarrassing spectacle of herself. And worse, she was dragging the family through yet more shame and humiliation. Hadn’t they suffered enough already?

Just as unbelievable, Stirling had been party to the decision to allow that disgusting woman to attend the funeral. Giving his consent for Neil’s tart to parade herself in front of everyone was so beyond the realms of respectable behaviour that it made her question Stirling’s state of mind. Really, what could he have been thinking? He should have put his foot down. He should have asserted himself as head of the family. But no, he had deferred to some kind of fraternal nonsense that this was what his brother would have wanted. What rubbish! As if Neil would have wanted them to meet his mistress. But no wonder Stirling had kept quiet about it before today. Had he told her in advance, she would have refused to come.

She had just been suggesting to Stirling that it was time to walk the short distance to The Meadows when Rosco had joined them and asked if they knew who the woman was who was crying with Pen at the graveside. Gina had noticed the woman earlier – she had arrived alone and didn’t seem to know anyone else – but other than that, she hadn’t given her any more thought. Frankly, all she’d been interested in was getting this awful day over and done with, and with as much haste and dignity as was possible. Something in Stirling’s manner, the way he’d stared at Pen, who seemed to be comforting the other woman, made her repeat Rosco’s question. And as if it was the most normal thing in the world, he’d said, ‘Her name’s Simone Montrose and she’s the woman Neil was having an affair with.’

‘
What?
’ both she and Rosco had said in horrified unison.

‘Now isn’t the time,’ he’d said, and promptly walked away, colliding with Scarlet and Charlie. He hadn’t stopped, not even to apologize to them. Gina had wanted to chase after him, but Rosco had held her back. ‘Let him go,’ he’d said. ‘We don’t want to cause a scene and give the gawpers anything else to gossip about.’

Now, at The Meadows, and with all the guests in the garden, she and Rosco, along with Scarlet and Charlie, had collared Stirling inside the house and forced a full explanation out of him.

‘So now you know as much as I do,’ he said as they stood in the middle of Pen’s sitting room. ‘This is what Pen wanted. Because she believes it’s what Neil would have wanted.’

Gina stared at her husband. The whole situation was too sordid for words. ‘You should have stopped this ridiculous circus of a funeral,’ she said. ‘You should have told Pen it wasn’t appropriate. She would have listened to you.’

Stirling didn’t want to be having this conversation. He couldn’t stand to see the disdain in the faces of his wife and children. Why could they not be as understanding and accepting as Pen and Lloyd?

He could have lied to them, of course. He could have simply said he didn’t know who the woman was. But that would have flown in the face of his true feelings. To lie would give the message that he was ashamed of his brother for his infidelity. But how could he condemn Neil, when he had done the very same thing thirty years ago? Moreover, how would he have wanted Fay to be treated if he had died during their affair?

When Pen had made it clear she was serious about wanting to invite Simone Montrose to the funeral, he had offered to contact her on his sister-in-law’s behalf. He had got the necessary contact details from Detective Inspector Rawlings and made the call. He’d been nervous about speaking to her, anxious that he might lash out and blame her for what Neil had done. But as Pen had said, no one ever made Neil do something he didn’t want to do. It soon became apparent whilst talking to Simon Montrose that she was deeply shocked and bewildered by Neil’s suicide. Her voice strained with emotion, she told him that the police had questioned her for some time about their affair, and had scrutinized her bank and savings accounts, obviously checking for any trace of the embezzled money. ‘I had no idea what he was doing,’ she told Stirling. ‘You have to believe me. I still can’t take it in. All he ever said to me was that he was making investments for the future.’ She had been tactful enough, Stirling noted, to phrase it as
the
future and not what it surely was, their
shared
future.

‘Why didn’t you take control of today, Dad?’

Stirling looked at his son. ‘Control?’ he repeated. ‘A funeral isn’t about seizing control; it’s about commemorating the life of a loved one, of saying a final goodbye and sharing the moment with those who were close to that person.’

Rosco rolled his eyes. ‘In normal circumstances, yes. But this isn’t a normal situation.’

‘It’s still your uncle who’s died and my brother I’ve just had to bury. That’s what’s important here.’

‘Dad, you’re behaving as if Neil did nothing wrong.’ This was from Scarlet. ‘He stole from clients. He lied to Auntie Pen. He lied to us. He wasn’t the man we thought he was. How can you expect us to forget the awful things he did?’

‘And how can you forget all the times he played French cricket with you? How he taught you kids to sail when we all went on holiday to Corfu together? How can you forget the magic shows he put on for you when you were little? Or, Scarlet, the time your mother and I were away and you were staying with him and Pen and he rushed you to the hospital when you’d cut your finger?’

‘That was in the past and has no bearing on the present,’ asserted Rosco.

‘Rosco’s right,’ Charlie said.

Furious, Stirling glared at his son-in-law. ‘Keep out of this, Charlie. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.’

Charlie’s jaw dropped. He looked like he’d just been punched.

‘Stirling!’ Gina exclaimed. ‘What’s got into you? Why are you behaving like this?’

Never had he felt such anger before. ‘I’ll tell you what’s got into me,’ he said, his voice raised. ‘It’s the shock of discovering how shallow my family is, knowing that all you care about is keeping up bloody appearances. You should be ashamed of yourselves. What’s more, I’m proud of Pen and Lloyd for the way they’re handling Neil’s death. And I’m doubly proud that they’re standing by him despite every evil word that’s being said or written about him.’

‘They’re in denial,’ Rosco said contemptuously. ‘Any fool can see that. They’re desperately hanging on to the man they thought Neil was, refusing to believe the evidence of their own eyes. It’s as I said before: the past has no bearing on the present.’

Stirling had heard enough. He wouldn’t listen to any more self-righteous, judgemental arrogance from his son. He badly wanted to make him understand that life wasn’t the clear-cut race he believed it to be. ‘So let me get this straight, Rosco,’ he said. ‘According to you, the past is the past. It’s only where we are now that matters? Is that what you’re saying? Just as in a court of law, if someone is being tried for a current crime, his previous crimes should not be referred to? Is that your position?’

Gina tutted with impatience, but Rosco stared back at him steadily. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s as good an analogy as any.’

‘Come on, Dad,’ said Scarlet. ‘You know that Rosco’s only speaking the truth, that what Uncle Neil did was wrong. I mean, he broke the law, you can’t ignore that.’

‘I break the law every day I get in my car and drive too fast. Does that mean you should view me differently?’

‘Now you’re just being absurd.’

Stirling rounded on Rosco. ‘No, I’ll tell you what’s absurd. It’s listening to this rubbish from you lot. Neil was family. He was my brother. Why does that not mean anything to you?’

‘For pity’s sake, Stirling, listen to yourself. You sound almost as mad as Pen. Just accept that Neil wasn’t the man you thought he was. Somewhere along the line he changed and lost perspective on what was right and what was wrong.’

‘Mum’s right,’ Rosco said. ‘We have to judge him on the man he became, not the man he was. Besides, we might never have known the real Neil. Maybe there was always this darker side to his nature just waiting to have its moment. He wasn’t a true Nightingale, after all.’

‘Oh, now I’ve heard everything!’ Stirling exploded. ‘You’re saying that because Neil was adopted, he was a criminal waiting to happen. Thank God your grandmother isn’t here to witness this appalling disloyalty. You should be ashamed of yourselves. But how about I give you something to really test your loyalty? Although since you seem to think one’s past behaviour isn’t relevant, you should be able to take it perfectly on the chin when I tell you – Rosco and Scarlet – that you have a sister. More accurately, a half-sister called Katie who is two years younger than you, Rosco.’

He turned to his wife. Her eyes were wide and she suddenly looked very pale. ‘But as that was all in the past,’ he said savagely, ‘thirty years ago to be precise, you’re not going to hold it against me, are you?’