Sue for Mercy Page 13

  “You still can’t link us to the fraud case unless we sign,” said Bianca.

  “I’m afraid we can,” smiled Charles. “Didn’t you hear the Inspector say he got copies of your bank statements for the last couple of years? The payment you received — nineteen thousand pounds — from Robert Maudsley for helping with the fraud case and subsequent frame shows up beautifully. You banked the sum six months and three weeks ago. I expect the Inspector will want to see Robert’s bank statements now, won’t he? Sign or not, you’re finished. But I’d prefer you to sign because I want my father home quickly. Remember I’ve got to come down to the Station with you now, to corroborate the fact that J.B. was acting middleman for me in buying the firm; if you don’t sign, then I might find myself digressing on to all sorts of other topics when I make my statement.”

  “We’ll sign,” said Bianca. She took the pen from Robert, skimmed through the statement, made a face, and signed. The others signed too. I had been right in thinking that Julian had been crying.

  A second police car shot up the drive as the Inspector, J.B., and the Sergeant came out of Julian’s den. All three were looking thoughtful.

  Charles handed the statements to the Inspector, who glanced down them without comment. No doubt J.B. had been putting him in the picture.

  “I’ll get my coat,” said Ruth. Robert watched her put it on and then, clumsily put his arm round her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. It was the first gesture I’d ever seen him make towards her, but she was too enclosed in her misery to respond. She shook off his arm and walked out of the house without looking back. Suddenly Robert looked too small for his clothes. He flicked a quick glance at us to see if we’d notice the incident, and followed her.

  “I must lock up,” announced Bianca.

  “We will see to that,” said the Inspector. “You will give us your permission to have a look around, won’t you?”

  “To search my house?”

  Julian laughed unhappily. “No longer our house, dear. It will have to be sold to repay what we stole.”

  “Not my house,” she repeated, beginning to realise that her life as a rich and elegant woman was over. She revolved, looking round the room, impressing it on her memory, bidding it farewell. Whatever happened, Bianca wasn’t going to return to the scene of her defeat. She stopped at J.B. “You do realise that you are not only sending your precious son to jail, but also breaking up his marriage?”

  “For the first, I am sorry. For the second, you cannot expect me to grieve.”

  “And your money? I suppose you’ll leave it to Charles?”

  “Already done,” said J.B. Charles started and would have spoken, but J.B. silenced him with a raised hand. “Charles knew nothing of it, and I suppose I shall have difficulty getting him to accept it. No, let me finish, Charles. I’ve made you my heir because I like the thought of my money going to someone who will know how to look after it.”

  “So Charles gets everything,” mused Bianca. “The money, the house, the yacht, the girl... I knew he was the sort to go far, as soon as I saw him. I hope... I wish... you shouldn’t have refused me, Charles!”

  Before Julian could stop her, she reached up, wound her arms round behind Charles’ neck, and pressed her mouth to his. We all stood there and watched, too shocked to do anything about it. Charles hardly seemed to notice what she was doing at first, and then he put his hands up to break her grip, and pushed her away from him. Her lipstick left a garish stain on his mouth, so that he looked as if he’d bitten his lip.

  She took one step back, and then another. I couldn’t bear to look at her face. Julian caught at her arm. He spoke her name. I heard her laugh... and then she was gone, and he, poor fool, ran after her.

  “It is not wise,” said Charles conversationally, “to frame a man for a crime if he has three able-bodied sons to defend him.”

  Ronald snapped shut the lock on his briefcase, and Charles shuddered as if waking from a bad dream.

  *

  Of course, it wasn’t the end of the matter. J.B. arranged for Julian to be represented by a solicitor, and even found him a job of sorts until the trial came up. He visits Julian every other month in prison, but won’t talk about it. Bianca went to a hotel until the trial, and sent the bills to J.B. That marriage is definitely over. As far as we were concerned, our involvement with the police ended when Charles and J.B. left the Station that afternoon, but Charles still had one more battle to fight.

  I had been waiting for him in his car, knitting and listening to the radio. I felt half asleep, but forgot my own troubles when Charles came. His face was incandescent with fatigue. He got into the car and sat there, playing with his keys.

  “I’ve failed, you know,” he said. “I’ve cleared Dad. I’ve got the family firm back, and I’ve made a lot of money, but it’s too late. He’ll be dead before the summer’s out.”

  “Now that’s nonsense...”

  “He gave up when he was forced to plead guilty. I could see it in his face when he told us what he’d agreed to do. He’d been fighting the cancer before that; he’d wanted to live, to see David’s three little girls again, to see Jane’s baby, to see me settled. But after that night he stopped fighting. Mother thinks he had just resigned himself to the situation, and that’s why he was so passive. She said it was because he’d got used to prison routine, and being known by his surname and number. I tried to fool myself that was what it was, too... but I’m not much good at fooling myself. I ought to have thought of something which would have worked more quickly... No, the damage was done that first night! I must remember that.” He sighed, and fitted the key in the ignition. “Another thing — Jane’s baby is no good. It moved late and feebly. She’s had trouble all along. She may carry it to term, but if it isn’t stillborn, it won’t live long. She knows it; I see her put one hand on her stomach to try to feel movement, and all the time her eyes are frightened... She thinks she’s let Ronald down. She looks at him as if expecting him to stop loving her because she can’t bear him a healthy child.”

  “You have an overactive imagination. You can’t possibly know these things for certain. You’ve been overworking. You’ll feel better...”

  “And you hate J.B., don’t you? You won’t share me with him; I could read that in your face as soon as you met him. So I must leave him, and he will die, too.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. If he’d understood that I hated J.B., then he’d also understood that J.B. hated me.

  He tried to start the car, and flooded the engine. “I must get a licence tomorrow,” he said. “Will your parents be very angry if we get married without any fuss, quickly? Strange to think I’ve never even met them. One thing — they won’t like me. How could they? I’ve no job now, no home to offer you, and I can be difficult to live with. But at least we’ll have sons.”

  “How many?” I asked, trying to break his mood.

  “How the hell should I know?” he asked irritably. He tried to start the engine again, failed, and handed me the keys. “You’d better drive — I’m bushed.”

  *

  The Sue Stephens of this world don’t usually get invitations to stay at places like Whitestones; they buy a ticket to go over it on Open Days. The drive was half a mile long. On one side of the house lay a heated outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, a croquet lawn, a formal maze and a rose garden. Then there was a walled vegetable garden, a paddock, and stabling converted to flats for some of the staff, with garages beneath. The house itself was early nineteenth century, stuffed with antique furniture and portraits of heavy-faced English gentry. There was also a lot of valuable china scattered around the place in display cabinets. It smelt like a museum. I found it cold in spite of the central heating; but then, I wasn’t predisposed to like it.

  Charles handed me over to Mrs. Green, a black-clad housekeeper, who showed me to a luxurious guestroom where I might wash and brush up. Unasked, she found me a new pair of tights, since my own were in shreds owing to the rough tre
atment they’d received that day. Her manners were almost perfect, but I felt she was making an inventory of my clothing and would report to the other servants on everything she saw.

  Drinks were dispensed in the vast Blue sitting-room, with J.B. jocularly presiding, and Mary Ashton alternately laughing and crying with joy. The phone rang, and it was David, wanting to hear all the details. Mary Ashton couldn’t sit down, she was so happy.

  “Susan — our little heroine!” she cried, when she saw me. She almost ran towards me, with arms outstretched. It was beautifully done and possibly even genuine. I tried not to resent being called “Susan” or “little”. She pressed her scented cheek to mine, and introduced me to Jane, whose wan face and big brown eyes were also showing both tears and smiles. I liked Jane on sight, because she was as plain as I. She had heavy eyebrows which needed thinning out, and she wore the very minimum of make-up. When she spoke, it was in such a shy voice that you had to bend over her to catch her words. I felt we were going to get on well together.

  We processed through a gallery hung with blue-green tapestries to the panelled dining-room, lit with great clusters of candles in massive silver-plated stands. This was the smaller of two dining-rooms, J.B. told me, and used for intimate, family affairs. The silverware was Georgian, the plates hand-painted and the glass Waterford. I thought the food elaborate and over-rich, and it occurred to me to wonder whether J.B. ought to be eating it, if he were on a diet... didn’t diabetics have to diet? I decided it was none of my business, anyway.

  Charles was treated as the son of the house already. He hardly touched his wine, and ate nothing. He couldn’t share his mother’s delight. He’d paid too high a price, personally, for his success, to be able to laugh with her. And she did laugh; she talked the whole of dinner, wittily, bubbling over; then catching up her handkerchief to dab at her eyes as tears spilled, and laughing at herself for crying. She chided Charles for being lumpish and stupid. I stiffened, and noticed that J.B. did, too. Charles and I were sitting one on either side of J.B., and now I saw that J.B. was watching Charles as closely as I.

  “Make an effort, Charles!” cried Mary.

  Charles did his best to rouse himself. He joined in the chatter for a moment or two, and then fell silent again. J.B. turned to look at me, in calculating fashion, and I stared back at him. We didn’t exactly declare a truce, but in that exchange of glances each admitted that we were worried about Charles, and would do our best to protect him until he had recovered his usual spirits. And it seemed, oddly enough, as if Charles did need protection. His mother seemed to think he was incapable of looking after himself. For instance...

  “John dear,” she was saying to J.B., “That foolish boy of mine — has he got terribly in debt with you over this business of buying back the firm? He said something about having earned the money, but of course I can’t believe that...”

  “Charles is not a moron!” snapped J.B., and then softened into a smile for her. “No, my dear. He’s not in my debt. In fact, I believe I owe him three weeks’ salary as of this minute.”

  “I suppose you mean to cancel his debts because he saved your life, but of course we will repay you...”

  “Nonsense! Charles — will you explain, or shall I?” Charles shook his head. Now and then he looked across the table at me, as if he wanted to ask me something, but couldn’t in front of the others.

  “Well,” said J.B., firmly drawing attention back to himself, “When Charles first approached me for a job he was in something of a dilemma, because the scheme he’d evolved demanded my active co-operation, and he didn’t think he could get it without proof. If he’d told me straight out, for instance, that he suspected my son Julian of being a crook and having framed Oliver for the fraud, I’d have thrown him out on his ear. Look at it from my point of view... one of my oldest friends, in whom I could have sworn I could have placed every confidence, had not only been arrested for fraud, but had confessed to it! Then the cleverest of his sons, whom I had last seen established in a good job in London, swanning around in a Mercedes, with a dozen suits in his wardrobe, comes to me for a job right out of the blue. Not only had he traded in his car for a cheap job, but also his wrist-watch and he didn’t appear to have much left in the way of clothes. Naturally I was suspicious. Even if Julian hadn’t been hinting that Charles had been involved in the fraud case, I’d have been suspicious.

  “He said he’d lost money on the ‘Change. It was possible, of course, but somehow it didn’t sound right. I offered him the job at half his previous salary and he took it on condition he could use any information he came across while working for me, to help him recoup his losses. That amused me! The nerve of the lad! So I took him on. I’ll admit I gave him a rough time at first, because my confidence in him had been shaken. I didn’t know what to believe. Then about a month after he started with me, he brought me a cheque for £1,500, payable to me, and explained that he wanted me to pay that into my bank account, and give him an open cheque for the same amount. I asked why. He said he believed that Robert and Ruth had framed his father for the fraud case. He said that it was at Robert’s suggestion that he, Charles, had applied to me for a job, and that Robert wanted him to milk me. He didn’t mention Julian’s name at all, which was wise of him. Even so, I said I didn’t buy it. He said it would be easy to prove; if I paid the cheque for £1,500 into my bank account, and gave Charles a cheque for the same amount, we should see where it turned up by asking the bank to return all cancelled cheques to me in future. Charles filled it out for £1,500, but left the payee’s name open. He made the point that if Robert paid the cheque into his own bank account and didn’t ask me for an explanation as to why I should pay him so much money out of the blue, then there was my proof.

  “I agreed. I had nothing to lose, and I’ll admit I was curious. Charles’ cheque was cleared through into my account, I gave Charles my cheque, and it was duly cleared through into Robert’s account. I was all for calling in the police there and then, but Charles wouldn’t have it. One more cheque, he said. This time it was for five thousand pounds...”

  “But did he really earn that much?”

  “Of course. He has a natural flair for handling money, forecasting trends... Well, what he didn’t tell me was that that second cheque was to be made payable to Julian. He let me find it out for myself.” The old man stared down at the table, placing his hands together and folding the fingers of one hand over the fingers of the other. Then he looked up, banishing memory of the shock which that cheque had given him. “I didn’t want to believe that my son was involved, but as soon as I saw that cheque, I guessed what had been going on. After that, Charles told me everything he knew about the fraud case, the blackmail, and the way they wanted him to obtain money from me. He told me his plan, and I agreed to co-operate. I wanted to lend him the rest of the money he needed, but he wouldn’t have it; he had to buy the firm back himself.”

  “But surely,” I asked, “the law doesn’t allow a criminal to profit from his crimes nowadays? Couldn’t he have got Robert to return the firm by going to the Courts, once he’d proved fraud?”

  “Not so easy,” said Ronald. “Dad sold the firm to Robert in a perfectly straightforward manner, and it might have taken the legal profession years to get the rights and wrongs of the situation sorted out if we’d left it to them. This way Mother still has the twenty thousand invested in Collett Cosmetics, and I can still walk into Dad’s old office tomorrow morning and start getting the business back to normal again.”

  “But it’s Charles who really owns the firm now?” asked Mary. “How strange that seems! I wonder what Oliver will have to say to that; he never thought Charles would settle down and work in the firm...”

  “God forbid!” put in the usually placid Ronald, and everyone laughed.

  “It would never work, Mother,” said Charles. “I couldn’t work with Ronald. I’d drive him crazy. No, I’ll sell it back to Ronald. We’ll work out terms...”

  “You’ll sell it
back to your father, you mean,” said Mary, laughing.

  Charles looked at me, as if daring me to dispute her belief that Oliver Ashton was going to come out of prison the same man as before.

  Jane relieved the tension. “Then what will you do, Charles? Go back to London?”

  “I might. Not to the same firm, of course. I left under something of a cloud; they don’t like their bright young executives to walk out at a moment’s notice... There was some talk once of my putting in for a job in Brussels... I don’t know...”

  J.B. opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. I could almost feel his pain as he recognised that he’d lost Charles. He sat rock still to hide it from us, but I saw his distress, and so did Charles. The three of us sat in silence while the others laughed and joked together.

  “Well,” said Mary. “All’s well that ends well. I’m sure, John, that you’ll be only too glad to get rid of my troublesome son here. He can come back with us tonight to Green Gables...”

  “He’s welcome to stay here,” said J.B., not looking at Charles.

  “Yes, I know,” said Charles. “You know how I feel about that. I’m very, very sorry.”

  “At least you’ll accept a new car for saving my life several times over. Another Mercedes?” Charles shook his head. “But you’ll accept it if I make Sue a gift of it?”

  “Ah, that!” Charles smiled across at me, and then at J.B. It was a shadow of a smile, but a very sweet one. “Yes, if you give it to Sue, I’ll accept it.”

  Danger! whispered a voice in my ear. I’d underestimated J.B. By offering to give me a valuable car, he had told Charles that he was willing to share him with me. I could see that Charles wanted me to be equally magnanimous, but I couldn’t do it. I stood up. It was rude, and abrupt and all of those things that one shouldn’t do in other people’s houses, but I wanted to get Charles away quickly before anything else happened.