False Report Page 4

  ‘Now you’re being frivolous, Mother.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Max. What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you. Everyone agrees that you’ve done wonderfully well to keep the agency going since Hamilton died. As I’ve often observed to Nicole, he was more like a father to me than my own father ever was, and I still miss him.’

  Was Max implying that Bea didn’t miss him? She did, every day and in every way. Her eyes flicked to Hamilton’s portrait by the window. A round-faced, wise man of middle age, who had run the agency till cancer took hold of him – and he died. Max had had a go at running the agency himself for a little while, but since then Bea had taken over and done pretty well, she thought. On the whole.

  ‘Yes, dear. I miss him, too.’

  His eyebrows snapped. He didn’t care to be interrupted. ‘The world of commerce marches on, and changes are afoot which even I have difficulty assimilating into—’

  What on earth was he talking about? Yet another new system from Microsoft to bewilder the computer operator? And why did he always have to get his metaphors in a twist?

  ‘So I realize how desperately hard it must be for you to keep up to date. It is nothing to be ashamed of. No. Far from it. Better brains than yours have been brought low by the technical revolution which is flooding the microwaves—’

  Bea suppressed a giggle. He’d be terribly hurt if she showed amusement at his verbal slip.

  And then she felt acid rise at the back of her throat. He was going to say she had lost her touch and should retire. He was going to put all her vague worries into words, and make them real. It hurt.

  ‘I do worry about you, Mother. You know that I do. I talked to Nicole about it, and she agreed with me.’

  Naturally. Nicole had no ideas of her own, which made her the perfect wife for Max, who had plenty of opinions – even if they were mostly second-hand.

  He sat down beside her and patted her hand. Patronizing. But he meant well. ‘Mother, it’s time to face facts. You’re not getting any younger—’

  She had a shocking impulse to box his ears, but controlled herself.

  ‘—and as you know, nothing ever stands still in this world. The agency is continuing to grow, thanks to the new blood you’ve brought in—’

  That reference to ‘new blood’ rang an alarm bell. He meant the new manageress, Ianthe – pronounced Eye-An-Thee – didn’t he?

  ‘—and it’s no longer an exclusive little affair which you can run part-time, but has the potential to expand. It needs more staff, more investment. It needs to become a limited company with a suite of offices, perhaps in the High Street. If you sold out now, you’d be a very rich woman. You could retain shares in the new company, and you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing, except how to spend your dividends.’

  She eyed him with suspicion. ‘How long have you been thinking about this?’

  The faintest of reddening in his cheeks. ‘Oh, for a long time, but I didn’t like to say anything, knowing how you’ve clung on to the business to keep you going since Hamilton died. And then someone said . . . in the House, was it? No, no. At the club. Admiring the gallant way you’ve been carrying on, and saying that other people of your age hang on too long and then . . . they can’t keep up with the way the world is going. You see?’

  ‘Who, precisely, have you been discussing this with?’

  ‘Nobody you know. At least, I wouldn’t think so. But he does say he’d be interested in talking to you, if I sounded you out first.’

  ‘I see.’ But she didn’t, not really. Who would want to buy her out? She couldn’t think of anybody who’d be interested. Ah-ha. What about Jackson’s, who were her chief competitors in the agency world?

  ‘There’s more.’ He shifted on the seat and pressed her hand harder. ‘If the agency goes elsewhere, as I’m sure it should, then this house . . . Well, it’s rather on the large side for one older woman living by herself, isn’t it? You’ve been wonderful, taking in Oliver and Maggie, but, well, Oliver’s at university now, and Maggie . . . a delightful girl, of course, but she’s no kin of ours and will be moving on eventually . . .’

  Max had been brought up in this house. After she married Hamilton, he’d adopted the boy. It was a prestigious address and a beautiful house. Max had always wanted to live here. Something inside her cried out that it wasn’t his home; it was hers!

  Again he shifted on his seat. ‘I thought we – Nicole and I – could get a mortgage to buy this house off you on generous terms, and if you were to buy a smaller place somewhere, you could give Oliver and Maggie some thousands each to start them off on the housing market. What’s more – and I know this will appeal to you – your grandson wouldn’t have to be brought up in a flat, and he’d have a garden to play in.’

  She stood up, trying not to show how much he had shaken her. The prospect of making a lot of money didn’t particularly appeal to her, but if selling out meant her grandson and extended family would benefit, then she supposed she ought to think seriously about it.

  He stood, too, and put his arm around her. ‘There, now. That wasn’t so terrible, was it? You have a good think about what I’ve said. You’ve always been a sensible woman, and you’ll soon come to see that I’m right.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now, I’d better get going, I suppose. Busy, busy. Committee meetings, correspondence, people to see. Nothing for you to worry your head about. I’ll call round again soon, shall I? And then we can talk ways and means.’

  She saw him out and returned to the living room, crossing her arms, hugging herself. If she did as he suggested, life would still go on. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  She straightened the photographs on the mantelpiece, picking up the silver-framed one of her grandson. He was smiling at the camera, chubby-cheeked and bright-eyed. Seeing him twice a week was one of the joys of her life. She was going to miss seeing him grow over the long summer holiday, although he would have lots of love and attention from his other grandparents. She mustn’t begrudge them their time with him. After all, she saw more of him than they did.

  But still; it hurt.

  And what Max had said hurt, too. He wanted to tidy her away into a bungalow in some retirement haven, where she would lose all contact with her friends and family. A living death to someone who’d worked hard all her life.

  Max had always been jealous of Oliver and Maggie, though he’d no need to be for she had more than enough love to go round. She loved him and knew him well. She understood that he was afraid she might divert part of what he saw as his inheritance their way.

  He was afraid of many things, wasn’t he? Of being found inadequate as a husband and father, as a member of parliament, and of losing status in the eyes of the world . . . unlike Oliver and Maggie who’d both been knocked out by things that had happened to them in their teens, and who were only now beginning to rebuild their lives.

  Yet Oliver and Maggie were rebuilding on a firm foundation. Bad things might still happen to them in the future; they knew that, but they’d also learned that it was possible to survive.

  Did Max know that? Possibly not, because up to now, someone else had always picked him up if he fell down. Hamilton had adopted the fatherless boy and put him through university. When other jobs had faded out, Max had run the agency during Hamilton’s illness . . . and then he’d met and married Nicole, whose parents were only too keen to help him establish himself as a Member of Parliament. He was painstaking and thorough and a loyal party member. He worked hard for his constituents. With luck, he now had a job for life. But if that failed him . . .?

  She sighed. Who could foresee the future? Who would want to?

  A fly blundered into the room. She shooed it out and stood, looking out over the quiet, shady garden which was enclosed – as all the houses in this terrace were – by high brick walls.

  Maggie had filled the great urns with summer bedding plants, and various shrubs and small trees around the perim
eter were doing well. The sycamore was in two tones of green with the flowers showing lighter splotches against the leaves. The leaves trembled in the breeze, and through them she could glimpse the spire of St Mary Abbot’s at the bottom of the hill.

  Hamilton had worshipped in that church, and so had she for a while though it was a trifle too ornate and high for her. Hamilton had said God was everywhere, not just in church, and sometimes she could believe that. And sometimes not.

  Dear Lord, I am in your hands. You know everything. You know my weaknesses and my strengths. If my work here is done, help me to retire with a good grace. If you still have work for me to do here, then . . . do you think you could give me a sign of some kind? Faithfully yours, Bea Abbot.

  She was alone in the house. She listened for the comforting noises which would tell her that there were other human beings around, but there were none.

  There was no clashing of pans or sound of radio and television coming from the kitchen next door, which meant that Maggie had not yet returned from whatever job she’d been doing. Maggie didn’t seem able to function without a lot of noise around her.

  Oliver’s year at university had finished but he’d told Maggie he was staying on for another week or two to finish up some research project or other. So he wouldn’t be popping in and out, or playing jazz on his saxophone at the top of the house.

  Bea was not hungry after eating that big tea, so she went down the inside stairs to the agency rooms. Her office lay at the back of the house. More French windows there would let her out on to the garden, since the house was built on a slope, and what was a semi-basement at the front of the house was level with the paved garden at the back.

  Everything looked neat and tidy.

  In the old days she would have expected to see a pile of papers on her desk for her to peruse, sign, or mark up for discussion. Now there was nothing except a folder containing an up-to-date report on the agency finances, broken down into different categories.

  Once it had been Bea’s job to oversee the accounts and make whatever decisions might be necessary. All that was in the past. With the advent of Ianthe, her new manageress, the agency was going from strength to strength, and surely they would soon iron out any bumps in the road. If, indeed, there were any bumps. Probably not. It was all in her mind.

  The agency was a success story, as Max had said.

  How had he known it? Through Ianthe? Though how the two of them might have met was something of a puzzle.

  Bea tried to switch on her computer, but there was no power. Ianthe liked to turn off the power to all the computers on her way out every night. It was a sensible step to take, but it grated on Bea to have to go into the main office and unlock the cupboard to access the big new switch-box and turn the power on again. Fortunately, she’d insisted on having a key to that cupboard.

  Back in her office, she switched on her computer. She wasn’t completely redundant. At least she could find a suitable housekeeper for the little music man. A name had leaped into her mind: someone who had worked for her for a long time but recently decided to leave. Celia had said she wanted something less stressful now, though in the darkest hours of the night, Bea suspected this was simply another example of Ianthe managing to ease out anyone who’d worked for the agency before she arrived. There could be no other explanation for such a complete turnover of staff, could there?

  It was understandable that Ianthe would feel more comfortable working with a team that she’d selected herself. Bea’s people had all been with her for so long that it must have been irritating for the newcomer to be referred back to the way things had been done in the past.

  Bea felt nostalgic for the old days. But when dear Miss Brook, the indefatigable, long-time mainstay of the Abbot Agency, had finally conceded that she was no longer able to keep track of every job that came to the agency, Bea had been forced to interview for someone to help out. And Ianthe – bleached to honey blonde, scented and perhaps slightly too well upholstered – had arrived with the highest of recommendations, to take over the interviewing and allocation of new clients and staff.

  Within twenty-four hours of Ianthe’s tripping lightly into the agency, Bea had thanked heaven for her efficiency, while at the same time becoming aware that the advent of Wonder Woman might not altogether suit Miss Brook. The two women had taken an instant dislike to one another. A well-disguised dislike, of course. Voices were never raised, though eyebrows went up and down like yo-yos. Smiles were pinned to faces throughout the most wounding exchanges. Offers were made of tea-biscuits from cherished tins normally kept in bottom drawers of desks, and declined with barbed remarks about not wanting to put on weight, or of butter creams being bad for the complexion.

  Bea had told herself that things would settle down. Ianthe assured Bea that she had the deepest respect for Miss Brook and would take every opportunity to learn whatever gems of wisdom the older woman might care to impart to her. But soon even this attempt at harmony ceased. Allegations of ineptitude were offered to Bea from both sides in tones of deep apology. ‘I wouldn’t dream of troubling you, Mrs Abbot, but . . .’

  The worst of it was that Miss Brook couldn’t substantiate her contention that Ianthe was not the right person for the agency, whereas Ianthe was able to point to instances of Miss Brook mislaying paperwork and not returning phone calls.

  Miss Brook represented the best of the Old Style of doing business. She had managed the transition from card indexes to computers as if fingers had been invented for tapping keyboards, and she could sense a false reference at fifty paces. But perhaps, Ianthe hinted with sorrow, Miss Brook was beginning to let things slip, which, though understandable at her age, was not doing the agency any good.

  Ianthe had a university degree and a delightfully warm manner, setting clients at ease from the moment they spoke to her on the phone or entered the office rooms.

  Miss Brook had broken down and wept when she tendered her resignation. Bea had wept, too. They’d been through so much together over the years, but it was undeniably true that Miss Brook had been eligible to draw her state pension for a good number of years, and therefore ought perhaps to make room for a younger person.

  Bea sighed. Oh dear. Happy days.

  She wondered if it would be a good idea to telephone Celia about Jeremy, rather than email her. Yes, it would be good to have a chat with her, find out what she was doing nowadays. Bea delved into the right-hand drawer of her desk for her address book. It wasn’t there. That was odd. She always kept it there.

  Well, she could access Celia’s address on her personnel files.

  Except that the computer screen was asking for her password.

  Bother. What was it today?

  It was Ianthe’s idea to change the password every day, and of course that was good business practice. The only problem was that Ianthe always seemed to come into Bea’s office, to tell her what the new password was to be, when she was on the phone. It would be a mixture of upper and lower-case letters, with some numerals thrown in. Quite brilliant, ensuring no one from outside could hack into their system.

  Only, Bea’s visual memory was better than her aural, and it was beyond her to memorize something she’d been told but not seen written down.

  In other words, she wasn’t able to get into the office system. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, or the second. She seized a piece of paper and wrote on it, ‘Ianthe; please give me the password in written form every day. This is my third time of asking. Bea Abbot.’

  She considered the note a trifle harsh, but . . . no, it was fair.

  She switched on her photocopier, copied the memo, and took it through to tuck under Ianthe’s keyboard.

  Looking around, she had to concede that the big front room had become rather crowded of late. Once upon a time Miss Brook had run the agency with the aid of two part-timers – and for a short time with Maggie, who’d never been much help in that area. Then Oliver had come to update them in every way, and after that dear Celia h
ad arrived and been a tower of strength. All gone now. Bea hardly knew the names of the new girls who Ianthe had imported. All very bright and literate, with good telephone manners.

  But somehow . . . the fun had gone out of the business.

  Fun? Yes, it had been fun in the old days, matching difficult clients with the right personnel, solving problems that would have tested the imaginations of agony aunts, fielding requests to avert last minute tragedies; yes, it had been fun. And they’d felt they were fulfilling a need, smoothing their clients’ path through life.

  Now it was a business, run on strictly practical lines. There were time limits for everything. No phone call should last more than so many minutes, as time costs money. No private phone calls or emails were allowed. Other agencies should be called upon to supply hard-to-fill vacancies, even if the personnel had not been vetted by them.

  It all made for efficiency, an improved turnover. And a small regret – which was most unbusinesslike – for everything they’d lost in transit.

  Perhaps it was time for Bea to sell up and move out. She would find Celia’s address, put her in touch with the little music man and . . .

  Bother! She couldn’t even do that! In her own agency! This was ridiculous.

  She swept back into her office and went through every drawer in her own desk, looking for her personal address book. If it wasn’t in the top right-hand drawer, then where was it? Might she have put it in her handbag? No.

  Had she left it out somewhere? Most unlikely . . . but she looked, anyway. No.

  There was one place she hadn’t looked, and that was the small office which had once been Oliver’s and had subsequently been taken over by Maggie. Her paperwork was always in confusion, but her jobs were almost always completed on time and within budget.

  And there – ta-da! – was her address book, poking out from under some architect’s plans.

  Bea picked it up. It felt different. Grainy. And discoloured. She opened it at random and found much of the information inside was illegible. Had someone spilt a cup of coffee over her book?