New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, 1985
ANDREW BLACKWORTH WAS on his way to San Francisco. He had not initially been over-enthusiastic about the idea, indeed had suggested to Roz that one of his contacts in the States might be able at least initially to follow up the Bill Wilburn trail, but she had looked at him, her green eyes snapping with fury, and said that she was retaining him personally at great expense, and that she did not want any inexperienced fool of a stringer following this trail.
He had not been to San Francisco before and he found it greatly to his liking. He was not a sun lover, and he had visited and hated California; to his enchantment on arrival (just before midday) this city was grey and misty, damply chill. He remembered a quotation from Oscar Wilde: ‘The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.’ This was the kind of summer he liked.
His cab driver, taking him into the town through the oddly European suburban streets with their clapboard houses in faded colours, said this was a day he had to see the bridge; Andrew, fearing a cliché, allowed him to take him there, and looked in awe at the great red spires rising out of the grey mist.
‘Kind of pretty, isn’t it?’ said the driver. ‘You from England?’
Andrew said he was.
‘The English usually get disappointed when they fly in here. Where’s the sunshine, they say. But then they see this and they change their minds. Later on it’ll clear.’ He turned the cab and drove back into town through the Golden Gate Park; Bill Wilburn’s office was in the centre, just east of Chinatown, in a small dingy street, a barrier closing the fiercely steep hill behind it to all but pedestrians.
‘You have a nice day now,’ said the cab driver cheerfully, dumping Andrew’s case on the sidewalk, ‘and mind you take a cable car ride. Nob and Telegraph are the best.’
Andrew said he would and walked into the building.
Wilburn’s office occupied a large room taking up most of the ground floor; his secretary Cynthia, still weepy, but impeccably dressed and coiffed, and enjoying the drama, was rather desperately trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff of Bill’s twenty-five-year-old collection of papers and files.
‘Good morning,’ said Andrew in his impeccable BBC accent. ‘I’m Andrew Blackworth.’ Cynthia looked at him.
‘I just don’t know where to begin,’ she said helplessly, from her position kneeling in front of a filing cabinet, ‘it all seems so old.’
Andrew gave her his most charming smile.
‘It must,’ he said, ‘to you. Here, let me see if I can help.’
‘That would be real nice of you to help me.’ She looked at him. ‘Sorry, why did you say you were here?’
‘I didn’t. I’m here because I’m a private detective from England and we’re trying to trace a relative of Mr Wilburn’s. A young man. Miles Wilburn. Mr Wilburn contacted us just before he died.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said, pleased to be able to show that she had some inside knowledge. ‘Him. I’d forgotten him. Yeah, I had to type a letter about him.’
‘Was this the letter?’
He showed her a photocopy.
‘Yeah.’
‘But you didn’t know anything about him?’
‘Nope. Nothing.’
‘Mr Wilburn didn’t tell you anything, talk to you about him at all?’
‘Nope. Until that day I never heard of him. Never heard about him again either. No, that’s not true, Mr Wilburn said he was going to visit him for a few days. A couple of weeks ago.’
‘Was that in LA?’
‘No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know. Somehow all this has driven everything I ever knew out of my head.’
Andrew thought this was probably not an enormous amount, but he smiled at her encouragingly.
‘Well, maybe something will turn up. Let’s carry on for a while. Was this cousin, the one who lived in Los Angeles, called Wilburn?’
‘I don’t know. I guess so. I got the impression there was some tragedy, but I never really liked to ask.’
‘Really? Why was that?’
‘Oh, Mr Wilburn used to talk about poor Lee. Always poor Lee.’
‘Was that the cousin?’
‘No, it was the cousin’s wife.’
‘Is she still alive?’
‘I guess not. Otherwise Mr Wilburn wouldn’t have gone on and on about being alone in the world.’
‘Possibly. And did these cousins have any children?’
‘Well, I don’t really know. I guess this nephew of his, I had to write the letter about, the one he went to see, was probably their kid. I just don’t know.’
‘Ah. And where did he live?’
‘He lived here.’
‘What, in this office?’
‘Yeah, nearly. In a coupla rooms overhead.’
‘Are they locked?’
‘Yeah, but I have the key.’ She looked at him, slightly embarrassed. ‘I don’t know if I ought to let you up, though. Oh, what the hell,’ she said suddenly. ‘What’s it matter? I don’t suppose Mr Wilburn would have minded. And nobody told me I shouldn’t let anybody up there. Here’s the key. Just don’t disarrange anything, that’s all.’
‘I won’t,’ said Andrew, ‘and thank you very much.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Cynthia, ‘I’m real grateful to you for helping me with the papers.’
‘It was entirely my pleasure,’ said Andrew, just slightly pompously.
The flat was a larger version of the office; untidy, depressing, disorganized. Just two rooms: a kitchen-diner, and a bed-sitting room. The bed-sit had a rather grubby sofa in it, a small bookcase full of the works of Erle Stanley Gardner and Ellery Queen, a coffee table covered in out of date car and fishing magazines, and rather incongruously a British Heritage calendar on one wall, opened at the right month. Now how long had Bill Wilburn been an anglophile, Andrew wondered.
There was a small table by the bed, with a couple of drawers in it, and two photographs on the tiled shelf above the gas fire; one was framed, a very old wedding photograph of a very very pretty blonde girl, and a slightly plump, crewcut young man, sundry relatives standing on either side of them. One of them, Andrew assumed, must be Bill Wilburn. The other was unframed, curling with age, creased and dirty, tucked into the edge of a lurid picture of the Golden Gate Bridge; it was of a blond baby, about ten months old, laughing in the plump (and considerably older) crewcut man’s arms.
‘Now,’ said Andrew to the baby, ‘are you Miles or are you not?’
He went back downstairs, holding the wedding picture. Cynthia had stopped working for a spell, and was retouching her make-up.
‘Cynthia,’ he said, ‘is any of these people Bill Wilburn?’
She took the photograph and looked at it. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘that’s him. Next to the bridesmaid.’
‘But you don’t know if this was his cousin’s wedding?’
‘Nope. I guess it probably is, but I just don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.’
‘OK, I’ll put it back. And lock up. I won’t be a minute.’
He came back down smiling. ‘Thank you, Cynthia, for that. It didn’t actually provide me with any information, but it was nice of you. Er – do you happen to know what might have happened to Mr Wilburn’s wallet? Or his personal address book for instance?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know about the address book. But his wallet is right here, in the safe. I put it there for the time being. I guess you might as well see it.’
She handed it over. Andrew opened it very slowly. It was empty, apart from two ten-dollar bills, a couple of credit card receipts, and a used air ticket. He looked at it cautiously, almost afraid of what it was going to tell him. It was a used return ticket to Nassau.
Joanna looked contentedly round her dinner table. It had all been the greatest success. The lobster and wild rice had been wonderful, the meringue baskets which were always a slight worry had turned out perfectly, and everyone had come up for second helpings of the mousse of raspberries and wild strawberries. Now Holden was going round the table with the armagnac, and Christabel was ready with the coffee, and the worrying part was completely over. What was more, Camilla North had been really very nice, charming in a rather formal way, she was certainly very beautiful, dressed dramatically all in black (probably, Joanna thought, by Bill Blass), and a bit remote, but not really too frightening at all. The man she had come with, a banker called Peter Cohen, was obviously besotted with her; Camilla was plainly not the least besotted with him, in fact Joanna could detect signs of severe irritation in the way she was now just slightly obsessively lining up the glasses in front of her in a very neat way; time to move everyone, she thought, like the good hostess she was.
‘Shall we take coffee on the patio?’ she said. ‘It’s such a lovely night.’
‘Oh, that would be so nice,’ said Camilla, speaking (as she so often did) for the assorted company. ‘And then quite soon, Peter, I think we should make a move. It’s very late.’
‘Oh, goodness, don’t go yet!’ said Joanna. It was awful when a party broke up too early, you missed the fun bit altogether that way.
‘Well, I’m a little tired,’ said Camilla, her lovely head drooping just slightly. ‘I’ve had a hard week. We were pitching for some new drink business.’
‘Did you get it?’ asked Mary Wilder, an old friend of Holden’s, who Joanna was just slightly suspicious of, she didn’t like the way she kept saying things to him very quietly so no one else could hear and touching his arm in that over-friendly way: Mary was also in advertising, although considerably less successfully so than the beautiful Miss North (but then, thought Joanna, struggling to be fair, she was much much younger).
‘I’m not sure. I think probably yes. It’s such a chauvinist business, advertising, we always have to win two wars on every pitch, one to be better than the competition, the other to overcome the innate belief that we can’t possibly be better because it’s my agency and I’m a woman.’
‘I simply cannot believe that, Camilla, in this day and age,’ said Peter Cohen. ‘I think you’re just paranoid, like all women.’
‘Women are not paranoid,’ said Camilla coldly. ‘Merely realistic. I do assure you I do know what I’m talking about. Which, if you will forgive me for saying so, you do not. We may have made some progress in the last decade, but we are still suffering severely under the yoke of thousands of years of oppression.’
‘Oh, Camilla, that’s balls!’ said Holden. ‘I – we have many women in the bank in quite senior positions. No oppression there, I can tell you.’
‘Really?’ said Camilla.
‘Really. Dozens of them. Very nice to have them around, too,’ he added, slightly unfortunately. Joanna winced; Holden could be so crass at times.
‘And how many of these dozens of women are on the main board?’ asked Camilla.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Several, I think. I’m not sure.’
‘Any presidents?’
‘Well, vice-presidents certainly. Not many presidents. Obviously.’
‘Why obviously?’
‘Well, of course we’re very keen on the idea, very aware that women should be presidents. That they’re just as good as the next man, if you’ll forgive the expression. But the other presidents in the other banks aren’t ready for it. They wouldn’t quite welcome it. Not appreciate it. Not yet,’ he added hastily, unnerved by the look in her slightly blank dark eyes. ‘In time I’m sure there will be. And we’ll lead the way.’
‘I see. Good for you.’
There was a silence. Mary broke it.
‘Camilla, do you ever see Nigel Silk these days?’
‘Occasionally,’ said Camilla. ‘At awards ceremonies and so forth. I’m afraid he hasn’t reacted terribly generously to my success. He’s a great yoke-bearer,’ she added, flashing a cool smile at Holden.
‘Who is Nigel Silk?’ asked Joanna quickly, nervous. She could see this getting difficult and the whole evening being ruined.
‘He’s the man who used to do most of our advertising when I worked for Julian Morell, in the early days.’
This was getting worse; Holden had warned her not to so much as touch on the subject of Julian Morell and to steer any conversation right off him. Julian Morrell had always rather fascinated Joanna; she used to like reading about him in the gossip columns, about all his money, and his houses, and his wives, and also Sir James Goldsmith, who had seemed to her a rather similarly glamorous figure; when Holden had told her that Camilla had been Julian Morell’s mistress for years, she could hardly contain herself with excitement and awe. ‘But the guy’s only died a couple of months ago, and she’s probably pretty cut up about it, even though she hadn’t been involved with him for a while. So for God’s sake, Joanna, just don’t even mention him.’
And now, here was Camilla herself mentioning Julian Morell, and Mary Wilder’s eyes lighting up, and one of the other men, Irving Drummond, a friend of Holden’s in the hotel business, leaning forward eagerly. What on earth could she do?
‘Coffee everyone,’ she said again, brilliant smile flashing round the table, but they all ignored her.
‘I met Julian Morell’s daughter only the other day,’ said Drummond. ‘Tough nut, that one. She’s taken over the hotels division from that husband of hers. He’s resigned from the company. She’s divorcing him.’
‘Really?’ said Cohen. ‘And marrying Browning, I suppose?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I guess so. I have to say I don’t envy him, but I guess he can take it.’
Joanna felt worse and worse; she drained her glass and poured herself another, hoping no one was looking.
‘Where did you meet Roz?’ said Camilla. She seemed quite calm; Joanna relaxed a little. Maybe it would be all right. If she just kept right out of the conversation from now on, Holden couldn’t possibly blame her for any of it.
‘Oh, at a hotel convention. She’s very attractive, I must say. Amazing figure.’
‘Do you really think so?’ said Camilla in tones so icy, the entire room was chilled. ‘I always find that very severe style of hers rather off-putting. She was a singularly plain child,’ she added, displaying her intimate knowledge of the family and daring anyone else to comment on Roz Emerson’s attractiveness at one and the same moment.
‘How is she coping, running that empire?’ asked Cohen. ‘It’s quite an undertaking. And she’s very young for the job.’
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ said Camilla, cooler still. ‘I can only say any adversary of hers has my deep sympathy.’ She turned in her chair. ‘Joanna, my dear, why don’t we avail ourselves of your very nice suggestion that we should go and have coffee in the garden? It really is very hot in here.’
Joanna stood up and walked out of the room; Camilla, Mary and Nancy Smallwood, Joanna’s great friend and unofficial co-hostess on sticky occasions, followed her.
While Mary and Nancy were still upstairs, Joanna found herself sitting alone on the terrace with Camilla. She looked at her, seeming, she thought suddenly, rather sad and vulnerable, and said on an impulse (thank God Holden was inside, carrying on about the Dow Jones or something), ‘Camilla, I do hope it doesn’t upset you to talk about Julian Morell. I’m sorry if the conversation about him ran on a bit.’
Camilla looked at her and smiled a trifle frostily. Don’t you try and get too close to me, that look said. ‘Of course not,’ she said graciously. ‘In any case ifit did I have only myself to blame for bringing his name into the conversation. Please don’t worry about it.’
‘All right,’ said Joanna. ‘And thank you for coming this evening. It’s been so nice to meet you. Holden has told me such a lot about you. He has such admiration for you and your agency.’
‘How sweet of him,’ said Camilla. ‘Just a poor thing, but mine own,’ she added graciously. Joanna recognized the quotation, but she wasn’t sure if she should say she did or not.
Mercifully at this point Nancy returned. Nancy could talk any silence out. She commenced to do so now.
‘That was a great dinner, Jo,’ she said. ‘Christabel does make the best summer mousse in the world. Didn’t you think it was just yummy, Camilla?’
Camilla smiled. ‘What a lovely word,’ she said. ‘It’s years since I heard it. Not since I was a small girl.’
She suddenly seemed more human again. Maybe she had just made things worse apologizing like that, Joanna thought. Blast.
‘Well, I use lots of school words still,’ said Nancy cheerfully. ‘I love ’em. I say gosh, and gee and fab and crush and – gross and spaced and Za.’
‘Whatever does Za mean?’ said Joanna, grateful for this diversion.
‘Pizza, everyone knows that,’ said Nancy, laughing. ‘I forgot you went to school in the backwoods, Jo.’
‘Where was that?’ asked Camilla, turning to Joanna, obviously anxious to show she bore no grudge to someone for not going to Vassar.
‘Hollywood,’ said Joanna. ‘Marymount High School.’
‘That does sound fun,’ said Camilla. ‘Hardly the backwoods, but fun.’
‘Oh,’ said Joanna, suddenly sharply remembering, just as she had reading the advertisement, what it felt like to be young, to be at Marymount High, to be in California, to be in love, ‘it was. Wonderful fun.’
And then she said it. It was partly nerves, partly the wine, partly genuinely wanting to tell someone.
‘The most extraordinary thing happened to me this week,’ she said, ‘I was reading the paper, and in the announcement column, you know, where they advertise for people, was the name of my very first boyfriend. Some English lawyer is looking for him. Isn’t that extraordinary? At least I suppose it was him. He had the same name, at any rate.’
Camilla was looking at her very oddly; she had gone rather pale.
‘And what was the name of this boyfriend?’ she said.
‘Miles,’ said Joanna. ‘Miles Wilburn.’
Doctor Margaret Friedman looked at Phaedria across her desk.
‘Good morning,’ she said, her eyes taking in an enormous amount without appearing even to have left her diary: the beauty, the pregnancy, the money. Margaret Friedman did not know a Ralph Lauren shirt from a Marks and Spencer one, nor a Cartier ring from a junk job from Fenwick’s, but she could nonetheless tell you in an instant where a client stood in the socio-economic scale, what kind of school they had been to, which kind of car they drove, whether they lived in town or the country, whether they had any children. It was one of the things that made her so good at her job.
‘Good morning,’ said Phaedria. ‘It’s very good of you to see me at such short notice. Thank you.’
‘Joan said you sounded – well, not entirely happy. I do like to help when I can.’
‘I’m – well – I’m all right. It’s just that – well I do have a – problem.’
Margaret drew a pad towards her. ‘Let’s start with a few details, shall we? Now your full name is –?’
‘Phaedria Morell.’
‘And you’re – forgive me, but I do read the papers, Julian Morell’s widow?’ The dark eyes looked at Phaedria, politely non-committal.
‘I’m so sorry. It must be a very difficult time for you.’
‘Well,’ said Phaedria, with a rather tight little smile, ‘it certainly isn’t easy.’
‘And you’re pregnant.’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Awful.’
‘I’m not surprised. Would you like some tea?’
‘No, thank you. Do you have any lemons?’
‘I do. In hot water?’
‘Yes, please.’
She ordered Joan rather briskly to bring in some hot water and lemon and then sat back in her chair. ‘Now then. Where should we begin?’
‘About fifteen years ago,’ said Phaedria.
‘I’m sorry?’
Phaedria smiled. ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry. I must be a terrible shock to you. There’s nothing wrong with me. At least I don’t think so. Not psychiatrically. It’s just that – oh, it’s such a bizarre story. I don’t know where to begin. You may not be able to help at all.’
‘Let me try.’
‘Well, about fifteen years ago, my husband came to see you.’
‘Yes, he did. Did he tell you that himself?’
‘No. His secretary told me. You see, my husband has left a very complicated will. This is – ? She looked awkward. ‘Confidential?’
‘Yes. Yes of course.’
‘Well, we are trying to trace someone. Someone he left an important legacy to. We thought you might be able to help.’
‘I can’t imagine how.’
‘Well, my husband was – well, rather a complex man. He was not at all straightforward.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Anyway, his secretary knew he had been seeing you in – oh, I think 1971. We thought – that is I thought – if you could tell me why, what he came about, it might throw a bit of light on his life.’
‘Possibly,’ said Margaret Friedman carefully.
‘Oh, I feel so silly,’ said Phaedria suddenly. ‘You must think I’m mad.’
‘On the contrary, I think you’re very sane. You should see some of the others, as they say. And I do assure you no story comes as a surprise to me.’
‘Well,’ said Phaedria, ‘let’s get down to basics. Do you – could you remember why my husband came to see you?’
‘I’m not sure. I’d have to look out his notes.’
‘Could you do that?’
‘Well, I could certainly look them out. I think before I committed myself to talking to you very much more, I’d have to know a bit more about you.’
‘Why?’ said Phaedria, her eyes wide with disappointment.
‘Well, you may seem very stable. I’m sure you are. But you must realize I might – I’m not saying I necessarily would be – I might be promising to tell you something which would make you very unstable indeed.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t anything really ghastly. It couldn’t have been. Someone would have known.’
‘You’d be surprised, Lady Morell – how people don’t know about ghastly things. Close their minds to them. Tell themselves they can’t be true. Of course I’m not suggesting your husband was a murderer or anything. But I can’t give you a blanket promise to tell you whatever it was he came to see me about without knowing you a little better . . .’ She smiled. ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘November.’
‘Then we must take care of you. Where are you having it?’
‘St Mary’s, Paddington. The Lindo Wing.’
‘Very sensible. Now, what I’d like to do is have a chat with you now, learn a little more about you, and then if you can come back in a day or two, I’ll have looked at your husband’s notes, and I can talk to you with a bit more confidence.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Phaedria, her voice suddenly shaky, ‘look, I can see that you have to be careful, but honestly I am very stable, I don’t need counselling, I just want to unravel this mystery. I can’t stand it much longer. I don’t see why you won’t help.’
She suddenly burst into tears; Margaret Friedman sat and handed her tissues and watched her sympathetically for a few minutes. Then she said, ‘You may not need counselling, but you do need help. Why don’t you begin at the beginning? I honestly think it’ll make you feel better.’
When Phaedria had left, an hour later, she got out the files on Julian Morell. She felt she owed it to herself to check through them. But as she had known, there was no need. She could remember absolutely everything that was in them.
Phaedria was fast asleep when the phone rang.
‘Phaedria? It’s C. J.’
‘C. J., it’s two in the morning.’
‘I know. I’m sorry to wake you. But I have some news.’
He heard her snap into wakefulness. ‘What? C. J., what? Where are you?’
‘In New York, at Sutton Place.’
‘Oh, God, of course you are. I’m sorry. I’d forgotten for a moment. Well, go on, what have you found?’
‘Something quite strange. In Julian’s desk.’
‘What? For God’s sake, C. J., what?’
‘Well, I thought I’d wasted my time at first. Nothing in it remotely interesting. Then I was fiddling about with one of the small top drawers, it seemed to be too shallow somehow, and – well, it had a spring back, and there inside it, right at the very back, was a box. A locked document box.’
‘And?’
‘I’m afraid I forced it open and there were some pretty odd things inside.’
‘What sort of odd?’
‘Well, a few snapshots of a little boy. No name or anything.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘Fairly standard. Blond hair. Snub nose. Nice smile.’
‘And? What else?’
‘A card announcing his birth, at least I presume it was his birth. It was him, he was Miles. Miles Wilburn. Born 1958. In Santa Monica. Los Angeles.’
‘Oh, God. C. J., who is he? What is all this? Who was this card from?’
‘Someone called Dean. Dean Wilburn. Saying come and see us soon.’
‘Does it give an address?’
‘No. You know those cards, Phaedria, they’re just name, weight and date and time. Nothing helpful like an address, for us detectives to discover.’
‘You’re a great detective, C. J. You really are. You should take it up for a living. I can’t believe all this. But what on earth, what on earth does it mean? Does it say where he was born, this child?’
‘Yeah, St John’s Hospital, Santa Monica.’
‘Well, maybe we could track them – him down through there.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah, a cutting from a newspaper, an obituary of someone called Lee Wilburn. The usual thing, you know, after an illness, bravely borne. Beloved mother of Miles.’
Phaedria was silent for a minute.
‘Poor Lee, whoever she was. Poor Miles. What year was that?’
‘Um, let’s see, 1971.’
‘So Miles would only have been, what, thirteen. How sad. What about his father?’
‘No mention of him. Not even in the obit.’
‘Oh, C. J., I don’t understand any of this. None of it.’
‘Neither do I. And then there’s one more thing, a list of graduations from the University of Berkeley in 1980 listing Miles Wilburn. He got a summa cum laude in Maths. He’s obviously not dumb. Whoever he is.’
‘I always said he wouldn’t be,’ said Phaedria. ‘No more photographs?’
‘None. Julian obviously believed in keeping his memorabilia to a minimum. Whatever it was all about. Look, I really have to go and see my mother tomorrow, but I’ll fly straight back the next day. We can talk then. And decide what to do next. Go down to LA or whatever. I just had to let you know.’
‘Of course. Oh, C. J., what on earth do all these people have to do with Julian? It’s so mysterious. Oh, God, now I don’t know whether to be pleased or worried.’
‘I think you should be pleased. Otherwise, I’m wasting an awful lot of time and effort.’
She smiled, and he could hear her mood briefly lightening. ‘All right, I’ll be pleased.’
‘Good night, C. J. Sleep well. And thank you.’
Phaedria couldn’t go back to sleep. She lay tossing, uncomfortable, agitated, with visions of a small boy with blond hair dancing before her eyes, and the words ‘beloved mother of Miles’ flickering fretfully inside her head.
Roz looked round the boardroom. Phaedria was at one end of the table, Richard Brookes at the other. Susan, Freddy Branksome and George Hanover, sales director of the entire group, were sitting side by side with their backs to the window. They all, even Phaedria, had their eyes fixed on her face. She was, in that moment, Susan thought, extraordinarily like her father, determined, utterly in control, fixing their attention on her.
‘I want to discuss the pharmaceutical division,’ she said. ‘I think we could be missing some valuable opportunities for expansion.’
This was Roz’s latest game, and tactically important in her war against Phaedria. She would fix on some aspect of the company, study it fiercely for days, acquaint herself with every possible detail of its strengths and weaknesses, and then pounce, call a meeting to discuss it, with the least possible warning. She would ask for comments on profitability, potential growth, she would suggest investment programmes, advertising campaigns, plant expansions, training programmes, she would argue for diversification, she would demand absolutely up-to-the-minute reports on stock holdings, budget controls, market shares, she would criticize salary levels, and then at the end of it she would sit down with an expression of huge satisfaction on her face and ask someone else for their comments on the subject in hand.
The whole thing was a piece of theatre, and staged for the benefit of nobody but herself; the time it wasted was enormous, the benefit it brought to each of the companies minimal, indeed it was often disruptive, because she always insisted on some changes being made, albeit minor, but for a few hours every week she was absolutely in command, displaying her knowledge which was formidable, and her intellect which was considerable. It also left Phaedria visibly confused and demoralized, her modest knowledge of the company and her lack of the skills, knowledge and the politicking power of her rival openly displayed.
She was clearly losing confidence now; she would make a statement, Roz would contest it, express a view, have it demolished. Richard and Freddy and even Susan, with her determined fondness for Roz, her support for her cause, watched this slaughter with distaste. Roz had the big guns on her side; Phaedria was confronting her with an elegant but ineffectual blank-firing pistol.
Phaedria made her way wearily up to the penthouse and let herself in. She drank the iced Perrier Sarah had left for her, ignored the prawn salad, and lay down on the bed in the small room off the main office. She wondered how much longer she could go on. How much more public humiliation she could take, how many more blows at her self-esteem she would have to force herself to endure.
And besides, what was she doing it for? C. J. had been right, she could so easily give in, let Roz have the company, just go away somewhere and enjoy herself, have her baby in peace, bring it up somewhere far removed from this nightmare of intrigue and politicking and self-doubt.
It was a monstrous legacy, and one that had very little to offer her. And just where was bloody bloody Miles Wilburn, was she ever going to find out what his part was in the nightmare, and even if she did, then what? What good did she think he could do her? How was she to get hold of his two per cent anyway? Would she have to marry him? Buy him? How could you have done this to me, Julian Morell, she thought, exposed me to this pain, this humiliation.
How he must have despised her. He certainly couldn’t have loved her. Bastard! She found herself thinking in these terms more and more these days. If he walked in here now, she thought, I’d kill him! Then the irony of that struck her and she smiled suddenly; she relaxed on to the bed. Deep within her the child stirred, the strange sweet fluttering she waited to feel day by day, entranced by its increasing strength and urgency; it made the whole thing somehow bearable; worth while, important.
‘We’ll do it,’ she said aloud, looking down at the considerable hump which was now situated where her flat stomach had been, stroking it tenderly, smiling at it. ‘We’ll do it. For your daddy’s sake. No, not for your daddy’s sake, forget I said that. For your mother’s. I’m the one that counts around here. Don’t you forget it.’ She closed her eyes; she felt her head slowly skimming into the lack of coherent thought that means sleep is imminent. She allowed her mind to wander; she thought about the little boy with blond hair, the woman, the beloved mother. Poor Lee, she thought drowsily, poor Lee. Dying so young. In – 1971. The words formed a refrain in her head: Dying so young in 71, dying so young in 71.
And then she sat up suddenly alert, her heart thudding, her hands damp. In 1971. Lee had died in 1971. The year Sarah had said Julian had been so depressed. When he had begun to go to Doctor Friedman.
She turned on the bed, reached for the phone, dialled Doctor Friedman’s number feverishly, her mind a tumult.
‘Mrs Durrant? Could I speak to Doctor Friedman, please? This is Lady Morell. Yes, it’s very very urgent. Very urgent indeed.’