In the days following the charity event, I find it impossible to go anywhere. I choose instead to keep to our cozy flat. Since I don’t want Brian to worry, I pretend to have a head cold. He plays along, bringing home spicy Thai food and laying in a supply of excellent tea.
London in early December is a study in contradictions. The weather is miserable, monochromatic, and chronically damp. Night seems to appear in the middle of the afternoon. On the other hand, the streets are festooned with holiday decorations. Houses, shops, streetlamps, and park benches glitter. Pop-up markets line the Thames and crowd the parks. They sell nearly everything, from wool jumpers to hot grog. You’ve never seen a more determined group than the shoppers and revelers who populate the stores and pubs. Be gone, dark, they seem to be saying. We will overwhelm you with our gaiety and our money. I find it exhausting.
Betsy Harrigan calls to ask me out for tea. I put her off as kindly as I can. To my great surprise, not to mention distress, I receive a handwritten invitation in the post from Annabel Westcott, inviting me to lunch.
“Go, Suzanne. Meet her for lunch. Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself crazy.”
Brian and I are preparing for bed. I’m ready to hop between the sheets, having been in my flannel nightgown all day.
“How am I supposed to sit across the table from the daughter of the man who stole my life and tried to end my family?” I demand.
“Nothing connects Annabel Kemp to anything her father did. She’s the wife of a politically savvy noble and by all accounts a generous contributor to several charities. She probably adores her children and owns a rescue mutt.”
I laugh in spite of myself. Brian has again worked his magic on me.
Four days later, I’m sitting opposite a younger, softer version of the man I dreamed of killing until the day he died.
We’ve scheduled lunch at Balthazar, a tony replica of New York’s fabled hot spot. We settle into a dining nook and peruse the menu. I doubt I’ll be able to eat.
Annie appears exactly on time. Her outfit reflects the craze for all things Kate Middleton. No surprise. Prince William’s new bride influences the wardrobes of nearly every British woman between the ages of fifteen and fifty-five.
My lunch companion wears a short taupe-colored trench coat over a simple shirtwaist dress with an asymmetric neckline and elbow-length sleeves. Very smart. The color is eye-catching, a blue that reminds me of twilight. It works well with her dark hair and eyes. Though not conventionally beautiful, Annie projects a sort of confident, effortless sophistication. Her jewelry is understated: small gemstone studs, a simple necklace with a charm and a bangle. I’m in a gray cashmere/wool jacket and black wool slacks. Good quality but deliberately subdued. An outfit unlikely to catch the eye.
We lay the starched white napkins on our laps and begin a conversation about the charity. There’s enough to talk about. The waiter hands us menus; we both choose curried chicken salad and iced tea. Annie seems delighted.
“Look at that. Great minds think alike.”
My chuckle sounds more like a gurgle.
“I hope you’ll consider a seat on the board. I know—” She puts up a hand in case I object. I fight the urge to run from the room. She is her father’s daughter, right down to the gestures. “You’re new, Suzanne, and you don’t know anyone. Besides, you don’t want anyone to pry into your husband’s business, not that anyone would.”
I must look surprised.
“Come, now. Mark sits in the House of Lords. Unlike a great many of his colleagues, he makes a point of being active. He strongly supports the work of the Ministry of Defence. Did you know he once served as an officer in the Royal Navy? Brian is very well respected in SIS. I doubt they’ll ever allow him to retire.”
If I were writing a movie script, I couldn’t have come up with a more ominous line. I remind myself that Annie isn’t channeling her father. I doubt she knows anything about my past. Or does she? Time to find out. I take a huge sip of water and nearly gag on an ice cube.
“Do you mind if I think about it a bit? I do want to contribute.” I hesitate before continuing. I hope I can sound more off-handed than I feel about my next question. “Say, did you ever figure out how we know each other?”
She frowns, unsure whether I’m teasing or not. “I didn’t. Did you?”
“I may have met you once at your father’s New York office. I worked for him for a number of years.”
Her reaction causes me to reconsider everything I’d guessed about Annabel Kemp Westcott. She registers alarm, along with distaste. I’m not sure what to say. I decide I must at least proceed with caution.
“I worked for years as a corporate security manager.”
“Corporate security manager. It almost sounds glamorous.”
“I hope so. My title never changed, I’m afraid.”
Annabel raises a formidable eyebrow. “That sounds like my father.”
“At least my salary increased.”
“It must have been interesting work.”
That’s one way of putting it, I think. “I’d been studying to be an engineer. But after I joined your father’s company, my career took a different path.”
To say the least, my insistent little voice remarks. I want to scream at it to shut the bloody hell up.
“You worked for him a long time.”
“Decades,” I reply. The silence stretches between us. The waiter brings the breadbasket, which gives me a moment to collect my wits. I decide to go with a tiny bit of honesty. “The experience had its moments of stress, to say the least,” I offer.
Her laughter cascades across the table. It breaks the tension. “Aren’t you the master of understatement?”
“Don’t misunderstand me. The pay was very good, as I said, and the job made use of my talents.” I grab again for my glass. Good thing it’s not wine; I’d be thoroughly plastered by now. “In those days, women had fewer options. I wouldn’t have found a remotely comparable position elsewhere.”
“Yet he didn’t promote you. And I have no doubt he was an exacting employer.”
“He could be.” I clear my throat. “Did you see a lot of him growing up?” I don’t want to talk about any of this. I have to.
“Not much. His business had him in New York quite a bit. Also, Brazil. Rio mostly. Sometimes he traveled to Eastern Europe. He was a bit of a cipher, at least to me. I suppose women found him appealing. At any rate, he appealed to my mother. I know why she attracted him. She was well-placed and good-looking. She was also manipulative and quite adaptable as long as certain of her needs were met. I am none of those things,” she adds.
“You're quite attractive.” I say what needs to be said.
She waves her hand. “Not important. I grew up wanting for nothing. Mummy wasn’t an attentive sort, but she made sure I went to the right schools and showed up at the proper events. I saw Father a few days every month. Believe it or not, many of my friends had fathers who traveled for work. Or they pretended to. Really, they all had mistresses stashed in flats around the city. Some of them even had second families. At least my father kept his in Brazil.”
“Really?” I couldn’t hide my shock.
Her laugh is light and easy. “Oh, I figured it out early on. It really wasn’t all that difficult. I found two boxes my father had hidden in his closet, and I unwrapped them. Baseball mitts, accompanied by a short note. I decided it was Spanish or Portuguese. I also found mailing labels for Rio de Janeiro. You may have gathered I was a bit of a snoop as a young girl. It seemed a useful skill to cultivate.”
A neglected only child. How familiar that sounds. I’m suddenly in mind of the Emily Dickenson poem about the nobody who recognizes a kindred spirit. In spite of myself, I sympathize with this poor little rich girl.
“Two sons, I assumed,” Annie says. “That would have delighted Victor Kemp. He brought one into the business, as I recall. You must have met him during your time there.”
“How on earth did you know?”
“A few years after I married—I was pregnant with Aidan, my eldest—Mark came home with a tidbit about Kemp’s company he’d seen in the business section of the New York Times. ‘I know you don’t care about him, Annie,’ he says to me. ‘I just thought you’d find it interesting that the company has appointed a young Brazilian lad as CEO. Ink barely dry on his MBA, from what I can gather.’ I’d already told Mark I suspected my father had two illegitimate sons. I’m unusually close to my husband, you see. We don’t keep things from each other. But he was right about one thing: I didn’t care. I processed the news, but I had no desire to follow up.”
“Did you know—?”
“Did I know the memorial service I attended was likely for my half-brother as well as my father? I did. The irony was not lost on me. I admit I looked around a bit, curious to see if I could spot the mistress or the other son. Not that I’d know what they looked like.”
She leaned in. “You must understand, Suzanne; I hardly knew my father, and I never loved him. I was happiest when Victor Kemp wasn’t about. Not that he was cruel to me, not in the least. In fact, he behaved as a doting uncle might. He took me shopping and to dinner. He inquired after my activities and seemed to take great pride in my accomplishments, such as they were. He even gave me away at my wedding.
“But he—what is it my children say? He creeped me out. There was an animal quality to him beneath an oh-so-thin veneer of civilized behavior. I fear I’m sounding typically English and wholly prejudiced. I promise you it wasn’t that he was middle European. I’m half of whatever he was, as is plain to see. No, he seemed devious and dangerous. Children can sense these things, you know.”
She shrugs. “I just didn’t like him. I certainly didn’t like being around him, not at all.”
I’m impressed with her prescience.
“Yet you came to see him in New York.”
Annie looks almost mischievous. “Yes, it must have been sixteen years ago. Curiosity compelled me. I went over to see friends and thought I’d pop in. Victor—I found it hard to think of him as Father at that point—invited me to dinner, but I insisted on lunch and a visit to the office. He seemed a bit taken aback, I must say. I gather he was used to controlling absolutely everything and everyone. I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish. A meet-up with the half-brother, perhaps? Wouldn’t that have been something? Did we resemble each other, do you recall?”
“Not at all.” What I recall is that sixteen years ago, Paul Guzman was the financial officer at his father’s company. Meanwhile, I was pretending my family was dead by the hand of the man for whom I continued to work.
“I didn’t run into him, as it happened. Perhaps I was kept away whenever he was there. I ran into you, though. I’m sorry I don’t recollect. Nor do I remember anything odd about the workplace.”
“There wasn’t anything to see.”
She throws me a sharp look. “Of course, if my father were involved in something he didn’t want visible, he would have established a legitimate business as a front, wouldn’t he?”
I say nothing.
“Security consultant. What an interesting job. You’d have been on the lookout for corporate espionage, that sort of thing. Perhaps there was more you did. With my father, I imagine there was always more.”
Stop now, I think. Somehow, the message is telegraphed across the table. Annie reaches for my hand.
“I have no business pushing you, Suzanne. Your history with Victor Kemp seems to be a sore subject. The fact is, he wasn’t easy to be around. We both know it. Truthfully, his death didn’t distress me at all.”
I don’t dare respond.
“Do you know what? I’m a great believer in letting the past stay in the past. Especially when the present is so much more beguiling. Besides, I’ve been simply dreadful about monopolizing the conversation thus far.” Annie claps her hands, as if to banish bad thoughts from the table. “Let’s talk about your son’s engagement to the delightful Kate Edgerton. Tommy and Maggie have asked us to the party they’re throwing.” She stops suddenly. “That’s not a problem, is it? Not awkward or anything? Because I can certainly bow out.”
Against any and all odds the universe might have presented, I genuinely like this woman. “Absolutely not a problem. We’d be delighted to have you there.”
“Splendid!” Her smile, infectious instead of chilling, is nothing like her father’s. “Kate is really a marvelous young woman. We sit on at least one charity board together. She has a wicked sense of humor, as you must know. Terribly smart as well. I’ve seen photos of Michael. Gorgeous. I can’t wait to meet him. What a couple they make. I mean, in addition to being impossibly good-looking, they have complementary professional aspirations. How did they meet? Has a wedding date been set?”
Her soothing prattle washes over me, carrying away all traces of anxiety. Annie Westcott is a nice person, observant and shrewd, yet with an empathy utterly lacking in her father. Her provenance hasn’t dictated who she has become. Neither has mine. I’m the daughter of a deluded drug addict and a conniving narcissist. She is the daughter of my worst enemy. But he is dead and gone, and here we sit, talking about the future.
“I would love to fill you in,” I say as our waiter approaches with our salads. “Should we splurge on some wine?”
I am suddenly famished. We settle in for a leisurely meal, two ladies who lunch.