Sidney Sheldon's the Tides of Memory

by Sidney Sheldon

  To her surprise, he answered immediately. “Summer! How lovely to hear from you, my dear.”

  His voice was full of genuine warmth.

  “You’ve heard the news, of course?”

  “Of course. How is she?”

  “Believe it or not, she’s in the pink,” Teddy said cheerfully. “The doctors say she’ll be able to come home in a day or so. Better yet, she and Roxie finally seem to have patched things up.”

  “They have?” Summer couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “I know. Wonderful, isn’t it? I think the prospect of Alexia actually dying was what made things shift. Anyway, Rox showed up at the hospital and the pair of them have been thick as thieves ever since. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. That bastard Drake might have actually done us all a favor. But enough of our dramas. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. I’m in London, actually, just for tonight.”

  “Are you? Marvelous. We must have lunch tomorrow.”

  “Oh, no no no,” Summer said hastily. “I wouldn’t want to intrude at a time like this. You should be with your family.”

  “Nonsense. You are family,” Teddy said kindly. “Besides, Alexia and Roxie only have eyes for each other at the moment. They barely know I’m there.”

  “Honestly, Teddy, it’s a sweet offer, but I couldn’t.”

  “Nonsense. Lunch tomorrow, twelve-thirty sharp. I insist. I’ll book somewhere decent and let you know.”

  Teddy took her to the Arts Club in Mayfair. Completely revamped a few years earlier, the Dover Street town house was now one of the smartest, most exclusive members’ clubs in London. Unfortunately it no longer lived up to its name, its clientele being made up almost wholly of investment bankers and hedge fund types. Summer felt their lecherous stares on her back as she made her way to Teddy’s table.

  “What a pleasure!” He stood up to greet her, looking like a disheveled Rupert Bear in a loud tweed suit and waistcoat, a jaunty red silk cravat tied at his neck. “You look delightful, as ever.”

  “If I’d known it was so formal, I’d have dressed up,” said Summer, feeling awkwardly low-key in her Hudson corduroy jeans and dark green Gap T-shirt. Although after the shocking news she’d received last night, the Arts Club’s dress code had been the last thing on her mind this morning.

  “I’d have been just as happy in McDonald’s, you know,” she told Teddy.

  “McDonald’s?” Teddy shuddered. “I should hope I know how to treat a young lady a bit better than that.”

  They ordered food—salt-encrusted sea bass for Summer and a steak and kidney pie for Teddy—and conversation turned to Alexia and the shooting.

  “Isn’t it funny how often good things seem to come out of bad?” Teddy observed philosophically. “Like phoenixes rising from the ashes. I’d almost given up hope that Alexia and Roxie would ever reconcile. It’s a shame it took a bullet in the ribs to do it, but there you are. And that’s not the only positive change. On doctors’ orders, Alexia has finally agreed to take some time off work. She’s talking about flying out to the States and spending some time with your mother, actually.”

  “That’s nice,” said Summer, more because it was expected of her than because it was what she really felt. Her mom’s close friendship with Alexia still made her uncomfortable, but she could hardly say that to Teddy.

  “It is nice,” Teddy agreed, smiling. “Alexia’s been through so much this past year. First, Michael and now this.”

  “Hmm.” Summer chased her fish around the plate with her fork. Obviously she wouldn’t wish an assassination attempt on anyone. But she didn’t find it so easy to forgive and forget Alexia’s neglect of Michael, or the callous way she’d behaved since his crash.

  “The problem is she’s so very bad at saying no, especially when it comes to her work,” Teddy went on. “My wife has such a strong sense of duty, you see. Of public service. Not very fashionable these days, but there you have it. Alexia never thinks of herself.”

  Summer almost choked. “Uh-huh.” Is he really that deluded? Did the bullet ricochet off Alexia’s rib cage and lodge itself in Teddy’s brain?

  “Anyway, enough about my family. What about you?” Teddy went on. “What brings you to London? Culture or shopping?”

  “Neither, actually. I’ve been looking into something.”

  Summer told Teddy about Michael’s motorbike and her mission to the Walthamstow garage. A cloud descended over Teddy’s kindly features.

  “Do you think that’s wise, my dear? Tinkering around with the ghastly thing?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, surely if the police thought there were anything untoward going on, they’d have examined the motorbike themselves?”

  “This may come as a shock to you, Teddy, but the police aren’t infallible. As it turns out, there was a fault with the bike.”

  Teddy set his wineglass down carefully on the table. “Was there?”

  “Well,” Summer backtracked, “they couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. But the mechanic at St. Martin’s said the markings on the brake cables and the way they’d frayed suggested that they may have been tampered with before the crash.”

  “Tampered with?” Teddy’s mind raced.

  “Yes. Someone may have wanted Michael to crash that day.”

  Teddy shook his head. “No. I don’t believe it. That can’t be true.”

  “Does Michael have any enemies, that you know of?”

  “Enemies? The boy was an events organizer, not a spy.”

  He still is an events organizer, thought Summer, but she held her tongue.

  “I daresay he may have pinched the odd fellow’s girlfriend over the years,” said Teddy, adding tactfully, “Before he met you, obviously, my dear. But I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt him. Not seriously.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Michael they wanted to hurt,” Summer suggested. “Maybe it was you. Or Alexia. Maybe Michael was just a means to an end.”

  Teddy pushed his plate to the side. “You said the chap that you showed the motorbike to wasn’t sure.”

  “Not absolutely sure, no. The evidence might not hold up in court. Not on its own, anyway. But it’s a start.”

  “A start of what?” Teddy reached across the table for her hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Summer. But do you not think that, perhaps, you might be hearing what you want to hear?”

  Summer bridled. “I’m not making this up, you know.”

  “I’m not suggesting for a moment that you are. But by your own admission, the evidence is inconclusive. The brake cables could have frayed when Michael saw the lorry hurtling toward him at God knows how many miles per hour. Could they not have?”

  “Technically, yes, they could have,” Summer said grudgingly.

  “You want there to be a meaning to all this. A reason for your pain, and for Michael’s suffering. But the truth is, there is no reason. Any more than there’s a reason why that lunatic Drake took a shot at Alexia. Bad things just happen.”

  “You don’t know there’s no reason for what happened to Michael.” Summer was surprised to find herself close to tears. Teddy really knew how to push her buttons. “Someone may have tampered with those brakes.”

  “You can torture yourself with ‘may have’ Summer, but it won’t bring Michael back to us.”

  “No. But it may bring us the truth.”

  “But why, my dear?” Teddy sounded exasperated. “Why would anyone want to kill my son?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “By ignoring the answer that’s staring you in the face? The answer is: they wouldn’t! Michael didn’t have enemies. This wasn’t some dastardly plot. This was an accident. Brake cables fray in accidents.”

  Summer tried a different tack. She’d hoped the news from Walthamstow might rouse Teddy’s curiosity at least, but he seemed determined to dismiss it. Instead she asked him the same question she’d asked Roxie at
Kingsmere weeks earlier.

  “Did Michael talk to you about a secret in the weeks leading up to the summer party? Something troubling he’d discovered.”

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure. Roxie already asked me about this, so I’ve given it some thought. She said you mentioned this ‘secret’ to her too. But I’m afraid neither of us has the faintest idea what you mean. Michael was fine before the party. Nothing was troubling him.”

  “But he told me—”

  “Summer.” Teddy interrupted her. “You’re building quite a conspiracy theory here. Mysterious secrets, frayed brake cables. Can’t you see it’s all smoke and mirrors?”

  A heavy silence fell across the table.

  “If I really believed someone had harmed my son deliberately, don’t you think I’d be calling the police right now? Don’t you think I’d want to know the truth as much as you do?”

  Summer nodded.

  Cupping a hand under her chin, Teddy lifted her face so her eyes met his and said, gently but firmly, “It. Was. An. Accident. Now . . .” He smiled broadly, breaking the tension like a snapped twig. “Let’s order some pudding, shall we? The Eton mess here has to be tasted to be believed.”

  In her room at the Orange a few hours later, Summer threw her few paltry overnight things into a bag.

  Why does nobody believe me?

  Why does nobody take me seriously?

  Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. She remembered what her boss at the New York Post had said to her when he turned down a story on gang intimidation Summer had been working on for months.

  “Don’t bring me conjecture, Miss Meyer. Bring me the facts. This is a newspaper. We don’t print fairy tales.”

  Was her theory about Michael a fairy tale? Had his crash really just been an accident, like Teddy De Vere and the rest of the world seemed to think?

  Rubbing her eyes, she felt dizzy with exhaustion.

  I need about a year of sleep.

  Back in the Mayfair office of his hedge fund, Kingsmere Capital, Teddy De Vere closed the door, took off his suit jacket, and sank into his plush leather Herman Miller task chair. Closing his eyes, he took a deep, calming breath.

  One mustn’t panic.

  It wouldn’t do to panic. Terribly un-English.

  He picked up the phone.

  “Yes, it’s me. Look, I’m sorry to call when you’re resting. But I think we need to talk.”

  Sergei Milescu was frightened.

  He’d been sure Sir Edward Manning would get him what he needed—enough dirt on Alexia De Vere to force her out of office, so that his paymaster could replace her with a more suitable, amenable candidate as home secretary. But having squeezed the old queen like a lemon for over a year, Edward’s drips of information were running out. So was Sergei’s paymaster’s patience.

  “I paid in advance, in good faith.”

  He wore a Savile Row suit and spoke in the measured, educated tones of a businessman. But he was not a businessman. He was a merciless killer. Brought up on the streets of Tbilisi with nothing but his wits to recommend him, he had lied and threatened and robbed and deceived and bludgeoned his way to the top of the heap in the new Russia. Now he owned oil wells and diamond mines and chemical plants and nuclear power stations. The JPMorgans and Goldman Sachses of this world all courted him. In London, he mixed in the highest society, dated aristocratic girls, and gave lots of money to charity and to “helpful” political parties. The Tories had been very helpful, until that jumped-up bitch Alexia De Vere had had the temerity to question his business dealings, closing tax and other legal loopholes that he and his fellow London-based oligarchs relied on. The home secretary had crossed him, a grave mistake. Beneath the veneer of sophistication, he remained a ruthless savage.

  Sergei Milescu had witnessed his savagery firsthand. A Ukrainian prostitute who’d shortchanged him had had her eyes gouged out. Rumor was he’d let her off lightly because she was a woman.

  Sergei felt the sweat soak through his shirt.

  “I’ll return the money.”

  “I have no interest in the money. I want what I paid for.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  Sergei’s paymaster clapped his hands. Two armed heavies burst into the room. Sergei mewled like a terrified kitten.

  “Please! You’ll get it! Very soon,” he begged.

  “I’m sure I will, Mr. Milescu. My security will show you out.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Marjorie Pilcher slipped off her quilted Husky jacket as she cleared the brow of the hill that led down onto the Kingsmere Manor estate. As so often on her afternoon walks, Marjorie reflected on the beauty of the West Oxfordshire countryside and how privileged she was to live here. As chairwoman of the Kingsmere and Cotterill Women’s Initiative, Marjorie Pilcher liked to think of herself as a pivotal figure in the local community. It was Marjorie who had persuaded Teddy De Vere, the biggest local landowner, to allow “respectful” walkers through his land, even though there was no official right of way on the manor estate. Watching her springer spaniel, Freckles, lollop down the hillside now, with the De Veres’ idyllic house on her right and the ancient woodlands stretching out in front of her like a Narnian forest, Marjorie Pilcher enjoyed a warm sensation of triumph. Even the vicar, Reverend Gray, had been impressed by the way Marjorie had talked Teddy De Vere around.

  “I can’t think how you managed to charm him, Mrs. Pilcher,” Reverend Gray had told Marjorie over a large plate of buttered scones at the vicarage. “But thank heavens you did. Generations of villagers will be in your debt, dear lady.”

  Marjorie Pilcher liked the idea of generations of villagers being in her debt. And to think her late husband, Frank (the bastard), thought she’d never amount to anything.

  Oh Lord. What is that ridiculous dog doing now?

  “Freckles! Here, boy. Come away.”

  Teddy De Vere’s one stipulation had been that walkers and their animals must stick to the path through the parkland and woods and not stray into the private Kingsmere gardens. And now here was Marjorie Pilcher’s own unruly animal rolling under the fence in clear violation of this sacrosanct rule, worrying away at the ground that had been cemented over for the proposed new pagoda.

  “Freckles!”

  Ignoring his mistress utterly, the springer spaniel continued to dig, his brown-and-white-flecked tail wagging excitedly as he worked.

  “Freckles! Come here at once!”

  Gingerly, Marjorie Pilcher picked her way over the nettles and through the thorny briars that formed a natural boundary between the parkland and the formal landscaped grounds of the manor house. Like most local people, Marjorie had deplored the idea of a pagoda on the Kingsmere estate, considering it “flash” and vulgar. But she hadn’t objected formally for fear of irritating Teddy De Vere and losing her hard-won walkers’ rights. As it turned out, it was the right decision. The ghastly thing had yet to be built and probably never would be now, what with the De Veres’ son having that dreadful motorcycle accident, and now Mrs. De Vere being shot by a deranged taxi driver. Awful business. All that remained of Teddy’s grand plans was an ugly concrete-filled hole, but that would soon be grown over. Although not soon enough for the errant Freckles. Marjorie Pilcher watched despairingly as the dog scrabbled around the perimeter of the slab, digging with a desperation she’d never seen in him before.

  “What are you doing, you stupid dog?” Ripping one of her favorite tweed skirts as she hiked first one leg, then the other, over the dilapidated barbed-wire fence, Marjorie eased herself down into the estate gardens. She’d never hear the end of it at the WI if one of the Kingsmere groundsmen caught her trespassing, albeit in a good cause.

  Oh God. She sighed. He’s got something in his mouth.

  That was all Marjorie needed, some half-dead stoat or weasel that she’d have to finish off with a spade or the heel of her bo
ot. Truth be told, there wasn’t much that Marjorie missed about the dearly departed Frank Pilcher, her husband of almost fifty years. She mostly remembered Frank for his phlegmy cough that used to set her teeth on edge and his irritating habit of asking her questions in the middle of her favorite radio show, Gardeners’ Question Time. Beneath the muted disguise of her mourning clothes, Marjorie Pilcher had embraced widowhood with all the enthusiasm of a young girl in the flush of her first affair. But Frank had been handy when it came to killing animals. It might be a kindness, but Marjorie could never get used to the idea of walloping a living creature over the head. It just didn’t feel right, especially when their bones made that dreadful cracking, crunching sound . . .

  The dog came bounding toward her, its “gift” clamped between its jaws.

  “Ugh, Freckles.” Marjorie’s lip curled. “What disgusting offering have you brought me this time?”

  Tail still wagging, the springer leaped up at his mistress.

  Marjorie Pilcher’s scream could be heard all the way back in the village.

  Hanging grotesquely from the dog’s drooling mouth was a decomposing human hand.

  Reporters were swarming over the De Vere estate like vermin. The police, also at Kingsmere in force, seemed powerless to control them.

  “This is ridiculous,” Teddy grumbled as his Bentley swept through the gates, past the flashing cameras and thrust-out microphones. “Haven’t they anything better to do?”

  Alexia, straight-backed and rigid-jawed in the passenger seat, said nothing. Beneath her crisp white shirt, her entire left side was swathed in bandages. The doctors had prescribed Percocet for the pain, but the pills made her feel groggy, so she’d stopped taking them. As a result she winced every time the car turned a corner. The speed bumps were pure agony.

  Worse than the physical pain was the anxiety she felt oozing back into her chest like water into a leaky ship.

  That’s what I am—a leaky ship.

  A sinking ship.

  After the shooting and her reconciliation with Roxanne, Alexia had finally capitulated and agreed to take an extended leave of absence. The prime minister was delighted, as was Kevin Lomax, Alexia’s archrival over at Trade and Industry, whom Henry Whitman had named acting home secretary in her absence.