A Twist in the Tale

by Jeffrey Archer

  “What?” I said, a little too loudly, glancing up from the previous day’s Times.

  “The siren, silly. There must have been an accident on the mountain. Probably Travers,” she said.

  “Travers?” I said, even more loudly.

  “Patrick Travers. I saw him at the bar last night. I didn’t mention it to you because I know you don’t care for him.”

  “But why Travers?” I asked nervously.

  “Doesn’t he always claim he’s the first on the slope every morning? Even beats the instructors up to the top.”

  “Does he?” I said.

  “You must remember. We were going up for the first time the day we met him when he was already on his third run.”

  “Was he?”

  “You are being dim this morning, Edward. Did you get out of bed on the wrong side?” she asked, laughing.

  I didn’t reply.

  “Well, I only hope it is Travers,” Caroline added, sipping her coffee. “I never did like the man.”

  “Why not?” I asked somewhat taken back.

  “He once made a pass at me,” she said casually.

  I stared across at her, unable to speak.

  “Aren’t you going to ask what happened?”

  “I’m so stunned I don’t know what to say,” I replied.

  “He was all over me at the gallery that night and then invited me out to lunch after we had dinner with him. I told him to get lost,” Caroline said. She touched me gently on the hand. “I’ve never mentioned it to you before because I thought it might have been the reason he returned the Vuillard, and that only made me feel guilty.”

  “But it’s me who should feel guilty,” I said, fumbling with a piece of toast.

  “Oh, no, darling, you’re not guilty of anything. In any case, if I ever decided to be unfaithful it wouldn’t be with a lounge lizard like that. Good heavens no. Diana had already warned me what to expect from him. Not my style at all.”

  I sat there thinking of Travers on his way to a morgue or, even worse, still buried under the snow, knowing there was nothing I could do about it.

  “You know, I think the time really has come for you to tackle the A-slope,” Caroline said as we finished breakfast. “Your skiing has improved beyond words.”

  “Yes,” I replied, more than a little preoccupied.

  I hardly spoke another word as we made our way together to the foot of the mountain.

  “Are you all right, darling?” Caroline asked as we traveled up on the lift side by side.

  “Fine,” I said, unable to look down into the ravine as we reached the highest point. Was Travers still down there, or already in the morgue?

  “Stop looking like a frightened child. After all the work you’ve put in this week I know you’re more than ready to join me,” she said reassuringly.

  I smiled weakly. When we reached the top, I jumped off the ski lift just a moment too early, and knew immediately I took my second step that I had sprained an ankle.

  I received no sympathy from Caroline. She was convinced I was putting it on in order to avoid attempting the advanced run. She swept past me and sped on down the mountain while I returned in ignominy via the lift. When I reached the bottom I glanced toward the engineer but he didn’t give me a second look. I hobbled over to the first aid post and checked in. Caroline joined me a few minutes later.

  I explained to her that the duty orderly thought it might be a fracture and it had been suggested I report to the hospital immediately.

  Caroline frowned, removed her skies and went off to find a taxi to take us to the hospital. It wasn’t a long journey but it was one the taxi driver evidently had done many times before from the way he took the slippery bends.

  “I ought to be able to dine out on this for about a year,” Caroline promised me as we entered the double doors of the hospital.

  “Would you be kind enough to wait outside, madam?” asked a male orderly as I was ushered into the X-ray room.

  “Yes, if I must, but will I ever see my poor husband again?” she mocked as the door was closed in front of her.

  I entered a room full of sophisticated machinery presided over by an expensively dressed doctor. I told him what I thought was wrong with me and he lifted the offending foot gently up onto an X-ray machine. Moments later he was studying the large negative.

  “There’s no fracture there,” he assured me, pointing to the bone. “But if you are still in any pain it might be wise for me to bind the ankle up tightly.” The doctor then pinned my X-ray next to a set of others hanging from a rail.

  “Am I the sixth person already today?” I asked, looking up at the row of X-rays.

  “No, no,” he said, laughing. “The other five are all of the same man. I think he must have tried to fly over the ravine, the fool.”

  “Over the ravine?”

  “Yes, showing off, I suspect,” he said as he began to bind my ankle. “We get one every year but this poor fellow broke both his legs and an arm, and will have a nasty scar on his face to remind him of his stupidity. Lucky to be alive in my opinion.”

  “Lucky to be alive?” I repeated weakly.

  “Yes, but only because he didn’t know what he was doing. My fourteen-year-old skis over that ravine and can land like a seagull on water. He, on the other hand,” the doctor pointed to the X-rays, “won’t be skiing again this holiday. In fact, he won’t be walking for the next six months.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “And as for you,” he added, after he finished binding me up, “just rest the ankle in ice every three hours and change the bandage once a day. You should be back on the slopes again in a couple of days, three at the most.”

  “We’re flying home this evening,” I told him as I gingerly got to my feet.

  “Good timing,” he said, smiling.

  I hobbled happily out of the X-ray room to find Caroline, head down in Elle.

  “You look pleased with yourself,” she said, looking up.

  “I am. It turns out to be nothing worse than two broken legs, a broken arm and a scar on the face.”

  “How stupid of me,” said Caroline, “I thought it was a simple sprain.”

  “Not me,” I told her. “Travers—the accident this morning, you remember? The ambulance. Still, they assure me he’ll live,” I added.

  “Pity,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “After all the trouble you took, I was rather hoping you’d succeed.”

  THE LOOPHOLE

  “THAT ISN’T THE version I heard,” said Philip.

  One of the club members seated at the bar glanced round at the sound of raised voices, but when he saw who was involved, only smiled and continued his conversation.

  The Haslemere Golf Club was fairly crowded that Saturday morning. And just before lunch it was often difficult to find a seat in the spacious clubhouse.

  Two of the members had already ordered their second round and settled themselves in the alcove overlooking the first hole long before the room began to fill up. Philip Masters and Michael Gilmour had finished their Saturday morning game earlier than usual and now seemed engrossed in conversation.

  “And what did you hear?” asked Michael Gilmour quietly, but in a voice that carried.

  “That you weren’t altogether blameless in the matter.”

  “I most certainly was,” said Michael. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” said Philip. “But don’t forget, you can’t fool me. I employed you myself once and I’ve known you for far too long to accept everything you say at face value.”

  “I wasn’t trying to fool anyone,” said Michael. “It’s common knowledge that I lost my job. I’ve never suggested otherwise.”

  “Agreed. But what isn’t common knowledge is how you lost your job and why you haven’t been able to find a new one.”

  “I haven’t been able to find a new one for the simple reason jobs aren’t that easy to come by at the moment. And by the way, it’s
not my fault you’re a success story and a bloody millionaire.”

  “And it’s not my fault that you’re penniless and always out of work. The truth is that jobs are easy enough to come by for someone who can supply references from his last employer.”

  “Just what are you hinting at?” said Michael.

  “I’m not hinting at anything.”

  Several members had stopped taking part in the conversation in front of them as they tried to listen to the one going on behind them.

  “What I am saying,” Philip continued, “is that no one will employ you for the simple reason that you can’t find anyone who will supply you with a reference—and everybody knows it.”

  Everybody didn’t know it, which explained why most people in the room were now trying to find out.

  “I was made redundant,” insisted Michael.

  “In your case redundant was just a euphemism for sacked. No one pretended otherwise at the time.”

  “I was made redundant,” repeated Michael, “for the simple reason that the company profits turned out to be a little disappointing this year.”

  “A little disappointing? That’s rich. They were nonexistent.”

  “Caused by the fact that we lost one or two of our major accounts to rivals.”

  “Rivals who, I’m informed, were only too happy to pay for a little inside information.”

  By now most members of the club had cut short their own conversations as they leaned, twisted, turned and bent in an effort to capture every word coming from the two men seated in the window alcove of the club room.

  “The loss of those accounts was fully explained in the report to shareholders at this year’s AGM,” said Michael.

  “But was it explained to those same shareholders how a former employee could afford to buy a new car only a matter of days after being sacked?” pursued Philip. “A second car, I might add.” Philip took a sip of his tomato juice.

  “It wasn’t a new car,” said Michael defensively. “It was a secondhand Mini and I bought it with part of my redundancy pay when I had to return the company car. And in any case, you know Carol needs her own car for the job at the bank.”

  “Frankly, I am amazed Carol has stuck it for so long as she has after all you’ve put her through.”

  “All I’ve put her through. What are you implying?” asked Michael.

  “I am not implying anything,” Philip retorted. “But the fact is that a certain young woman who shall remain nameless”—this piece of information seemed to disappoint most of the eavesdroppers—“also became redundant at about the same time, not to mention pregnant.”

  The barman had not been asked for a drink for nearly seven minutes, and by now there were few members still affecting not to be listening to the altercation between the two men. Some were even staring in open disbelief.

  “But I hardly knew her,” protested Michael.

  “As I said, that’s not the version I heard. And what’s more I’m told the child bears a striking resemblance—”

  “That’s going too far—”

  “Only if you have nothing to hide,” said Philip grimly.

  “You know I’ve nothing to hide.”

  “Not even the blonde hairs Carol found all over the back seat of the new Mini. The girl at work was a blonde, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, but those hairs came from a golden retriever.”

  “You don’t have a golden retriever.”

  “I know, but the dog belonged to the last owner.”

  “That bitch didn’t belong to the last owner, and I refuse to believe Carol fell for that old chestnut.”

  “She believed it because it was the truth.”

  “The truth, I fear, is something you lost contact with a long time ago. You were sacked, first, because you couldn’t keep your hands off anything in a skirt under forty and, second, because you couldn’t keep your fingers out of the till. I ought to know. Don’t forget I had to get rid of you for the same reasons.”

  Michael jumped up, his cheeks almost the color of Philip’s tomato juice. He raised his clenched fist and was about to take a swing at Philip when Colonel Mather, the club president, appeared at his side.

  “Good morning, sir,” said Philip calmly, rising for the Colonel.

  “Good morning, Philip,” the Colonel barked. “Don’t you think this little misunderstanding has gone quite far enough?”

  “Little misunderstanding?” protested Michael. “Didn’t you hear what he’s been saying about me?”

  “Every word, unfortunately, like any other member present,” said the Colonel. Turning back to Philip, he added, “Perhaps you two should shake hands like good fellows and call it a day.”

  “Shake hands with that philandering, double-crossing shyster? Never,” said Philip. “I tell you, Colonel, he’s not fit to be a member of this club, and I can assure you that you’ve only heard half the story.”

  Before the Colonel could attempt another round of diplomacy Michael sprang on Philip and it took three men younger than the club president to prize them apart. The Colonel immediately ordered both men off the premises, warning them that their conduct would be reported to the house committee at its next monthly meeting. And until that meeting had taken place, they were both suspended.

  The club secretary, Jeremy Howard, escorted the two men off the premises and watched Philip get into his Rolls-Royce and drive sedately down the drive and out through the gates. He had to wait on the steps of the club for several minutes before Michael departed in his Mini. He appeared to be sitting in the front seat writing something. When he had eventually passed through the club gates, the secretary turned on his heels and made his way back to the bar. What they did to each other after they left the grounds was none of his business.

  Back in the clubhouse, the secretary found the conversation had not returned to the likely winner of the President’s Putter, the seeding of the Ladies’ Handicap Cup, or who might be prevailed upon to sponsor the Youth Tournament that year.

  “They seemed in a jolly enough mood when I passed them on the sixteenth hole earlier this morning,” the club captain informed the Colonel.

  The Colonel admitted to being mystified. He had known both men since the day they joined the club nearly fifteen years before. They weren’t bad lads, he assured the captain; in fact he rather liked them. They had played a round of golf every Saturday morning for as long as anyone could remember, and never a cross word had been known to pass between them.

  “Pity,” said the Colonel. “I was hoping to ask Masters to sponsor the Youth Tournament this year.”

  “Good idea, but I can’t see him agreeing to that now.”

  “I can’t imagine what they thought they were up to.”

  “Can it simply be that Philip is such a success story and Michael has fallen on hard times?” suggested the captain.

  “No, there’s more to it than that,” replied the Colonel. “Requires a fuller explanation,” he added sagely.

  Everyone in the club was aware that Philip Masters had built up his own business from scratch after he had left his first job as a kitchen salesman. Ready-Fit kitchens had been started in a shed at the end of Philip’s garden and ended up in a factory on the other side of town which employed over three hundred people. After Ready-Fit went public the financial press speculated that Philip’s shares alone had to be worth a couple of million. When five years later the company was taken over by the John Lewis Partnership, it became public knowledge that Philip had walked away from the deal with a check for seventeen million pounds and a five-year service contract that would have pleased a pop star. Some of the windfall had been spent on a magnificent Georgian house in sixty acres of wooded land just outside Hazelmere: he could even see the golf course from his bedroom. Philip had been married for over twenty years and his wife, Sally, was chairman of the regional branch of the Save the Children Fund and a JP. Their son had just won a place at St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

  Michael was the boy’s
godfather.

  Michael Gilmour could not have been a greater contrast. On leaving school, where Philip had been his closest friend, he had drifted from job to job. He started out as a trainee with Watneys, but lasted only a few months before moving on to work as a rep with a publishing company. Like Philip, he married his childhood sweetheart, Carol West, the daughter of a local doctor.

  When their own daughter was born, Carol complained about the hours Michael spent away from home so he left publishing and signed on as a distribution manager with a local soft drinks firm. He lasted for a couple of years until his deputy was promoted over him as area manager, at which decision Michael left in a huff. After his first spell on the dole, Michael joined a grain-packing company, but found he was allergic to corn and, having been supplied with a medical certificate to prove it, collected his first redundancy check. He then joined Philip as a Ready-Fix kitchen rep but left without explanation within a month of the company being taken over. Another spell of unemployment followed before he took up the job of sales manager with a company that made microwave ovens. He seemed to have settled down at last until, without warning, he was made redundant. It was true that the company profits had been halved that year, and the company directors were sorry to see Michael go—or that was how it was expressed in their in-house magazine.

  Carol was unable to hide her distress when Michael was made redundant yet again. They could have done with the extra cash now that their daughter had been offered a place at art school.

  Philip was the girl’s godfather.

  * * *

  “What are you going to do about it?” asked Carol anxiously, when Michael had told her what had taken place at the club.

  “There’s only one thing I can do,” he replied. “After all, I have my reputation to consider. I shall sue the bastard.”

  “That’s a terrible way to talk about your oldest friend. And anyway we can’t afford to go to law,” said Carol. “Philip’s a millionaire and we’re penniless.”

  “Can’t be helped,” said Michael. “I’ll have to go through with it, even if it means selling up everything.”

  “And even if the rest of your family has to suffer along with you?”