An Absolute Scandal

by Penny Vincenzi

  “So what the hell are we here for?” said George Meyer.

  “We are here because we have a chance. And we will at least tweak the tiger’s tail. That will be very pleasant. They are not enjoying this, you know, the tigers. They have not experienced a total deficit as they are doing now for twenty-one years. They have their backs to the wall. Unfortunately, they hold many of the cards. Strictly speaking, and within the letter of the law, they have right on their side. You underwrote the losses which they have sustained. You signed documents, you neglected to research the situation thoroughly, you were not, so far as I can see, very proactive in taking out reinsurance. Not that it would have done you a great deal of good in certain cases. I understand stop-loss policies are extremely costly and with a very large excess. And, of course, you took their money during the good years. Many people would say you have very little to complain about, that you are crying over some rather sour spilled milk.”

  The group was silent. It was a bit like getting a wigging from the headmaster, Simon thought.

  “Now, as I understand it, the main thrust of your quarrel with Members’ Agents Jackson and Bond, or the Westfield Bradley Syndicates—or possibly both—is that they were continuing to press people into membership, people they well knew could not afford the massive risk they were being exposed to, and in the full knowledge of that exposure. That would be a strong case indeed if it could be proved, but I fear that would be extremely difficult. You would need witnesses from within the organisation, prepared to admit that this was the case, copies of incriminating documents, notes, and written accounts of conversations. All highly unlikely, I fear, although not impossible. I know that you also feel the undoubted existence of the so-called baby syndicates—these syndicates within syndicates—could be incriminating, if proven. Very tricky. You would need to produce a Members’ Agent who would admit to it in court, or certainly in a sworn statement. Even more unlikely.”

  “What about a tape-recorded statement?” said Simon.

  “If they knew you were recording them, then yes. If not, then no. But if you can persuade someone into talking, discussing their situation, it would be very valuable. A lot of the work, as Ms. Broadhurst will have told you, is down to you. I need help, suggestions, leads, witnesses. Ms. Broadhurst will give you further guidance on the sort of thing I’m talking about, but basically your most useful function will be to get witness statements. Talk to everyone you can in your syndicate, not just those of you involved in this case. Supposing a Name increased his premium income limit at the year end from £150,000 to £180,000, ask exactly why he did so, who he talked to, who encouraged him, ask for any relevant documents. We have a right to disclosure of all documents that touch and concern the case, and that touch and concern all the issues in the case. Both of our claim and whatever defence they put forward.”

  “I have a question,” said George. “How accessible will you both be? Because I can see many occasions where one of us will want clarification on whether a line of enquiry we’re pursuing might be relevant and indeed, the sort of thing Simon asked, whether tape-recorded conversations are admissible evidence. So how often and how easily can we contact you? I think that’s very important.”

  Fiona Broadhurst gave him one of her coolest looks and said, “I can’t speak for Mr. Lindsay-Cowan, but you may call me as often as you like. I would only remind you that any time spent on the case will cost money. It goes without saying that talking to my assistant will be more economical.”

  “I have a very important question. What happens next?” asked Flora. “I’m interested in time span here. Are we talking about months, years, centuries…”

  “Many months, certainly,” said Lindsay-Cowan. “Let me outline the probable sequence of events. We issue and serve our writ and serve our statement of claim. We receive their defence and, if necessary, seek further clarification of the defence by serving a request for further particulars. We then have a pretrial review at court and receive a timetable. We prepare our list of documents and they do the same, and we then exchange lists and call for copies of relevant documents, review these, and prepare our witness statements. Experts will be instructed to review all this. My junior will be available to review everything and we will work together with Ms. Broadhurst. That will take several months. After that, providing it is all satisfactory, we exchange with the other side: we get their witnesses, their documents, their experts’ reports. They get ours. More time will pass. Finally, we’ll decide to get on with it. We then have a pretrial review, to fix a date for trial. Which will include the length of time we think we will need in court, depending upon the number of witnesses and documents. We agree some dates with the court—what’s called a window—for the trial, anything from three months to a year hence, and then we write to all the witnesses, find out which dates suit them best, which suit you, suit me. And we need a judge, of course; the dates need to take that into consideration. And then we’ll be told we can have our trial in, let us say, nine months from then. So I would say we’re looking, at the very least, at two years from now.”

  “Two years!” said George.

  They looked at one another. It sounded a desperately long time. How could they all survive it?

  “If you don’t mind,” Lucinda said to Blue on the phone, “I think I might go and visit Catherine this evening. I know she’s not a close friend, but just having someone to talk to might help. It’s three days now…Well, this is the third night. Although I’m sure she knows that.”

  Catherine’s ravaged face greeted her at the front door of the flat in Fulham. “Hello, Lucinda,” she said, and her voice was heavy and lifeless.

  “Hello. Can I come in?”

  “Of course. Caroline’s asleep, thank God. Being brave for her sake is the hardest thing of all.”

  “Oh Catherine.” Lucinda put a tender arm round her shoulders. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Catherine managed a half smile. “It just gets worse, you know? Every hour. I look back to when I first heard and it didn’t seem quite so terrible then. I mean, it was terrible, of course, an awful shock, but there seemed…hope. Now that’s gone. It’s just completely—over. I can’t believe I ever had him with me, warm and alive and breathing, instead of—instead of…”

  “Catherine, he’s not dead. I’m sure he’s not.”

  “You’re not sure,” Catherine started to shout. “You’re not sure about anything of the sort, so don’t be so bloody stupid. If he was alive, someone would know; and if someone knows and hasn’t said, it’s because they’re…they’re…Oh my God, when I think of what might be happening to him, what might be being done to him, all these awful perverts about, hurting him, frightening him…Oh God, Lucinda, I can’t stand it, I just can’t stand it any longer. If it wasn’t for Caroline I’d kill myself, I really would, it would be a relief.”

  She dropped her head into her hands; she was shaking violently. Lucinda sat there, holding her, crying herself now, wondering what she could possibly say or do that might help.

  “I’m sorry,” said Catherine, looking at her through watery eyes. “Sorry, Lucinda. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”

  “Don’t be silly. If it helps, shout some more.”

  “It doesn’t. Nothing helps. It’s literally unbearable. Oh God, Lucinda, why did he do it? Why did he go? What did I do? Oh Lucinda, when you have that little baby,” she nodded in the direction of Lucinda’s stomach, “just never let it out of your sight, never ever.”

  It was absurd, this, Simon thought; here he was, acting like some sentimental girl, as if she was a person, a person with feelings, rather than a boat. It was just that, well, they were as one on the water, he and the Lizzie, taking on the sea and the wind, everything else wiped out in the glorious and absolute concentration of sailing. He could set out feeling wretched, anxious, or tired, as he felt today after the gruelling interview with Lindsay-Cowan, and come back restored, exhilarated. Or he could set out feeling joyful, triumphant, or sweetly happy a
nd return even more so. The Lizzie had no negative associations for him; even danger, even fear, became things to laugh at, to boast of when they had overcome them together; she was absolutely intrinsic to his happiness. And now she had to go. This was their last day together, he had found a buyer for her, she was to be taken off, away from him, she was about to become a memory. And even the famous Beaumont ability to be upbeat, positive about it, was being severely challenged.

  It had been a very good evening with Flora; Elizabeth had made a huge effort with the food, having acquired some Welsh lamb, and although they ate in the kitchen, she had dressed up the table with candles and flowers. Simon had been very touched.

  Flora had admired the house and sympathised with the prospect of having to part with it—“Don’t tell me about selling lovely houses; sometimes I wonder if I can bear it; sometimes I know I can’t”—and they had sat up late, the three of them discussing the lawsuit.

  Simon had left London at the same time as Flora; the day was too lovely to lose and he wanted as long as possible with the Lizzie. As he walked down to the Lizzie’s moorings, looking up at the blue, mist-streaked sky, he heard his name.

  “Simon! Hi. You going to France?”

  He turned. “Felicity! Hello. Lovely to see you. That’s my plan.”

  “Me too. To Saint-Valéry. Let’s meet there for lunch.”

  “Great idea. Whoever’s first, order the wine. See you there.”

  Felicity Parker Jones. He had known her a long time, had sailed with her, raced with her even. She was the one person he might have wanted to be with that day: cool, unsentimental, brave herself. There would be no tedious questions, no sympathetic comments. But she would understand, she would know how he felt, and then see no need to express it. She was also extremely attractive: about Elizabeth’s age, tall, slim, blond, and very funny. That would help too. He waved to her and jumped down into the Lizzie, feeling suddenly better.

  Catherine was trying to force herself out of the chair where she sat hour after hour, and get some kind of lunch organised for Caroline when the phone rang.

  “Hello,” she said dully.

  “Mrs. Morgan? It’s Sergeant Lockyer.”

  “Yes?” She could hear her own voice, torn with fear. And then there seemed to be an interminable silence, while she waited for the news she knew had to come: that Freddie was dead.

  And then: “It’s all right, Mrs. Morgan. I’ve got Freddie here. He’s alive and well.”

  Never underestimate a child, thought Sergeant Lockyer, never. They are so much cleverer, and more capable, than adults give them credit for. He looked at the pair of them, one slightly wearier and scruffier than the other, both half-defiant, half-sheepishly relieved that they had been caught.

  “Well well well,” he said. “What a lot of trouble you’ve caused.”

  Such a brilliant hiding place: a pool house. Providing shelter, tap water, a toilet—most of the necessities of life, apart from food. And where, as long as the owners of the pool house and indeed the house were not likely to be present for a few days, a small boy with a willing accomplice could be perfectly safe, and even comfortable. It explained quite a lot: explained how the small boy in question had managed to vanish into thin air for three days, how he hadn’t been spotted anywhere, looking scruffy, buying food…

  Indeed, had the weekend not arrived, and had the weather not been so beautiful, and the pool looked so inviting, he might well have remained undiscovered for a great deal longer.

  “What you did was extremely stupid,” Lockyer said severely to the pair of them, to Freddie and his best friend from school, Dominic Mays, as they sat in the kitchen of the house in Chelsea, waiting for Catherine to arrive. “Extremely stupid. You’ve caused a great deal of anxiety, and a great deal of work; you’ve cost and arguably wasted a lot of police time, Freddie’s mum has been off her head with worry—Ah, here she is now. Just saying how worried you’ve been, haven’t you, Mrs. Morgan?”

  Catherine, gaunt and white-faced, accompanied by a wide-eyed Caroline, nodded feebly and sat down. Freddie stared at her across the room, smiling rather uncertainly. She stared back, unable even to smile, so violent were her emotions; it was all she could do simply to look at him, as she had not thought to do again, drinking him in, alive, safe, unmolested.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m very sorry. I thought—”

  “You thought what, Freddie?”

  “Oh, doesn’t matter.” He still sounded odd, almost detached. Well, it wasn’t so surprising.

  “So what do you have to say for yourselves?” Paul Mays, Dominic’s father, and in charge of him—together with the au pair—for a few days, while his ex-wife, Denise, went to Paris with her new boyfriend, looked only a little better than Catherine. Guilty conscience, thought Lockyer, and good reason; should have picked something up, surely. And then thought probably not, and went back to contemplating the cleverness of children. And the comparative foolishness of adults.

  “We are very sorry,” said Dominic, “but it seemed such a good idea to us. And Freddie was so miserable, weren’t you, Fred? I just wanted to help.”

  Freddie nodded silently.

  “Dominic,” said Paul, “didn’t you think for one moment that if it had been you, I would have been worried to death?”

  “No,” said Dominic, with all the devastating honesty of childhood. “I’d have thought you’d be glad to be able to stay at work a bit longer.” Denise Mays’s expression at this point was an interesting mixture of amusement and contempt.

  “And why didn’t you come forward when the police asked?”

  “They said Freddie had been badly teased and they wanted to talk to anyone who might have been involved. I was being nice to him and I knew he was perfectly safe.”

  Dominic was also at Lynton House; like Freddie he was unhappy there. He was fat; he was being teased mercilessly, in fact, which was what had drawn him and Freddie together. He had begged to leave, but his parents, guiltily aware that he was eating himself out of his misery at the divorce, had told him that he should ignore the teasing, that his tormentors would get tired of it and find another victim. All the usual platitudes, in fact; the usual, easy platitudes.

  “He was really unhappy,” said Dominic, “just like I was. And then one day he was crying, said he had to run away, it was the only thing to do, but he didn’t know where he could go, had I got any ideas? I said he could stay in the pool house for a bit, at my dad’s new house; no one would know, and he’d be really safe. Which he was. Anyway, how did you find out?”

  “One of your classmates rang up this morning. Or rather, his father did. He’d had an idea Dominic might have been in cahoots with you, and he was right. Bit more sense than you two.”

  “Well, words fail me,” said Denise. It was clear they did nothing of the sort. “I cannot believe, Paul, you could have been so unaware of what was going on, right under your nose. I shall think very hard about leaving Dominic in your care in future. Were you out? Did you go away? I mean, how could this have possibly happened?”

  “I was working,” said Paul, looking at her with intense dislike. “Working late. Leaving early. This is what I do. As you may remember.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. As for you, Dominic, how could you be so selfish, so absolutely stupid—”

  “He’s not,” said Freddie. “He’s a really, really good friend. And clever. It wasn’t his idea, we worked it out together. Please don’t be cross with him, it’s not fair.”

  “So how did you get here? From home?” said Catherine. It was the first time she had spoken. “It’s quite a long way.”

  “I walked.”

  “You walked!”

  “Yes, I gave him a map,” said Dominic. “It only took him about half an hour. And it was just lucky everything worked out, him being looked after by that lady, and Mum being away that week, and me being there with Dad.”

  “Very lucky,” said Lockyer.

  “It was all right at first, quit
e fun, specially before Dad came home; if the au pair was snogging her boyfriend we could even swim or play table tennis, and there was masses of food.”

  “Oh Dominic,” said Paul, and he buried his face in his hands.

  “And how long did you think Freddie could stay there?” said Lockyer.

  “Well, we weren’t sure. It was going to be more difficult at the weekend, especially if Dad didn’t work on Saturday.”

  “Do you often work on Saturdays, Mr. Mays?”

  “Quite often, yes.”

  “He’s a workaholic,” said Denise witheringly.

  “And then Mrs. Patton—”

  “Who’s Mrs. Patton?”

  “The housekeeper. She said she’d booked someone to clean out the pool house next week, ready for the summer holidays. So we weren’t quite sure what to do next.”

  “I see,” said Lockyer. “Well, you know now. You, Dominic, you must never do anything like this again. And you, Freddie, you say sorry to your mum. You should both be very ashamed of yourselves. Very.”

  They said they were. Very.

  Eventually, Catherine and Caroline and Freddie were driven home. The nightmare over.

  For a while, at least.

  Chapter 26

  JUNE TO JULY 1990

  None of it had been quite how Catherine would have imagined, had she been brave enough to imagine it. There was no joyful, hugging, kissing reunion; no ebullient little boy hurling himself into her arms with cries of “Mummy.”

  Rather, a subdued small stranger, awkwardly polite, kissing her briefly, saying he was fine and sorry to have worried her and then—nothing. “How about going to the Pizza Express?” she said. “For supper?”

  An unimaginable treat. He shrugged. “OK.”

  “Yes, please,” said Caroline.

  They ate their pizzas in a strained silence; in spite of herself, by the time they reached home again, a certain rage was building up. Surely he was old enough to realise what agony he had put her through, how much she must have worried, how terrifying it had been. An explanation would have done; but none was offered.