Wicked Pleasures

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Well, nobody did,’ said Angie. ‘Even Baby thought Fred had just given Alexander the money. Because of Virginia. Apparently the worry had driven her to drinking again.’

  ‘Evil old bastard,’ said Max.

  Chuck Drew told Max he had a buyer for Hartest. ‘A cash buyer. My client, Mr Al-Fabah. He’s looking for an English property. He’s wanted one for some time, and considers Hartest would be perfect. In fact, I was going to phone your father and arrange for Mr Al-Fabah to see it this weekend. He has some very interesting plans for it.’

  Max thought about Hartest. He thought about it, standing there in its small, sheltered kingdom, in the heart of the parkland. He thought of all the times he had stood at the top of the Great Drive, looking down at it, and taken it totally for granted, seeing it simply as home, somewhere to live, to be looked after, to take his friends to show off, and he felt sharply ashamed. He thought, as if he was actually seeing it for the first time, of the way it stood, as if carved out of the sky behind it, gracious, welcoming, perfectly proportioned, the curving steps, the tall windows, the pillars studding the front, the great dome of the Rotunda pushing up into the sky; he saw the parkland filled with the grazing deer, the black and white swans on the lake, the Hart a ribbon of blue winding into the woods. He thought of how, as you pushed open the great front door and went into the house, it was quiet and cool and calm; he thought of the flying staircase, soaring up from the Rotunda, and suddenly, sharply, he saw his mother coming down it, smiling at him; he thought of running up the staircase and along the corridor and up again to the nurseries and to Nanny when he came home from school; he thought of being in the gun room with Alexander, his favourite room then, small, dark, wood-panelled, smelling of leather and wood and the dogs, being there on his twelfth birthday when Alexander had given him his first gun. He thought of the parties at Hartest, huge dinner parties, garden parties, dances, shooting lunches, meets, the house providing a perfect backdrop, an endlessly gracious setting for English country life and its gentle, unchanging rhythm. And he thought of Al-Fabah in all his infinite vulgarity, his black-crow-like wives, his Chanel-clad call girls, his stretch limos, his bodyguards, his gold rings, his gleaming little dark eyes, he thought of him, getting his hands on it, moving in on it, and he felt physically sick. And for the first time he saw Hartest as Alexander did, something infinitely precious, infinitely dear to him, something to be preserved at all costs, from all comers.

  ‘We have to stop it,’ he said to Charlotte. ‘There must be something we can do. Someone who can help.’

  Chapter 61

  Charlotte, November 1987

  Everyone thought, of course, that she’d approached him. Nobody would ever, had ever believed, that she’d bumped into him as she left the Pine Street offices, after a fruitless appeal to Chris Hill for a stay of execution. Even when it was all over, they wouldn’t believe her. And why should they? It was such an extremely unlikely story. But it was true.

  ‘Charlotte!’ he had said. ‘Charlotte, how lovely to see you. And why are you crying? What’s the matter?’

  And she had looked up at him, and instead of scowling at him, spitting in his face, as she had always vowed she would do if she ever saw him again, she had been so pleased to see him, to see someone civilized and friendly and unthreatening, that she had smiled at him, and said, ‘Oh Jeremy, it’s lovely to see you too.’

  Al-Fabah wanted Hartest. He wanted it very badly. He had been to see it twice now, arriving in his limo, with Chuck Drew and a different girl each time, his bodyguards with them in a second car, waiting outside, staring up at the house, wandering round the grounds, shouting at one another, laughing, throwing stones in the lake.

  Charlotte had no faith in the success of the trip to New York, but she felt it had to be made. ‘We certainly won’t persuade Chris Hill if we don’t ask him.’

  Chris Hill was asked and was not persuaded.

  ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte,’ he said, looking at her as if she was a distasteful small insect, ‘but I can’t delay things any longer. Praegers London, as you know, took a considerable pasting in the crash, and it would be wrong of me not to take any measures which will help to restore its fortunes.’

  He had called London; Chuck Drew had told him that Mr Al-Fabah had the money, and wanted to expedite matters. He was tired of living in hotels; he wanted a house.

  ‘The workmen would like to start in a week or so, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll be able to be cooperative.’

  Charlotte walked out of his office and slammed the door.

  And then she went down to the street. And then she met Jeremy Foster.

  ‘Come along, my darling,’ he had said, ‘let me see if I can’t cheer you up. How about tea?’

  Charlotte found herself nodding rather weakly (the weakness contributed to by certain rather sharp physical recollections).

  He took her to the Palm Court at the Plaza and bought her a wonderful cream tea, which she had amazed herself by wolfing down, and was amazed still more by the fact that not only did she stop crying, but she started talking to him, and giggling and generally feeling a great deal better. She had forgotten how he could always do that to her: charm her, amuse her into a state of careless, almost reckless happiness. And then somehow it had been much later, almost six o’clock, and they had moved into the Oak Bar and had a bottle of champagne and she had started telling him about Hartest and the Arabs and how she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear any of it, and if only, if only Fred had been around, none of it need happen, or at least probably need not happen; and Jeremy had said how much did she need, to get her out of the mess, to save Hartest, at least until Fred came home, and she had said six million and he had said dollars or pounds and she had said pounds, and he had told her it was hers, for at least the foreseeable future, for old times’ sake, and because he had been so sorry, so terribly terribly sorry about what had happened and he had missed her and at least this way he would be sure of seeing her occasionally, as he thought he might insist on a stage payment of ten pounds a day or maybe a week, to be delivered personally by her, probably to the studio; and she had said no, no, she couldn’t possibly take that sort of money from him, and he had said nonsense, of course she must, it was nothing to him, nothing at all, or certainly very little, he had made a very serious amount of money only weeks before, having (entirely thanks to some advice from her grandfather) sold a great deal of stock at the top of the market and stashed the money away safely in all kinds of extremely safe and secure places. And then he had added (having seen her face, reading the expression on it) that of course she need have no worries about him and his motives, there were no strings attached whatsoever, except that they might be friends once more and have the occasional cream tea. He was a totally reformed character, he said, his marriage was in a very healthy condition, there was a new little Foster on the way, and he had heard besides that she was very much involved with a charming young man at Praegers, and he was hoping for an invitation to the wedding.

  ‘You can regard the whole thing as a business deal if you wish,’ he said, ‘we will have the lawyers draw up any number of documents, and when Hartest is safely and unarguably yours again, then you can think about how you would like to repay me.’

  And finally, Charlotte had given in, unable to resist the glorious prospect of Hartest being safely and unarguably hers, or rather Alexander’s, and in no danger of any kind from Mr Al-Fabah, or Chuck Drew or Freddy Praeger or even her grandfather.

  And then, slightly the worse for rather more than half the bottle of champagne, weak, foolish with relief and happiness, she had been leaving the hotel with him, actually coming out of the door, and Jeremy had had his arm round her, and she had been laughing up at him and kissing him first on one cheek and then on another, and she had looked down to the bottom of the steps and there looking up at her was Gabe Hoffman.

  It had been the most terrible row. The worst Charlotte could ever remember. Gabe had told her she was a
slut and a whore, and that as far as he was concerned their relationship was over; she had told him he was crazed with jealousy, and arrogant beyond all belief; if he thought she would even consider continuing in a relationship where trust played no part whatsoever he must be in serious need of psychiatric treatment.

  It went on for hours, the pair of them caught in an endless vituperative vortex; finally Charlotte, exhausted, despairing, too angry to feel pain, left, just walked out.

  Charlotte was in her small office at the bank one afternoon, trying not to think about life either with or without Gabe, trying to believe the endless frustration and boredom of her working life would one day come to an end, when the phone rang on her desk. It was a call from New York and it was Fred III.

  ‘Charlotte. Get over here fast, would you? And bring Max with you.’ He spoke as if he was on the other side of London, rather than the Atlantic. ‘I’d like to know what the hell is going on.’

  ‘Grandpa! I thought you were still on your cruise.’

  ‘Oh, I got tired of that. Dreadful people. All old. Couldn’t stand them any longer. And your grandmother was worried about you and that house of yours. Quite unnecessarily, I hear.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlotte, ‘yes, it’s fine.’

  ‘I didn’t like what I heard about that. And I’ve been hearing other things, Charlotte. Things I don’t like at all. I really need an explanation.’

  Charlotte told him he would get one.

  She and Max booked themselves onto a flight next day. They talked to John Fisher first.

  ‘Are you with us? If we need you?’

  John Fisher went first red, then white. Then he said he was.

  ‘We’ll ring you,’ said Charlotte.

  Fred was in his old office; he looked tanned and well. He was chewing on a new cigar.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, gesturing at the chairs opposite the desk, as if they had just walked in from another part of the building, rather than travelled three thousand miles. ‘Do you want coffee?’

  ‘Yes please,’ said Charlotte. ‘How’s Grandma?’

  ‘She’s perfectly well. Never better.’

  ‘Good,’ said Max. Fred glared at him.

  They waited, while the coffee was ordered, brought in, poured.

  ‘OK,’ said Fred. ‘Let’s start with the house. Is it true Jeremy Foster gave you the money to clear the loan? That you went whining to him?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I didn’t go whining to him, and he didn’t give me the money. It’s a business arrangement and –’

  ‘Oh really? And how do you propose to pay back such a sum? For God’s sake, Charlotte, have you no sense of any kind? First you compromise yourself and the bank’s good name, by becoming the mistress of a major client –’

  ‘Grandpa, that’s not –’

  ‘Be quiet. You had an affair with Jeremy Foster. It was an appalling thing to do. Appalling. And now, just as people might be beginning to forget about it, you re-establish the relationship.’

  ‘Grandpa, I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh really? I heard, from a fairly reliable source, that you were seen coming out of the Plaza Hotel with him. Behaving in a fairly indiscreet way.’

  ‘Yes but –’

  ‘And the next thing I hear is that you hand over his draft for six million pounds. It is almost beyond belief, Charlotte. I’ve told Chuck Drew to repay the money into Foster’s bank account. I will not have it.’

  ‘What? You did what?’

  ‘You heard me. The money is going back.’

  ‘But it can’t. It’s nothing to do with you. Grandpa, that is so unfair.’

  ‘I think it’s perfectly fair and it has a great deal to do with me. I will not have the reputation of the bank compromised. I find it almost incomprehensible that you should feel it is perfectly acceptable to take money on such a vast scale from a major client. I have to tell you that any faith I might have had in you has been severely shaken.’

  Max was very white. He stared at Fred in silence for a while and then said, ‘Grandpa, let’s talk about some other trust that might be shaken. Let’s talk about your grandson for a start. Do you know what he’s been doing to Praegers? Putting it on the line, that’s what. Underwriting money that he has no right to, in order to promote deals and clients in which he has a vested interest. Do you know how much Praegers lost in the crash? Personally, unnecessarily, not through client companies losing money. Around one hundred million.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Fred. ‘I’ve looked at the portfolio. You’re talking nonsense.’

  ‘You mean the hundred million’s gone back. Well, you might take a look at what’s been going on here then,’ said Max. ‘I have a very shrewd suspicion some large transfers have been made.’

  ‘I will,’ said Fred, and he put out a finger and stabbed on the intercom. ‘Get Chris Hill in here, will you? You’d better know what you’re talking about,’ he said to Max, ‘or you could be up on some very nasty charges indeed. And don’t think the fact you’re my grandson will help you, because it won’t.’

  Chris Hill came in looking very calm, very in control.

  Yes, he said, he had made certain transfers to London. They had been well within his discretion, and had merely been designed to protect London in the uneasy days after the crash. Freddy had been perhaps slightly reckless, but he had only been acting from an excess of enthusiasm. He did not believe Fred III would find anything seriously untoward in the management of any of the accounts.

  ‘You will,’ said Charlotte, when Chris Hill had gone. ‘You’ll find plenty. Salesmen have been victimized. We have actual evidence. From one of those salesmen.’

  ‘Oh really? A friend of yours no doubt?’

  ‘Yes, a friend,’ said Max, ‘but an employee of Praegers long before we even knew him. I’ll get him on the phone for you, right now. He’ll tell you.’

  Fred looked, for the first time, uncertain. Then he said, ‘Maybe later.’

  ‘Grandpa,’ said Charlotte, ‘a lot of bad things have been going on. Honestly. Sharp practices, things you’d never tolerate. Buying up huge blocks of shares, to push the price up, before the clients bought them, insider trading. Even, we think –’ She stopped, too afraid suddenly to go on.

  ‘Even what?’

  ‘Oh – more of the same.’

  ‘And what have you been doing all this time? I have heard very little evidence of your making much impression on things.’

  ‘Grandpa, I haven’t been allowed to do anything. I’m back on grunt work.’ She looked at him and tried to smile. ‘Honestly. It’s been – difficult.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Fred. ‘So now we come to it.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You’ve been feeling sorry for yourself. Jealous. Resentful. A very good hotbed for nurturing dangerous fantasies. Good God, Charlotte, I’m shocked at you. It’s pathetic. Time you grew up a little.’

  ‘Grandpa, they are not fantasies. Please talk to John Fisher. Please.’

  ‘Oh, John Fisher. Is that your victimized salesman?’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  Fred hesitated. Then he said, ‘No, I really don’t think it’s necessary. It’s all very clear to me. I think you’d both better get out. Go back to London. I don’t know quite what I’m going to do about you. About your futures. But I certainly need time to think. And you’d better tell that father of yours to get out of Hartest. It’s back on the market.’

  ‘Grandpa, you can’t do that. You can’t. It’s his home.’ Angry at herself, Charlotte felt tears at the back of her eyes.

  ‘Indeed? I seem to remember a fairly substantial little shack in London. I don’t see him quite on the streets. Now if you would be good enough to excuse me, I have a great deal to do.’

  ‘What do you think they did?’ said Charlotte. ‘How do you think they put the money back?’

  They were sitting in a taxi, driving back to Kennedy. Charlotte was s
tunned, numb with shock. She knew she should have been angry, outraged, but she couldn’t feel anything. Not even a confrontation with Gabe Hoffman in the corridor when he had stared at her stony-faced and then turned on his heel had pierced her feelings. Max, white-faced beside her, had not said a word since they left Pine Street.

  ‘God knows. God knows. I could try finding out from Shireen. But what good would it do? He’s blind. He’s crazy.’

  ‘He’s dangerous,’ said Charlotte, ‘the whole situation is dangerous.’

  ‘Who for? Not us. I fancy our time as employees of Praegers is over. At least we won’t have to worry any more.’

  ‘What about Hartest? We have to worry about that.’

  ‘I’m not at all sure he can make us pay the money back.’

  ‘That is, if they’ve cleared the cheque,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Shit,’ said Max.

  Chuck Drew had not cleared the cheque. He told them, smiling his most charming and regretful smile, that he had been so busy, he had failed to present it until the day before. And now Fred had specifically requested that he withdrew it.

  ‘I would hate to jeopardize our relationship with our most important client,’ he said, ‘and your grandfather feels very strongly about it. Our relationship with Mr Al-Fabah has also been a little strained, so if he feels that a purchase of Hartest House may now after all be possible, then we shall be oiling a great many wheels all at the same time.’

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ said Max. ‘We’ve got to. Before we all sign on with the Social Security. I’m going to talk to Shireen. She’s our last hope.’

  He called Charlotte at home two nights later, sounding excited. ‘Got him,’ he said, ‘I think.’

  ‘How? Why?’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Apparently the money was put back by way of recalled loans and interest payments, things like that.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So they were from the Swiss company.’

  ‘God. How did you find out?’