by Roberta Kray
It was time to concentrate on something more cerebral. She determined to spend the rest of the afternoon mugging up on her knowledge of gemstones. It was a while since she’d got down to any serious study and if she wasn’t careful, she’d forget everything she’d ever learned. There were plenty of reference books here and it would give her something else to think about.
Jo made a coffee, took it through to the office and sat down. The CCTV was playing on the screen in the corner. She pulled out a chair, sat down and watched. They didn’t normally have too much trouble – all the more valuable items were under reinforced glass – but there was the usual amount of petty theft, of bracelets and chains being surreptitiously slipped into empty pockets. For a Wednesday afternoon, the shop was pretty busy. Trade was on an upward curve, increasing week by week, and soon they would have to employ more permanent staff.
It had been her intention to spend the next ten minutes with her eyes peeled for any signs of foul play, to do her bit for security, but instead of watching the customers she found herself watching Deborah Hayes instead. She followed her progress along an aisle, a young good-looking man in tow, and studied the way she walked and smiled and tilted her head. She saw the way the man’s gaze dropped down to Deborah’s backside. She saw the way he stared at it. Jo stared at it too. It was small but curvy, its shape accentuated by the clingy jersey dress she was wearing. Was it a better ass than hers? Did it have more sex appeal? Had Peter looked at it and …
Jo quickly stood up and turned her back. If she didn’t stop this now she would spend the rest of the afternoon stressing over what might or might not have been. She grabbed a couple of books off the shelves and laid them on the desk. It was time to focus on something more useful.
She sat down, opened the first volume at the chapter on sapphires and attempted to absorb the words – but they just wouldn’t sink in. She gazed at the page, rubbed her eyes and drank some more coffee.
She had to concentrate, to try harder. Sapphires are a member of the same family as rubies. Jo already knew that, although it was hard, when you looked at them, to make a direct connection between the two. Still, she only had to compare her mother-in-law and Peter to see how two members of a family could be so completely different. Ruby was all hard hot fire, the very personification of red, while Peter had been quite specifically blue. She didn’t mean depressed exactly but kind of sad, lost, as if there was a part of him that could never be truly happy.
Jo stared down at the book. Both stones were a combination of aluminium and oxygen. And sapphires weren’t necessarily blue – they came in all kinds of different colours, in yellows, pinks and greens. But she knew that too, just like she knew that Liz Taylor had once had a sapphire engagement ring. Although why she was even thinking of that now, how it could be in way important, she couldn’t imagine. She flipped back a few pages and tried to start again. The words danced across her pupils – perception, lighting, clarity, transparency, diffusion – and her head began to spin.
Getting up, Jo went over to the safe. Perhaps it would be easier to make sense of it all when she had the stones in front of her. She punched in the code and opened the door. Inside was like a miniature Aladdin’s cave. The top shelves were filled with small trays of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.
She pulled them out, one by one. Gemstones were Jacob’s particular area of expertise. He had lived, breathed and traded them for over fifty years. It was a small but important part of the business. She gazed at the diamonds and picked a couple up. She turned them over in her fingers, held them up to the light and watched them glitter before carefully replacing them again.
On the lower shelves was some of the more expensive gold and silver jewellery, including a number of rings and a few fancy watches. There were several strands of pearls too. She looked at them all but it was the rubies she eventually returned to.
Kneeling down, she picked up one of the finer stones from the tray and rolled it across her palm. She liked the colour, the depth, the intensity but that wasn’t why she was so interested. She was still trying to work out why Peter had hated them so much. Was it just to do with his mother?
Burma was renowned for its rubies – that was one thing she’d learned from the textbooks – and they were the best in the world. However, the regime was a corrupt and brutal one. Jacob had always refused to either buy or to sell Burmese rubies. It was a matter of principle, he’d said, and she’d never disagreed with him.
Jo pushed the tray back inside the safe. She was about to close it when she noticed the pile of ledgers sitting at the bottom. She wouldn’t normally have touched them, all those columns of numbers were almost guaranteed to send her to sleep, but on a whim she took a couple out and laid them on the desk.
She sipped her coffee as she turned over the pages. They were about as thrilling as she’d expected: cash in from sales, cash out for wages and purchases. Jacob was responsible for the books and she trusted him implicitly. Once a month they would go through the figures together and the profits were on a reassuringly upward trend.
At the back of the ledger were A4 copies of the April and May payslips. The wage bill varied from month to month, depending on the amount of commission that had been earned and the number of hours the temporary staff had put in. She flicked through them, not paying much attention. It was only as she reached the final page that she almost jumped out of her skin.
Jo blinked hard. What? She stared down at the page, struggling to understand. It must be a mistake, an error, but there it was in black and white: a payment for two hundred pounds made out to Constance Kearns. As if her eyes might be playing tricks, she slowly read it again.
Quickly, she flicked back to the April sheets – and there it was again. Another payment to Constance! Rushing over to the safe, she dragged out the ledgers for the two previous tax years, took them back to the desk and pulled out the sheets at the back. With a trembling hand she ran her finger down the list. It didn’t take her long to realise that the payments had been going out once a month, every month, since Peter had died. Well, not quite from that moment but close enough. There was only a six-week gap before the first instalment.
She pushed the sheets aside, dropped her chin on to her hand and bit down on her knuckles. She was starting to feel sick. It was some kind of fraud. It had to be. And Jacob and Constance must be in it together. But why? Jacob earned a decent salary. Why would he risk his job, his future, for a couple of hundred quid a month? And how the hell had he got involved with Constance Kearns? She thought back to the previous day, to how she’d seen them chatting in the street.
Jo’s first instinct was to rush out and confront him but she forced herself not to. This was a conversation that needed to be held in private, with no interruptions and with no one else around to overhear. She looked at her watch. It was half an hour until the shop shut. She had to sit tight and wait.
First, she slipped the sheets to one side and covered them with the textbooks. Then she returned the ledgers to the safe and closed it. She didn’t want Jacob walking in and seeing the accounts sitting on the desk.
The next thirty minutes were dreadful ones. She couldn’t control the emotions that swept over her: shock, anger, bitterness. She was desperate to learn the truth but dreaded it too. She had laid her trust in him, absolutely and unequivocally. And what had he done? Fraud was too bland a name for it. It was theft, plain and simple. And yet it was impossible to believe. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not Jacob. Was she jumping to ridiculous conclusions? Could there be another explanation?
Eventually, she heard a couple of the staff pass by on their way to the kitchen. Getting up, she put her head round the door and beckoned Megan Brooks over. Meg was one of the young design students who worked part-time.
Jo smiled – it was an effort – and tried to keep her voice neutral. ‘Hi, could you do me a favour and ask Jacob to pop into the office after he’s locked up?’
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Thank
s.’
Jo closed the door and sat back down again. She could have asked him directly but he might have guessed from her face that something was wrong and prepared himself accordingly. What she needed was the element of surprise, to be able to see his expression when she confronted him with the evidence.
For the next ten minutes she listened as the footsteps passed to and fro. It gradually grew quiet. Jo’s heart began to beat faster. She tried to regulate her breathing, to keep it steady, to stop herself from going into panic. She hated confrontation at the best of times – and this was more than that. This day, she decided, must be one of the worst of her life. She had spent the morning down the police station and now …
When the knock came on the door, she flinched. Jacob didn’t need to knock – it was as much his office as hers – but he always did if she was in here on her own. In the past she had put it down to old-fashioned courtesy but now she wondered if it had all been part of a game, a game that involved convincing her that she was in charge, that she was respected, whilst simultaneously ripping her off.
‘Come in,’ she called out.
There was a short delay before Jacob finally made it through the door. He was carrying two mugs of tea and had a cardboard folder squeezed under his arm. ‘I thought you might be in need of a brew.’
‘Thank you.’
He pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the desk, sat down and smiled.
She smiled faintly back but found it hard to meet his gaze. What she was about to do, to say, could change everything for ever. Her nervous hands refused to stay still. She quickly shuffled some papers and piled them to one side. ‘Has everyone gone?’
Jacob nodded. ‘Another day done and dusted. And not bad takings for a Wednesday.’ He pushed the folder across the desk. ‘That new range has been quite a success. I thought you might like to see the file. Deborah’s sure we can get the exclusive rights. It could be worth considering especially as—’ He stopped abruptly, his smile disappearing. ‘Are you all right?’
She stared at him. Her lower lip was starting to tremble, the fought-back tears gathering on her lashes. Now she was faced with the moment of truth, she could hardly bear to go there, but what choice did she have? He might have been the closest person she’d had to a father for the past two years but she couldn’t ignore the evidence, couldn’t pretend that it didn’t exist. ‘We need to talk,’ she said stupidly.
‘Jo?’
She had thought her anger would see her through but she felt only dismay as she moved the text books aside and slid out the copies of the payroll. ‘Constance Kearns,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Perhaps you’d like to explain?’
Jacob’s head jerked forward. His shoulders slumped as he stared down at the pages, the colour draining from his face.
She had hoped he might offer up a simple explanation but he didn’t. He was clearly distraught. She waited but he still didn’t speak. His silence was like some terrible admission of guilt.
‘Why?’ she said softly.
Jacob bowed his head.
‘Talk to me,’ she pleaded.
But still he refused to reply.
Jo glanced up as the door to the office suddenly swung open. Deborah Hayes was standing there with her coat over her arm.
‘No,’ Jacob said warningly. He shook his head.
Deborah glared back at him. ‘For God’s sake, this has gone on long enough. Why don’t you just tell her?’
Chapter Forty
There was a prolonged silence as Jo looked from one to the other. Her anger flared again. So Deborah was a part of this too. They had been collaborating, working together to deceive her.
‘I thought you’d gone home,’ Jo said coldly.
‘Well, it’s a good thing I haven’t.’ Deborah advanced into the room and placed her coat on the desk. ‘Otherwise you might never have found out the truth. And before you start making any wild accusations, you should be aware that Jacob’s only been doing what Peter would have wanted him to do.’
Jo stared at her, astounded. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning exactly that.’
Jo could hardly disguise her resentment. The next question, obviously, was how Deborah could have known what Peter had wanted. But she was feeling too fragile, too anxious, to go down that road. Instead she tried to focus on the more immediate problem. ‘So you think he’d have been happy about the two of you … the three of you … stealing from the business for the past two years?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘So what was it like?’ Jo snapped.
Deborah walked over to the shelves at the far side of the room. She ran her fingers along the row of files. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll show you.’
‘No,’ Jacob said again, getting up from his seat. ‘Leave it!’
‘She needs to know,’ Deborah said. ‘This has gone on too long.’
‘So I’ll tell her,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain. Please go, just leave, and I’ll explain.’
Deborah turned and shook her head, ‘No, you won’t. I know what you’re like. You’ll make some excuse, try to take the blame and end up in a prison cell. You’ve nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. It’s time to come clean.’
Jacob sank back down into his seat and buried his face in his hands.
‘No one’s going to end up in a prison cell,’ Jo said. ‘Will one of you just tell me what’s been going on?’
Deborah took down a file and opened it. She lifted out a pile of papers and dumped them on the desk. ‘Here.’
‘Stop it!’ Jacob said. ‘This isn’t the way.’
‘Bank statements,’ Deborah said, ignoring him, ‘lots of them, all proving that your husband was making regular payments to Constance Kearns for a long time before he died. Read them! Jacob hasn’t been trying to defraud you – he’d never do anything like that. He’s just been trying to do what he thought was right.’
Jo’s anger was changing into bewilderment. What was right? What did that mean? Tentatively, she picked up one of the statements, dating back four years. She scanned the page and quickly found a standing order made payable to Mrs C. Kearns for five hundred pounds. She scrambled through the sheets and found another and another … Deborah was telling the truth. Peter had been making payments from his personal account for years and for larger amounts than the ones that had gone out directly from the business.
Jo raised her head. ‘But why, why was he giving her money?’ As the question left her lips, she thought of an answer that she didn’t want to hear. Perhaps it was not Deborah who’d been having the affair with him but Constance. Why had she never thought of that before? Constance wasn’t that old; she was slim and undeniably attractive. And if it was true that the two of them had … then who was Leo’s father? ‘Is … was Peter …?’
‘He was just trying to help,’ Deborah said.
‘To help,’ she repeated weakly. ‘Because?’
Deborah looked at Jacob again. He still had his head in his hands. She sighed and continued. ‘Her husband, Leonard, used to work for Mitchell Strong. Mitchell spent a lot of time abroad, especially in Burma and Thailand. If you want good gemstones, they’re the places to go and Mitchell always wanted the best. It was when they were in Thailand that Leonard met Constance.’
Jo nodded. She swallowed hard, preparing herself for the worst. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘And then?’
‘About twelve years ago, on another of those business trips, Leonard got sick. He caught some kind of virus and died. I don’t know all the details but Mitchell came back and—’
‘Did very little,’ Jacob said, slowly raising his head. ‘He gave Constance a thousand pounds and left her to it. No pension, nothing to help with the child. Leonard had worked for him for years but he didn’t give a damn about that.’
‘Mitchell never gave a damn about anything,’ Deborah said. ‘He was a complete shit. So long as he was clawing in the profits, that was all he cared about. That’s why he and Peter fell out. It’s
why Peter took off, why he stayed away and why he didn’t return until after his father was dead and buried.’ She paused, looking at Jo. ‘But he didn’t know what had happened to Constance. He didn’t have a clue. Mitchell had promised he’d take care of her and the kid, and Peter stupidly believed him. It was only when he came back that he realised what a pack of lies it had all been. That’s when he tracked her down and tried to make amends. He helped her buy the flat in Barley Road. He got the deposit together and gave her money every month. Constance works hard but she could never have paid the mortgage on her own. You know what London prices are like.’
Jo thought about it. It was the kind of thing Peter would have done and all his acts of kindness, either small or big, had always been made with the minimum of fuss. ‘But why didn’t he tell me?’ she murmured.
‘I’m sure he meant to,’ Deborah said, ‘eventually.’
Jo bristled. She knew what was being implied – that because they had only been married for eight months, Peter hadn’t trusted her enough to share in the secret. But what she still couldn’t comprehend was why it had had to be a secret in the first place.
Jacob must have sensed the growing antagonism between the two of them because he quickly raised a hand. ‘Peter was ashamed of what his father did. He wanted to forget it had ever happened. And Constance Kearns is a proud woman; she only accepted the money for Leo’s sake and because Peter convinced her that she was entitled to it. If he chose to keep quiet about what he was doing – and we didn’t know ourselves until after he died – it was probably to spare her feelings as much as anything else.’
‘You must have wondered when she moved into the flat downstairs,’ Jo said.
Jacob shrugged. ‘I suspected he was helping her out but I didn’t know the details and I didn’t ask. That was their business, not mine.’
