Past Imperfect

by Michael Parker

  And as Max climbed into his Jaguar, he realized that Emma’s thoughtfulness had helped to smooth their parting a little. He gunned the car into life and motored out of the car park.

  Emma watched him go until the car was lost in the traffic and wondered if she would ever see him again.

  Max found Jack Rivers in the lobby of the Strand Palace Hotel. He was sitting on one of the long chairs there, nursing a drink, which was dwarfed in his huge, bear-like hand. His size was verging on colossal, but he had been like that since Max had first met him. Max dropped onto the chair beside him and shook his hand.

  ‘Long time, no see,’ he said. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  Rivers swallowed his drink and put the glass down. In the artificial lighting of the hotel, his dark skin seemed to hide any expression, but his eyes shone clearly, and when he opened his mouth Max could see that he was still blessed with perfect teeth.

  ‘What you been up to, Max?’ His voice resonated with the roots of his historic past and hit one of the low registers of scale.

  ‘This and that,’ Max answered glibly. He could see no point in lengthy explanations because a man of Rivers’s unique ability only ever wanted to dwell on what was immediately important, particularly in business. ‘What have you got for me, Jack?’

  ‘Billy Isaacs hit the street ten years ago when he got out of prison. He went back up the East End and just watched what was going down: who the main players were. He followed the cops about, watched who met who and where. A lot of this was on his old patch, and he didn’t like that. No, sir.’

  ‘He took over?’

  Rivers’s big head moved slowly. ‘Yes, sir, he sure did.’

  ‘Mob-handed, I guess?’ Max put in.

  ‘Typical Billy; never did anything in a small way.’

  ‘So what happened? Who took the hit?’

  ‘No one that you would know, Max,’ Rivers told him. ‘More of my kind: black. Thought they were big men; carried knives; plenty of bling; rap culture; chick on each arm; had dicks bigger than their brains. Billy went to the cops first: those he knew who were on the take. He told them, you stay out of this and I won’t touch your families: scared them shitless. He cleared the streets in a month. Took out the top men, boys more like, and sent the rest packing. Most of those who he left untouched are working for him now. And they’re getting more bread.’

  Max was thoughtful. He knew Isaacs was a psycho and could imagine the carnage on the streets once he had set about taking over his old manor. It meant that his self-appointed task would be infinitely more difficult.

  ‘What’s with this Coney Enterprises?’ he asked Rivers.

  The big man pursed his lips. ‘Seems that Isaacs went on a trip to Coney Island in the States; just a holiday by all accounts. He came back and opened up a bingo hall and night club, called it the Coney Enterprise; started laundering money through that. Then the government put the Gambling Act on the statute books in 2005 and Isaacs saw an opportunity. He opened his first casino in 2008 here in town. I heard he wanted to open a super casino, but the government put that idea on hold.’ He stopped and picked up his empty glass. ‘I’m dying of thirst here, Max,’ he said.

  Max smiled and got to his feet. ‘Double Scotch on the rocks?’

  ‘Rum.’

  ‘Should have known.’ Max walked over to the bar. He ordered a couple of drinks and asked for them to be brought over. When he got back, Rivers continued without preamble.

  ‘Isaacs knew where the influence lay. He knew that the government could be persuaded. It just meant a piece of traditional lobbying.’

  ‘Isaacs’s style?’ Max wondered.

  Rivers concurred. ‘You got it. The Gambling Commission is advised by the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board; called the RGSB. They advise the Gambling Commission. They also advise the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.’

  Max could see it coming. ‘Right into the government, then?’

  Rivers nodded; his huge neck seemed to coil and uncoil like a pneumatic spring. ‘Isaacs found some dirt on one of the RGSB board members.’

  ‘What kind of dirt?’

  ‘Little boys.’

  Max whistled softly through his teeth and leaned back in his chair. The drinks came and he was pleased for that. He took a mouthful of the whisky and set his glass down. ‘Did Isaacs supply them?’

  Rivers simply shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he told Max as he put the glass to his mouth and took a long draught of the fiery liquid. He blew out noisily through his generous mouth. ‘That’s as far as I got, Max.’

  Max pulled an envelope from inside his jacket pocket and passed it to Rivers, who opened it and used his thumb to count the ten fifty pound notes there. He was satisfied and slipped the envelope into his back pocket.

  ‘So Coney Enterprises is legit?’ Max asked.

  Rivers traced his finger along an imaginary line. ‘Straight as a die,’ he said. ‘You won’t find anything there if that’s what you’re after. And Isaacs isn’t the owner.’ His eyebrows lifted a notch. ‘His wife is.’

  ‘His wife?’ Max looked aghast. ‘But he’s a poofter: bent as a nine-bob note. He wouldn’t look at a woman.’

  Rivers agreed. ‘You know and so do I, but she’s more of a trophy wife: good for the image.’

  Max was stunned. He found it difficult to believe, not with a raging homosexual like Isaacs. ‘Keeps his name off the letterhead, I suppose,’ he muttered. He had used characters like that in his novels. When it came to tax avoidance, offshore accounts and remaining invisible, it was a simple but effective ploy. There was little he could do now but consider his next move. All he could hope for was that his old friend could come up with something on Isaacs that he could use.

  ‘Can you dig some more, Jack?’

  Rivers’s big eyebrows lifted and he pushed his bottom lip out as he considered what Max had asked him.

  ‘If I get too close to Isaacs. . . .’ He left it at that for a while, waiting for Max to come up with something tactile.

  ‘A grand this time, Jack. And lunch at the Savoy.’

  The belly laugh was like a roll of thunder. ‘I could end up in the river, Max, but I guess lunch at the Savoy would make up for it.’ He reached over and took Max’s hand in his massive paw. ‘A grand.’ He swallowed the remains of his drink and stood up. Max followed suit and they strolled out of the hotel and into Salieri’s Italian restaurant next door.

  Emma had gone to her room and spent a while just sitting there thinking of Max and how much she had enjoyed his company. The change in his manner the previous day had surprised her, but it hadn’t spoilt anything. After all, he was still a stranger to her, really; the time they had spent together did not change that. Now she had to get on with her life. She didn’t really think that he would get in touch again. People were like that, she thought; full of promises to keep in touch, but as time moved on so the memories dimmed until they became simply that: memories. And perhaps Max had expected more than just an enjoyable companionship. As her sister would remind her: men were only after one thing, particularly if you were a divorcee and on your own.

  Emma used the rest of the day in a pointless exercise of trying to forget Max and enjoy what Southsea had to offer. She had been approached by a young man in the hotel. No doubt he had witnessed Max’s departure and thought he would try his luck. Emma had quickly disabused him of that idea. Compared to Max, the man was an oaf.

  It was late in the afternoon when Emma spoke to Laura on the phone to say that she would be catching the National Express coach to Bournemouth. Laura would have none of it and insisted on driving to the hotel to pick her up. There was no brooking her sister’s argument. Emma knew the real reason: it was to check up on her; make sure she hadn’t formed an alliance with anybody. She knew Laura would ask if she had met anybody, and Emma knew she would tell her sister everything.

  The two women embraced warmly when Laura arrived. Emma was genuinely pleased to see her and, truthfully, she wanted to te
ll her all about Max. She knew it would be a problem, but one thing she had learned over the last few weeks and particularly over the last few days was that she needed to change her outlook and draw strength from the encounter with Max.

  ‘You really like the guy?’ Laura asked as she negotiated the car into the traffic.

  Emma was smiling and looking out of the window towards the pier. Perhaps she had her rose-tinted glasses on, which made the world look a much happier place. She could see lots of people who all looked as though they were enjoying life. It was like a snapshot of her weekend, and whatever the outcome, Emma knew she would hold that as a treasured memory, whether she saw Max again or not.

  ‘Yes,’ she managed to say whimsically.

  Laura risked a quick glance at her and then back at the traffic. ‘You said he was a journalist.’

  Emma nodded. ‘Worked for the Cambridge Gazette.’

  ‘Well, at least he didn’t choose a national daily.’

  Emma laughed. ‘You’re such a cynic, Laura.’

  ‘Do you plan on seeing him again?’ Emma had to admit it was unlikely. ‘So it was just a fleeting romance, eh?’ There was a subtle mockery in Laura’s question.

  Emma felt the heat rising in her neck and put her hand up to her scar. She realized that it was the first time she had done that in the last twenty-four hours. She dropped her hand quickly.

  ‘I have to get on with my life, Laura; that’s one thing I’ve learned since coming here.’ She suddenly felt a little doleful, and the lightness in her heart she had been experiencing was gradually fading. She tried to cling on to it but reality was pushing its way in. In fact, reality was sitting beside her. ‘Couple of days and we’ll have forgotten each other.’

  ‘One of you will have,’ was Laura’s laconic reply.

  As much as Laura questioned her, there was little Emma could say about Max. The mention of Clanford Hall and Max’s change of demeanour drew some reaction from Laura, but more from a curiosity value than anything else.

  ‘Perhaps he’d written an article on it,’ she had suggested, then realized he had told Emma he worked for a Cambridgeshire newspaper. The subject got dropped and their chatter turned to the more pragmatic subjects that would impact on Emma’s future.

  They arrived at Emma’s house intact, despite Laura’s aggressive driving style. Laura said she wouldn’t come in but would pop round the following morning. Emma was secretly pleased and kissed her sister on the cheek.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said, and lifted her large bag from the back seat. She waited on the pavement as Laura drove off, then turned and pushed open the gate into her small front garden. She looked up at the house, diminutive now after the hotel, but it was her home and she hoped she would be pleased to be back. She shuffled in; back-heeled the door shut and dropped her bag on the floor. She went through to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. Then she sat in her front room, thinking.

  If there was anything on Emma’s mind that evening as she tried to settle into a routine, it was Max. She couldn’t shift him, try as she might. She tried to rationalize the relationship and imagine how it could develop, if it was allowed to. They lived so far apart, and Max had his career to think about. For Emma, though, there was little to keep her in Bournemouth other than her job and her sister. Laura was her only family, and her job was the only outlet she had in her daily existence. At least having met Max there was an almost tangible promise that her life could change, but how that was supposed to happen she had no idea. It struck her as odd that she should be contemplating a life with a man she barely knew and who would probably forget her within a day or so. Tomorrow, she thought, I will have a look at that new leaf I’m supposed to be turning over and try to forget Max Reilly. And with that idea planted in her mind, Emma took herself off to bed but still wondered if he had already forgotten her.

  Max couldn’t sleep. He had struggled in vain, got up, made a cup of tea, gone back to bed and yet he still lay there, eyes open, staring into the darkness. Names kept trickling into his mind, fusing into a melee of faces, temperaments, flashbacks and worries. Emma dominated his thoughts at first, but her face was soon replaced by that of Rivers’s big features. What he remembered of Billy Isaacs came flooding in too, and with it the horror of what that man could do. As the clock ticked on and his tiredness began to overwhelm him, the last thoughts before he finally drifted off to sleep were of Clanford Hall and the seeds of destruction being sown into people’s lives.

  SIX

  Clanford Hall, 1965

  ‘Happy anniversary, darling.’

  Jeremy Kennett was beaming as he woke Kate. He was carrying a large bouquet of flowers in one hand and a small, beautifully wrapped package in the other. He leaned over her sleeping figure and kissed her warmly on the side of her face.

  Kate stirred and rolled over. She opened her eyes and blinked several times. Recognition and awareness dawned on her almost immediately and she sat up. She reached up and pulled him to her, kissing him passionately.

  ‘Same to you,’ she told him as she drew her lips away. Then she kissed him again. ‘I haven’t forgotten either.’ She pushed him gently and clambered out of the jumble of bedclothes. Then she walked across the room completely naked.

  Kennett watched every movement of her body as she opened the doors of the huge wardrobe and took out a wrapped parcel. She turned, the parcel held in front of her breasts, and walked back to him. Even though they had been married for four years now, Kennett could only wonder at how lucky he had been and how much he loved this gorgeous woman. She came over and stood before him. He reached forward and kissed her stomach and stroked the bump gently.

  ‘My lovely little Victoria,’ he muttered.

  Kate tapped him softly on the head with the parcel. ‘Victor.’

  He put the presents on the bed and put his arms around her. ‘Victoria.’

  Kate pushed him away and laughed softly. They had argued about the baby’s name, agreeing finally that if it was a girl, Kennett would choose the name. If it was a boy, the choice would be Kate’s.

  ‘Come on, Jeremy,’ she urged him. ‘Open your present.’

  ‘After you,’ he replied.

  Kate sat beside him and laid the parcel on his lap. Then she picked up the bouquet and sniffed gently at the beautiful display of carnations he had bought her. ‘They are absolutely lovely, Jeremy. Thank you so much.’

  Kennett opened his present and found a silk cravat and a briar pipe, the latter being something he had taken up recently. He kissed Kate and shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t have,’ he chided her softly.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she asked as she removed the ribbon and paper from her gift. She pulled out the French lingerie and held it up, her face a picture. Then she closed her eyes and chuckled. ‘This won’t look very sexy with my bump.’ She squealed with delight and flung her arms round him. ‘But I’ll wear them anyway.’

  He rolled her onto her back and leaned over her. ‘I do love you so, Kate,’ he whispered. ‘Happy anniversary.’

  ‘You’ve already said that,’ she reminded him. ‘And this isn’t going to get you anywhere because Paul and Michael will be in soon: it wouldn’t do to see their mother and father like this.’

  He pulled a face. ‘Then it will have to be tonight,’ he told her, and got up from the bed. ‘I’ll see if the boys are up,’ he called as he picked up the flowers. ‘And I’ll find a vase for these. You’d better get some clothes on; otherwise they’ll be asking you what’s under that bump.’

  ‘They already have,’ she told him, but he had gone.

  Kate thought back to the day they had married. It was a small ceremony held in the registry office in Petersfield. Jeremy had wanted a church wedding, but Kate wouldn’t agree for two reasons: one was that he had married his first wife in a church and had taken vows before God, and the second reason was that the estate could not afford a sumptuous wedding. But she had often wondered if the underlying reason was because of her pas
t, where she had grown up and because she had no family. She knew Jeremy didn’t care a fig for any of that, but he had bowed to her wishes. She allowed herself the luxury of a few minutes thinking about how lucky she was to have such a wonderful husband and be expecting his baby. And although the twins were not hers, she loved them as if they were her own.

  The staff at the hall had become accustomed to referring to Kate as the mistress of Clanford because of the way she had grown into the role. They all loved her and she returned that love in full measure. Kate had assumed Maud’s duties when the housekeeper had retired and moved to Cornwall to live with her sister. Although Kennett had tried to persuade Kate to employ somebody to replace Maud, Kate had insisted on doing it herself. They agreed that Kate would try it for six months, but it took her less time than that to show how capable she was. The subject of a employing a new housekeeper was never raised after that.

  Kate had finished dressing when Kennett returned with the twins. The two boys ran into the room, arms held high so that she could scoop them up and spin round in a twirl. It was a regular morning piece of fun, and the three of them enjoyed it. Kate wondered how much longer she could keep doing that as her lump got bigger. She lowered them to the floor and straightened with some difficulty. Her hand went to the small of her back and she looked over at her husband with a mixture of a smile and a grimace on her face. Then suddenly, Kate’s expression turned to one of horror as she saw her husband roll his eyes and collapse slowly to his knees.

  ‘Jeremy!’ she screamed and ran across to him, reaching him just as he was about to slump full length onto the floor. Kate knew exactly what was happening and what she had to do. She had about two minutes to get the twins out of the room and to summon help. She ran out into the corridor and shouted as loud as she could, hurling her voice down the stairs in the desperate hope that someone would hear her. She then ran back into the room and gathered the twins up into her arms, struggled with the weight of the two of them and carried them back to their room. As she was running back, she heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and was relieved to see Emily appear at the top.