Old Sins

by Penny Vincenzi

  There was no chance of Candy seeing the advertisement, she never looked at a paper, her idea of a really heavy read was the latest Revlon ad in Glamour, Miles might see it himself and there was nothing Mason could do to prevent that, but he certainly wasn’t going to go out of his way to put it under his nose.

  Mason tore the paper into small shreds and went down to the pool to look for Candy and see if he could cheer her up, offer to take her out to one of the islands for a day or two, or buy her a few new frocks. She was missing Miles badly.

  Billy de Launay saw the advertisement too, in the Washington Post. Now this was really interesting. This might explain why Miles hadn’t heard from the old guy. He’d snuffed it. This was an English solicitor, after all. And it also looked like Miles might actually be going to get some money. That was what these kinds of advertisement usually meant. Lucky old sod.

  Billy sighed. It was a shame Miles was such a lousy correspondent. He never heard from him these days, although he continued to send him the odd note whenever something particularly interesting or exciting happened to him. Oh, well, they could catch up on everything when he went home for his summer vacation.

  Billy hoped Miles would see the advertisement. It would be awful if he missed it. He never read the papers, except maybe the headlines. He tore it out and wrote off to Miles that night, enclosing it and demanding an invitation to the blow-out he hoped Miles would be hosting if it meant what he thought it did.

  He mailed it to the house in Nassau, not knowing Miles’ address in Miami. Marcia filed it carefully with the others.

  Father Kennedy read the advertisement in the Los Angeles Times. He always studied those kind of columns closely in the extremely forlorn hope that one of his flock might have come into some kind of a legacy, however small. They never did and it would really have done them little good if they had as it would have been converted into alcohol in no time at all. But God moved in a very mysterious way indeed, in his experience, and it was still worth keeping an eye open. He wondered what had happened. It looked as if Mr Dashwood might have died and left Miles some money. Maybe there’d been some kind of making up. Well, that was nice; but Father Kennedy had always felt it very sad that after all his efforts on the boy’s behalf, poor Dashwood had received very nearly no thanks at all.

  He imagined Miles was sure to see it, Mrs Kelly certainly would, she was a great one for reading the papers. Strange she had never answered his letters; she had promised to write, even suggested he took a vacation in Nassau one day. Oh, well, promises were cheap. Father Kennedy was used by now to the vagaries of human nature. He thought it would do no harm to forward a copy of the paper on to Miles. He just might miss it, and that would be a dreadful thing. He sat down that night and wrote a long letter to Mrs Kelly, enclosing the clipping. He really hoped she would reply; he would like to see her again.

  Marcia looked at the envelope with the Los Angeles postmark, guessed its contents and put it with the others. She was beginning to wonder if she was doing the right thing. Whoever was looking for Miles seemed to want to find him pretty badly.

  In her house in East Hampton, Long Island, Mrs Holden Taylor Jr was reading the New York Times over breakfast as she always did, before embarking on the hectic day of tennis, lunching, shopping and menu planning that lay ahead of her. She skimmed through the law reports (Holden liked her to know what was going on in his world) and she was looking idly at the Public Notice column when a name sprang out at her. A name that caught her sharply somewhere in the region of her heart, a name that spelt sunshine and beaches and old cars and smoking grass and glorious wonderful sex, the kind that Holden simply never quite managed, however hard they both tried to pretend that he did. Miles! Miles Wilburn. Just reading the name, she saw him as suddenly and clearly as if he was standing there, those amazing dark dark blue eyes, the heart-catching smile, the long flowing blond hair – well, that was probably cut short now – heard his voice, soft and lazy and slow. Miles. She would never forget him ever. They said you never did forget your first love. They seemed to be right. So what had happened? Had someone died and left Miles some money, and as it was an English solicitor’s address in the paper, would it be Hugo Dashwood? It seemed very likely. That was very good of him, when Miles had always been so hostile and often rude to him.

  Oh God, what would she give to see Miles just once more. Joanna shook herself. She hadn’t even thought about him for years, well not seriously, and now here she was like a bitch on heat just because she’d read his name in the paper. Pull yourself together, Joanna, she said, and get to planning that menu. It was an important dinner party on Saturday; she had had to invite some incredibly high-powered woman in advertising that Holden had met somewhere. Just thinking about her made Joanna nervous. Apparently she wasn’t just brilliantly clever and had her own agency, she was amazingly beautiful too. Camilla North, she was called, she was in her mid forties and looked just about thirty. And she rode to hounds side-saddle. Oh, God, what on earth could she serve up on the plate of such a paragon?

  Joanna covered the table with recipe books and temporarily forgot all about Miles Wilburn.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, 1985

  ANDREW BLACKWORTH WAS on his way to San Francisco. He had not initially been over-enthusiastic about the idea, indeed had suggested to Roz that one of his contacts in the States might be able at least initially to follow up the Bill Wilburn trail, but she had looked at him, her green eyes snapping with fury, and said that she was retaining him personally at great expense, and that she did not want any inexperienced fool of a stringer following this trail.

  He had not been to San Francisco before and he found it greatly to his liking. He was not a sun lover, and he had visited and hated California; to his enchantment on arrival (just before midday) this city was grey and misty, damply chill. He remembered a quotation from Oscar Wilde: ‘The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.’ This was the kind of summer he liked.

  His cab driver, taking him into the town through the oddly European suburban streets with their clapboard houses in faded colours, said this was a day he had to see the bridge; Andrew, fearing a cliché, allowed him to take him there, and looked in awe at the great red spires rising out of the grey mist.

  ‘Kind of pretty, isn’t it?’ said the driver. ‘You from England?’

  Andrew said he was.

  ‘The English usually get disappointed when they fly in here. Where’s the sunshine, they say. But then they see this and they change their minds. Later on it’ll clear.’ He turned the cab and drove back into town through the Golden Gate Park; Bill Wilburn’s office was in the centre, just east of Chinatown, in a small dingy street, a barrier closing the fiercely steep hill behind it to all but pedestrians.

  ‘You have a nice day now,’ said the cab driver cheerfully, dumping Andrew’s case on the sidewalk, ‘and mind you take a cable car ride. Nob and Telegraph are the best.’

  Andrew said he would and walked into the building.

  Wilburn’s office occupied a large room taking up most of the ground floor; his secretary Cynthia, still weepy, but impeccably dressed and coiffed, and enjoying the drama, was rather desperately trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff of Bill’s twenty-five-year-old collection of papers and files.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Andrew in his impeccable BBC accent. ‘I’m Andrew Blackworth.’ Cynthia looked at him.

  ‘I just don’t know where to begin,’ she said helplessly, from her position kneeling in front of a filing cabinet, ‘it all seems so old.’

  Andrew gave her his most charming smile.

  ‘It must,’ he said, ‘to you. Here, let me see if I can help.’

  ‘That would be real nice of you to help me.’ She looked at him. ‘Sorry, why did you say you were here?’

  ‘I didn’t. I’m here because I’m a private detective from England and we’re trying to trace a relative of Mr Wilburn’s. A young ma
n. Miles Wilburn. Mr Wilburn contacted us just before he died.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said, pleased to be able to show that she had some inside knowledge. ‘Him. I’d forgotten him. Yeah, I had to type a letter about him.’

  ‘Was this the letter?’

  He showed her a photocopy.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But you didn’t know anything about him?’

  ‘Nope. Nothing.’

  ‘Mr Wilburn didn’t tell you anything, talk to you about him at all?’

  ‘Nope. Until that day I never heard of him. Never heard about him again either. No, that’s not true, Mr Wilburn said he was going to visit him for a few days. A couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Was that in LA?’

  ‘No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know. Somehow all this has driven everything I ever knew out of my head.’

  Andrew thought this was probably not an enormous amount, but he smiled at her encouragingly.

  ‘Well, maybe something will turn up. Let’s carry on for a while. Was this cousin, the one who lived in Los Angeles, called Wilburn?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess so. I got the impression there was some tragedy, but I never really liked to ask.’

  ‘Really? Why was that?’

  ‘Oh, Mr Wilburn used to talk about poor Lee. Always poor Lee.’

  ‘Was that the cousin?’

  ‘No, it was the cousin’s wife.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘I guess not. Otherwise Mr Wilburn wouldn’t have gone on and on about being alone in the world.’

  ‘Possibly. And did these cousins have any children?’

  ‘Well, I don’t really know. I guess this nephew of his, I had to write the letter about, the one he went to see, was probably their kid. I just don’t know.’

  ‘Ah. And where did he live?’

  ‘He lived here.’

  ‘What, in this office?’

  ‘Yeah, nearly. In a coupla rooms overhead.’

  ‘Are they locked?’

  ‘Yeah, but I have the key.’ She looked at him, slightly embarrassed. ‘I don’t know if I ought to let you up, though. Oh, what the hell,’ she said suddenly. ‘What’s it matter? I don’t suppose Mr Wilburn would have minded. And nobody told me I shouldn’t let anybody up there. Here’s the key. Just don’t disarrange anything, that’s all.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Andrew, ‘and thank you very much.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Cynthia, ‘I’m real grateful to you for helping me with the papers.’

  ‘It was entirely my pleasure,’ said Andrew, just slightly pompously.

  The flat was a larger version of the office; untidy, depressing, disorganized. Just two rooms: a kitchen-diner, and a bed-sitting room. The bed-sit had a rather grubby sofa in it, a small bookcase full of the works of Erle Stanley Gardner and Ellery Queen, a coffee table covered in out of date car and fishing magazines, and rather incongruously a British Heritage calendar on one wall, opened at the right month. Now how long had Bill Wilburn been an anglophile, Andrew wondered.

  There was a small table by the bed, with a couple of drawers in it, and two photographs on the tiled shelf above the gas fire; one was framed, a very old wedding photograph of a very very pretty blonde girl, and a slightly plump, crewcut young man, sundry relatives standing on either side of them. One of them, Andrew assumed, must be Bill Wilburn. The other was unframed, curling with age, creased and dirty, tucked into the edge of a lurid picture of the Golden Gate Bridge; it was of a blond baby, about ten months old, laughing in the plump (and considerably older) crewcut man’s arms.

  ‘Now,’ said Andrew to the baby, ‘are you Miles or are you not?’

  He went back downstairs, holding the wedding picture. Cynthia had stopped working for a spell, and was retouching her make-up.

  ‘Cynthia,’ he said, ‘is any of these people Bill Wilburn?’

  She took the photograph and looked at it. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘that’s him. Next to the bridesmaid.’

  ‘But you don’t know if this was his cousin’s wedding?’

  ‘Nope. I guess it probably is, but I just don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.’

  ‘OK, I’ll put it back. And lock up. I won’t be a minute.’

  He came back down smiling. ‘Thank you, Cynthia, for that. It didn’t actually provide me with any information, but it was nice of you. Er – do you happen to know what might have happened to Mr Wilburn’s wallet? Or his personal address book for instance?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know about the address book. But his wallet is right here, in the safe. I put it there for the time being. I guess you might as well see it.’

  She handed it over. Andrew opened it very slowly. It was empty, apart from two ten-dollar bills, a couple of credit card receipts, and a used air ticket. He looked at it cautiously, almost afraid of what it was going to tell him. It was a used return ticket to Nassau.

  Joanna looked contentedly round her dinner table. It had all been the greatest success. The lobster and wild rice had been wonderful, the meringue baskets which were always a slight worry had turned out perfectly, and everyone had come up for second helpings of the mousse of raspberries and wild strawberries. Now Holden was going round the table with the armagnac, and Christabel was ready with the coffee, and the worrying part was completely over. What was more, Camilla North had been really very nice, charming in a rather formal way, she was certainly very beautiful, dressed dramatically all in black (probably, Joanna thought, by Bill Blass), and a bit remote, but not really too frightening at all. The man she had come with, a banker called Peter Cohen, was obviously besotted with her; Camilla was plainly not the least besotted with him, in fact Joanna could detect signs of severe irritation in the way she was now just slightly obsessively lining up the glasses in front of her in a very neat way; time to move everyone, she thought, like the good hostess she was.

  ‘Shall we take coffee on the patio?’ she said. ‘It’s such a lovely night.’

  ‘Oh, that would be so nice,’ said Camilla, speaking (as she so often did) for the assorted company. ‘And then quite soon, Peter, I think we should make a move. It’s very late.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, don’t go yet!’ said Joanna. It was awful when a party broke up too early, you missed the fun bit altogether that way.

  ‘Well, I’m a little tired,’ said Camilla, her lovely head drooping just slightly. ‘I’ve had a hard week. We were pitching for some new drink business.’

  ‘Did you get it?’ asked Mary Wilder, an old friend of Holden’s, who Joanna was just slightly suspicious of, she didn’t like the way she kept saying things to him very quietly so no one else could hear and touching his arm in that over-friendly way: Mary was also in advertising, although considerably less successfully so than the beautiful Miss North (but then, thought Joanna, struggling to be fair, she was much much younger).

  ‘I’m not sure. I think probably yes. It’s such a chauvinist business, advertising, we always have to win two wars on every pitch, one to be better than the competition, the other to overcome the innate belief that we can’t possibly be better because it’s my agency and I’m a woman.’

  ‘I simply cannot believe that, Camilla, in this day and age,’ said Peter Cohen. ‘I think you’re just paranoid, like all women.’

  ‘Women are not paranoid,’ said Camilla coldly. ‘Merely realistic. I do assure you I do know what I’m talking about. Which, if you will forgive me for saying so, you do not. We may have made some progress in the last decade, but we are still suffering severely under the yoke of thousands of years of oppression.’

  ‘Oh, Camilla, that’s balls!’ said Holden. ‘I – we have many women in the bank in quite senior positions. No oppression there, I can tell you.’

  ‘Really?’ said Camilla.

  ‘Really. Dozens of them. Very nice to have them around, too,’ he added, slightly unfortunately. Joanna winced; Holden could be so crass at times.

  ‘And how many of these dozens of women
are on the main board?’ asked Camilla.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Several, I think. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Any presidents?’

  ‘Well, vice-presidents certainly. Not many presidents. Obviously.’

  ‘Why obviously?’

  ‘Well, of course we’re very keen on the idea, very aware that women should be presidents. That they’re just as good as the next man, if you’ll forgive the expression. But the other presidents in the other banks aren’t ready for it. They wouldn’t quite welcome it. Not appreciate it. Not yet,’ he added hastily, unnerved by the look in her slightly blank dark eyes. ‘In time I’m sure there will be. And we’ll lead the way.’

  ‘I see. Good for you.’

  There was a silence. Mary broke it.

  ‘Camilla, do you ever see Nigel Silk these days?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ said Camilla. ‘At awards ceremonies and so forth. I’m afraid he hasn’t reacted terribly generously to my success. He’s a great yoke-bearer,’ she added, flashing a cool smile at Holden.

  ‘Who is Nigel Silk?’ asked Joanna quickly, nervous. She could see this getting difficult and the whole evening being ruined.

  ‘He’s the man who used to do most of our advertising when I worked for Julian Morell, in the early days.’

  This was getting worse; Holden had warned her not to so much as touch on the subject of Julian Morell and to steer any conversation right off him. Julian Morrell had always rather fascinated Joanna; she used to like reading about him in the gossip columns, about all his money, and his houses, and his wives, and also Sir James Goldsmith, who had seemed to her a rather similarly glamorous figure; when Holden had told her that Camilla had been Julian Morell’s mistress for years, she could hardly contain herself with excitement and awe. ‘But the guy’s only died a couple of months ago, and she’s probably pretty cut up about it, even though she hadn’t been involved with him for a while. So for God’s sake, Joanna, just don’t even mention him.’

  And now, here was Camilla herself mentioning Julian Morell, and Mary Wilder’s eyes lighting up, and one of the other men, Irving Drummond, a friend of Holden’s in the hotel business, leaning forward eagerly. What on earth could she do?