Old Sins

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Coffee everyone,’ she said again, brilliant smile flashing round the table, but they all ignored her.

  ‘I met Julian Morell’s daughter only the other day,’ said Drummond. ‘Tough nut, that one. She’s taken over the hotels division from that husband of hers. He’s resigned from the company. She’s divorcing him.’

  ‘Really?’ said Cohen. ‘And marrying Browning, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I guess so. I have to say I don’t envy him, but I guess he can take it.’

  Joanna felt worse and worse; she drained her glass and poured herself another, hoping no one was looking.

  ‘Where did you meet Roz?’ said Camilla. She seemed quite calm; Joanna relaxed a little. Maybe it would be all right. If she just kept right out of the conversation from now on, Holden couldn’t possibly blame her for any of it.

  ‘Oh, at a hotel convention. She’s very attractive, I must say. Amazing figure.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ said Camilla in tones so icy, the entire room was chilled. ‘I always find that very severe style of hers rather off-putting. She was a singularly plain child,’ she added, displaying her intimate knowledge of the family and daring anyone else to comment on Roz Emerson’s attractiveness at one and the same moment.

  ‘How is she coping, running that empire?’ asked Cohen. ‘It’s quite an undertaking. And she’s very young for the job.’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ said Camilla, cooler still. ‘I can only say any adversary of hers has my deep sympathy.’ She turned in her chair. ‘Joanna, my dear, why don’t we avail ourselves of your very nice suggestion that we should go and have coffee in the garden? It really is very hot in here.’

  Joanna stood up and walked out of the room; Camilla, Mary and Nancy Smallwood, Joanna’s great friend and unofficial co-hostess on sticky occasions, followed her.

  While Mary and Nancy were still upstairs, Joanna found herself sitting alone on the terrace with Camilla. She looked at her, seeming, she thought suddenly, rather sad and vulnerable, and said on an impulse (thank God Holden was inside, carrying on about the Dow Jones or something), ‘Camilla, I do hope it doesn’t upset you to talk about Julian Morell. I’m sorry if the conversation about him ran on a bit.’

  Camilla looked at her and smiled a trifle frostily. Don’t you try and get too close to me, that look said. ‘Of course not,’ she said graciously. ‘In any case ifit did I have only myself to blame for bringing his name into the conversation. Please don’t worry about it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Joanna. ‘And thank you for coming this evening. It’s been so nice to meet you. Holden has told me such a lot about you. He has such admiration for you and your agency.’

  ‘How sweet of him,’ said Camilla. ‘Just a poor thing, but mine own,’ she added graciously. Joanna recognized the quotation, but she wasn’t sure if she should say she did or not.

  Mercifully at this point Nancy returned. Nancy could talk any silence out. She commenced to do so now.

  ‘That was a great dinner, Jo,’ she said. ‘Christabel does make the best summer mousse in the world. Didn’t you think it was just yummy, Camilla?’

  Camilla smiled. ‘What a lovely word,’ she said. ‘It’s years since I heard it. Not since I was a small girl.’

  She suddenly seemed more human again. Maybe she had just made things worse apologizing like that, Joanna thought. Blast.

  ‘Well, I use lots of school words still,’ said Nancy cheerfully. ‘I love ’em. I say gosh, and gee and fab and crush and – gross and spaced and Za.’

  ‘Whatever does Za mean?’ said Joanna, grateful for this diversion.

  ‘Pizza, everyone knows that,’ said Nancy, laughing. ‘I forgot you went to school in the backwoods, Jo.’

  ‘Where was that?’ asked Camilla, turning to Joanna, obviously anxious to show she bore no grudge to someone for not going to Vassar.

  ‘Hollywood,’ said Joanna. ‘Marymount High School.’

  ‘That does sound fun,’ said Camilla. ‘Hardly the backwoods, but fun.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Joanna, suddenly sharply remembering, just as she had reading the advertisement, what it felt like to be young, to be at Marymount High, to be in California, to be in love, ‘it was. Wonderful fun.’

  And then she said it. It was partly nerves, partly the wine, partly genuinely wanting to tell someone.

  ‘The most extraordinary thing happened to me this week,’ she said, ‘I was reading the paper, and in the announcement column, you know, where they advertise for people, was the name of my very first boyfriend. Some English lawyer is looking for him. Isn’t that extraordinary? At least I suppose it was him. He had the same name, at any rate.’

  Camilla was looking at her very oddly; she had gone rather pale.

  ‘And what was the name of this boyfriend?’ she said.

  ‘Miles,’ said Joanna. ‘Miles Wilburn.’

  Doctor Margaret Friedman looked at Phaedria across her desk.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, her eyes taking in an enormous amount without appearing even to have left her diary: the beauty, the pregnancy, the money. Margaret Friedman did not know a Ralph Lauren shirt from a Marks and Spencer one, nor a Cartier ring from a junk job from Fenwick’s, but she could nonetheless tell you in an instant where a client stood in the socio-economic scale, what kind of school they had been to, which kind of car they drove, whether they lived in town or the country, whether they had any children. It was one of the things that made her so good at her job.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Phaedria. ‘It’s very good of you to see me at such short notice. Thank you.’

  ‘Joan said you sounded – well, not entirely happy. I do like to help when I can.’

  ‘I’m – well – I’m all right. It’s just that – well I do have a – problem.’

  Margaret drew a pad towards her. ‘Let’s start with a few details, shall we? Now your full name is –?’

  ‘Phaedria Morell.’

  ‘And you’re – forgive me, but I do read the papers, Julian Morell’s widow?’ The dark eyes looked at Phaedria, politely non-committal.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. It must be a very difficult time for you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Phaedria, with a rather tight little smile, ‘it certainly isn’t easy.’

  ‘And you’re pregnant.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Awful.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Would you like some tea?’

  ‘No, thank you. Do you have any lemons?’

  ‘I do. In hot water?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She ordered Joan rather briskly to bring in some hot water and lemon and then sat back in her chair. ‘Now then. Where should we begin?’

  ‘About fifteen years ago,’ said Phaedria.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Phaedria smiled. ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry. I must be a terrible shock to you. There’s nothing wrong with me. At least I don’t think so. Not psychiatrically. It’s just that – oh, it’s such a bizarre story. I don’t know where to begin. You may not be able to help at all.’

  ‘Let me try.’

  ‘Well, about fifteen years ago, my husband came to see you.’

  ‘Yes, he did. Did he tell you that himself?’

  ‘No. His secretary told me. You see, my husband has left a very complicated will. This is – ? She looked awkward. ‘Confidential?’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course.’

  ‘Well, we are trying to trace someone. Someone he left an important legacy to. We thought you might be able to help.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how.’

  ‘Well, my husband was – well, rather a complex man. He was not at all straightforward.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Anyway, his secretary knew he had been seeing you in – oh, I think 1971. We thought – that is I thought – if you could tell me why, what he came about, it might throw a bit of light on his life.’r />
  ‘Possibly,’ said Margaret Friedman carefully.

  ‘Oh, I feel so silly,’ said Phaedria suddenly. ‘You must think I’m mad.’

  ‘On the contrary, I think you’re very sane. You should see some of the others, as they say. And I do assure you no story comes as a surprise to me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Phaedria, ‘let’s get down to basics. Do you – could you remember why my husband came to see you?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’d have to look out his notes.’

  ‘Could you do that?’

  ‘Well, I could certainly look them out. I think before I committed myself to talking to you very much more, I’d have to know a bit more about you.’

  ‘Why?’ said Phaedria, her eyes wide with disappointment.

  ‘Well, you may seem very stable. I’m sure you are. But you must realize I might – I’m not saying I necessarily would be – I might be promising to tell you something which would make you very unstable indeed.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t anything really ghastly. It couldn’t have been. Someone would have known.’

  ‘You’d be surprised, Lady Morell – how people don’t know about ghastly things. Close their minds to them. Tell themselves they can’t be true. Of course I’m not suggesting your husband was a murderer or anything. But I can’t give you a blanket promise to tell you whatever it was he came to see me about without knowing you a little better . . .’ She smiled. ‘When’s the baby due?’

  ‘November.’

  ‘Then we must take care of you. Where are you having it?’

  ‘St Mary’s, Paddington. The Lindo Wing.’

  ‘Very sensible. Now, what I’d like to do is have a chat with you now, learn a little more about you, and then if you can come back in a day or two, I’ll have looked at your husband’s notes, and I can talk to you with a bit more confidence.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Phaedria, her voice suddenly shaky, ‘look, I can see that you have to be careful, but honestly I am very stable, I don’t need counselling, I just want to unravel this mystery. I can’t stand it much longer. I don’t see why you won’t help.’

  She suddenly burst into tears; Margaret Friedman sat and handed her tissues and watched her sympathetically for a few minutes. Then she said, ‘You may not need counselling, but you do need help. Why don’t you begin at the beginning? I honestly think it’ll make you feel better.’

  When Phaedria had left, an hour later, she got out the files on Julian Morell. She felt she owed it to herself to check through them. But as she had known, there was no need. She could remember absolutely everything that was in them.

  Phaedria was fast asleep when the phone rang.

  ‘Phaedria? It’s C. J.’

  ‘C. J., it’s two in the morning.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry to wake you. But I have some news.’

  He heard her snap into wakefulness. ‘What? C. J., what? Where are you?’

  ‘In New York, at Sutton Place.’

  ‘Oh, God, of course you are. I’m sorry. I’d forgotten for a moment. Well, go on, what have you found?’

  ‘Something quite strange. In Julian’s desk.’

  ‘What? For God’s sake, C. J., what?’

  ‘Well, I thought I’d wasted my time at first. Nothing in it remotely interesting. Then I was fiddling about with one of the small top drawers, it seemed to be too shallow somehow, and – well, it had a spring back, and there inside it, right at the very back, was a box. A locked document box.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m afraid I forced it open and there were some pretty odd things inside.’

  ‘What sort of odd?’

  ‘Well, a few snapshots of a little boy. No name or anything.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘Fairly standard. Blond hair. Snub nose. Nice smile.’

  ‘And? What else?’

  ‘A card announcing his birth, at least I presume it was his birth. It was him, he was Miles. Miles Wilburn. Born 1958. In Santa Monica. Los Angeles.’

  ‘Oh, God. C. J., who is he? What is all this? Who was this card from?’

  ‘Someone called Dean. Dean Wilburn. Saying come and see us soon.’

  ‘Does it give an address?’

  ‘No. You know those cards, Phaedria, they’re just name, weight and date and time. Nothing helpful like an address, for us detectives to discover.’

  ‘You’re a great detective, C. J. You really are. You should take it up for a living. I can’t believe all this. But what on earth, what on earth does it mean? Does it say where he was born, this child?’

  ‘Yeah, St John’s Hospital, Santa Monica.’

  ‘Well, maybe we could track them – him down through there.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yeah, a cutting from a newspaper, an obituary of someone called Lee Wilburn. The usual thing, you know, after an illness, bravely borne. Beloved mother of Miles.’

  Phaedria was silent for a minute.

  ‘Poor Lee, whoever she was. Poor Miles. What year was that?’

  ‘Um, let’s see, 1971.’

  ‘So Miles would only have been, what, thirteen. How sad. What about his father?’

  ‘No mention of him. Not even in the obit.’

  ‘Oh, C. J., I don’t understand any of this. None of it.’

  ‘Neither do I. And then there’s one more thing, a list of graduations from the University of Berkeley in 1980 listing Miles Wilburn. He got a summa cum laude in Maths. He’s obviously not dumb. Whoever he is.’

  ‘I always said he wouldn’t be,’ said Phaedria. ‘No more photographs?’

  ‘None. Julian obviously believed in keeping his memorabilia to a minimum. Whatever it was all about. Look, I really have to go and see my mother tomorrow, but I’ll fly straight back the next day. We can talk then. And decide what to do next. Go down to LA or whatever. I just had to let you know.’

  ‘Of course. Oh, C. J., what on earth do all these people have to do with Julian? It’s so mysterious. Oh, God, now I don’t know whether to be pleased or worried.’

  ‘I think you should be pleased. Otherwise, I’m wasting an awful lot of time and effort.’

  She smiled, and he could hear her mood briefly lightening. ‘All right, I’ll be pleased.’

  ‘Good night, Phaedria.’

  ‘Good night, C. J. Sleep well. And thank you.’

  Phaedria couldn’t go back to sleep. She lay tossing, uncomfortable, agitated, with visions of a small boy with blond hair dancing before her eyes, and the words ‘beloved mother of Miles’ flickering fretfully inside her head.

  Roz looked round the boardroom. Phaedria was at one end of the table, Richard Brookes at the other. Susan, Freddy Branksome and George Hanover, sales director of the entire group, were sitting side by side with their backs to the window. They all, even Phaedria, had their eyes fixed on her face. She was, in that moment, Susan thought, extraordinarily like her father, determined, utterly in control, fixing their attention on her.

  ‘I want to discuss the pharmaceutical division,’ she said. ‘I think we could be missing some valuable opportunities for expansion.’

  This was Roz’s latest game, and tactically important in her war against Phaedria. She would fix on some aspect of the company, study it fiercely for days, acquaint herself with every possible detail of its strengths and weaknesses, and then pounce, call a meeting to discuss it, with the least possible warning. She would ask for comments on profitability, potential growth, she would suggest investment programmes, advertising campaigns, plant expansions, training programmes, she would argue for diversification, she would demand absolutely up-to-the-minute reports on stock holdings, budget controls, market shares, she would criticize salary levels, and then at the end of it she would sit down with an expression of huge satisfaction on her face and ask someone else for their comments on the subject in hand.

  The whole thing was a piece of theatre, and staged for the benefit of nobody
but herself; the time it wasted was enormous, the benefit it brought to each of the companies minimal, indeed it was often disruptive, because she always insisted on some changes being made, albeit minor, but for a few hours every week she was absolutely in command, displaying her knowledge which was formidable, and her intellect which was considerable. It also left Phaedria visibly confused and demoralized, her modest knowledge of the company and her lack of the skills, knowledge and the politicking power of her rival openly displayed.

  She was clearly losing confidence now; she would make a statement, Roz would contest it, express a view, have it demolished. Richard and Freddy and even Susan, with her determined fondness for Roz, her support for her cause, watched this slaughter with distaste. Roz had the big guns on her side; Phaedria was confronting her with an elegant but ineffectual blank-firing pistol.

  Phaedria made her way wearily up to the penthouse and let herself in. She drank the iced Perrier Sarah had left for her, ignored the prawn salad, and lay down on the bed in the small room off the main office. She wondered how much longer she could go on. How much more public humiliation she could take, how many more blows at her self-esteem she would have to force herself to endure.

  And besides, what was she doing it for? C. J. had been right, she could so easily give in, let Roz have the company, just go away somewhere and enjoy herself, have her baby in peace, bring it up somewhere far removed from this nightmare of intrigue and politicking and self-doubt.

  It was a monstrous legacy, and one that had very little to offer her. And just where was bloody bloody Miles Wilburn, was she ever going to find out what his part was in the nightmare, and even if she did, then what? What good did she think he could do her? How was she to get hold of his two per cent anyway? Would she have to marry him? Buy him? How could you have done this to me, Julian Morell, she thought, exposed me to this pain, this humiliation.

  How he must have despised her. He certainly couldn’t have loved her. Bastard! She found herself thinking in these terms more and more these days. If he walked in here now, she thought, I’d kill him! Then the irony of that struck her and she smiled suddenly; she relaxed on to the bed. Deep within her the child stirred, the strange sweet fluttering she waited to feel day by day, entranced by its increasing strength and urgency; it made the whole thing somehow bearable; worth while, important.