Folly's Child

by Janet Tanner

  After what seemed an eternity the policeman emerged. Harriet’s heart came into her mouth. What would she do if Maria Vincenti refused to see her? Her exit would be ignominious to say the least. Worse, she would have come all this way for nothing.

  The policeman’s face gave nothing away.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded.

  ‘She’ll see you. You can go in.’

  ‘Thank you.’ But suddenly she was afraid, just as she had been in the taxi. Did she really want to know the truth? Might it not be far more comfortable to remain in ignorance? Unpleasant facts, once known could never be buried again. She would have to live with them for the rest of her life.

  Harriet tossed her head. Her hair, tied in a long bunch at the nape of her neck, bounced defiantly. Who the hell was Maria Vincenti anyway? Harriet walked past the policeman and into the house.

  ‘Holy Mother of God,’ Maria Vincenti said softly.

  She drained her tumbler of vodka and tomato juice and crossed

  the room to the drinks cabinet to refill it, a short overblown woman

  with the ample bosom and hips of a typical middle-aged Italian.

  Maria had never been beautiful, but in her youth her big thrusting breasts, her full mouth and dark flashing eyes had caused men to think of her as voluptuous. Now another word was sometimes used to describe her and the word was blowzy, for she had lived life too fully to have retained that glorious fleeting Mediterranean bloom – too much passion, too much pasta and lately far too much alcohol had hastened the deterioration of her face into paunchiness and her body to fat.

  She drank again, gulping greedily as if her life depended on it, then looked again at the note scribbled on a page torn from a diary. Holy Mother of God, why had she started any of this? She didn’t think the police believed the story she had told them but the newspapers had latched onto it like vultures. Then there had been the insurance investigator – what was his name, Tom O’Neill? – with his probing questions. And now this girl … already Maria was regretting having agreed to see her. But it was too late to change her mind now. She would already be on her way in. Maria crumpled the note viciously and dropped it in the wastepaper basket. Her hand was shaking.

  Paula’s daughter. Paula Varna. Now there was a name from the past! Maria had tried not to think of Paula for years; now in her mind’s eye she could see her all too clearly, tall, beautiful, glowing, all the things she, Maria, could never be. But what a cow! Maria thought bitterly. A husband of her own and still not satisfied. Cuckolding him, encouraging Greg – not that Greg had required much encouragement! – a strange mixture of spoiled little girl and femme fatale. Maria’s insides seemed to tighten as if squeezed by a relentless hand and she gripped her glass until her knuckles turned white.

  Paula Varna, I hope you rot in hell. If it hadn’t been for you Greg and I might have been happy. Bitch! Silly, spoiled, persistent little bitch!

  As the wave of hatred passed Maria’s heavy dark brows knitted together in perplexity. Bitterness she could understand. The shadow of Paula had hung over her for more than twenty years. But why should she feel jealousy? Hadn’t Greg left Paula for her, Maria? Hadn’t the two of them planned it all together? Then why …?

  Because you know in your heart the choice wasn’t made for love, she thought. It was made for money. Yes, money – the great god at whose altar Greg has always worshipped. If Paula had had access to the sort of money that she, Maria, had had, and if she had been free to lavish it on him then perhaps he would have chosen differently. Throughout the years Maria had known which of her assets it was that had attracted Greg to her. In the beginning she hadn’t cared. She would have done anything to have him near her; God alone – and the parish priest who had heard her confession – knew that. But as time went by the bitterness had begun to creep in. Gradually Greg’s greed and callousness had eaten away at the obsession she felt for him until it had turned to hatred and despair. And now it had come close to destroying her.

  Maria gulped again at her vodka, taken neat this time, with only the melting ice in the glass to dilute it. The alcohol burned her throat and stomach and sent small fiery flickers through her veins.

  A tap at the door made her turn. The maid had opened the door and the girl who stood there might have been a young Paula. Not as tall, but that glorious dark blonde hair, those clear features, figure slender yet shapely in her cream silk shin and tawny linen slacks. Maria’s heart seemed to stop beating and any thoughts that she might have had that this could be a trick vanished.

  This was Paula’s daughter, without a shadow of a doubt.

  ‘Miss Varna,’ she said and the edge to her voice said it all. ‘What a surprise. Do come in.’

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ Harriet said.

  After the bright sunshine outside it was dim inside the room behind the half-closed shutters but as Harriet’s eyes adjusted she took in the cane and rattan furniture, the abundance of cushions in different shades of cornflower and delft blue, the floor tiled. Mediterranean style and strewn with rugs and dhurries. As the exterior of the house had suggested it would every detail spoke of money, but old money. If she had expected the brash Stateside gloss that might have been the trademark of a self-made American financier, it was certainly not here.

  She held out her hand. ‘You must be … I’m sorry, should I call you Mrs Trafford?’

  Maria ignored the outstretched hand. ‘I think I would rather drop that name. It has too many unpleasant connections. There’s no point any more in not using my real name, Vincenti. What can I do for you, Miss Varna?’

  ‘Harriet, please. I know this is an imposition, but I had to come. As you probably know, my mother was a friend of Greg Martin’s back in the States. She was with him on his yacht when it blew up.’

  ‘So they said.’

  Harriet looked at her sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Please go on.’

  ‘Well, I have always believed she died with him. Now I understand you are claiming Greg is alive and …’

  ‘He is.’ Maria laughed shortly. ‘At least, he was the last time I saw him, a week ago.’ She lifted her glass; half-melted ice clinked as she drained it. ‘ Very much alive and just the same old Greg as he always was. He may have changed his name and his appearance but underneath it all he is just the same. A cheat, a liar, a womaniser – maybe a murderer.’ She crossed to the drinks cabinet to refill her glass. ‘ You want a drink, Miss Varna?’

  Harriet shook her head. If anything could bring home the truth of her father’s warning as to over-indulgence it was the sight of this woman, soaked with vodka like a piece of old blotting paper.

  ‘Too early for you, huh? What about coffee? That’s what you Americans drink all the time isn’t it – coffee?’ She rang a bell and the maid reappeared.

  ‘Coffee for Miss Varna’. She crossed to the window, looked out and gesticulated impatiently towards the road. ‘Those damned reporters! I almost thought you might be one, you know, trying to trick your way in. They never give up. You’d think they had something better to do. They have even pushed notes through the door offering me money for my story. Money! To me! I could buy and sell their stupid newspapers several times over.’

  ‘I don’t trick my way in anywhere. I’m not a tricky person.’

  Maria’s lip curled. ‘Hah! Not much like your mother, then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Harriet said. ‘I was only four years old, remember, when whatever happened to her … happened.’

  Maria’s eyes fell away, a shaft of something almost like guilt piercing the alcohol-induced haze. Of course the girl had been just a bambino then. Maria remembered the photographs of her in the newspapers, chubby-cheeked, golden-curled, dressed in a frilly frock, very short, with long white knee socks. Harriet Varna, poor little rich girl, four years old and motherless. Ah well, Paula should have thought of that before she started playing about, dabbling in her dangerous games.

  ‘So you never saw her
again,’ she said flatly.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. I would hardly be here now, asking questions, if I had.’ Harriet’s tone was sharp; hearing her own voice she glanced quickly at Maria, afraid she might have offended her. But Maria seemed not to have noticed. ‘The thing is, I thought that if Greg Martin did not die in the explosion then perhaps neither did my mother. I don’t know what happened that day. I don’t understand any of it – yet. But you must see I have to try to find out. And I thought you might be able to help me.’

  Maria turned the glass in her hands. How much did the girl know? She must suspect at least that her mother had been Greg’s lover – that much was obvious, surely. Why else should she have followed him to Italy? Why the hell did she? Maria wondered savagely. If she had not perhaps things would have been different. It wouldn’t nave changed the way Greg had treated her, of course. Nothing short of a miracle could have kept him faithful to her, louse that he was. But at least she might have had some peace of mind instead of the terrible doubts that had assailed her all these years.

  ‘I know nothing,’ she said shortly. ‘ Greg never told me what happened to your mother and I never asked. Perhaps I didn’t want to know.’

  The maid brought the coffee, poured it and left. As the door closed after her Harriet tried again.

  ‘If Greg is alive, as you say he is, then he must have escaped when the boat blew up. Surely you haven’t lived with him all these years without knowing how he managed it?’

  Maria turned sharply. ‘Oh, I know how he managed it, all right.’ There was a note of bitter amusement in her voice. ‘He managed it because I helped him.’

  ‘You …!’ The jerk of surprise shook Harriet’s whole body; coffee slopped from the cup into the saucer.

  ‘Yes, me, fool that I was. Haven’t you ever been in love, Miss Varna? Don’t you know what it’s like to lose you head over a man? No, I don’t believe you do. You are like your mother, cold. It is different for me. I have Latin blood and when I love – I love. Well, I hope you never find out what it can be like. I tell you it is the worst pain in the world to sell your soul for a man and then find out he is an utter bastard.’

  Harriet set her cup down on a low table. She could not trust herself to hold it any longer.

  ‘What did you do?’ she asked.

  For a long moment Maria was silent. All these years she had told no one. Not when Greg had deceived her with other women, or when he had humiliated her, not when he had finally embroiled himself with his newest love, a former beauty queen, and Maria had known he was using her money to buy expensive presents for the hussy. Beneath it all she had suffered – God alone knew how she had suffered – but she had kept his secret. Even when she had suspected he intended to have her killed so as to have unlimited access to the money which would all become his under her will, and to be free to go off with his paramour into the bargain, and she had been sufficiently frightened to denounce him, she had still kept silent about her own part in what had happened. If she had told the whole story perhaps the police would have believed her but she had not been able to bring herself to do it. Now, suddenly, she was overcome with an unstoppable urge to talk about what she had done. It was time, she thought, that someone knew just what lengths she had been prepared to go to for him – and who better than the daughter of the woman who had caused her so much anguish?

  She took another deep slurp of vodka; her eyes flashed in her sallow face.

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you, Harriet Varna,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you all I know, for what it’s worth. I hope you’ll keep it to yourself, but if you don’t, well, I don’t care much any more. I’ve opened my mouth so far and I might as well tell the full story. You were too young to remember Greg, I suppose?’

  Harriet nodded. She could barely trust herself to speak. She didn’t remember Greg, except as a vague shadowy figure. Until a few days ago she hadn’t even known what he looked like. Every photograph in which he figured had been removed from the family albums – and understandably so. Hugo had wanted no reminder of the man who had cost him his beloved wife.

  ‘Well, he was a charmer, not a doubt of it. He took me in, and plenty of others besides. His whole rocky empire was built on charm. He talked big – and people believed him. He had a finger in plenty of pies but he wanted a stake in the fashion industry – that was why he put up the money to get your father started. But he wanted to do it Italian style. Did you know he was of Italian descent? His name was Martino until he changed it to Martin. Anyway, in Italy the fashion business is run almost on the same lines as the Mafia. It’s a cartel, with the fabric supplier, the factory owner and the designer all getting together to market a label as a successful business enterprise. They have the magazines in their pockets too, so they get just the coverage they want. In those days, of course, it was only just beginning. But Greg wanted to be in on it. My father is the president of our family fabric firm – we have factories at Lake Como. Greg started wooing him. That was when I met him.’

  She paused, cradling her glass between her hands. Harriet remained silent, afraid that any word from her might interrupt the flow. Yet at the same time she sensed that Maria was talking now from the bottom of her fiery Latin heart, her tongue loosened by drink, spilling out things that has festered too long within her.

  After a moment Maria continued. She was not looking at Harriet; she might almost have been talking to herself.

  ‘Holy Mother, how I loved him! I was a young fool, I know that now, but I have been an old fool for him too. Why do we women always love the bastards? My father warned me about him. He was a clever businessman and he could see right through Greg. ‘‘Have nothing to do with him, Maria,’’ he told me. ‘‘He is trouble, that one.’’ But did I listen? I thought my father was old and staid. He had been head of the family and of the business empire for so long and I thought he just wanted to be able to tell me what to do, as he had done when I was a child. Most of all I thought he had forgotten what it was like to be young and in love. I defied him. I met Greg whenever I could and the more I saw of him the more head over heels in love with him I was. Oh, how he wound me round his little finger! Even when he told me everything was about to blow up around his ears back in the States I still did not see that he was no good. I thought he had been unfortunate – and all I wanted was to be with him. When he told me what he was planning to do and asked me to help him I rushed in like the little idiot I was.’

  She broke off again, and as the shadows chased fleetingly across her bloated face Harriet knew she was reliving the way it had been. Then she sighed heavily and shook her head.

  ‘He planned it all so carefully,’ she said. ‘He got himself a false birth certificate and passport – he took the identity of some poor man who had died, I believe. Yes, there really was a Michael Trafford once – funny isn’t it? Anyway, Greg decided the best way for him to disappear was to make people believe he had died in an explosion on his yacht. It was a beautiful boat – he kept it in a marina within easy reach of his holiday villa at Positano, in the Gulf of Salerno. I don’t know how he could bear to destroy it – he must have been desperate to even think of such a thing. The plan was that he would take it out for a few days’ sailing with plenty of witnesses to his departure, head south and land quietly on one of the deserted beaches near Pizzo. Then he would send it back out to sea on automatic with an explosive device rigged to go off a couple of hours later. I was to pick him up in Pizzo and drive him back to Roma. From there he would get a flight out of the country using his false passport. It worked like a charm. By the time the news broke that the yacht had blown up Greg was on his way to Australia. I waited nearly a year, until all the fuss had died down, and then I joined him there. And when I stayed on I told my parents it was because I had met a man called Michael Trafford.’

  Her eyes glazed; she took another quick slurp of her vodka, found the glass empty, and refilled it. Harriet was staring at her, speechless, and Maria misinterpreted her look.


  ‘You think I drink too much, huh?’ she asked with a flash of something close to aggression. ‘Perhaps you too would drink if you had lived with this all these years.’

  ‘What about my mother?’ Harriet asked. Her mouth was dry.

  Maria turned away but not before Harriet had seen the shaft of pain behind the dark blood-shot eyes.

  ‘I know nothing about what happened to your mother.’

  ‘But she sailed with Greg. Everyone said so.’

  ‘I know nothing I tell you,’ Maria insisted. ‘She was not part of the plan. He had told me everything was over between them. He wanted only me.’

  ‘But when you saw in the newspapers that she was on the boat you must have asked him about it,’ Harriet persisted. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t.’

  Maria’s face crumpled fiercely. For a moment Harriet thought she was going to cry. Then it hardened again.

  ‘I did ask him what the hell she was doing there, of course. He said she had turned up unexpectedly at his villa just before he left. He said he tried to reach me by telephone to warn me there was a hitch but he couldn’t get hold of me. So he went ahead as planned. He couldn’t let her ruin everything, he said. ‘‘I couldn’t let her ruin everything’’ – those were his very words.’

  ‘So he sailed with her aboard. But what happened to her?’

  ‘I swear to God I don’t know.’ Maria’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I didn’t press him. But if you want to know what I’ve suspected all these years – I’m very much afraid he killed her.’

  Harriet could not speak. She was trembling. It was what she too had suspected but hearing it put into words was still a shock and so melodramatic as to be unreal.

  ‘Why else has she never turned up?’ Maria asked. ‘ She had no reason to disappear. I tried not to believe it. I told myself I was wicked to even think of such a thing. The man I loved … But I know now just how ruthless he is. He has tried to have me killed, you know, because he has no further use for me. And if Paula had lived she could have ruined everything for him. She wouldn’t have kept his secret, not when he had walked out on her. No, I truly believe that under those circumstances Greg would have been capable of murder.’