Echoes of Lies

by Jo Bannister

  She knew she should call and apologise. She was eyeing the phone askance, wondering what to say that wouldn’t reopen either the argument or the wounds, when she heard the door. Immediately she thought of Daniel. She wasn’t sure why he’d come - to apologise, to insist she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion or to profess his love - but she was glad he had. They’d survived too much to part like this. If he’d misread the situation she’d mishandled it, and he had more excuse.

  But it wasn’t Daniel, it was David Ibbotsen. For a moment Brodie couldn’t decide if she was pleased or disappointed. In fact she was both. She was glad to see David, but right now she needed to see Daniel more.

  David seemed to sense her ambivalence, a tiny frown pinching his eyebrows. “Is this a bad time?”

  “Not at all,” said Brodie, waving him in. “Do you want a sandwich? - I missed my lunch.”

  He nodded, took the other chair and tucked into the tuna and mayo with gusto. Brodie regarded him with amusement and some affection. She was fairly sure that an hour ago he’d been tucking into sirloin with the Chamber of Commerce, or lobster with the Harbour Commissioners, or failing that Mrs Handcock’s Star-Gazy Pie up at Chandlers. Lord only knew where he found room for a sandwich as well, but he wouldn’t let her eat alone. It was a friendly gesture which she appreciated.

  “How’s Sophie today?”

  Relief radiatied like sunshine from David’s broad face. “Sophie’s fine. She’s still a little drowsy - I left her in bed with a colouring book.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “It took me three attempts to leave the house. I kept nipping back to make sure she was still there.”

  “Has she said anything about what happened?”

  He lifted a wry shoulder. “Nothing useful. Nothing that’ll help us find the kidnappers. Actually, she seems quite confused about it. She talked about a man and a woman, and a cottage in the country, but I’m not sure how much she understood. I’m not even sure she knows she was kidnapped, and I don’t like to press her because it’s probably better if she doesn’t.”

  Brodie was confused too. “Why does she think she was away from home for thirteen days?”

  “Who knows what they think at that age? We’re always doing something to them they can’t possibly understand - we leave them at playgroup, we take them to school, we let people they don’t know baby-sit, we let the doctor stick needles in them when we know it’s going to hurt - we tell them everything’s all right and expect them to believe us. And, not having much choice, they do. Maybe if the kidnappers told her everything was all right, she believed them. Maybe a fortnight in a country cottage with some people she didn’t know didn’t seem any stranger to Sophie than the time Mrs Handcock’s niece took her pony trekking, or when my father took her to launch a new ship and left her with a crane-jockey all afternoon while he argued over the price of propellers.”

  Brodie laughed. “Paddy would adore spending all afternoon with a crane-jockey!”

  “Great,” said David, “that’s her birthday treat sorted.” They munched on, companionably.

  But he hadn’t come to be fed. Brodie waited for him to broach the real reason. When the sandwiches were gone and he still hadn’t, she prompted him. “So what can I do for you today, Mr Ibbotsen?”

  He cast her a shy look, uncertain how to ask. Brodie found his diffidence rather touching. He seemed genuinely anxious as to what her reply might be. “I wanted to know if you’ve given any thought to what we were talking about. The Caribbean. The four of us. We ought to - well - decide what we’re doing.”

  “Yes, we must,” agreed Brodie. “There are plane tickets to book.”

  “Actually, I’ve already booked them.” He didn’t give her time to object but hurried on. “Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you have to say yes. Well, of course it doesn’t, it’s your decision. I’m not trying to put you on the spot, I just thought I’d get the tickets now rather than leave it to the last minute and have to sit at different ends of the plane. We don’t have to use them all. I mean, I hope we will but we don’t have to.” He heard himself babbling and shut up.

  “You won’t get a refund. Not at this notice.” There was a Puritan streak in Brodie. If someone promised her the moon she’d wonder if they shouldn’t wait for the January sales.

  David smiled again, a shade wanly. “You’d be amazed how obliging people are when your father owns a shipping line.”

  Brodie debated whether to say it. But he wasn’t a client, she didn’t have to massage his ego. “You could always walk away. Do something else for a living.”

  He looked at her as if the idea had never occurred to him. “Like what?”

  “Like anything! Landscape gardening, interior design; get an HGV licence, be a cook; anything except being a rich man’s son. You don’t enjoy it so do something else.”

  He stared at the desk with its litter of breadcrumbs and clingfilm, his chin sunk on his chest. After a minute, without raising his head, he said, “I know you’re right. I should have done it fifteen years ago. I think now - with Sophie, with the old man getting older - I’ve left it too late.”

  “David, you’re - what, thirty-five, thirty-six years old? You’ve got most of your life ahead of you! Sophie’s got all of hers. If you’re unhappy with who you are and what you’re doing, make a change. You don’t need Lance’s money. People with no family business, with no education, with no talents to speak of, still manage to make a respectable living and raise their kids. Feeling as you do, you have more to gain than to lose.”

  “And the old man?”

  “The old man can make his own choices. I imagine he’d run his business for as long as he was enjoying it, then put in a manager. Don’t buy the myth, David: the only power he has over you is what you allow him. You’d do fine on your own. All it takes is the decision.”

  He managed a rueful little smile. “You make it sound easy.”

  “It is - millions of people do it every day. Stand on their own two feet and take a pride in whatever they’re able to do for their families. Whereas you have every material advantage and get no pleasure out of it. For pity’s sake, do one thing or the other. Either enjoy being Lance Ibbotsen’s son or tell him you’re not dancing to his tune any more.”

  “He’d never forgive me,” muttered David. “And it’s not just my inheritance I’d be risking, it’s Sophie’s.”

  “Maybe,” nodded Brodie. “Or maybe he’d be impressed as hell. He doesn’t give you much credit, David, it might make him sit up and take notice if you told him where to go sometimes. Not,” she added belatedly, “that it’s any business of mine.”

  David laughed at that, relieved to have the searchlight of her scrutiny off his soul. “Are you always this … ?”

  “Opinionated? Yes, I rather suspect I am. People ask me what I think, and when I tell them they get this glazed expression - very much like yours - and I realise they didn’t want to know what I thought at all, they just wanted me to agree with them. I’m not very good at that: falling into line for the sake of a quiet life.”

  “I am,” murmured David. “But then, I’ve had practice.”

  Brodie made some coffee on the ring in the cloakroom. She’d forgotten he’d asked her a question, so eventually David had to repeat it. “Have you decided? About the Caribbean?”

  Brodie started guiltily. “I’m sorry - that’s what we were talking about before I started reorganising your life! Yes. You asked me to think about it and I’ve thought about very little else. I’m not sure how sensible it is, but I’d love to come. Or does that seem the height of hypocrisy?”

  David didn’t follow. “Hypocrisy?”

  “Telling you to throw off the shackles of your father’s money, but not until he’s paid for our holiday in the Caribbean.”

  Chuckling, he shook his head. “I don’t care if it is - we have it coming. You, me and the girls. Let’s grab a bit of fun while we can. If the last fortnight has taught me nothing else, it’s proved that we can’t know from
one minute to the next what the future holds. We get a shot at happiness, we have to take it.” His eyes dipped again and he blushed. “I’m sorry, that must sound - presumptuous. A holiday: that’s all we’re talking about. A shared family holiday. It’s just …”

  He looked up then and his eyes glinted. “Brodie, you must be aware something’s happening between us. Some chemistry. I feel I’ve known you for months. I feel you’ve known me all my life!”

  She touched his hand across the desk. “David - don’t try to look too far ahead. Starting how it did, the odds on this going anywhere aren’t great. What we’re feeling now, what we’re enjoying - it might be real and it might last, but it might just be euphoria. We got through it, everyone survived, it’s a natural human reaction to want to hug and kiss someone and neither of us has a significant other at home. I’m not saying that’s all it is: I’m saying it might be.

  “We need to go easy until our hearts stop thumping and there’s time to weigh up if we like one another enough. If not, there’s no harm done. We’re two intelligent adults, we understand how a crisis throws people together. There’s nothing wrong with that, it needn’t stop us enjoying our holiday, it’s just no basis for a lifetime’s commitment. We need to get our breath back, get to know one another, and not ask where it’s going until we know what we want.”

  David nodded acceptance. “That’s good. That’s - sensible. Only …”

  “Only?” echoed Brodie, one eyebrow raised.

  “Only people don’t go to the Caribbean to be sensible. Or, come to that, to be good.”

  When she got home, Marta had a message for her. Daniel knew both her office and mobile numbers, so he’d called Marta specifically to avoid talking to Brodie. She didn’t mind. At least he’d made contact. She wasn’t going to meet a wall of iron silence when she tried to fix the damage they’d done each other.

  But it wasn’t going to be today. “He said he was going to London,” Marta reported. “He said he’d be away a couple of days so you weren’t to worry. He said he’ll see you before you leave.”

  “How did he sound?”

  Marta shrugged. “Troubled.”

  There was nothing Brodie could do about that. She was sorry if she’d hurt or disappointed him, but she wasn’t responsible for his dreams. He had to accept she had a life in which he had no part. She’d gone about as far as she was prepared to in the cause of smoothing Daniel’s ruffled feathers: it was time to consider her own needs.

  Having made the decision to go, she had just three days to get ready. Both she and Paddy had current passports, but suitable clothes were another matter. Paddy had outgrown everything that fitted her last summer, and cruise-wear had been a low priority in Brodie’s budgeting since the divorce.

  She couldn’t justify it now, either, leaving the business to an answering service and spending her savings on clothes with palm-trees on them. But she didn’t care. David was right: she’d earned this. She’d worried about the business since setting it up, and she’d no doubt worry about it some more when she got back. But for the next two weeks she was going to have fun.

  Wednesday morning she went shopping. She bought two suitcases, a bright yellow one for Paddy, a bright red one for her, and set about filling them with absurdly frivolous clothes. A swimsuit she’d be embarrassed to hang on her line at home. Floaty wide-leg trousers and kitten-heel shoes that made her feel like Grace Kelly. Extravagant sun-hats for herself and both girls, and sun lotion you could distemper walls with. She went home poorer but thoroughly in the mood.

  She hadn’t told Paddy they were going on holiday. She did so this evening. The little girl listened in rapt excitement, then tried on her new clothes and posed before the mirror in her sun-hat. She and Brodie looked up the Caribbean in the atlas.

  She asked about Sophie.

  “Well, Sophie’s daddy’s a friend of mine. She’s a year older than you. She’s very nice. It’ll be fun having someone to play with.”

  Brodie had debated with herself whether to say anything to Paddy about the last week’s drama. But she was four, she wasn’t stupid: in the course of a fortnight’s cruise things were going to be said that she would pick up and knit together. Better that she know what they were talking about than be left to make up a horror-story of her own.

  She didn’t go into much detail. “Sophie’s had rather a nasty time. She had to stay with some people she didn’t like very much. She was glad to get home. Her daddy thought she deserved a treat, and he asked you and me to go too.”

  Paddy nodded absently. She seemed more interested in the sun-hat, but Brodie knew she was filing the facts away for future reference.

  Just when she thought matters were settled, Paddy asked the question Brodie had been avoiding. “What about Daniel?”

  Brodie caught her breath. “What about Daniel?”

  “Is Daniel coming too?”

  Brodie shook her head. “Daniel’s gone to London for a few days.”

  “Won’t he be back in time?”

  It seemed an easy way out so she took it. “I don’t think so.”

  “I like Daniel,” the child said firmly.

  “I like Daniel,” said Brodie.

  “Daniel had a nasty time too. Daniel got burnt.”

  “I know,” Brodie said softly.

  “Doesn’t Daniel deserve a treat?”

  “Of course he does. But darling, going on holiday with two little girls isn’t everyone’s idea of a treat. When we get back we’ll take Daniel somewhere nice - how’s that? Where shall we go?”

  “The Museum of Farming,” Paddy replied without a moment’s hesitation. “I can show him the tractors.”

  Chapter 24

  They were flying out on Saturday. Brodie spent Thursday and Friday tying up loose ends.

  She drove to Newmarket with the owners of Flossie the pony, witnessed a tearful reunion and returned to Dimmock with a happy glow about her heart and a cheque in her handbag. On the way back she made another trawl of the Brighton bookshops, coming up with a small but profitable handful of the editions on her list. She broke the bad news to a man who was seeking to buy back his father’s old Riley from a film company, that those scenes of it going off Beachy Head were not in fact special effects.

  In between times she phoned those clients whose affairs could not be settled, explaining that she’d be away for a few days. Fortunately, time was not critical to any of them; still she gave them the option of instructing someone else if they preferred. No one did, although a couple couldn’t resist the chance to grumble. She bit her tongue and made regretful noises. She wasn’t in a position to offend any of them, even the unreasonable ones.

  It was Friday evening before she’d done all she could and went home. Marta had fed Paddy, so Brodie got down to the packing. Laying out all their things made her laugh. Under the latest cruisewear they were both going to be wearing knickers so old they’d be lucky to last the fortnight. She refused to care. Where they were going, extra ventilation was a bonus.

  A little after nine, with the job almost finished and Paddy fast asleep and dreaming of porpoises, the phone rang.

  It was Daniel. “Can I come round?”

  Brodie was surprised, found herself glancing at the clock. But she wouldn’t tell him it was too late, not after how they parted. “Of course. Is everything all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he said; and though that was what she’d meant it wasn’ t what she’d asked, making her wonder what it was that was less than all right. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” In the background she heard the distorted mutter of a public address system. He was calling from the station.

  It didn’t take ten minutes - at that hour there were taxis to spare - but it was time enough for Brodie to construct whole shooting-scripts as to what had happened to take him first to London and then, like this, back here. He said he was all right, which was reassuring. But something was going on that she didn’t know about.

  Brodie heard the taxi and had th
e door open before he could knock. “Daniel, before we say anything else, I want to apologise for what I said to you. It was unfair and unwarranted. I was going to call and say so, only then I got your message.”

  He shook his head, the bright hair dancing. “It doesn’t matter.” His manner perturbed her. He seemed distracted, avoiding her gaze. “Can we go inside? I’ve got something to show you.”

  Puzzled, Brodie waved him in. He was carrying his battered khaki rucksack, the only bit of luggage he seemed to own. He dumped it on the dining table, unaware of Brodie’s wince, and took out two folders which for the moment he left unopened. He dropped his parka on a chair.

  He seemed unsure how to start. He looked at Brodie and back at the table. “OK. Er - OK. Like I told Marta, I went to London. I had an idea to follow up, some research to do. The internet’s great, but some things you have to do in person.”

  Brodie was watching him with concern. “Daniel, you look exhausted. You should be pottering round the park, not beating the mean streets of London. Have you eaten today?”

  He spared that a scant moment’s thought. “Probably. Yes, I’m tired and a bit sore, but I’m fine. I just - We need to talk about this. Let me explain, and then I’ll eat all you like.”

  She nodded uneasily. “Go on.”

  One of the folders was red, the other was green. He opened the green one and took out a large number of photographs, fanning them across the table. There must have been thirty or forty of them, some coloured, some black-and-white. They were all of women.

  Brodie frowned. “What is this? Who are they?”

  Daniel chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Well, most of them are perfectly nice, decent women that neither of us will ever have heard of. But it’s possible that one of them kidnapped Sophie Ibbotsen. You met her - you’re the only one who has. I’m hoping you might recognise her.”