by Frank Lean
‘Stay!’ she snapped. ‘For God’s sake, you can be infuriating at times, Dave. Why should I want you to go?’
I stayed and we both watched Talbot grease his way towards us with a fixed smile on his oily mug. He didn’t appear to be with anyone. There were people hurriedly moving past us to get at the food.
‘Be civilised,’ Janine warned as she struggled to compose her face into a smile.
‘Aren’t I always?’ I said.
Then Talbot was on us. Clearly he didn’t have polite chitchat on his mind, pushing up close to us, closer than either of us was comfortable with.
‘Who’s looking after my children?’ he demanded, the forced smile never leaving his face.
Janine flared up, but I spoke first. ‘What’s it to you? It’s late in the day for you to come the concerned father, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, it speaks, does it?’ he asked Janine cheekily, ignoring me. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell it to mind its own business.’ He deliberately loomed over Janine, dominating her, almost stepping on her feet. Janine was no wilting plant. She put her hand on his chest and pushed.
‘Get away from me!’ she gasped. For a second Talbot seemed ready to resist as she thrust him back. Although the smile never left his face there was a suggestion of malevolence about him which was far more compelling than anything poor Charlie Carlyle had managed. A wrestling match among the vol-au-vents appeared to be imminent.
I stepped into the breach.
‘Keep your distance,’ I growled.
People were pressing all around us, attention completely focused on the magnificent spread which the caterers had just revealed by sliding open a partition wall. None of them picked up on our unfolding little drama.
‘Please do oblige me by smashing my face in,’ Talbot said with a sneer. He had the fruity accent typical of expatriate Brits who make their living in the States by amusing the Yanks with their quaint mannerisms. ‘I know you have a talent for violence and I’m sure the courts would be delighted to hear all about it.’
‘Would they?’ I muttered. ‘Then we’ll have to give them something to chew on, won’t we?’
Janine pulled me back. ‘Come away, Dave, he’s up to something.’ Under her make-up Janine’s face had turned dead-white and she seemed to be struggling for breath.
‘That’s right, Jannie,’ Talbot smirked. ‘I’m up to something, as you so artlessly put it. I’m going to see if an English court will recognise that I’m a more responsible person to bring up two children than a feminist freak and her criminal boyfriend.’ There was a depth of hatred in his words which shocked and frightened me more than the actual message. The big smile was still there, and there was something reptilian about the way those fleshy, rubbery lips folded over the prominent, unnaturally white teeth – teeth like a display of porcelain in a china shop window, just waiting to be smashed. Then, before either of us could reply, Talbot turned and joined the mass attack on the food.
I pulled Janine back. She was limp.
‘He’s bluffing,’ I said confidently.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said grimly. ‘He’s got very good connections in the legal profession. His grandfather was the Lord Advocate of Scotland and his father’s a High Court judge in England who only retired this year. When Henry makes a threat he usually carries it out. I should know. He beat me black and blue often enough.’
‘That’s it!’ I said. I could feel my neck swelling with anger. ‘You never told me he’d hit you. It’s time somebody gave bloody Henry a few lumps of his own.’
‘Stop it, Dave. That’s just what he wants.’
‘But he hit you. You let him!’
‘I didn’t tell you before because I knew you’d be like this.’
‘Too right, I am. I’ll twist his ugly head off his shoulders.’
Janine smiled at me. ‘You mean well, but though I’m tempted to let you try, violence would only make things worse. I’m not anybody’s “little woman”. I don’t need you to fight my battles.’
I started to laugh. I know that I’m mad, but the anger drained away as swiftly as it had flooded over me. Maybe I’d caught something off Marti, but my laugh was almost a fair match for hers.
‘Dave!’ Janine whispered. ‘People are looking.’
They were. Talbot turned round to stare. I gave him a mock salute and a derisive smile. He quickly turned away with an angry frown on his face.
‘He called you Jannie. Please, Ms White, can I call you Jannie?’
‘No thanks,’ she murmured. ‘Daft, silly Jannie lived in another time and another place.’ She kissed me. ‘I’d much rather be Mrs Cunane than that selfish, stupid, in-bred twit’s Jannie!’
There didn’t seem to be much for me to say. It didn’t take a genius to unpick Janine’s elliptical phrase. I was practised at it. As usual, Janine hadn’t said that she actually wanted to be Mrs Cunane, in a right-now, let’s name the date sort of way; just that such a state was preferable to life with wife-beating Henry. My only consolation was that little word much.
Food was the last thought on my mind or on Janine’s, but we stood for a moment watching the battle for sustenance. I’ve been in soup kitchens where the starving homeless showed more manners than some of Brandon Carlyle’s guests. There may have been a slightly censorious expression on my normally bland and pleasing features as I scanned the scene. The thought of Brandon Carlyle recording every tiny detail was obscene. I spotted the chief constable greedily struggling to overload his plate with quail’s eggs and venison. He returned my glance with a beady-eyed glare and then turned back to the buffet. There was enough there to claim anyone’s attention: venison, pheasant, whole fresh salmon piled up in ranks, moules, lobster, king prawns, crab meat, bass, swordfish, monkfish, as well as more commonplace articles like chicken, sausages, ham and turkey.
Marti was right when she said I have a puritanical streak. I do and so does Janine.
‘Let’s go home!’ we both said together.
As we turned we bumped into Marti and Charlie. He was in a tracksuit and she was wearing a coat over her non-dress.
‘Just the people I wanted to see!’ Marti said. ‘You’ve got to come and help Charlie light his fireworks. The poor man’s disabled. I don’t know what can have happened.’
Charlie gave us a thin, sullen smile. My amazement grew when he spoke.
‘Sorry about the misunderstanding,’ he said between clenched teeth. ‘I’m in therapy for rage control.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said loftily.
‘Perhaps you could put Dave in touch with your therapist,’ Janine suggested.
‘This is Dave’s significant other,’ Marti trilled.
Charlie showed considerable interest in Janine’s attractions.
‘Come on, you two,’ Marti said, chivvying us through the grazing crowds towards the open spaces beyond. ‘There are wellies and a golfing umbrella out here. You can hold the torch, Janine.’ She led us out onto a paved patio area and Charlie limped behind us, Quasimodo style.
‘Perhaps you can tell us why Henry Talbot’s here?’ I asked Marti when Janine dropped back to help Charlie stumble across the grass.
‘Henry? Who he? . . . Oh, yes, him,’ she replied nonchalantly. ‘He’s putting together a production package with Alhambra and the Arts and Entertainment Network in the States. It’s a ten million pound deal to do a costume drama, Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent. They’re looking at Meryl Streep to play the lead.’
‘Really?’ I murmured.
‘Yes,’ Marti said firmly. ‘It’s a prestige production. Bags of Irish-American interest, of course. It’ll go down like a bomb in Boston. They say the Senator’s interested, and Brandon’s quite keen on it. We have to do a few high-budget jobs along with all the suds and sex to make sure we don’t lose the franchise. There’s still a lot of firming-up to do yet.’
‘So Henry wasn’t here just to upset Janine and myself?’
‘Don’t be paranoid, Dave.’
> ‘Can I quote you about the production?’ Janine asked, catching up with us.
‘Quote away, but now come and help this poor man of mine to light his sparklers. He looks forward to this all year and he’d hate it if one of his brothers muscled in to help. It could all be done electronically but he’s like a big kid about it.’
Charlie’s sparklers turned out to be a major fireworks display with all kinds of electrical and mechanical means of ignition. I was on my guard lest Charlie ask me to shove my head down a mortar tube while he set it off but nothing happened, apart from the fireworks, that is. Charlie really did need my help; he’d strained his spine.
Eventually, when polite applause from the patio reached us through the clouds of drifting smoke we began to make our way back. I was separated from Janine for a moment and Marti drew alongside.
‘Dave,’ she said, in a far from light-hearted voice. ‘Henry Talbot can be on the next plane back to LA as soon as you say the word. There’s just one thing. You’ve got to promise me that you’ve forgotten everything about Vince, even his name.’ She pressed a small piece of paper with a phone number written on it into my hand.
47
‘DAVE, JUST DO what the woman wants,’ Janine ordered.
We were discussing Marti’s parting comment.
‘No way! I let her pull my strings this time and where will she stop?’
‘I can’t stand this stupid male pride. Henry . . .’
‘Don’t compare us!’
‘. . . will drag me through the courts. You’ve no idea how vindictive he is. His family were terribly possessive about the children, as if my sole purpose in life was to continue the Talbot bloodline. That’s what’s started all this up again. Lloyd’s the heir of the Talbots. And Henry and his precious father don’t want to see Talbots being brought up in the slums of Manchester.’
‘They aren’t.’
‘You may think that but not Henry. Anywhere north of Watford that isn’t a stately home counts as a slum to him. He’s already told me off because Lloyd has a Manchester accent.’
‘God!’ I groaned. ‘I can’t phone her.’
‘Why not? You’ve done nothing about Vince since your accident.’
I had not told Janine about my letter to the Home Secretary, and I wasn’t about to tell her now. ‘Since the murder attempt, you mean,’ I corrected her.
‘All the more reason to let her know that you’re having nothing more to do with Vince.’
‘I don’t let anyone tell me what to do.’
‘Stupid pig!’ she muttered, and things went downhill from there.
We were barely on speaking terms when the brief holiday period came to an end. By unspoken agreement we avoided the King issue until Monday morning came round. It was one of those miserable, cold, damp days with the cloud cover hovering at head height. The children were in their rooms getting their school things together and I was about to leave for work.
‘Are you going to phone her?’ she demanded.
‘No. It’s a bluff.’
‘How do you work that out, mastermind?’
‘Henry will never get custody. All you have to do is tell them that he hit you. Anyway, he deserted you.’
‘I can’t get through to you, can I? Henry was educated with half the lawyers in the country and his father had the rest in chambers with him. He’ll have the best silk in the country arguing his case and he’ll say that he moved heaven and earth to get me to come to the States with him.’
‘Did he?’
‘He suggested it but I already knew he was having an affair.’
‘Well, then.’
‘They’ll bring up things about you.’
‘What things?’ I said.
‘Marti King knows you killed those two men and she only has to tell Henry.’
‘She won’t tell him that because she doesn’t know enough to back it up. All she knows is what she heard you bawling that day.’
‘I don’t bawl.’
‘You are doing now.’
‘Phone her!’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Dave, I’ve finally worked out why you’re going to all this trouble and putting my children at risk. It’s not to get Vince King free. It’s because you want the fame and kudos of freeing a hopeless case.’
I was late getting into the office. As I opened the door it struck me that I hadn’t the faintest idea how I’d got myself there. Everything since leaving Janine was a blank. I sat in the outer office like a thundercloud waiting to burst.
Insull Perriss arrived shortly after I did, accompanied by two minders. Despite the cold morning, torrents of sweat were pouring down the fat industrialist’s face.
‘I can see how you make your money,’ he blustered.
‘Do I know you?’ I said.
‘You can stop that, you dirty little blackmailer,’ he shouted. He was frantic. The minders looked nervous and embarrassed, as if they’d forgotten to bring along Perriss’s straitjacket.
‘What’s the problem?’ I said, trying to coax a smile out of paralysed jaw muscles – not easy after the way I’d parted from Janine.
‘You’re the problem, you filthy scumbag, Cunane. You gave your word that there’d be no comeback from those dirty swine trying to blackmail me, and then what do I see but you hand in hand with that disgusting old man.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and I suggest you leave,’ I said.
‘I’m going to hound you out of business. I’m going to ruin you,’ he shouted. He showed no signs of leaving.
‘Call the police,’ I said to Celeste.
This produced a bark of laughter from Perriss. ‘I’d like to see you dare,’ he scoffed.
‘Go on,’ I said to Celeste when she looked at me for instructions. ‘We’ve no facilities here for dealing with the insane.’
‘You daren’t,’ he said, ‘not after what you’ve done.’ He watched disbelievingly as Celeste spoke into the phone. ‘You can get years for blackmail and conspiracy.’
‘I don’t know you and I don’t know what you’re on about,’ I said, giving him a last chance to draw his horns in. The deal with him was that I forgot everything and I was keeping to it. ‘If you’re accusing me of something, perhaps you’d like to explain what it is.’
He stood where he was with an evil expression on his face. The minders flanked him like a pair of statues.
I looked at my watch. Police response time was supposed to be about five minutes round here.
Two minutes later police sirens began wailing nearby, not necessarily for us.
Perriss mopped his brow but stood his ground.
‘Oh, forget it!’ he said abruptly a minute later and dashed to the door. His companions followed.
‘Do you know him?’ Celeste asked.
‘Never seen him before,’ I snapped. ‘Call off the police.’
She turned to her task but the set of her body told me that she didn’t believe me.
The thunderstorm that had been brewing inside my brain finally burst. This was what I got for messing about with the Kings and the Carlyles. There was no way I could alter the past but I could unravel myself from it, starting with Insull Perriss. The truth was I was reaching boiling point. It wasn’t just with Janine, or Marti, or Perriss; it was with myself. I was getting sick of constantly being the stupid half of my own ‘smart woman/stupid male’ advertising routine.
I decided that enough was enough. I was tired of being manipulated.
I got to my feet. Celeste looked at me in alarm.
‘Where are you going?’ she said as I grabbed my coat.
‘I’m going to sort that guy out.’
‘But you don’t know where to find him,’ she warned as I shut the door behind me.
I did know. I drove straight to Trafford Park and the factory where Perriss manufactured obscure little bits of machinery that went into aircraft. Perriss was in a fairly large way of business. His firm had branches in Birmingham and Lon
don and abroad. When I got there Perriss’s Bentley was in the car park. I went to reception.
‘Tell Mr Perriss that Mr Cunane wants to see him,’ I said curtly.
The girl looked at me fearfully. She must have touched the security button because a uniformed member of the Corps of Commissionaires was on the scene in seconds. I was arguing the toss with him when there was a rumbling sound from the stairs leading to the first-floor offices. Perriss appeared, trailing three young suits who were trying to restrain him.
‘You filthy animal!’ he screamed when he saw me and launched himself from the third or fourth step. Unfortunately for him but happily for me, Perriss’s days of athletic leaps were long over. He landed up by my feet like a deflated balloon amid an awkward tangle of limbs and administrative assistants. His fall didn’t quite knock all the spite out of him.
‘Hit him!’ he shrieked at the commissionaire. ‘He’s a criminal!’ Those were the few words that made sense among an inchoate stream of curses.
The commissionaire looked at me uncertainly and then at his employer. Assaulting members of the public probably wasn’t in his job description. I folded my arms and smiled. By this time overalled workers from the shop floor had arrived to see what was happening. Quite a crowd was gathering. Perriss was foaming at the mouth, quite literally raving.
‘Hit him, beat him!’ Perriss continued to yell as he struggled to his feet. Rough hands were laid on me and I made no effort to resist.
‘Perriss, do you want me to tell them about your habits?’ I shouted as the cursing and the manhandling went on. ‘I only want a private word.’
The transformation from indignation to trepidation was startling. In seconds Perriss was shooing the throng away and storming up to his office. My handlers now drew back into a circle around me.
‘What’s he done?’ the commissionaire demanded. ‘Are you the police? We know he has his funny ways but there’s hundreds of jobs depending on him.’
‘Keep these people back,’ I said. ‘I only want to speak to him. It’s about something that’s better not discussed.’
Reluctantly the commissionaire complied. I heard people grumbling about warrant cards and IDs but formed the impression that this wasn’t the first hysterical scene that Perriss had been involved in. Maybe he’d had to pay off others. I went up the stairs, and found a warren of closed offices. Perriss’s was at the end of a short corridor. I knocked.
