‘Anyway, what does it matter?’ asked Ivan Battersby. ‘You’re not a titled family. And if you were, what difference would that make? There’s hardly a person in the world can be one hundred per cent sure who their father is, and that includes the aristocracy.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to say,’ said Isla. ‘Thank you, Ivan. Kit is of the right blood group. He was born to me, and into what seemed to be a stable marriage. One more child was born after him. My husband, all the time of the separation and divorce, never once made any allegation that he was not the father of Peter Novello. What more do you want?’
‘In any case, it’s irrelevant,’ said Maria.
‘Of course it is,’ said Isla. ‘Ivan was right. In the olden days women went with so many lovers that every child could have had a different father. There was a Duchess of Devonshire like that – long, long ago, of course. And there was Winston Churchill’s mother – she had a string of men. Nobody went up to Winston and said “We’d like you to take a blood test before we let you save the nation”. All this “illegitimate” and “legitimate” hardly matters to anyone these days.’
‘It matters to me,’ said Dan, who had no sense of the ridiculous. ‘When you go I shall expect to get my third of the estate.’
Everyone looked at Isla.
‘You were always my favourite child,’ she said.
‘I know, Ma,’ whined Dan. ‘So why are you doing this to me?’
‘I think in the future I shall show less favouritism. In fact, at this moment it would give me great satisfaction to leave you nothing at all.’
‘Mum!’ wailed Dan.
‘Can I just have a word?’ asked Kit. ‘I seem to be in the middle of a discussion which is all about me, but I don’t have anything to contribute to it.’
‘Then pipe down,’ said Dan.
Kit ignored him.
‘First I’d like to guess that the person who raised the question of paternity was the man I thought, since coming here, was generally agreed to be my father. I’m guessing that Micky paid him one of his regular visits and got landed with this confidence. Is that right, Micky?’
Micky nodded miserably.
‘Yes. Yes, it was him who told me. I shouldn’t have passed it on. I’m sorry.’
He spoke in an undignified mumble, close to tears.
‘You’d have been in dire trouble if you hadn’t passed it on,’ said Pat.
‘And did he reveal the name of anyone whom he guessed, or had evidence about, who might be my biological father?’
‘We’ll talk afterwards, Kit,’ said Micky.
‘All right – that’s good enough. But then there’s the question of the abduction. Did he say anything about that?’
‘Not much. Said he never could accept you – hated to be near you. When he told me that, little scraps of memory came back to me: of his never playing with you, hardly even talking to you.’
‘Shame on him,’ said Isla.
‘Anyway, he said that in the end the kidnapping solved his problem.’
There was silence, everybody thinking of the implications of the words.
‘He didn’t say he arranged the abduction, to solve the problem?’ Kit asked.
‘No.’
‘But that possibility is one that he left open?’
‘I suppose so. I just took it to mean that it was a coincidence but, still, it did solve the problem.’
‘Except that soon after Dan’s birth Dad moved out of the family home and the marriage was over,’ said Maria. ‘That could have solved the problem without anything as sensational as an abduction. I remember that, young as I was. It was a horrible time.’
‘Where does all that leave us?’ asked Pat Novello, nagging away at the bone of her grievance. ‘We should be clear about that.’
‘It leaves Micky, Maria and Dan set to inherit one third each of the estate that I will leave since Kit has disclaimed his rightful share,’ said Isla. She looked around and saw a degree of relaxation in the shoulders of the two men. ‘Of course, I have a legal right to change the will at any time. We Britishers have an absolute right to leave our property to whom we like – unlike some countries where the rights of children and other relatives to inherit a proportion of the estate are protected. Personally, after today, I feel the person who needs the protection is the one who makes the will.’
There was a degree of covert looking at each other, and stiffening in chairs. The meeting was finishing, but unsatisfactorily to most of the participants. Pat had got the message that the more she said, the less she advanced her cause. She was fighting on the side without weapons. She steamed out of the back door and started marshalling her children towards the car. Kit didn’t tell her that he had seen the eldest of them listening at the kitchen door for most of the meeting. Dan was by now on the phone ordering a taxi, and when he put down the phone he turned to Wendy.
‘I think I’ll go outside and wait. I don’t like the atmosphere in here.’
‘Your going will improve it,’ said Isla bitterly. ‘Are you going to start looking for a job, now that you’re back?’
‘I’m talking to Bradford. Things look promising.’
‘Bradford … Oh, the football club. Well, if that comes to nothing, be sure you register for unemployment benefit. It’s not much, but you have expensive tastes and apparently no way of financing them. And I shouldn’t think your lady friend brings anything into the household beyond two tits and an ever-open door. That looks like your taxi now.’
The room by then was well thinned out. Kit noticed the Honda driving off, leaving Micky still in the room. No doubt he was going to have the powwow with Kit that he had mentioned earlier. But the person who came up to him, obviously intent on making a point, was Ivan.
‘Just in case you don’t follow English football Kit, Bradford City Football Club is not in the top rank of English clubs, or even in the second rank. If Dan is not taken on by them he’ll really be back in the Stanley Matthews era: ten pounds a week and your bus fare to the ground.’
Kit grinned.
‘I rather thought I’d never heard of them. That sort of wage won’t keep Wendy in lipsticks.’
‘If he accepts a job like that, Wendy won’t be around. I hear from Maria she was making advances to you at the family party. If that’s true, lock up your wallet.’
‘I will – and run a mile.’
‘What I really wanted to say was that I’m sure Frank would never dare try to prove his non-parentage. If the medical evidence is sound – and Isla seemed quite sure – there’s no other way he could get a court to accept his claim. Also, they’d want to know why he had waited twenty-odd years before he tried to shut you out in the cold.’
‘That’s what I thought. I suspect Frank’s great pleasure in life is causing mayhem, and I doubt if he has any legal action in mind. On the other hand if he gets to hear about this morning’s shenanigans he’ll laugh his cruel laugh – at all of us, I suspect. My impression is that Frank feels superior to pretty well the whole human race.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ said Ivan. ‘There’s another point. Frank is – was? is? – a solicitor and he’d know better than most that going into law is a sure way of losing money … and losing face as well.’
‘He’s not going to lose either if he can help it.’
‘Well, I just thought I’d mention it … Wasn’t Isla splendid, by the way?’
‘Bang on target,’ said Kit. ‘And not at all the genteel upright type I’ve observed recently. This was another side of her altogether, and absolutely direct. You could say she stepped down into the gutter. But if you’re dealing with filth you sometimes have to hurl some in reply.’
‘You’re thinking of Daniel, aren’t you? Absolutely. He’s been asking for it for years. Maybe she’s been less illusioned about him than she pretended. Best of luck in what you’re trying to do, Kit. I’ll let Micky have his word.’
Micky had been lurking outside in the hall. He knew Kit had seen hi
m there, so he had no compunction in saying: ‘I can’t say I thought Mum improved with plain speaking. I was waiting for four-letter words, though thank God they never came. It’s not the mother I know at all.’
‘I suppose it had to be strong for Dan to get the message. Whether she was really so soft about him in the past is maybe an open book. Ivan obviously thinks not, but you said he’d always been the favourite.’
‘True. But I’m not the sharpest knife in the set. Anyway, I wanted to apologise for telling Pat what my father had told me … I mean, what he had alleged. When you’ve been married for a while you automatically tell your partner everything.’
Kit shook his head dubiously.
‘I think that was true of my adoptive parents. I’d be willing to bet it was never true of Frank and Isla.’
‘No, maybe not. Do you think that Isla ever knew that Frank doubted whether he was your father?’
Kit thought.
‘I can’t say she looked surprised. And she decided at once that he was the source of the rumour, and he’d told it to you so that you’d pass it on.’
‘I’m the most likely one since I’m the only one to visit him … He was determined to tell me, by the way. I’d hardly sat down before he said: “I had a visit from that imposter who’s calling himself my son.” Then he launched himself into it – it took up all the rest of the visit.’
‘Did he make himself clear? Am I pretending to be Peter Novello, or was Peter Novello not his son?’
‘The latter.’
‘Why didn’t he use that argument in the divorce?’
‘There was no reason to. It was an amicable divorce, after some years of separation. Why would Dad proclaim himself a cuckold when there was no need to? And being a lawyer he was very susceptible to bad publicity, particularly publicity that came from a divorce case.’
‘Fair enough. And especially as there was no child to examine and thus no medical evidence to back him up. He might have sounded like a man with a mania.’
‘Frankly, that was what he sounded like to me,’ said Micky, in a voice that had notes of tiredness and disgust.
‘Oh?’
Micky looked down at his hands.
‘I’ve always loved our mum, skated over the odd foible because we owe her so much. She brought us up single-handed, even before the separation. She gave us everything, and kept us on the rails. I don’t want to think of her as having a bit on the side before the marriage broke down. I’d even have difficulty with it if it was afterwards, when she was a single mother, but I have real problems seeing it happen earlier, seeing her as a desperate housewife. She wouldn’t have it off with anyone just to escape from the tedium of a stale marriage.’
‘Is that how Frank described it?’
‘He didn’t describe it. He’s a lawyer – he describes only what he saw and heard, things he knew thoroughly. That seemed to be the implication, though: taking a playboy to liven up a marriage gone wrong.’
‘And who was the man – the one Frank obviously thinks fathered me?’
Micky grimaced.
‘You’re not going to believe this. It was an actor called Harry Bradley-Perle. He was in Leeds playing in The Norman Conquests. I vaguely remember the play because it’s been on the television. The actor I don’t remember ever seeing. I think I probably would remember if he’d been here at the house because this never was a place with people coming and going the whole time. Isla is naturally a private person and Frank is a lawyer and knows the dangers of indiscriminate talk to near strangers at parties. So I can’t tell you much more about this.’
‘You can’t, for example, tell me where Harry and Isla supposedly first met,’ asked Kit, ‘where they went to procreate, how long the alleged affair went on?’
‘No, none of those. I wouldn’t guarantee Frank knew either. You’d best ask Mum if you dare.’
‘Oh, I’d dare. I’ve nothing to lose. But is that the best way to approach her? I wouldn’t have thought so – at least, not until I have at least a bit of concrete information I can break to her, if there is any, and then go on from there.’
‘That may be the best way, but do you have any choice?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everyone in there heard me say that we could talk later about Dad’s accusations. If I know Mum, she’ll have you over the grill before the day is out.’
And that was exactly what happened.
CHAPTER TEN
The Ones Who Got Away
‘So what were you and Micky talking about this morning?’ asked Isla, as they tucked into sirloin steak and the usual English off-season vegetables that same evening. Kit thought for a moment, chewed what he had already put in, then placed his knife and fork over the remains of his dinner.
‘I think perhaps you could guess that,’ he said, grinning.
‘I certainly could not,’ said Isla grimly. ‘Why do you think I can guess the nonsense Frank has dreamt up when we’ve barely communicated in the last fifteen years?’
‘Hmm,’ said Kit, feeling rather lawyer-like. ‘I don’t know if it’s nonsense or not, but I’m willing to bet it at least came up at the time of the marriage break-up.’
‘Why should it? The divorce was “amicable” – which means we both wanted to get out of the marriage as quickly as possible and shot of each other. There was no reason why anything dirty should come up – not if it was something he’d thought up back then, and not if it was something that he’s thought up in the years since, or some mad idea he’s got about you, now he’s lost his marbles.’
‘I didn’t suggest it came up in the legal matters surrounding the divorce, only in your personal relations with him. In fact, I bet it was something that had dominated those relations in the previous five or six years.’
‘And that was?’
Kit prevaricated, then decided to bring it all out.
‘The fact, if it is one, that Frank did not think he was my father: thought I was the product of a relationship that you had – if he’s to be believed – with an actor with a poncy name which I can’t recall now.’
There were several seconds of silence.
‘Henry Bradley-Perle,’ said Isla. ‘Harry to his friends, of whom I was one and Frank emphatically was not. He was christened John Jones. So it’s that old nonsense over again, is it? If you’re sensible you won’t give tuppence for that. Frank invented things to cover his own tastes and preferences. He thought we’d had enough children, so he clutched at the idea that I’d had an affair. Absolute nonsense. I was a good wife to him; all the priests said so at the time of the separation and divorce. They were trying to persuade me to keep the marriage going, of course. A little local fan club for Henry Bradley-Perle was elevated into an affair. Well, take note: there was no affair. I was never unfaithful to Frank, which is a good deal more than he could say. You have been right all along: Frank Novello was – is – your father.’
Again there was silence while he thought this through, trying to make a guess at how much of it was true.
‘So he invented the story to cover his own lack of enthusiasm for a third baby in the family. Is that what you mean?’
‘Yes. Though the truth is he had very little love for any of his children, and had as little to do with any of them as he could. You’ve no doubt been told how he pretty well cast them off when we separated. There were a lot of bruised hearts over that.’
An idea occurred to Kit.
‘Was a holiday in Italy a regular thing for the Novello family?’
Isla looked astonished.
‘No. Why should it be? There was no regular place for our holidays. Most years we never got a holiday at all.’
‘So the holiday in Trepalu was a one-off affair?’
‘As near as makes no difference.’
‘You didn’t think it odd – an odd place, for example?’
‘No. If I thought about it at all I’d have thought that Frank got a splendid bargain from one of his clients.’
‘Only with his family. He could be quite lavish with spending on himself.’
Kit leant forward.
‘I’m just trying out an idea on you. Frank Novello, stingy with his nearest and dearest, decides to take them on holiday. The place he chooses is in the remotest part of Italy, therefore among the most expensive to travel to. Sicily is also one of the most crime-riddled parts of the country, and was at that time riddled with petty crime and not so petty – blackmail, kidnapping, gang warfare, protection rackets. Why would any father choose, for a rare visit abroad, a part of the country which presented that sort of threat?’
Isla shrugged.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps he didn’t know anything about the crime there.’
‘Come off it, Isla. Everyone knows where the Mafia originated. Frank’s name was Novello. His practice included criminal work. I’ve learnt that at some point in his career he played a biggish role in the gang warfare which plagues Glasgow – ostensibly his role was as a peacemaker and negotiator, but was it? Are you trying to tell me he was unaware of Sicily’s criminal past and present?’
‘It’s not something that concerned me. I never thought about it.’
‘Well, I’m going to think about it. It seems to be possible that Frank arranged the holiday around the kidnapping of the third child in his family, a child he didn’t much like or want. I’m not saying I’m sure about that, only saying there are an awful lot of question marks around that holiday, including: why did it take place at all, and why was it there? One other thing that I’ve only just thought of: at that date the police in Sicily were spectacularly corrupt. An advantage, especially when they insisted my abduction was a matter for their jurisdiction, and the English police went along with their claim, because technically it was true.’
‘You may be right,’ said Isla, collecting up plates. ‘Heaven forfend I leap to the defence of my ex-husband. I’ve got fruit salad for dessert – does that suit you?’
Kit did not feel slapped down so much as circumvented. He kept the conversation on safe platitudes for the rest of the evening.
A day or two later Kit went along by appointment to the Millgarth police headquarters to have one of his regular chats with DS Hargreaves, who had got them a comfortable little interview room with coffee. Hargreaves sat himself on the table almost as a matter of course, as if placing his rugby-playing frame in a bullying proximity to the interlocutor was second nature to him.
A Stranger in the Family Page 11
