The phone went dead: Tricia looked at it and made a face.
‘Charming,’ she said.
Maureen Hopkins was sitting with her husband when Bard arrived. She had known he was coming because he had phoned, and she had met him once or twice over the years, but she was still so much in awe of him that she jumped up, dropping several papers and books and a bunch of grapes she had brought Clive; found herself on the verge of curtseying. She told herself she was being silly, and still made a silly little bow with her head, over his outstretched hand.
‘Good morning, Mr Channing,’ she said.
‘Morning, Mrs Hopkins. Nice to see you. Hallo Clive, how are you?’
‘Oh – not too bad. Thank you. Making progress.’
‘Good. You don’t look too bad.’
‘No. Of course it has been very unpleasant.’
‘Yes. Well, as I told Mrs Hopkins, I had no idea. I’m very sorry.’
There was a silence while Maureen scrabbled around picking up the things she had dropped, trying to think of something sensible to say.
‘Maureen; you can go now,’ said Clive Hopkins, ‘thank you. Mr Channing and I have business to discuss.’
‘Yes, dear. Of course. Er – when would you like me back?’
‘Try in an hour,’ said Clive Hopkins, ‘but first check with Sister that Mr Channing has gone. Oh and bring me The Times, would you? I’ve been very disappointed in the Telegraph the last couple of days.’
Maureen said she would; she gave them an hour, but when she got back, Sister told her Mr Channing had gone.
‘And I think now you should let your husband have a little sleep, Mrs Hopkins. I’m afraid his visitor tired him rather. Upset him even, I would say. Not an ideal situation at the moment.’ She clearly felt it was Maureen’s fault.
‘Oh dear,’ said Maureen. ‘I’m very sorry.’
‘Yes, well, another time, please ask me first. Your husband has been very ill, you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Maureen humbly.
Marcia Grainger was waiting for Bard, as agreed, in the upstairs bar at the Savoy early that evening. She looked rather pale, but otherwise seemed quite herself.
She handed over various letters that she had typed for him while he had been away, and some documents that he had asked her for.
‘Thank you, Marcia, that’s very good of you. I do appreciate your doing all this for me.’
‘That is entirely my pleasure, Mr Channing.’
‘You’re extremely fortunate,’ he said wearily, ‘not to have been subjected to personal experience of those people. They really are appalling.’
‘I do recognise that, Mr Channing. I have heard from Mary how very – unattractive some of their behaviour has been. But I imagine they must have more or less finished by now.’
‘I hope to God they have, Marcia, I really do.’
‘Did you have a good trip to France? You’re looking a great deal better, if I may so so.’
‘Yes, thank you, it was fun,’ said Bard with a sigh, ‘only the mast broke, which was a bloody nuisance. Still, it gave me a bit of time over there. Took my mind off things. Bit of a long day today, though.’
‘Yes, indeed. Is your friend recovering?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Bard shortly. ‘Marcia, you haven’t had any calls from some bloody journalist called Townsend, have you? From the News on Sunday?’
‘No,’ said Marcia, her voice heavy with distaste, ‘I never speak to journalists.’
‘How very wise of you,’ said Bard. ‘Bloody vermin, the lot of them.’
‘I thought Mrs Channing was looking rather tired,’ said Marcia. ‘It must all be a great strain on her. Such a pity she doesn’t enjoy the sailing too.’
‘Yes. Yes indeed. And when did you see her?’
‘On Thursday afternoon, Mr Channing. She was going into Brown’s Hotel. One of her charity meetings, I would imagine.’
‘I suppose so, yes. I didn’t know Brown’s was one of her stamping grounds. Are you sure it was her?’
‘Oh quite sure, Mr Channing, yes. I particularly noticed her because just a few minutes earlier your son Liam had arrived at the same hotel. I thought what a strange coincidence it was, given that they were most unlikely to have been actually meeting there.’
‘Yes,’ said Bard, ‘most unlikely. I don’t know what the hell Liam’s doing at places like Brown’s. He can hardly afford a cup of tea and a wad on his earnings. Well, you must excuse me, Marcia, talking of difficult children. I have to go and visit my daughter.’
Cyril le Marquand House was a large, hideous building, all dirty-white concrete blocks and huge staring metal-case windows, which reminded Gray of some of Clive Hopkins’ finer creations in Easterhope. He went in to the Financial Services department, asked if he could do a company search.
‘It costs three pounds,’ said the perky-looking girl behind the counter. ‘What’s the company’s name?’
‘Oh – It’s – that is, well, there are several. Actually.’
‘Well, it’s three pounds each time,’ she said briskly. ‘Look, go over to that computer there, tap in the name, get the company number, then fill in this form, here, and I’ll get you the file. Easy.’
‘Thanks,’ said Gray, wishing it was, and tried to put himself into Bard Channing’s head, and work out what name he might give a company that he just might not want to be entirely open about.
He started, although he knew it was ridiculous, with Channing; it seemed silly not to try. There were no registered companies called Channing: or Isambard: or Booth: or Barbour. There was a Douglas and there was a Grainger, but they both gave their own addresses, not that of their agents. He moved on through the company and Bard Channing’s family, always favourites with these guys, there were shades of the Mafia about the whole thing: there was indeed a Francesca Financial Services, and his heart lurched, but again it was a small insurance company, and gave its own address. He tapped in Barnaby, Jack, Kirsten (which gave him an interestingly sharp pang), Rachel, tried Duncan, Brown, and even in a stroke of inspiration, he thought, Lady, in case Bard’s boat might be fronting for him. He moved on to addresses; tried Hamilton, Stylings, St James’s – no good. He began to run out of petty cash; the perky girl looked at him under her eyelashes …
‘You’re not getting far, are you? We close in five minutes. You can come back tomorrow.’
It was still raining; he went back to the hotel, had a cup of murky tea, and then went for a long walk on the beach. St Helier sea front lacked charm. It looked to him rather like Slough might have done, had it been based by the sea. There was a vast power station, a hideous fort of a castle at the end of a concrete walkway, and an endless line of boarding houses and private hotels along the esplanade. There was no other life on the beach, apart from endless rows of lugworms, which had left casts, and a rather miserable-looking dog. Gray fought down a rising panic and went back to his hotel; there was a message to ring Shelley Balleine.
‘I know what this place can be like if you don’t know anyone,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Want to have a drink? We could talk some more, I could suggest a couple of people you could talk to.’
‘That’d be great,’ said Gray. If Shelley Balleine had asked him at the moment to sign away all his worldly goods to her, he probably would have done.
Shelley arrived with her car. ‘I thought we’d get out of St Helier,’ she said. ‘I’d hate you to think it was all like this.’
‘I’d hate that too.’
She drove him drove along the Slough sea front, westward, towards St Brelade – ‘We’re going to the poshest hotel on the island.’
The poshest hotel on the island was called L’Horizon. Gray was too depressed by now to believe anywhere on Jersey could be nice, but in fact L’Horizon was a marvellous surprise, lushly decorated, facing an exquisite bay; they sat out on the terrace in an evening that was suddenly and sweetly warm, and drank Bellinis – always Gray’s yardstick by which to judge
a good bar – and looked at the sea. The rain had stopped and slowly, almost grudgingly, the sky eased, parted, gave up the evening sun; it slanted down onto the beach, and coloured up the sea.
‘There, you see,’ said Shelley, ‘it’s not all grockles and plastic macs. How was your afternoon?’
‘Terrible,’ said Gray. ‘I spent almost fifty pounds in bloody useless searches. I’ve used up every name I can think of, and I can’t see what else I can do, short of putting out a broadcast saying unless someone tells me they’ve worked for – well, for this bloke, I shall drown myself.’
‘You’d end up drowned, I’m afraid,’ said Shelley. ‘No-one’d do that. People are very protective here. It’s a very tight little community. But that’s no reason you should give up,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘They’re a pig, those company names, I must say. We’re always having to find names for them for our clients. Everything you think of is gone.’
‘Who do you work for?’ said Gray, realising slightly to his shame he hadn’t asked her anything about herself at all.
‘Oh, one of the smaller law firms. We’re one of the few left in Hill Street, that’s the one leading up from Royal Square. They were all here once, that was our financial district. Did you see Royal Square, about the size of a postage stamp, our equivalent of Parliament Square? Do you know, if you read palms for money on Jersey, you can be burnt as a witch? There, in Royal Square.’
‘I didn’t know that, no.’
‘Well, you can. Strictly speaking.’
‘In that case, I won’t ask you to read my palm. You’re much too pretty for such a fate.’
‘If I did,’ she said, grinning, ‘I’d tell you you were going to go on a journey. If you had any sense. Back to London. I tell you, we’re very good here at protecting our own. Or those who’ve made themselves our own. Did you know outsiders have to guarantee two hundred thousand per annum in tax for a period of five years – which means an income of a million – to qualify as residents, and even then they don’t often get in?’
‘I didn’t, no,’ said Gray. ‘Let’s have another Bellini.’
‘Fine by me. Thanks.’
The second Bellini ordered, Gray said, ‘So who did you think I might talk to? Some bent attorney?’
‘Certainly not. He’d be the least likely to tell you anything. No, you’ll have to box clever. One of the local journalists knows everybody, might feel slightly more like talking to you. Might just have observed your person being here. Funny old chap called Paul le Barre. Talk all evening for the price of a bottle of Bourbon. Only thing, you might not get your money’s worth. You think he’s actually been here, do you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gray. ‘I suppose these things can all be conducted by phone and fax.’
‘They can, yes. But most people pop over sometimes, to sign things, talk to their lawyers. It’s a nice place to spend a few days, after all. Anyway, you could ask Paul. And then there’s a guy I – ’ she hesitated ‘ – well, that I know, who spends a lot of time in a bar in St Helier, very very rich, got a chain of chemist’s shops on the mainland, and a few here, and he just might talk to you, if I ask him very nicely, might have got a whiff of your man, if he’s at all high profile … I can’t tell him you’re a journalist, though.’
‘No,’ said Gray, ‘no, don’t. And best not tell your journalist chum either. I think I’m just an old friend of yours from way back, don’t you? How about a would-be restaurateur and cookery writer? It’s a long-term ambition of mine anyway.’
‘OK, fine. Goodness, I’m enjoying all this.’
‘So does he live here, this very very rich guy?’
‘Oh, yes. He has the most gorgeous house on the north coast, near Bonne Nuit Bay. He’s been here for about twelve years. He could afford to meet the residential requirements all right. He’s called Jeffrey Tyson.’
‘And you know him, do you?’
‘I did. Yes.’ She smiled again, a brisk smile. It told Gray everything he wanted to know, and that there was no more to be said on the subject.
‘Well, it’s really nice of you to be so helpful,’ said Gray, smiling at her. ‘Thank you. I’d like to try either of them.’
‘OK, I’ll see if I can fix it. Let’s go for a walk on the beach, shall we?’
The tide was right out, and they walked the length of the bay. Shelley was wearing trousers and a cotton sweater; she looked much prettier than in her power clothes, Gray thought. She kicked off her shoes and paddled in the rock pools, noisily happy, like a child. It would have been irritating in anyone else – with the possible exception of Briony, he supposed – but she was so cheerful and so genuinely uninterested in the effect she was creating it seemed rather endearing.
‘You married?’ she said, coming back to him, taking his arm.
‘No,’ said Gray shortly. Endearing she might be, but he lacked the stomach and even the energy to go through even the most basic early-courtship ritual.
‘I was,’ she said, ‘got divorced last year. I prefer it this way. I’d never get married again.’
‘Why not?’ said Gray, grudgingly interested.
‘I like being totally independent. No-one to worry about, or please, or displease, do you know what I mean? I have a much better time this way. Who needs to belong to someone?’
‘I think I do,’ said Gray slowly, ‘but I fucked the someone up a bit.’
‘How?’
He was amazed to find himself telling her.
She seemed faintly familiar, and he suddenly realised why. She was a younger version of Terri Booth: sexy, warm, fun, uncomplicated. She was clearly that rather old-fashioned, politically incorrect creature, a good-time girl. Well, good for her, thought Gray. He got very tired of touchy women.
She listened carefully, sympathetically, then: ‘Well,’ she said finally, walking back onto the terrace, pulling on her shoes, ‘if it’s any comfort, I think you did the right thing. I mean you can’t give up kids, can you, like you can a job? If you don’t like it?’
‘No,’ said Gray. ‘No, that’s rather what I felt.’
‘Do you fancy dinner?’ she said suddenly. ‘I’m free.’
Gray hesitated; he knew what that meant; dinner, and then if they both felt like it, bed. He sighed, and with some regret, and because he liked her so much, found her so attractive, said no. She was cheerfully untroubled.
‘Fine. I must take you back, then, if you don’t mind. Got a friend to go and see. Sort of standing arrangement. It’s been nice, Gray. I’ve enjoyed it. I hope it’s cheered you up.’
‘Yes it has. Thank you. It was a very kind thought of yours.’
‘Purely selfish,’ she said, grinning at him. ‘It’s such a relief, meeting someone different. Every now and again, you just have to get away from everyone. Only you can’t.’
‘Why do you stay here? If you feel so shut in.’
‘Oh, I feel safe,’ she said simply. ‘There’s a lot of mileage in feeling safe, you know. You can do more in the long run, if you know exactly where you are. And who you are. Don’t you think?’
‘Never looked at it that way,’ said Gray.
‘Well, good luck,’ she said, as she pulled up outside his hotel, ‘and I’ll see if I can fix those meetings.’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘How long are you here for?’
‘Well, I’ve allowed myself three days …’
‘Not enough,’ she said. ‘Three years, more like it. Bye, Gray. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
He looked up at his hotel, his spirits already sinking. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
Kirsten wasn’t very easily frightened. She did the most appallingly reckless things: caught late-night Tubes home, if she didn’t have her car, walked through dark city streets, got up in the night to investigate strange sounds while Victoria cowered under her bedclothes. She had, as a child, ridden the most awkward ponies, climbed the highest trees; as she grew up she had learnt to surf on the big waves in Australia, had taken
small dinghies out on rough, tough seas, had raced down unfamiliar black runs on her skis. She refused Novocaine at the dentist, dug deep into her own flesh to remove splinters, and once famously ordered a nurse to stitch up a badly cut foot, first taking out the glass, without benefit of local anaesthetic, because she said it would be so much better afterwards than waiting for it to come round. And although she was deeply disturbed and upset by her latest predicament, she was not afraid; she knew she could do what had to be done.
But she was very afraid of her father. It was not only his voice, so rough and raw and powerful, raging at her, nor the things he said, always unbearably hard, often unjust, not even his threats of violence when she had been smaller (never carried out), of deprivation emotional and social when she was older, or even his frequent statements that he was ashamed of her, that he wished her out of his life: it was the force of the emotions he engendered in her, the grief, the pain, the sheer physical terror, the nausea, the deafening thud of her own heart, the hot weakness in her stomach – and above all the sense of isolation, of loss of any sense of identity, and more than all those things, of being removed from love. She never saw his writing on an envelope without panicking, nor heard that he had called without dread; and that Monday evening as she sat in her flat, and her phone rang and it was his voice on the other end of the line – the worst voice, ice cold, heavy with rage and distaste – she closed her eyes and clenched her hands in anticipation of the misery that lay ahead.
‘I want you at the house now,’ he said. ‘Now. Do you understand?’
‘I can’t come,’ she said, amazed at the steadiness in her voice. ‘I’m at home, I’m not well and I’m staying here.’
There was silence for a moment, then he said, ‘Then I shall come there.’
‘Fine,’ she said, and knew he could hear the shrug in her voice, that his rage would increase. ‘You do that.’
He rang off. She made herself a cup of weak tea, the only thing she could stomach at the moment, then settled down to wait for him.
The Dilemma Page 61
