The Dilemma

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Poor Francesca. Yes. Here, drink your tea.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Does – does your father know about it?’ he asked. Thinking that, actually, if Bard Channing did know about Kirsten’s baby, and moreover if he knew who had fathered it, there would be no hiding place for him anywhere, anywhere at all.

  ‘Yes. Yes, he does actually. I mean he knows I’m pregnant. Not whose it is, obviously. He just phoned me, I thought he was going to bawl me out, but he was really nice.’ She sat there, drinking her tea, saying nothing for quite a long time, and then: ‘Gray,’ she said, looking at him, her face very set, ‘Gray, like I just said, you’re really, really nice and I so appreciate you coming. But it hasn’t changed my mind. I know what I have to do.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s your decision.’

  He didn’t quite feel that; in fact he hardly felt it at all. But he wanted to make it easy for her. He owed her that at least.

  He took a taxi home; but then he found he couldn’t bear to be on his own with his thoughts, and he got the bike out and rode on and on, out of the dusty wastes of London, through polite, surburban Surrey countryside, into the folds and hills of Sussex and so on back into the seaside suburbia and right on down to the sea. He sat on the beach, the stony beach of Littlehampton, where he had come so often as a small boy, a carefree, untroubled small boy with no idea of the complexities of the life that lay ahead of him and looked out at the just-darkening sea. And thought of Kirsten Channing and her awkward, stubborn courage, and her beauty and how he had almost loved her; and thought of the baby he had made for her and with her, and the fate that was to befall that baby, and was shocked and amazed that he felt as he did.

  ‘Take my car,’ said Francesca, ‘it’s the obvious thing to do. You’ve got to get back to London, and I can easily hire one in the morning. And Reverend Mother has one, in an emergency.’

  They were in the library at the convent; the drama, the shock, had cleared the emotional air, made things easier between them.

  Everyone was at supper. Kitty and Jack were both asleep.

  ‘All right. Thank you. Jack seems OK.’

  ‘Jack is fine. Don’t worry about him.’

  He looked at her. ‘I was hoping we could have more time before I left. To talk.’

  ‘Bard, I really don’t think there’s anything to talk about.’

  He stared at her. ‘Of course there is. I need to know what you’ve decided. If you will – give evidence for me. Just in case all is not quite lost. I know I shouldn’t have asked you, but – ’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that.’

  ‘Yes. That. Have you – ’

  ‘I have decided, Bard, yes. And you were right, you shouldn’t have asked me. But you did, and I think that’s the point.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.

  ‘Bard, you put me in this appalling dilemma. And now I’m going to make it yours. Because it is really.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ he said, staring at her. ‘Really lost me.’

  ‘Well, let me help you find yourself,’ she said, quite briskly. ‘It came to me this morning, when I discovered my mother was with you, when I should have been, when I realised how far apart we really were. Too far apart for me to cope with. I realised that it couldn’t be my decision at all. It’s got to be yours. You’ll have to tell me what to do. I’m prepared to do it, if you really want me to. I’ll stand up in court and lie to the best of my ability. Which I have to say isn’t very impressive. If you really feel you can ask that of me, I’ll do it. But I can’t decide for myself and so you’ll have to do it for me. All right?’

  He sat staring at her, his face blank: finally he said, ‘That’s very clever. Very clever indeed. And very unfair.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It seems very fair to me.’

  ‘I can’t possibly tell you what to do. You know I can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can, Bard. You spend your life telling people what to do. Manipulating them, moving them about on your chessboard. Just carry on as usual. Anyway, I’ll be waiting. Let me know.’

  ‘And you really mean that?’

  ‘I really mean it.’

  There was a long silence. Then he said, ‘Well, I suppose I should thank you. I shall have to think about it.’

  ‘Yes, I think you should.’

  He looked at her, and she could see in his eyes something she had seldom seen before: respect. Respect and uncertainty.

  He got up then, went over to the window, looked out at the courtyard for a long time before turning back to her.

  ‘And what are we going to do about us?’ he said.

  He was staring at her with a quite extraordinary concentration, as if he could force out of her whatever he wanted to hear. She was surprised by it, surprised and shocked; she could think of nothing to say. Finally, she said very quietly, ‘Bard, I don’t think there is an us any more. It’s been battered to death, us has.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean exactly that. There is no more marriage. My fault as much as yours, but it’s gone.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ he said slowly, ‘yes, of course. How stupid of me. Well, that was a very clever piece of rationalisation of yours, Francesca. Very clever.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘All that crap. Telling me that you only did what you did because – what was it? Oh, yes, because I shut you out. That it was my fault. So I do what you ask, tell you everything, and suddenly it doesn’t make any difference. What you’re really saying is that you want to leave me and go to Liam but it makes it easier for you this way, to blame me, to say it’s my fault, that I don’t understand you, for Christ’s sake – ’

  ‘Bard, that’s not right, you’re doing it again, not listening to me, you don’t understand – ’

  ‘Oh, but I’m afraid I do understand. Only too well. It seems very simple to me, an open and shut case, as the lawyers say.’

  ‘Everything seems simple to you,’ she said, ‘that’s the whole problem, you find your nice, easy explanations and make everything fit them. That’s what you’re doing now.’

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at her, taking in what she had said, clearly having difficulty with it. And then something altered between them, and there was something else there, something raw, something dangerous.

  ‘Come here,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said come here.’

  Still she didn’t move, just stayed, sitting at the table, staring at him. Wondering what to do, how to defuse this strange new mood, feeling something odd, strange within herself.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, and he crossed over to her instead, pulled her up against him. He held both her wrists in his hands; his face was very close to hers. ‘For fuck’s sake, Francesca, get rid of him. Stop it, let him go.’

  ‘Bard, I keep telling you, it’s not – not – ’

  ‘Damn you,’ he said, ‘damn you to hell. Both of you.’

  Francesca pulled one of her hands free and hit him: hard, on the side of his face. He winced, but he didn’t move, his expression didn’t change.

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ she said. ‘Just don’t.’

  ‘And why not? Why shouldn’t I talk to you like that?’

  ‘Because you have no right to.’

  ‘I have every right,’ he said, and pushed her down in the chair, holding here there, ‘every possible right. Don’t talk to me about rights, Francesca, please. Wrongs are more your style, I think.’ He put his hand up, then took hold of her by her jaw, turned her face sideways, staring at her, his eyes boring into her, as if he could read what was inside her head.

  ‘Bard, for God’s sake. Stop it.’

  ‘I just can’t stand it,’ he said, ‘any of it. I look at you there, and all I want to do is fuck you, God help me, I want to fuck you more than anything in the world, get him out of your head and your body. And short of
raping you I can’t do that. And I would rape you, Francesca, I wouldn’t hesitate. Here, in this sanctuary of yours, down there, on that floor. And no-one would hear you, if you called out, if you screamed, no-one would come. But I won’t, and do you know why not?’

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking now partly with fear, partly with – what? Desire? No, surely not desire.

  He bent then and kissed her; hard, violently, on the mouth, his tongue probing her mouth, echoing what he might do – what she wanted him to do, she realised suddenly, shockingly, what she wanted him desperately in that moment to do to her body.

  ‘I won’t rape you,’ he said, pulling away from her, ‘because I love you. In spite of everything, everything you’ve done, everything I’ve done, I do still love you. I want to be with you again, I want to forgive you, I want you to forgive me. Perhaps that will convince you, Francesca. Think about it, anyway. I’m going now. One day you’ll know how much you’ve thrown away. What a fool you are.’

  He started to walk to the door; then he suddenly turned and looked at her.

  ‘This is very sad,’ he said, ‘very sad indeed.’

  And then he was gone, closing the door very quietly behind him; she sat there, motionless, heard him walk across the courtyard and open the gate, heard the Mercedes start, heard it going across the cobbles, through the gate and then a scream of tyres as he put his foot down in the lane. Francesca went out then, walked across the courtyard to shut the gate after him, and she thought that for the rest of her life she would be able to hear that noise, that ugly, screaming noise, the noise of the ending of her marriage.

  Gray had hardly slept; he had got back to Clapham after midnight, had sat in the conservatory then for a long time, drinking glass after glass of Bourbon, and finally fallen asleep, fully dressed on his bed. He had not thought he had dreamed, but he woke at six to find himself weeping, the pillow wet with his tears. His head ached, almost beyond endurance; he eased himself up slightly, felt nausea hit him, just made the bathroom, threw up.

  And as he sat there on the tiled floor, holding his head, he could see very clearly what he had to do.

  Francesca woke up to hear Kitty coughing. Just a little cough, but nonetheless unmistakable. She must have got Mary’s cold, she thought, looking at her watch: seven o’clock. How extraordinary. She had not thought she would sleep at all, and she had slept soundly and dreamlessly. Perhaps, she thought, it meant she had been right, that parting from Bard was not an ending but a beginning; then she felt the reality, the sense of failure, of loss, hit her, heard his voice telling her he still loved her, felt again the extraordinary, shocking desire, and with it a hard, physical wrench of misery. And knew it was too late.

  And then Kitty sneezed and coughed slightly again. Francesca climbed out of her narrow, high bed and looked fearfully into the cot, but Kitty smiled up at her quite cheerfully, turned onto her stomach and struggled up first onto all fours, then into a sitting position, and then held out her arms to her mother and made the noise that meant ‘Get me out of here’.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Francesca, reaching in for her; she was very wet, but quite warm – but not too warm, not hot. Nothing too serious; it was just a cold. Only a cold. Not really a cough even. Well, she wasn’t going to worry about it too much. Not like last time. Mr Lauder himself had said she mustn’t take colds too seriously. Only a cold. Those had been his exact words. Kitty sneezed again. ‘Bless you,’ said Francesca and, having checked Jack was still sound asleep, took Kitty along the corridor to the bathroom to change and dress her. It was time they went home, she thought, they should go today; and then realised she didn’t know where home was any more and burst into tears.

  Philip Drew, Bard’s solicitor, arrived at the house at Hamilton Terrace at ten the following morning, in order to accompany him to the SFO.

  ‘You look terrible,’ he said. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes thanks,’ said Bard shortly.

  ‘Right. Well, I thought we’d run over a few things first. Now I’ve got George Spackman to agree to represent us. Thought we’d better bag him as soon as possible. He’s the best there is and we don’t want the other side getting him.’

  ‘You seem very sure we’re going to need him.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have a clearer idea after this morning. But at least he’s ours if we want him.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Now then, as I told you, you have to answer the questions these boys put to you. It’s like being under oath. And if you lie and they can prove you lied, it can be used in evidence against you later, at your trial.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Say as little as possible, naturally; tell them what you told me, and you should be OK. They’re not over bright, some of them, but they know how to rattle you. Don’t get lulled into a sense of false security.’

  ‘I’ll try not to,’ said Bard. He almost smiled.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Channing. I’m Peter Stainforth. Do sit down.’

  Stainforth was unremarkable in every way: brown hair, medium height, accentless voice, pleasant expression. The only thing that distinguished him was a pair of very pale, ice-blue eyes.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Bard. ‘My solicitor, Philip Drew.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Drew. Tea? Coffee? Linda, would you? Thanks. Now let me say straight away, this is not an interrogation. It’s just that we can’t quite reconcile all your bank accounts, and there are a couple of matters on which we require clarification. Shareholdings and so on.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Bard.

  ‘Now the first thing, Mr Channing, nothing very major, but this business of the purchase that was made by your company, of a piece of land up in Scotland. For the purpose of building a golf course and leisure complex, all that sort of thing. Very nice idea. Interesting sideline for a company such as yours.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bard shortly.

  ‘However, things don’t seem to have progressed very much. Well, these things do take time of course. But it’s the money we’re interested in. Now your company paid – what, for this acquisition, Mr Channing?’

  ‘Two million pounds. That is the price we paid for it. I was acting on the advice of my directors.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Lot of money for a bit of land and a rough old house.’

  ‘It reflects the potential,’ said Bard.

  ‘Yes, I see. But you see, it seems the previous owner, Mrs – oh, yes, Mrs Blair – only received a quarter of a million pounds for the property. Can you explain that?’

  ‘Not without looking into it,’ said Bard shortly. ‘The negotiation was handled by a subsidiary company.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the subsidiary. Channing Leisure, is that the one?’

  ‘Yes. It was.’

  ‘Why did Channings not buy this land direct? From Mrs Blair?’

  ‘Because that is not the way my company works. Subsidiaries frequently act for the main company.’

  ‘And why would that be?’

  ‘I told you. Channings is a complex company and that is the way it is structured.’

  ‘I see. And so you have no idea why there was a difference between what you paid and Mrs Blair received?’

  ‘Absolutely none. I was acting in good faith, and I left it to the company in question to acquire the land.’

  ‘Yes, I see. But you see, there is something else which puzzles me. The money doesn’t appear to be in the Channing Leisure account. It doesn’t appear to be anywhere. Do you have any idea where it might be?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Channings is – was – a vast company, I really can’t keep every small detail at my fingertips.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d call one and three quarter million pounds a small detail, Mr Channing, but I’m sure we will find it sooner or later. Anyway, we will leave that for now. Now there is something else, which I’m sure you can clear up for us. On the – ’ he glanced at a piece of paper, a list of dates on his desk; ‘on the 30th of May this year, there were two purchase of a large block of
shares in your company. Roughly a million pounds’ worth.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have no idea who made that purchase?’

  ‘Of course not. I don’t go running round checking on my shareholders and their activities. I have better things to do.’

  ‘Yes of course. Well, it shouldn’t be too difficult. They are presumably registered.’

  ‘Presumably. Since the law requires it.’

  ‘Indeed. Anyway, it was very fortunate for the company that those purchases were made. Since they served to steady the share price.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do. Now rather interestingly, you took out a loan on the 28th of May. With Engels Bank. Of eight hundred thousand pounds. Almost a million.’

  ‘I did take out a loan with Engels recently. Yes. I have no idea of the precise date. Or the amount.’

  ‘Well, now you do. And it was to fund an option on a site in – let me see, near Munich.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that going ahead all right?’

  ‘There have been some problems with it.’

  ‘So it’s not going ahead?’

  ‘Mr Stainforth, you don’t appear to have a very clear understanding of the property business. It’s not like a trip to Sainsbury’s. Every purchase is complex. Every development has its difficulties.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought a man like you would know about Sainsbury’s,’ said Stainforth.

  ‘What? Oh for God’s sake. If you can’t follow a simple analogy – ’

  ‘Er – perhaps we could leave that for now,’ said Drew, ‘you must understand, Mr Stainforth, we have just been presented with all this, we must have time to look at it more carefully. My client’s business is, as he has said, extremely complex.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I quite see that. But there is one other thing, then I’ll let you go. There’s a charitable trust you have, out in the Dutch Antilles. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, there is.’