‘I do mind actually,’ said Francesca, glaring at him, feeling for some reason rather better, ‘and if you’ve come to ask me for that bloody form, I haven’t signed it yet.’
‘I haven’t, no,’ said Mr Moreton-Smith. ‘I’ve come with a message from your husband, as a matter of fact.’
‘Oh,’ said Francesca. There didn’t seem a lot else to say.
‘He’d been trying to get through on your mobile. He says he’ll be on the next plane from Paris and that there’s no need to worry about meeting him, because as far as he can make out, the police will do it. I imagine that’s a joke?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not,’ said Francesca, and she knew now what people meant when they said they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, because she was at that moment doing both, quite hard, ‘but never mind. Did he say anything else?’
‘Yes, he did. He said to tell you he finds it hard to believe you can be so stupid and that he loves you very much. And that you are not under any circumstances to sign the consent form because he will obviously want to do that himself, after he’s spoken to me. All right?’
‘Yes, all right,’ said Francesca, ‘very, very much all right. Thank you. He really is quite impossibly arrogant,’ she added, to nobody in particular.
Chapter Thirty-five
Francesca and Bard did not go home that night. Bard said that in any case the pavement outside the house was swarming with reporters and apart from the fact that Kitty needed them with her, it was a great deal easier for them to remain where they were.
He had not been joking, as Francesca had opined so correctly to Mr Moreton-Smith, about the police: they had indeed met him at Heathrow.
He had phoned Stainforth, as Philip Drew had said he must, and told him where he was, and Stainforth had said he had no option but to put out a port stop immediately.
‘But they were very good, let me come straight here. I’ve become high-risk stuff, that’s all. Won’t be able to get away again. Not even to walk down the road, without reporting in. Huge bail, Philip Drew says.’
‘Yes, he said that to me too.’
‘But I had to come. Obviously.’
‘Yes. Obviously.’
They were talking, very quietly, in Francesca’s room at the hospital; Kitty slept in her cot in the corner, remarkably peacefully for a baby with so many traumas so recently behind her. She was, Mr Moreton-Smith had said, in surprisingly good shape, as ready as she could be for her operation the next day.
‘I wouldn’t have gone, you know,’ Bard said, looking at her, his eyes very dark, moving over her face, ‘if it hadn’t been for you. What you said. I wasn’t running away from it all. I was leaving a life without you. That’s all. Perfectly simple. There didn’t seem much point staying.’
‘Bard – ’
‘Francesca,’ he said suddenly, ‘Francesca, I love you. I love you very much. Whatever’s happened, whatever I’ve done, whatever you’ve done, you have to know that’s true. Otherwise there’s no point in any of it. Do you? Do you know that?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, I do know it. I know it now.’
‘Good,’ he said, and he sounded infinitely self-satisfied, sat back in the hospital chair. ‘My mother was right.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Yes. She said I had to do something, to show you. She said saying wasn’t enough, I must do something. Clever old stick, my mother.’
‘Yes, she is. Very clever.’
‘It isn’t going to be easy, is it?’ he said, his dark eyes heavy, sombre. ‘Not going off into the sunset, not suddenly happy ever after?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘not easy, not easy at all. I thought that, while I waited for you. But I also thought – well, we have damaged one another. We’re both angry, both hurt. We can recover together. Hopefully.’
‘It’s a rather negative analysis,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘but, yes. Hopefully, yes.’
‘What else did your mother say? Anything about me?’
‘Yes,’ he said shortly, ‘yes she did. But I’m afraid she might have been less right about that.’
‘What was it? I’ll decide whether she was right or not.’
‘Francesca, I don’t think – ’
‘Tell me what she said.’
‘No. I really don’t think this is the time.’
Francesca stood up and picked up her jacket and her bag, walked towards the door. ‘Goodbye Bard.’
‘What? What the hell are you doing now?’
‘I’m going. I’m leaving you.’
‘Please don’t joke. Not at a time like this.’
‘I’m not joking,’ she said, and looking at her, he could see she meant it, that it was true.
‘Francesca, don’t be so bloody stupid. Of course you’re not leaving me. I’ve just risked arrest, being sent straight to jail, to come back, to be with you.’
‘I know that. But you’re doing it again already. You’ve been back less than two hours and you’re already deciding what I shall and shan’t know. I can’t stand it, Bard, I’m sorry.’
‘All right,’ he said, throwing his hands into the air, ‘all right, I’ll tell you. I didn’t think you were ready for it, that’s all. What she said was,’ he said, very tentatively, and there was no arrogance in him at all at that moment, ‘she said you loved me too. But that you didn’t know it, just at the moment. That’s all.’
Francesca put down her things again, and went back across the room. She sat down on the bed, next to him, and put out her hand, touched his face very briefly, as so long ago he had once touched hers.
‘She was right,’ she said. ‘And I do now.’
Next day, Mr Moreton-Smith came into the room where Bard and Francesca had been waiting for three and a half endless hours, and smiled at them. ‘She’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Complete success, and I’m very, very satisfied with the whole thing. She’s still on the respirator, but I’m probably going to be taking her off it in a couple of hours. Her condition is excellent. She’ll be running around in days.’
‘She can’t run,’ said Francesca, ‘yet,’ and went across to him and hugged him. ‘Thank you, thank you so much, and I’m sorry I was so rude to you.’
‘I’m not very used to it, I must say,’ he said looking rather embarrassed. ‘It was probably good for me.’
They went to look at Kitty in Intensive Care; she looked terrifyingly removed from them, naked apart from a nappy, a gash of scar on her chest, wires and tubes coming from all over her small body, still unconscious. The nurse smiled.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ she said, ‘it looks much worse than it is. She’s fine, honestly. Fit as a very small fiddle. She’ll be smiling at you tomorrow. I promise.’
Later she was taken off the respirator; they went to see her again and stood, enraptured, watched the wonderfully satisfying, regular heartbeat on the monitor.
‘I could stay here all night,’ said Francesca, ‘just looking at it.’
‘Let’s,’ said Bard. ‘We’ve got nothing better to do. Nothing better in the world.’
The nurse was right; next day, Kitty lay in her small cot and smiled up at them both. It was a slightly uncertain smile, but it was still a smile.
Rachel brought Jack in later that day. ‘I wish I could have an operation,’ he said, gazing at Kitty’s drips and monitors. ‘It’s not fair, I like all this. Could I, Mum?’
‘Perhaps not just yet,’ said Francesca.
Rachel insisted on taking Francesca out for tea. ‘It’ll do you good, get you away from the hospital. And I have something I really want to talk to you about.’
‘Well, what is it?’ said Francesca, when they were settled in the slightly over-chintzed lounge of the Selfridges Hotel.
‘I – just wondered if you were serious about the house.’
‘What house?’
‘The house in Devon. High House, Colonel Philbeach’s house.’
‘Oh God – I’d forgotten about it. God Mummy, I don’t
know. Why?’
‘Well, because I want it,’ said Rachel.
‘You want it!’
‘Yes, it seemed so obvious suddenly. I can move down there, you see, sell my flat, that would pay for it easily, terrible though it seems, and well, of course I shall miss London, but I can go up fairly often, I expect, and you can all come and stay, and it is so beautiful, and Mary can live with me there and won’t have to be disrupted, she’ll be near the convent and Richard and – ’
‘Oh Mummy!’ said Francesca. ‘At last! I thought you’d never get there.’
‘What?’
‘Well, obviously that’s what I thought all along. From the very beginning. Only I knew if I suggested it, you’d never agree.’
‘Oh,’ said Rachel. ‘Oh, I see.’ She looked at Francesca and smiled.
‘So you don’t think it’s such a stupid idea? You think I’ll settle all right down there?’
‘Of course not. I mean, of course I don’t think it’s stupid, I think it’s a wonderful idea. I think you’ll be as happy as anything, sorting out the village. And besides,’ she added, ‘the Curdle is awfully good looking.’
‘Yes,’ said Rachel, ‘yes, you’re quite right, he is. Lonely too,’ she added.
‘Oh really? And how do you know that?’
‘He told me so,’ said Rachel.
Kirsten came to see them, with Oliver. They brought Kitty an enormous toy panda, much bigger than she was, and some flowers for Francesca; Kirsten looked rather pale, but oddly happy.
‘We had to come,’ she said, ‘to see you all. And to tell you something.’
‘Yes?’ said Francesca. ‘What was that?’
‘Well, everything is all right now. Quite all right. You know.’
‘Yes,’ said Francesca again, ‘yes, I think so. Good.’
‘And Oliver and I are – well, we’re going out together.’
‘You and Oliver!’ said Francesca. ‘But – ’
‘No, don’t say it,’ said Kirsten, ‘don’t say anything. That’s what’s happening. Isn’t it, Oliver?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s what’s happening.’ He smiled at her, and then at Francesca. ‘Is – is Mr Channing about?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Francesca cheerfully, ‘he’s had to go to the police station. Why?’
‘Well, we wanted to tell him too,’ said Kirsten. ‘We thought he might quite like it.’
‘I think he would, Kirsten. I’ll tell him.’
‘Could you?’ said Kirsten. ‘And give him my love?’
‘Yes, I will. He’ll like that too, I know. Very much. It’ll cheer him up, he’s got a very difficult time ahead. Well, we all have,’ she added with a heavy sigh, but still looking remarkably cheerful. ‘Especially me.’
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Epilogue
Bard Channing’s trial was heard in September 1995; he was found guilty and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by a judge who was determined to make an example of him.
The trial had lasted eight weeks; Francesca and Jess had sat together through every day of it in the court at Chichester Rents, that part of the Old Bailey reserved specifically for fraud trials, with its large screens on which documents could easily be shown for examination by the court at any stage during the trial. They sat there impassively, both of them, hearing him charged, hearing him sentenced, hearing his life and his business picked painstakingly apart, hearing every detail of every manoeuvre carefully explained and expounded upon, every defence skilfully demolished.
He was indicted on five counts: of making a false presentation of company assets to his bankers; of illegally supporting his own share price; of converting company monies into his own personal bank accounts; of illegally disposing of his own shares; and of bribing council officials. However, Mr George Spackman, QC (defending) persuaded the judge in the legal arguments before the trial that it would be an abuse of the legal process to pursue this last charge as the events had taken place so many years previously, and the trial had proceeded on four charges only.
The trial attracted a great deal of press attention and was reported fully each day in the broadsheets, and its more sensational aspects in the tabloids. The new financial editor of the News on Sunday covered it particularly fully. The one-time financial editor of that paper, one Graydon Townsend, found the time from running his new restaurant, Lunch in the City, to attend it occasionally, and invariably took Bard Channing for a drink at the end of each of those days.
The verdict was a blow, but could not possibly have been described as a surprise; the evidence was highly conclusive and the jury was unanimous. The judge said he hoped that the sentence would serve as a warning to other men in Mr Channing’s position.
George Spackman, who had taken the verdict hard, went to see Bard in the cells before he was taken off to Wandsworth, ‘just for a few weeks, and then almost certainly to Ford. And of course, you will get remission, you should be home again in a couple of years.’
‘Yes,’ said Bard, ‘two very long years.’
‘I’m sorry, Bard. Very sorry. But I really don’t think we could have done more.’
‘No, of course you couldn’t.’
‘It couldn’t possibly have turned out any differently, I don’t believe. Unless of course – ’ He sighed, looked at Bard very directly. ‘Unless of course your wife had after all been able to – well, you know, been able to recall exactly where you were that day. The day of the phone call. As you intimated she might, right at the very beginning. That might have made a difference.’
‘Oh no,’ said Bard, and he looked against the odds slightly more cheerful, almost complacent, ‘that would have been out of the question, I discovered. Completely out of the question.’
ALSO BY PENNY VINCENZI
No Angel
Something Dangerous
Into Temptation
Almost a Crime
An Outrageous Affair
Sheer Abandon
An Absolute Scandal
Forbidden Places
The Dilemma Page 85
