She sounded so strong and so much in control that he decided to tell her the whole truth. ‘He’s living with the woman I came to look for.’
The emotions of Alison’s lonely week gathered and grew and became a red-hot fury. ‘He’s a devil!’ she exploded. ‘I’don’t think he’s got any shame or morals at all. He loads all his debts on to me, without telling me, he pretends to be living in that caravan when he isn’t, he lies through his teeth, he skulks in Spain for months, he hides away, and now he’s living with another woman. I suppose she’s keeping him.’
‘Yes. It looks like it.’
‘Then she’s rich.’
‘Very.’
‘I’m coming up to this Cogglesford place,’ she decided. ‘I shall catch the first train tomorrow morning. Meet me at the station.’
‘Come to Manchester,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you with the car. I should have Mr Shearing’s papers by then. You can see them served.’
‘I shall do a lot more than that,’ she promised. ‘I don’t know when I’ve ever been so angry.’
I ought to be ashamed of feeling so furious, she thought, as the blood burned in her cheeks. But she wasn’t. She was glad of it, aware that it was necessary and cleansing, and that Rigg deserved everything that was coming to him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rigby Toan was in ebullient mood. He’d slept very late that morning and now, bathed and shaved, perfumed and pampered, he was dressing for a very special lunch date. He and Carmen were going to persuade a mutual friend of theirs to set him up in business – trading under her name of course, to be on the safe side. They’d found suitable premises in the High Street. Now all they needed was a sleeping partner and this man was more than likely.
Aware of the importance of first impressions, Rigg had decided to wear his eau-de-nil Armani suit and his Gucci shoes. Standing before the mirror, which covered the entire wall in Carmen’s gold and chrome bathroom, he stroked the luxuriance of his moustache, admired the remains of his Spanish tan and congratulated himself on his good fortune. Flair, he told himself. That’s what it takes. Flair. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.
All in all, life was beginning to pan out quite well. Alison had held him back. There was no doubt about that. He could see it quite clearly now. Whereas with Carmen he had this wonderful feeling that things were going to take off. Carmen wasn’t perfection, naturally. All women are tricky. It was in the nature of the breed and she could be bloody bossy. All that silly business with the front door key, insisting that she was the one to open the door when they were together, even though he had a key of his own. Making arrangements for dinner parties without telling him. Things like that. But she loved him and she was very generous.
He’d persuaded all sorts of presents out of her – usually by telling her how badly he’d been treated by that slag Alison. Last week she’d finally agreed to put down the deposit on a two-year-old BMW for him. He’d angled for a Porsche but she wasn’t quite up to that yet. Not to worry. A BMW would do to be going on with. It would mean he could get around to a few government auctions and pick up some of the bankrupt stock that was going cheap. There were good pickings to be had at government auctions. He’d sent off for one of the catalogues more than a week ago. Cost a pretty penny – but Carmen had paid. Now he was waiting to see which would be delivered first, the catalogue or the car.
The doorbell was chiming. He took one last look at his image, smoothed his hair and went down the stairs to answer it.
It was Alison and that vile Welshman of hers, standing in the porch as though they had every right to be there. The sight of them was such a shock that he said the first thing that came into his head. ‘How the hell did you know where I was?’
‘No, we weren’t supposed to, were we,’ Alison said quietly.
Rigg was already thinking up excuses. ‘You can’t come in,’ he said. ‘I’m only visiting. The lady of the house is out.’
‘The lady of the house is Mrs Carmen Silvester,’ Morgan said implacably. ‘She’s at work, at her boutique. You live here. I got photographs to prove it.’
Is there anything they don’t know? Rigg thought. ‘You can’t come in,’ he repeated and began to shut the door.
Morgan moved at once, using one large foot as a doorstop. ‘Now you don’t want a scene, do you?’ he said reasonably. ‘If we was to start bangin’ on the door, your neighbours would want to know why.’
‘And I suppose you’d tell them,’ Rigg sneered.
‘Right’
This was hideous. If Carmen came back and found them, the fat would be in the fire. ‘Can’t we go somewhere else?’ he asked. ‘What do you want?’
‘A divorce,’ Alison said. ‘But that’s not what we’ve come for.’
That annoyed him. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘You don’t want a divorce. And anyway, I’m not going to give you one.’
‘You don’t have to give it, Rigg,’ Alison said calmly. ‘I take it.’
She can’t be talking to me like this, Rigg thought. She loves me. But this wasn’t the old Alison he remembered. She was standing so tall, with an expression on her face he hadn’t seen before, and she’d had her hair cut, hadn’t she? Whatever she’d done, she looked gorgeous and she was turning him on rotten. ‘You’re my wife,’ he said. ‘And that’s how you’re going to stay. I’m not letting you free to marry someone else.’ With a meaning look at the Welshman. ‘So don’t think it.’
She didn’t even look at him while he was talking. Damned woman. ‘Well I haven’t got time for chitchat,’ he said and tried to shut the door.
But Morgan’s foot was still in the way. ‘I got a letter here,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll want to see it.’
Annoyance struggled against curiosity and curiosity won. ‘What letter?’
‘From a firm you used to deal with. Somethin’ to do with money. A refund of some sort. Too valuable to go in the post so they said. I got to deliver it to you in person.’
Is he telling the truth? Rigg wondered. He could be. It’s possible. There could be some back cash owing from somewhere. He hadn’t kept records, so it was difficult to be sure.
‘Oh all right then,’ he said, taking the gamble. ‘You can come in. But only for a minute. I’ve got a lunch date.’
Hence the clothes, Alison thought as she and Morgan walked into the hall. That’s an expensive pair of trousers he’s got on.
He led them out of the hall into a room that ran the full length of the house. It was a curious room. Although it was comfortably furnished with a chaise longue under the window and armchairs by the fireplace, down at the garden end there was a workbench covered in paper patterns, a stand filled with cottons and books of samples, a tailor’s dummy with a length of cloth draped over one shoulder and one wall full of deep shelves packed with rolls of cloth like a draper’s shop.
‘So,’ Rigg said. ‘Let’s have a look at this letter.’
Now that the two men were standing face to face in the full light from the French windows, Alison couldn’t help noticing how totally different they were. Morgan, in his rough jeans and his leather jacket – dear, solid, dependable, patient Morgan – held out the letter in his scarred right hand, his face guarded. And Rigg stretched out an unmarked, work-shy hand to receive it. He seemed smaller than she remembered, and slighter, a slick, devious-looking man, his face full of hopeful greed. Once upon a time, she thought to herself, I thought he was handsome and strong. I believed in him. Now I can see how weak he is. He looks like a spoilt child waiting to be pampered. She was surprised that she hadn’t seen that aspect of his nature before.
There was a long pause while he read the summons, colour draining from his face.
‘This isn’t a refund,’ he said, breathless with anger. ‘It’s a bloody summons. From that bloody Harvey Shearing. You tricked me.’
‘That’s right,’ Morgan agreed. ‘It’s a summons. And I got a warnin’ for you too. If you ignore it you can be sent to prison for c
ontempt of court.’
Rigg had no answer to that at all.
‘That’s it then,’ Morgan said turning to Alison. ‘We can go now.’
But Alison had seen the label in Rigg’s eau-de-nil jacket, which was lying over one of the chairs.
‘That’s a bloody Armani,’ she said, striding across the room to pick it up in disgust. Brad was right. ‘You stinking toe-rag. You buy Armani suits. Your children get their clothes from car-boot sales and you buy bloody Armani suits.’
Rigg tried to deflect her rage. ‘What of it?’ he said. ‘It’s my life. I can spend my money how I like.’
‘I’ll tell you what of it,’ she yelled at him. ‘It’s disgusting, that’s what it is. Your children eat beans on toast because I can’t afford anything better and you spend thousands on your own stinking back. We live in squalor and you ponce about in a BMW with your Gucci shoes and your Armani suits. Well this is one suit you won’t ever wear again.’ She had spotted a large pair of pinking shears on the workbench and before Rigg could stop her she seized them and hacked at the sleeve until the cloth was in jagged lumps.
‘You can’t do this!’ Rigg cried, aghast at such vandalism. He wanted to rush at her, to tear the suit from her rotten hands, to hit her until she stopped. But he couldn’t do anything. Not with that bloody Welshman brooding beside him.
‘I’m doing it!’ Alison said, working on the second sleeve with immense satisfaction.
‘I’ll sue you for wilful damage.’
She flung the mangled jacket into the corner and turned to face him. ‘You do that,’ she said. ‘And I’ll tell them exacdy how you treated me. See how you like that.’
‘I’d deny it,’ he tried to fight back.
‘We got the photographs to prove it,’ Morgan said laconically. ‘Handy sort of article, a camera. Time we were off, Alison.’
They walked out of the room leaving Rigg too stunned to move. ‘You’ve ruined my suit,’ he said.
‘Actually,’ Alison said, ‘you’ve got off very lightly. If you hadn’t been wearing the trousers I’d have cut them up too. See you in court.’
After they were gone, Rigg retrieved the wreckage of his jacket and began to weep. He’d been duped, attacked, cut to ribbons like this coat. And what had he ever done to deserve it? I’ve only been trying to make an honest penny, he thought, that’s all, and she walks in and treats me like this. Life is bloody unfair.
Morgan and Alison laughed all the way back to Manchester. And even when they were on the train and heading back to London, they were still laughing.
‘That did me such a lot of good,’ Alison said. ‘I feel wonderful.’
‘You were wonderful,’ Morgan told her. ‘I could have cheered you.’
She gazed out of the window for a moment. ‘You know,’ she said, looking at him again, ‘when I was little, I never lost my temper.’
‘Never?’
‘Well, very rarely. I thought it was the worst possible thing a girl could do.’
‘And now you’ve changed your mind.’
‘Now I’ve changed,’ she said. ‘I’m a different person.’
‘Better?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure about that. Stronger. If you’d told me two years ago that I’ve stood up to Rigg like that and cut up his coat, I’d never have believed you. I’ve always been – well, really rather frightened of him up till now.’
‘If you’d told me eight years ago that I’d lie through my teeth to get the better of a criminal, I’d never have believed that either,’ Morgan said. ‘I never told lies when I was down the pit. None of us did.’
‘It’s a funny old world,’ Alison said, reaching out to hold his hand.
‘It’s Maggie Thatcher’s world,’ Morgan said. ‘That’s what it is. We’ve all learned to think her way. There was a time when lyin’ was wrong. No two ways about it, it was wrong. You even expected politicians to tell the truth. If they told lies, they had to resign. Now, God help us, we expect them to lie. They say they’re massagin’ the unemployment figures. They’re not. They’re lyin.’ And we accept it. She’s turned lyin’ and cheatin’ and grabbin’ everything for yourself into a virtue. Even greed’s a virtue now. They call it good business or bein’ an entrepreneur.’
‘Like Rigg,’ Alison said, thinking how greedy he’d always been, taking money from anybody he could persuade to give it to him, with no intention of paying any of it back. It’s business, he used to say. You don’t understand it. Well. I understand it now, she thought.
‘I tell you one thing,’ Morgan said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Mr Shearing’ll be pleased to hear what you done. He’s been steamin’ at not being able to find the Great-I-Am. I shall ring him first thing in the mornin’ and tell him the good news.’
‘Tell him I’d like to see him,’ Alison said. ‘I’ve got some information for him.’
Harvey Shearing came all the way to Hampton to see Mrs Toan and took her and the children out to tea and cream cakes. He seemed older than Alison remembered him and more worn.
‘I shall be glad when this case is brought to court and he’s made bankrupt,’ he confided. ‘The trouble your husband’s caused me!’
‘He won’t be my husband for much longer,’ Alison told him. ‘I’ve filed for divorce.’
‘I don’t blame you. I thought he was such a nice young man when we first met, but now … Still, enough of that. What was the information you had for me?’
Alison had it all written out. ‘This is the address of the Abbey National branch where we had our three mortgages,’ she said briskly. ‘And this is the address and phone number of Properties in Possession, who are dealing with the negative equity, which is nearly twenty four thousand pounds. It’s Rigg’s debt, not mine. I think he ought to acknowledge it.’
‘Indubitably.’
‘And then there’s the debt to the Wessex and Camelot Bank. I signed second charges for that because he told me it was only for three thousand pounds and it’s actually eighteen. I think he ought to acknowledge that too.’
‘Oh he will,’ Harvey Shearing said grimly. ‘I can assure you of that. He’s messed us all about quite long enough.’
Jon was kicking Emma underneath the table. They’d been in a quarrelsome mood all day.
‘Time we were off,’ Alison said, putting down a hand to restrain him. ‘I’ll see you in court.’
‘First Thursday in March,’ Harvey Shearing said, signalling for the bill. ‘It’s all fixed. Not long now.’
It was actually less than five weeks and it passed so quickly that it felt like a fortnight. At the end of February Alison had a letter from Mrs Cromall, asking her to call in at the office to discuss the divorce. In a curious way that speeded the time along too. ‘The papers have been sent to your husband’s address in Cogglesford,’ she wrote, ‘but having had no reply, we feel other arrangements will have to be made.’
‘I’m afraid we have to accept that your husband is going to play hard to get,’ she said, when Alison arrived to see her.
‘It doesn’t surprise me.’
‘We shall have to serve these papers.’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me explain how this is done.’
‘Actually,’ Alison said, smiling at her, ‘I know how it’s done. The new man in my life is a private investigator.’
Mrs Cromall was genuinely pleased. ‘I’m glad to hear there’s a new man in your life,’ she said. ‘That is good news.’
‘I can give you better,’ Alison said. ‘Rigg’s got to appear in court in Brighton in a few weeks’ time to be made bankrupt. I could serve them on him there.’
‘How very appropriate,’ Mrs Cromall said. ‘I’ll have them prepared.’
I can serve them on him, Alison thought, just like Morgan did. There in the court. I can serve them and get a divorce and break clean away from him. Then I shan’t be in limbo any longer.
Chapter Thirty-Five
So the preparations were made and the day o
f the hearing arrived. Morgan promised to be in the office all afternoon so that Alison could phone and tell him how she’d got on. Brad and Martin sent a good luck card, and so did Greg and Andy. Elsie offered to collect the kids from school and look after them until she got back. Mark and Jenny phoned at breakfast time to wish her well. All she had to do was to drive the kids to school and then head off to Brighton. But she was nervous. It didn’t seem possible that the Great-I-Am was finally going to be brought to book. He’d got away with so much and for so long, it was almost as if he was impervious to any attempt at justice.
It was a miserable day, overcast, showery and as dark as winter. Brighton was full of damp shoppers, every other store had a sale, the West Pier was closed and falling to pieces, even some of the prestigious jewellers in the Lanes had gone bust.
But the judge’s chambers were quiet, discreet and as dry as their occupant. There were only three people in the meeting when Alison arrived: Harvey Shearing, wearing a dark suit and a determined expression; the judge’s clerk, sitting at a side table piled with papers; and Rigg, in yet another Armani suit. The sight of it charged her with angry energy. How many more of them has he got? But there wasn’t time to say anything, or to present her divorcee papers to him, because the judge was in the room and taking his seat at the head of the table.
It was all handled so smoothly that it seemed to be over before it had begun. Rigg sat at one side of the table and she and Harvey Shearing at the other. After establishing who they all were, the judge asked Mr Shearing to state his case.
It was a damning statement which detailed all Rigg’s nefarious activities since the voluntary arrangement had been entered into. The judge listened attentively, while Rigg looked out of the window, a bored expression on his face – as if it was nothing to do with him. Finally the long indictment came to an end.
‘I feel I should also point out,’ Mr Shearing concluded, ‘that there is a possibility of criminal charges being taken out against Mr Toan, vis-à-vis the manner in which his liabilities were declared to the creditors at the first creditors’ meeting.’
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