Daughter of Riches

by Janet Tanner

  Dan said nothing. Phil Gould was not the first friend to try to persuade him to give it another go and he would certainly not be the last. Dan had given up being offended by the idea they seemed to have that Marianne could be replaced as his smashed motor bike had been. They meant well, he knew. But it would take one hell of a girl to make him forget Marianne. Dan doubted if he would ever meet her. And he was not sure he wanted to.

  Chapter eighteen

  Juliet turned her car into the pub car park, found a space and reversed into it, the squealing tyres registering their protest at her haste.

  Was Dan already here, she wondered? but since she did not know what kind of car he drove she had no way of knowing. She knew very little about him at all if it came to that except that he was the son of her grandmother’s advocate but then she supposed that was all she needed to know. His father had done a good job for Sophia, Aunt Catherine had said. That was recommendation in itself. Anyone who had been close to her grandmother earned an instant warm place in her heart.

  What a strange thing affinity is, Juliet thought. From the first moment of meeting her grandmother it had been there between them, an unspoken bond. Although Sophia had not seen her since she was a tiny child she seemed to be able to put her finger right on her granddaughter’s pulse – no, deeper than that even, Juliet thought – she could see right into her heart and had a knack of bringing to the surface deep hopes and fears, doubts and longings that Juliet scarcely acknowledged.

  This morning it had happened again. Juliet had had breakfast with Sophia and they had lingered over coffee talking of Juliet’s career.

  ‘You are certain you are making the right move, are you?’ Sophia had asked.

  Juliet had smiled ruefully. ‘I can’t see how it can be wrong. Darby Grace is a very big, very well respected company and they have offered me a lot more money than I have been making at the Dream Machine.’

  Sophia had nodded, her beautiful amethyst eyes thoughtful.

  ‘Money isn’t everything, you know. I suppose you’ll think that’s amusing, coming from me, and there’s absolutely no doubt that it smooths one’s path and makes life a great deal more comfortable than it might otherwise be. But the fact is it can also be a trap. If you go into a company offering you an exceptionally good salary before you know where you are you’ll find yourself tied to them whether you like it or not. ‘‘I can’t give this up and move on,” you’ll find yourself saying. ‘‘ It’s too good a job’’. Especially if you have commitments at home. It’s not good at any age and certainly not when you are young.’

  ‘Grandma, I’m twenty-three.’

  Sophia smiled. ‘Twenty-three! If only you would appreciate just how young that really is and make the most of it! I never had the chance to be young – the war saw to that. Oh Juliet, forgive me. I shouldn’t be telling you what to do. I’m an interfering old woman.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ Juliet said. She was aware of a tingling in her spine as if her grandmother had inadvertently touched on some hidden nerve. How was it she could manage to make Juliet acknowledge her own doubts this way? If she had been one hundred per cent certain about joining Darby Grace why wasn’t she there now? Why had she stolen a holiday which had taken her halfway round the world before starting with them? Yet she hadn’t even considered refusing the job. Everyone – herself included – had said it was too good an opportunity to miss. Too good to miss. Exactly. Wasn’t that what Grandma was saying? That when the advantages were stacked so heavily they made a prison from which it was almost impossible to escape.

  It had been the same with Sean. Without even having set eyes on him her grandmother had somehow sensed Juliet’s uncertainty, sensed that a good man had trapped her in exactly the same way she was predicting a good job would.

  Juliet might have resented Sophia’s instinctive knowledge of her as an invasion of her privacy but she did not. Never before had she so totally shared a wavelength with another person and the experience was more comforting than disturbing. Juliet loved her mother and father yet ever since she had been a little girl she had felt apart from them. They did not understand her and she did not understand them. It was almost, she had sometimes thought, as if she and they were looking down two different ends of a telescope. But with her grandmother the understanding was total and the love that sprung from it as natural as the unspoiled countryside which stretched from La Grange to the sea. Only one thing Juliet could not understand: how Sophia could have confessed to killing her own son. But intuition – the same intuition that gave Sophia a clear insight into Juliet’s deepest feelings – told Juliet that whatever Sophia had done it had not been murder.

  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could go home and tell Mum and Dad they were wrong! Juliet thought. With one stroke I could remove the barrier that has kept them apart from Grandma all these years. How worthwhile that would be!

  The thought spurred her on and she hurried across the car park and through the main door of the pub into a large room set out as an informal restaurant. Although it was only just after twelve-thirty many of the tables were already occupied. ‘It’s as well to be early,’ Dan had said to her on the telephone. ‘The Windmill gets busy, even at this time of year.’ Now she could see what he meant.

  She looked around, unaccountably nervous. She couldn’t see him amongst the jumble of people. She had got the right place, hadn’t she? Oh surely! It was impossible to mistake the enormous windmill erected on the roof of the pub.

  ‘Hello there. You got away then.’

  She swung round. He was standing behind her. He was wearing a dark blue jersey and grey slacks and she thought with a slight jolt of surprise that he was taller than she had realised.

  ‘I got away, yes,’ she said. ‘ It wasn’t as difficult as I imagined it might be.’

  She did not elaborate, didn’t tell him how half an hour ago she had still been chatting with her grandmother wondering how on earth she could explain dashing off at lunchtime without admitting she had someone to meet. But in the event it could not have been simpler. She had said: ‘ Would you mind if I went out for a bit?’ and Sophia had only smiled. ‘Of course not. You know I want you to treat La Grange as your home. Do exactly as you like, my dear. Will we see you for dinner?’ She had nodded, glad she’d had the foresight to arrange to meet Dan for lunch. Absent for dinner would certainly have called for an explanation!

  ‘If there isn’t a table free down here we could always go up to the gallery,’ Dan suggested.

  ‘That sounds nice.’

  ‘Shall we get a drink first? What will you have?’

  ‘Beer,’ Juliet said immediately, then laughed at the look of surprise he was unable to hide. ‘Oh come on, I’m Australian, I’m thirsty, and it’s the middle of the day. Don’t Jersey girls drink beer?’

  ‘Some do. A half or a pint?’

  ‘Oh, a half. Though I’ll probably have the other half later!’ she added mischievously.

  Dan bought two beers and they carried them up the open plan staircase to what he had called ‘the gallery’ where more tables had been set out in what reminded Juliet a little of an old-fashioned hay loft.

  ‘At least we’ll be quiet up here,’ Dan said. ‘If we ever get served!’

  But a waitress was on hand. Dan chose steak and kidney pie and Juliet decided on scampi and salad.

  ‘I suppose this isn’t quite what you’re used to,’ Dan said as the waitress deposited a vinegar bottle and salt on their table.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, as a Langlois I presume you are more used to haute cuisine and a deferential head waiter placing the napkin over your knees!’

  Juliet hardly knew whether to be flattered or annoyed. She was far less used to living in the lap of luxury than he seemed to imagine, but her irrepressible sense of humour came to her rescue.

  ‘Oh. I don’t mind roughing it once in a while,’ she said airily. ‘As long as it’s in the cause of proving my grandmother’s innocence!’ />
  He laughed, admiring her for turning the tables on him so neatly. ‘I take it that is an invitation to get down to business,’ he said.

  ‘You could put it like that. I won’t deny I am very anxious to know if you have been able to make any progress.’

  Dan hesitated. He had a journalist’s – and policeman’s – natural reluctance to share his information, yet he knew that if he was to retain Juliet’s confidence and use her position in the family to gain inside knowledge he must give the impression that he was digging more on her behalf than on his own.

  ‘I’ve talked to one or two people,’ he hedged. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got very far,’ she confessed. ‘It’s so difficult knowing how to bring the subject up. They’re all so cagey. And I don’t want to upset Grandma.’

  ‘You are going to have to if you’re going to turn up anything new.’

  ‘I suppose so. I was hoping that you …’

  ‘You were hoping I was going to do it all for you?’ His voice was cold; once again the hard streak of the professional investigator had surfaced.

  Juliet coloured. ‘It’s not that,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s just that I really didn’t know where to start. I thought maybe if you could give me some kind of lead I need not rush in treading all over people’s toes unnecessarily. Who did you talk to anyway?’

  ‘A policeman.’

  ‘And what did he say? Did he think Grandma was guilty?’

  ‘He said she might have been. Equally so might any of the rest of the members of your family.’

  He heard the quick intake of her breath before it came out on a nervous little laugh.

  ‘Do you have to put it so baldly?’

  ‘You asked me what my contact said. I’m telling you.’

  She was silent for a moment, turning her glass between her hands on the bare, ring-marked wooden table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘It’s just that I find the whole thing incredible. It’s almost as difficult to believe any of them were responsible as it is to believe Grandma … I mean, just look at them! Paul and Viv, middle-aged, no, more than that unless they are going to live to be a hundred and thirty or so, living a quiet sort of life and minding their own business; David, liked by everybody in spite of being head of the family business; Aunt Catherine, a bit eccentric but really sweet.’

  ‘Your Aunt Catherine seems to be out of it. She was in London at the time, it would seem.’

  ‘Well good. I’m glad to hear it. But I don’t think any of them …’

  ‘There are two others you’ve forgotten to mention. Your mother and father.’

  For a moment he wondered if he had pushed her too far. Her head jerked up, eyes snapping with the hidden fire he had always suspected was there.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘I’m not. They can’t be excluded. They were here, remember. And they had motive and opportunity just like the others. I imagine.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, how can you even suggest such a thing?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting it. Others might. After all, if Sophia didn’t kill Louis, someone else did. Statistics prove that murder is most often incestuous – victim and perpetrator are closely involved in some way. Let’s face it, on that basis neither of your parents can be ruled out.’

  The waitress came clattering up the stairs with the meals they had ordered and whilst she served them Dan tried to read Juliet’s mind. He was taking a chance, he knew, by pushing her this far, but it was a calculated risk, based on the assumption that his suggestion that her parents might have been involved would give her an extra incentive to get to the truth. It had been one thing for her to want to prove her grandmother’s innocence when she had assumed an outsider had killed Louis, now he had pointed out one of the family might have been responsible and she realised the hornet’s nest she could be stirring up she might well back off. But if she thought her own parents were under suspicion then surely she would be all the more determined to uncover the culprit. Her first loyalty would be to them; the Jersey relatives couldn’t mean that much to her – she had scarcely known them until a week or so ago. She would almost certainly throw them to the wolves to safeguard her parents’ reputation.

  Of course there was always the possibility that Robin or Molly had had something to do with Louis’s death; they counted very much as suspects in Dan’s book, but by the time such a thing occurred to Juliet, if ever it did, he hoped she would have provided him with the leads he needed.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,’ he said as the waitress disappeared again down the open-plan staircase. ‘I just happen to think you should know what it is you’re getting into.’

  She rolled her knife and fork out of the paper napkin they were wrapped in.

  ‘You haven’t upset me. Annoyed me, perhaps. But not upset me. I was upset to discover my grandmother had served time for murder, even if they did call it manslaughter or whatever. After that, to be quite honest, everything else seems very small beer.’

  Her voice was determinedly casual but he knew from the set of her face and her eyes, dangerously bright, that whatever she might say she was upset.

  She’s got guts, he thought, as well as being pretty. And beneath that veneer she is really rather vulnerable.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else while we’re eating,’ he suggested.

  ‘I’d rather get it all over with at one go.’ She put down her knife and fork and looked at him directly. ‘ What is it you want me to do?’

  A nerve jumped in his throat, part triumph, part nervousness that it might still get away from him.

  ‘Firstly I’d like to know exactly what each of them thought of Louis. They might be a good deal more truthful now than they were twenty years ago. And secondly I’d like to know where each of them claims to have been on the evening he died.’

  ‘Don’t you think they’ll be a bit hazy about that after all this time?’

  ‘I doubt it. After all everyone who was around at the time claims to be able to remember exactly what they were doing when they heard President Kennedy had been shot. When it comes to a family member their memory is bound to be that much sharper.’

  ‘I suppose so. All right, I’ll see what I can do. And what about you …?’

  ‘I’ll do the same.’

  She nodded, apparently satisfied, and picked up her knife and fork.

  ‘All right. Now I’ll talk about something different. What do you suggest?’

  Jersey, Dan thought, was probably the safest subject. He would have liked to have asked Juliet something about herself – where she lived in Australia, what she did for a living – even a girl who would one day inherit the Langlois fortune must presumably do something! – whether she had a serious relationship … yes, he thought, he would very much like to know whether she had a serious relationship. But if he began asking her personal questions it was possible she would turn the tables and do the same to him. That could be awkward. Dan wouldn’t have minded being quizzed about his private life; in his usual less-than-garrulous way he would have simply said he had no ties now and hadn’t had for a very long time. Nothing, but nothing, would have drawn him on the subject of Marianne. But if Juliet began asking questions about what he did for a living it could get very awkward. Rack his brains as he might Dan had been unable to come up with a euphemism for ‘journalist’ which would be acceptable, neither arousing Juliet’s suspicions nor her further curiosity. And he did not want to lie to her. Strange really, considering the shameless way he was using her, but there was a fine dividing line between deception by default and outright deliberate lying and Dan knew he could not bring himself to cross it.

  I am like George Washington, he thought with a flash of self-derogatory humour. I go round cutting down any cherry tree that takes my fancy but I cannot tell a lie.

  ‘So. ‘I suppose you’ve been spending your time looking up old haunts,’ he said, biting into his steak and kidney
pie.

  ‘Not really. I was only very young when I left, remember. Old haunts for me would be Grandma’s garden, the beach, the fields near where I lived. I’ve driven around the lanes, of course, parked up at a few beauty spots to admire the views, but that’s about all. I suppose I’m in a funny position, really, neither a tourist nor a resident, and the family seem to forget that because I’ve been away so long my geography of the island is limited to the hire company map and my knowledge of its history is really very sketchy indeed.’

  Dan smiled, blessing his good fortune. His father, Dan senior, had been quite an amateur historian, a member of the Societe Jersiaise and a wonderful raconteur into the bargain. Unconsciously Dan now borrowed something of his style as he related the old stories to Juliet, telling her how Jersey had once been part of Normandy and had remained so during the English reign of the Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror. Later, when France and England were at war, Jersey had become an English outpost and during the French Revolution it had provided refuge for fleeing aristocracy. A beautiful island which had seen more than its fair share of conflict, his father had always said – and always been used as a pawn between international powers.

  ‘As was proved in the last war,’ he said, finishing the last of his steak and kidney pie with relish. ‘Jersey under the jackboot. But I’m sure you know all about that.’