by Fanny Blake
Praise for Fanny Blake’s An Italian Summer
‘I adored An Italian Summer … Fanny not only writes beautifully about relationships, but the descriptions of Rome and Naples are so ravishing that you not only marvel at the scenery, but also taste the delectable food and feel the hot sun on your back. A most beguiling read’ Jilly Cooper
‘Intelligent, grown-up and cheering, Fanny has cornered the market in “real” stories told well’ Fern Britton
‘A glorious jaunt around Italy with characters I didn’t want to leave’ Clare Mackintosh
‘Fanny Blake’s writing is absorbing, intelligent and an absolute joy to read … Building to an unexpected and clever twist, this heart-warming and compelling novel is the perfect summer read’ Daily Express
‘The clever plot, set in gorgeous Rome and Naples and full of glorious food and wine, has the group dynamics continually shifting … A perfect summer read, full of heart and sunshine’ Bella
‘As themes of friendship and love intertwine with mystery, the plot reels you in until you have no choice but to devour every word’ Heat
‘You’ll be enveloped in Italian sunshine with this great read full of warmth and insight’ Fabulous
‘I loved this book. Fanny Blake excels at exploring the intricate detail of relationships’ Sarah Morgan
‘A lovely, absorbing read, gently told, but with an intriguingly dark edge’ Hilary Boyd
‘Likeable and realistic characters in a glorious Italian setting, this is the perfect summer read’ Maeve Haran
‘From the moment the mystery unfolds straight through to the last pages, Fanny wove an engaging, heartfelt and nuanced story in such a beautifully drawn setting. I didn’t want to put this book down’ Michelle Gorman
Dedication
For Lisa, Samantha and Fran
with much love
Fanny Blake
Contents
Cover
Praise for Fanny Blake’s An Italian Summer
Dedication
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Acknowledgements
Author Biography
Also by Fanny Blake
Copyright
1
I still remember that morning, the morning my life changed irrevocably and not for the first time. I had driven to Monkton Combe where I went for a long walk, one of my ‘inspiration hunts’ as my husband Rob calls them. Sometimes, removing myself from the demands of my interior design business and the internet gives me the distance I need to find inspiration for a new collection or solve any work problems. The business can be stressful, and I feel the pressure to keep the designs fresh, the turnover up and the staff happy. I set up Amy Green, my first interiors shop, about thirty years ago and since then we’ve gone from strength to strength, opening shops in three other cities and selling my fabrics through department stores throughout the country. Of course, the biggest change has come through the internet, so our thriving online shop sells fabric and our products throughout the world.
When I got back to the house, I made some coffee and settled with my laptop in the sitting room, trying not to let my usual guilt from having been away from the business for a few hours take hold. Silly, really. As silly as biting down on an aching tooth.
As soon as I logged into my inbox, I could see that Kerry, our marketing director, had emailed me repeatedly, her messages all flagged as high priority. I was immediately on alert. Since she enjoyed being in control, she usually kept communication to the bare minimum while I was out of the office. She liked proving she could cope without me.
I opened the most recent one.
Amy! Where are you? For God’s sake get in touch when you get this.
I quickly checked back to her first email and started from the beginning of the thread. She must have sent it the previous evening.
The accountants have found a discrepancy of almost £200,000.
I had to pause and read the sentence again. That was impossible. Rob looked after the financial side of things for me and would never let a figure like that go unnoticed. All the same, I felt a nasty shiver of unease.
They’re investigating several accounts that we’ve paid money into that I don’t recognise. Need your help urgently!’
I trusted everyone who worked for me implicitly so I was sure it was some kind of error. However, I knew Kerry well enough to know that she wouldn’t go anywhere until this was straightened out. She would blame herself if anything went wrong on her watch.
I skyped her and she picked up immediately. Seeing her tidy office was oddly reassuring. She was a woman who believed in delegation and a clear desk if a business was to be run efficiently. I did my best to set the same example, but had never succeeded in quite the same way. She looked more harassed than I’d ever seen her; her hair, usually neatly pinned up, hung messily around her face. She looked exhausted, though relieved to see me.
‘Amy! Thank God! I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. I know you switch off when you’re working from home but I’ve been going out of my mind.’
‘Tell me what’s happened.’
She pushed her hair back off her face. ‘I got a call from the accountants. I explained you and Rob were away, so they told me we’re missing around two hundred thousand pounds and asked if I could explain it. Someone’s been transferring money to themselves but recording it as payments to suppliers.’
‘Who would do that?’ No one I employed would. ‘Who could do that?’ I stopped. Only three of us were signatories to the company accounts. If neither Kerry nor I had requested those transfers, that left one person. Rob.
I was only too aware that business had being going through a bit of a dip. I’d been meaning to sit down with Rob to discuss new strategies but he’d been away a lot recently and we’d delayed the discussion. At that moment he was in France, at one of those trade fairs that I hated so much.
‘There’s no point hating them,’ he’d say. ‘It’s new business. Don’t you want new business?’ Sometimes he frowned, sometimes he kissed me. ‘Even if you don’t, I do. For us both.’
‘There must be an explanation.’ I tried to hide my concern from Kerry, because revealing any kind of discord between Rob and me would affect staff morale. We had to show a solid front at all times.
Her raised eyebrows were sufficient comment. ‘Do you check the accounts yourself?’
‘Not recently. I’ve left that all to him.’ How stupid I sounded. Amy Green was my business, for God’s sake. How could I not have involved myself in every aspect? Because I believed in giving people responsibilities and letting them have their heads, and because I trusted Rob. ‘If Rob’s
done this, he must have had a reason.’
‘I hope so. Have you spoken to him? He’s not been answering either.’
‘I’ll call him now. Leave it with me. There’s nothing more you can do.’ I hung up and called Rob.
He picked up immediately. ‘Darling. What’s up?’ Those languid public school tones always made my stomach turn over. They belonged to a world very different from the one I knew when I was growing up.
‘Kerry’s been trying to get hold of us all morning. The accountants are saying our figures are out of synch.’ I didn’t imagine his sharp intake of breath. ‘Any idea what’s going on?’
His silence told me he did have, and that I wasn’t going to like it.
‘Ah … yes.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t do this over the phone.’ His voice didn’t sound quite right.
‘Do what over the phone?’
‘I’ll be a back in a couple of days.’
‘But this is urgent. We need to sort this out now.’ I was alarmed. ‘The fair finished today.’
He lowered his voice so I could barely hear him. ‘There are one or two things that I need to finish off here first. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’
‘What’s going on, Rob?’ Panic washed through me. A distance had been growing between us over the last I-don’t-know-how-long but I’d put that down to the pressures of work.
In the background, I heard a door slam and a woman’s voice that was disconcertingly familiar, although I didn’t immediately put two and two together. ‘Coffee, Rob? We haven’t got long.’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked. ‘Where are you?’ He’d told me he was staying in a hotel that was so cheap and cheerful it wouldn’t impinge on the company’s balance sheet.
‘A friend.’
I knew my husband well enough to know that there was something he wasn’t telling me. ‘Who? What’s going on?’
‘I can’t explain now.’
‘Where are you?’ I insisted.
‘Look, Amy. This isn’t a conversation that I want to have over the phone. I’ll be back for a few days.’
‘For a few days?’ I repeated, helpless. ‘Where are you going after that?’
‘I’ll explain then.’
When he ended the call, I realised I should have pushed him harder for an explanation.
Of course I should have done but the truth was, I didn’t want to hear.
That voice had driven everything else out of my head. Just hearing her was enough to make me doubt him. I’m not a jealous person. Really, I’m not. But Rob hadn’t always been the most faithful of husbands. We’d got over his last affair (a hotel receipt in a jacket pocket was the only clichéd clue required) with apologies, counselling and determination on both sides.
I had convinced myself we had been devoted to each other since then. Though for both of us, Amy Green came a close second, because the business gave us the life we both wanted. But there was something else niggling at me that I couldn’t quite get a hold of. I ran through our conversation again, trying to read between the lines. If he had been defrauding the company – and I couldn’t accept that – what did he need the money for? He had everything he needed. When I had set up the company with his help thirty-odd years ago, we’d agreed that I’d stick to the creative side of things and remove myself from the financial. It wasn’t that I was unable, but he knew what he was doing, and it was a fair division of labour that suited us and let us play to our strengths.
I typed Kerry a quick email.
He’s not picking up for me either. I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve heard from him. Try not to worry. I’m sure he’ll have a good reason. Ax
I hesitated before pressing send. This would be the first time I had lied to her. The business had always benefited from our honesty with one another, although I was plagued by sudden doubt. In any event, I thought it was better not to worry her further by reporting an inconclusive conversation. I knew Rob better than he imagined. Something wasn’t right.
I opened a new email and began to type.
Rob, you didn’t answer my question about the accounts. Why so evasive? Kerry and I are worried about this money. I’m sure there must be an explanation but we need you to share it with us.
Was that too passive aggressive? I was never sure.
Who was that with you? Did I recognise her voice?
I hoped I hadn’t but that might nudge him into telling me.
I know you’re busy and it’s not a good idea to catch you on the hop, but if you could email ASAP and explain all before you’re back, it would go down well at this end! Looking forward to having you back.
I wasn’t. Not really.
It took him two days to come home. Two days during which he never got in touch and I reassured myself frantically that he wasn’t guilty of … what? Fraud? Stealing? Having an affair?
Which was the worst? I wasn’t sure. All of the possibilities hurt.
I heard the front door closing and the sound of him dumping his bag in the hall.
‘I’m in the kitchen,’ I called. I was ready. If he had been stealing from the company, no excuse would do. At the same time, I couldn’t believe he was guilty, and I wanted him to say so. But if not him, who else could it be?
He stood in the open doorway looking hesitant but also unexpectedly determined. His dark hair was showing signs of silver around his temples and his face was unusually pale. His hand moved to the back of his neck. That’s when I knew something was definitely wrong. I had seen him make that gesture numerous times over the years, always prefacing a difficult conversation.
‘This is so hard.’ His hand didn’t move. ‘I don’t know how to say it …’
I suspected that was an understatement. ‘Then you’d better come and sit down.’ My heart was racing.
We pulled out a bar stool each and sat facing each other round a corner of the kitchen island. Behind his head, the large hand of the skeleton station clock tick-tocked the minutes as they passed. Between us, a bunch of bright red, orange and yellow ranunculi flowered in an earthenware vase.
‘I’m not going to make excuses, I’m just going to come clean.’
Nothing coming after that sentence was going to be good.
‘What’s going on? I thought everything was OK between us.’ I don’t know why I said that. Because I wanted it to be true, I suppose.
‘Come on, Amy. You know as well as I do that things haven’t been right for ages. When did we last have sex?’ He paused. ‘Think about it.’
He waited for me to deflect that arrow. But I couldn’t.
Rushing. Snatched meals. Late nights. When had we last spoken to each other properly? Made love?
‘Exactly. So this shouldn’t come as too much of a shock to you.’
‘You’re having an affair.’ A pat on the back for perception, though I was feeling sick with apprehension. I studied the veins in the quartz worktop, my finger tracing one of them.
‘Yes. I’m sorry, but Morag and I want to move to Edinburgh with the kids and start a business together.’
‘Morag!’ I twisted in my seat. ‘You can’t mean it?’
He had the grace to look away. ‘I do.’
‘Morag who I hired to do our publicity?’ He nodded as if I was an imbecile – which at this moment I felt I was. I had so much wanted that voice not to have been hers. ‘The Morag who has a vile ex-husband, three children and is my friend?’
We’d invited them to spend that first Christmas with us when she had nowhere else to celebrate. She was often in our house for supper or weekend brunch while her kids went to her ex. We had gone on mad shopping trips together, spent hours dissecting the business, the new ranges and the staff we did and didn’t need. And all that time, I had never once suspected that she and Rob …
‘For how long?’
‘Nearly two
years now.’
Two years! What a blinkered, trusting idiot I’d been.
‘And the money? Tell me you haven’t been stealing from the business, too.’ I was reeling, unable to get a purchase, but I had to sort this out for everyone else’s sake, too.
That got to him and something like shame crossed his features. ‘I thought I’d be able to pay it back before anything was noticed.’
‘But why? What do you need it for?’ Perhaps he would tell me this was all a terrible joke.
He took a deep breath. ‘We’re setting up our own interiors business and needed it for the start-up costs.’
I was so shocked, I could barely take in what he was saying. ‘But why you didn’t get a loan or go to an investment company?’
‘I was going to, but the ideal premises came up and we had to move fast. I thought I’d have time to pay the money back before anything was noticed.’ He shrugged. ‘But either way, let’s face it, it’s the least you owe me.’
‘What does that mean?’ I was punch drunk from one shock after another. They were setting up in competition!
‘I’ve worked for you for years and you’ve never given me so much as a share in the company.’
‘You’ve never asked.’
‘More fool me.’
‘I didn’t know that was what you wanted. We agreed that it was my company and I should retain ownership of it. I thought you were happy with that.’
‘We’re soulmates,’ Rob had once said to me. ‘We’ll beat the world together, whatever it throws at us.’
I had been crazy in love then. ‘Promise me we’ll never not talk. Never hide anything. Never be dishonest with one another.’
He promised.
But now, apart from wrecking our marriage, he was torpedoing our business, too.
‘What are you going to do?’ He swept his hand through his hair.
I looked into those eyes that I thought I knew so well but there was no reaction. However, I had him in the palm of my hand.
‘Am I going to report you to the police? Is that what you mean?’
He nodded. ‘But you don’t have to.’ Desperation had crept into his voice. ‘I’ll pay you back. I can’t do it all at once but I can do it.’
