Death Comes First (10 page)

Far from rekindling an old flame, it had left her feeling embarrassed, she reflected as she waited for Stephen to pick up his phone.

‘Joyce, how lovely to hear from you
 . . .
’ he began.

He must have known that she would have received the letter sent from his office, and that it had more than likely prompted her call, but he still contrived to sound flirtatious.

‘This is business, strictly business, Stephen,’ she interrupted, determined to nip that in the bud straight away.

‘Of course,’ he said, his tone suddenly formal.

‘There are a number of things I need to speak to you about, as a matter of urgency,’ Joyce continued.

‘Ah, you got the letter?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry about the delay. Unforgivable. It must have arrived as things were beginning to get back to normal for you again.’

‘Things are never going to get back to normal, Stephen,’ she said with feeling.

‘No, of course not,’ responded Stephen. ‘Damned silly thing to say. I’m sorry
 . . .
’

‘Stop apologizing, for goodness’ sake, Stephen – I didn’t call to remonstrate. I was hoping you might be able to drop by for an hour or so later so we can talk.’

‘I’d be delighted.’ He sounded rather too delighted in Joyce’s opinion. Hopeful even.

‘I need your professional advice,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ said Stephen. ‘Is it about the letter? I mean, I don’t know what’s in it, obviously, but—’

‘I should hope you don’t know what’s in the letter,’ said Joyce. ‘We may have been friends for a long time but you’re still the company secretary and the family solicitor. Ethics, and so on.’

She felt a little guilty, speaking to him in that way when it was quite possible that he’d done nothing to warrant her implied reprimand, but his response made light of it.

‘Ethics?’ he queried. ‘County to the East of London, isn’t it?’

‘Oh very funny,’ she said, her tone lighter now. ‘As for the letter, you’re right, it was a shock, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I would like to go through Charlie’s will again. And our financial arrangements. I owe it to the kids to make sure I know exactly what our position is.’

‘Pretty rosy, I should say, Joyce. Financially, at least. But we can discuss it if that would put your mind at rest. Do you want me to bring Gordon along?’

Gordon Hawkins was the company accountant. Like Stephen he also dealt with personal matters for the Tanner family.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d prefer to talk to you on your own first.’

They made an appointment for two o’ clock that afternoon. Joyce supposed that she was taking a risk in inviting him to her home; even though she’d made it clear she was seeking his professional advice, Stephen might think it was a pretext and the real motive was her eagerness to repeat their sexual encounter. A lapse, as she now thought of it, that she had been regretting even before the arrival of that earth-shattering letter.

It had been all too easy to seek solace with Stephen. He remained a good-looking and charismatic man, she’d always suspected he still found her attractive, and they had a history. But much as she’d enjoyed the sex, she hadn’t been ready to risk the kind of emotional entanglement she feared might follow. The last thing she wanted was to have to fend off an amorous Stephen, but she’d sooner that than run the risk of bumping into her father by going to the office. Not that her meeting with Stephen was likely to escape Henry’s ultra-sensitive
radar for long; Henry’s employees, like his family, had been trained to inform him of their every move.

Stephen arrived on the dot. Did he look anxious or was it her imagination?

He leaned towards her. They had always greeted each other with a kiss. She made sure it was a light one. On the cheek. Then she led him into the kitchen. He dumped his briefcase on the table and began to remove papers. Charlie’s will, Joyce’s will, the details of their various bank accounts and shareholdings, including Charlie’s stake in Tanner-Max, which Joyce already knew had passed to Mark rather than to her – or would do, once a death certificate was issued. Henry was a firm believer in patrilineal inheritance – no female equality in the Tanner line of succession. Not that Joyce cared. She had never had the slightest desire to become involved in the family business.

Her request for an overview of her financial affairs was, in any case, merely a ruse. She’d decided that the best approach to adopt with Stephen would be to catch him off balance. If such a thing were possible.

She didn’t offer him tea or coffee. Not at first. Instead she stood in silence, regarding him with a frosty stare as he emptied his bag on to the table. She waited until he sat down and began methodically arranging the papers in front of him before blurting out the real purpose of the meeting:

‘Stephen, I know that something was worrying Charlie before he died, something to do with the business and my family. And I want you to tell me what it was.’

He looked up at her in alarm. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Joyce.’

‘I think you have, Stephen,’ said Joyce, calling his bluff. ‘You were Charlie’s best and oldest friend. You worked
together. In any case, Charlie made it clear in his letter that something was troubling him and that you knew all about it.’

She saw his eyes flicker, she was sure of it.

‘Well, there you have the advantage of me, Joyce,’ he said. ‘I have no idea what was in Charlie’s letter. And I find it hard to believe that he had any worries about the business. Charlie was a happy and successful man. He enjoyed his work. He had you and the kids. And he had all this.’

Stephen waved both arms as if trying to encompass the whole of Charlie Mildmay’s world.

‘You must have noticed his moods, for God’s sake,’ said Joyce.

‘Well, yes, he had black days, but don’t we all,’ said Stephen. ‘Pressure of work and all that.’

‘You seriously expect me to believe it was nothing more than that?’ asked Joyce.

Stephen shrugged. ‘What else could there be? Charlie had everything. He loved his family. He had no financial worries. He had a great life.’

‘Yes, and all of it provided by my father,’ Joyce said bitterly. ‘Perhaps it all came with a price tag, and the price was more than Charlie could stomach.’

Stephen looked even more alarmed.

‘Joyce dear, it’s understandable that you’re upset. But I think you’re imagining things.’

‘Don’t you dare patronize me!’ Joyce snapped. ‘I have a letter from my dead husband which makes it clear that I’m not imagining anything. It’s more a case of my eyes having been closed until now, isn’t it?’

‘Joyce, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Look, why don’t you show me the letter? Then perhaps I can help. I’m totally in the dark here.’

‘Are you sure you need to be shown the letter?’ said Joyce. ‘Are you sure you haven’t read it already?’

‘Joyce, what sort of a man do you think I am?’ asked Stephen, aghast. ‘Do you really think I would read a personal letter between a man – and not any man but, as you say, my best friend – and his wife? Do you think I would do that?’

‘You were prepared to shag his wife though, weren’t you?’

‘His widow,’ countered Stephen, his brows puckered into a hurt frown. ‘I would never have acted upon my feelings for you while Charlie was alive, even though I never stopped wanting—’

‘Shut up, Stephen!’ Joyce was aware that she was being hard on him. It wasn’t as if he’d forced himself on her. If anything, she’d been the one who made the first move. But she somehow couldn’t stop herself venting her anger at him.

‘I want to know about the letter,’ she persisted. ‘Why did it take six months to get to me. Why was that?’

‘Oh, Joyce, it got misfiled, that’s all. It should have been in with our copy of the will but it got put somewhere else. Janet’s a first-rate PA, but even she makes mistakes sometimes. When she found the letter she sent it off straight away. It was human error.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Well, do I get to see it?’

She carried on staring at him, but Stephen had one of those faces that gave nothing away. Unless he wanted it to.

‘The letter was personal,’ she said coldly. ‘I think I’ll keep it to myself.’

‘As you wish.’

‘Oh, and I’ve changed my mind about all that financial stuff.’ She waved a hand dismissively at the papers spread across the kitchen table. ‘I mean, it’s not as if it matters a
damn whether I understand it or not, does it? No doubt you and my father will only ever show me what you want me to see. And you two will still control everything, whatever I think or do.’

‘Joyce, it’s not like that, I promise you,’ said Stephen, looking even more hurt and misunderstood. ‘Charlie has left you very well off. You will be a wealthy woman in your own right once all the legal stuff is settled and a death certificate issued. Nobody would want to stop you from looking after your own finances. It is what Charlie would have wanted, and it’s what Henry wants too. And I can assure you that neither Henry nor I would ever interfere. Of course, if you were to require help, we would be only too happy to—’

‘I’ll bet you would!’ retorted Joyce. ‘I’m afraid I’m not too convinced by any of your assurances right now, Stephen. I think you’d better go, don’t you?’

‘But I’ve only just arrived.’ He smiled seductively. ‘And we were getting on so—’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she cut him off.

‘No, I have very real feelings for you, Joyce. I always have. And I was hoping last week might be the beginning of something new for both of us. All I want is to take care of you, to make you happy again.’

‘Please go, Stephen,’ she told him.

There had been a moment earlier when she’d almost felt sorry for him, but now she was merely angry. He must have the skin of a rhinoceros, she thought, to make such a remark after the way she had treated him.

‘Why does everybody want to take care of me?’ she continued. ‘It was one shag, Stephen. That’s all we had. One shag after a quarter of a century. And you caught me at a weak
moment. I am not ready for new beginnings. Not with you. Not with anyone.’

‘Oh, Joyce, I would never rush you. But you have to know it wasn’t just a sh-sh
 . . .
’

He seemed to have difficulty even getting the word out.

‘Not just a shag,’ he managed eventually. ‘Not for me, anyway.’

The sight of his stricken face only made Joyce even angrier.

‘Go, Stephen. Please go!’ She shouted the words at the top of her voice, surprising not only Stephen but herself as well.

Stephen re-packed his bag, doing so as carefully as he did everything, perhaps as a kind of protest against her behaviour, and perhaps in the vain hope that she might calm down and change her mind.

Joyce could not explain why she was in such a rage. And neither could she explain why she had vented at Stephen. She hadn’t intended to. She had intended to be calm and cool and clever, yet somehow she’d failed dismally in all three respects.

As Stephen got back in his car and drove off, Joyce’s rage began to re-focus. Now she was furious with herself. In allowing her temper to get the better of her she had not only revealed her hand, she had laid her cards out on the table. Worse, she had learned absolutely nothing in the process. And having alienated Stephen, it was unlikely that she ever would learn anything from him.

The plan she’d been so pleased with when she woke that morning had failed at the first hurdle, and there was no plan B.

Five

Stephen usually found the hum of his F-type Jaguar’s motor and the comfort of its upholstered leather seats sufficient to soothe away most cares and worries. Not today though. He was too shaken by Joyce’s outburst.

She should never have been allowed to see that letter. Her reaction was proof that Henry’s policy of shielding women from the harsher realities was a sound one. Women – even educated women like Joyce – were loose cannons, incapable of conducting themselves rationally when their emotions were engaged – and that was the last thing you wanted in a business environment. Particularly a business like theirs.

Stephen knew what he should do next. He should call Henry straight away and tell him what had happened. But there were two reasons why he didn’t want to do that. The first was that Joyce’s anger would pale into insignificance compared to the rage Henry would fly into, and he would be on the receiving end. The second was that he had carried a flame for Joyce for twenty-odd years, and for Stephen, that over-shadowed his business obligations.

He found himself thinking, as he so often did, of the young undergraduate he’d seduced twenty-six years earlier. He had been a fool ever to let her get away, but he’d been
just a kid himself, out to earn a reputation as a Lothario. Joyce had been particularly receptive, a warm and eager lover. But at the time she’d merely been one more
 . . . 
well, he’d never actually carved notches on his bedpost, but that pretty much summed up his attitude in those days.

He was sure Joyce had been upset when she found out about the other women, but whereas most of his conquests cried and pleaded with him, Joyce had responded with a cold and distant anger. She’d been strong too, telling him that she wouldn’t stand for it, and that their relationship, such as it was, was over. At first he hadn’t cared a jot. It was only when Joyce and Charlie became an item that he began to have regrets, to wonder whether Joyce had meant more to him than he’d realized. He’d hoped that he might get a second chance, so he could prove that, beneath his devil-may-care facade, he really cared for her. Indeed he found himself hoping that the relationship between Joyce and Charlie wouldn’t last.

In spite of that, he set out to make friends with Charlie. He reckoned that if he was close to Charlie, he would be well placed to keep an eye on the state of their relationship and step in if it began to wane. Joyce accepted him as a friend far more readily than he would have expected. Whatever grudge she might have borne against him was forgotten the moment Charlie came on the scene.

It soon became evident that what Joyce had with Charlie was no fling. The pair were convinced that they would be together for ever – an opinion shared by anyone who came in contact with them. So there would be no second chance for Stephen. The best he could hope for was a platonic friendship with both halves of the couple who were soon to be known as JC.