Kingdom of Shadows (40 page)

14

Henry arrived at Bucksters at 10.45 a.m. It was a bright, blustery day, the brilliant golds and russets of the trees flaming against a vivid, cloud-streaked sky. Clare met him at the door. She was wearing an emerald-green cowl-necked sweater and a full, calf-length skirt which emphasised her slimness. Her eyes were shadowed and she looked very pale.

‘Would you like to walk round the garden for a bit? You must be fed up with sitting in the car.’ It was as if she could not bear to be inside the house another minute. Without waiting for his answer she came out on to the gravel, leaving the front door open behind her.

Obediently Henry put down his case and followed her on to the grass. She wasn’t wearing a coat. The wind caught her hair, tossing it wildly, and flicked her skirt, showing a froth of white lace beneath it. Henry licked his lips.

She had had the nightmare again that night. The fear; the desperate attempts to escape; the eyes peering at her. She had awakened at five in the morning, her nightgown drenched with perspiration, and, shaking, had groped her way to the window, pushing it open. It hadn’t been a cold night. The wind was fresh and salty as if it had come straight from the sea and she had sat there on the windowseat watching the day creep imperceptibly over the fields. She was terrified that now she was awake Isobel would come back to her. She had no wish to return to that violent, terrifying world, ever. As dawn broke at last, crimson and green streaked with copper, she had realised with another pang of fear that she had at least four hours to wait until Henry arrived.

‘It is beautiful out here.’ Henry followed her towards the beech hedge which hid the pool. ‘You and Paul are lucky to have such a lovely home.’

‘Yes, aren’t we?’ Her smile was artificial; brittle; unlike her.

Henry felt a wave of compassion. ‘You look tired, Clare. Is everything all right?’ He took her arm gently and to his dismay he saw there were tears in her eyes.

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t sleep well, that’s all. Take no notice.’ Gently she pulled away from him. ‘It’s good of you to drop in with the things for me to sign. Paul is always pushing great sheaves of papers at me and they always seem to be urgent.’ She smiled wanly.

In front of them the pool was hidden beneath its heavy cover. A drift of leaves lay, bright gold on the plastic. Clare stared down at it. ‘I hate it when the cover’s on. Do you want to swim?’

Henry put his hands in his pockets. He shivered slightly. ‘Isn’t it a bit late in the year for swimming outside?’

‘Of course not!’ She was laughing suddenly. ‘There are towels and spare trunks in the changing room. Come on! Then we’ll have coffee by the fire to warm you up!’

The cover slid back leaving the pool a brilliant ice blue in the cloud-shadowed sunshine. Henry took off his clothes in the draughty cedar-scented changing room and gingerly eased on a pair of trunks. They were a bit big and he pulled the lace tightly to adjust the waist. His skin was pale and flabby as he looked down at himself and he had a sudden moment of doubt. He didn’t want Clare to see him like this, unfit and untanned, but it was too late, already she had emerged from her end of the changing room. He watched her walk, tall and slim in a peacock-blue bikini across the concrete pool surround. For a moment she stood on the edge, nerving herself in the cold wind, then she dived in. Christ, she was beautiful! His excitement, he realised ruefully, was all too obvious in the borrowed swimming costume. He grabbed a towel from the pile on the shelf behind him and held it in front of himself as he watched her swim the length of the pool and cling to the far side.

She turned and smiled at him, pushing her wet hair back from her face. ‘Come on in.’

‘It looks cold.’ He grinned apologetically.

‘It is.’ Her eyes had lost their haunted look. ‘It’s freezing. Dive in and swim hard.’

‘Right!’ He strode to the end of the pool. Dropping the towel he stood for a fraction of a second, his toes curled over the mosaic rim of the pool and then he dived in. The coldness of the water was numbing as he swam the length fast, underwater, coming up close beside her, laughing. ‘Do I get an award for speed?’

‘No chance!’ She splashed him playfully. Spluttering, he caught her wrist, and off balance in the water she swung against him. For a moment their bodies lingered against one another, warm in the cold water, then she pulled away. ‘I’m sorry, Henry –’

‘It’s OK.’ He smiled rather grimly. ‘It’s OK. I understand.’

‘No, you don’t.’ Abruptly she turned away from him. She swam towards the far side of the pool and, pulling herself out of the water, she picked up the towel Henry had discarded. Drying her face, she looked up at the sky. The clouds were sailing across the sun at high speed, torn, blustery rags of grey and white.

Henry pulled himself up the ladder. He walked self-consciously around the pool towards her. ‘I’d better get dressed, Clare. I have to get straight back to London.’

‘Of course. It’ll only take a minute to sign those silly papers of Paul’s.’

They did not speak again until they were dressed and back in the house. Her skin was still cold and clammy beneath her clothes as she poured coffee for him in the drawing room and she could feel her hair dripping uncomfortably down her neck. Putting her own cup down on the hearth she knelt in her favourite position before the fire with the brown manilla envelope Henry had taken from his briefcase. Inside were about a dozen sheets of closely typed or printed A4 paper. Clare glanced at the top one and pulled a face. ‘From our accountant. He’s always wanting me to sign boring forms.’ She unscrewed the cap of her fountain pen and signed with a flourish.

Sipping his coffee Henry watched her from the sofa. When she reached the third document he frowned. ‘Don’t you ever read them to see what you’re signing?’ he asked, reaching for a biscuit from the plate on the table near him.

Clare shrugged. ‘Not usually. They’re so boring. Paul just marks the places.’

‘You should, you know.’ Henry shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Do you know what these are?’ She looked up at him.

‘Of course not. The envelope was sealed. It’s just that no one should ever sign anything without reading it carefully.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Sorry, am I being stuffy?’

She nodded. ‘Very. But I suppose you are right.’ Making a face, she drew her legs up beneath her and began to skim through the sheaf of papers. Near the bottom of the pile was a document, the contents of which were on the inside two pages. On the front there was merely the space for her signature, and beneath it, also marked by Paul with pencil crosses, the spaces for the signatures of two witnesses – Henry and Sarah Collins. Putting down the rest of the pile with a frown Clare opened the document and began to read.

Watching her, Henry saw her face whiten as she read the two closely typed pages. She came to the end at last and looked up. She appeared stunned. ‘So, you couldn’t bring yourself to go through with it!’ she cried. ‘What stopped you? The hope that I might go to bed with you if I were grateful enough?’

Henry clambered to his feet, his own face white. ‘I don’t know what you mean –’

‘Don’t you? Look at this! I would have signed it!’ She held out the folded paper to him and shook it in front of his nose.

Henry caught it with difficulty and began to read. In it the signatory – Clare – made over all her property and the administration of all her affairs, voluntarily, to her husband, now and for the foreseeable future. Signed, witnessed and dated, it would have had the weight of a legal document.

Henry read it again, slowly, feeling himself going cold all over. Carefully he put it down and retrieved his coffee cup. He did not look up at Clare. ‘I didn’t know what was in the envelope. Paul just said they were important papers from your accountant. I thought it was a bit odd, asking me to do it, but I always like seeing you. I suppose he knows that …’ His voice trailed away.

‘You know what this would have done?’ She jumped to her feet. ‘It would have given Duncairn to Paul. It would have allowed him to sell it! He was trying to trick me!’ Her voice shook. ‘I would have signed it, Henry. Why? Why does he want the money so badly?’

Henry swallowed. ‘I think he’s in bad trouble, Clare.’ He could not bear to see her strained expression. Business loyalty was one thing, but this was quite another. Paul was behaving like a complete shit. ‘He’s in over his head on a deal. It went bad and now settlement day is coming up. I shouldn’t tell you this. I don’t suppose he even knows I know. He owes a great deal of money and I think he may have gambled again on some other shares using inside knowledge of a takeover that was being planned, and now they’ve gone down too. I suspect he needs to raise a lot of cash by early next month.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry, Clare.’

‘Are you talking about insider dealing?’ She stared at him. ‘He could go to prison for that!’

Henry nodded grimly. ‘He’s not been very clever about it; I think quite a few people have guessed and now the deal has fallen through he is trying to raise money all over the place. He must have been left with a colossal bill. He might manage to get the broker to roll over the account until the next settlement date – that would give him another two weeks or so, but that’s it. They won’t extend it after that. He will be in real trouble then unless he can find the cash. Maybe –’ he hesitated. ‘Maybe, Clare, you should bail him out.’ He looked away, unable to bear the sudden bewildered pain on her face. ‘It might be his only hope.’

‘To sell Duncairn?’ she echoed. ‘But why? Why did he do it? We had so much money. He didn’t need more. What about his shares in the firm? He said BCWP were in trouble. He said he’s lost money there –’

Henry shook his head. ‘Our first-year profits after the merger weren’t as good as we’d hoped, but things are OK now. His shares in the firm are all right.’

‘Then he could sell those.’

Henry nodded slowly. ‘He could, but that would be the end of his career in the City.’

Clare swallowed. Her mind was desperately darting back and forth, trying to find a way out. ‘And if I sell Duncairn, will that save his career?’

There was a long silence. Henry shrugged. ‘That depends how much it would fetch, exactly how much he has lost and how many people know about the way he’s been setting up these deals.’

Clare stared at him white-lipped. ‘You mean he might still be caught? Still go to prison, even if he has the money?’

‘There’s been too much scandal, Clare. Too many cases of insider dealing in the last few years. The authorities won’t let anyone get away with it now.’

‘Why didn’t he tell me?’

‘I don’t suppose he wanted to worry you –’

‘Worry me! I have been going through hell these last few weeks, knowing he wanted Duncairn sold and not understanding why, knowing everything was going wrong between us. I thought it was the fact that I couldn’t have a baby –’ Her voice broke suddenly and she turned away.

Henry put out his hand towards her, then lowered it again helplessly. ‘Clare, my dear –’

‘He’s put everything I care about in jeopardy!’ she burst out suddenly. ‘Everything! I can’t sell Duncairn! I can’t!’

‘You may have to, Clare.’ His voice was gentle. ‘He doesn’t have anything else.’

‘But he does!’ She spun round suddenly. ‘He still has the Royland shares. He must have. He can’t sell them without offering them to his brothers and Emma first and I know he hasn’t done that. When his grandfather’s firm went public they all got founder shares. They are worth about two million.’

Henry sat down. ‘Then there’s no problem about the money. If he’s careful he could get himself out of that particular corner without touching your money.’

Clare closed her eyes. She was so pale that her skin was almost transparent. Henry wanted very badly to go to her, to take her in his arms and hold her. Clenching his fists he forced himself to stay where he was.

‘You’d better sign the other papers,’ he said.

She nodded. Sitting down on a chair near him she read each one of the papers and carefully signed them. The other document she folded up and put into her pocket before standing up. ‘Take the rest back to him, Henry. Don’t say anything. For your own sake keep out of it. I’m coming up to London tomorrow. If he wants to scream and shout he can do it to me.’

She watched as he put his case on the back seat of his BMW. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, then he climbed in. He did not trust himself to look back.

After he had gone she walked back to the pool. They hadn’t replaced the cover and already there was a carpet of leaves floating on the water. She stood for a long time looking down at it, then, pulling the folded paper out of her pocket, she began to tear it slowly into a thousand pieces. As the clouds sped across the sun, sending black shadows racing over the garden, she scattered the pieces of paper over the surface of the pool and watched them drift lazily beneath the leaves.

Mary Cummin stared out of the condo window and sighed. She had become used to the view across Eaton Square with its majestic trees and the white-painted Georgian houses on the far side. Each time she crossed the Atlantic now it took a little longer to adjust. Was that advancing age, she wondered? She turned her back on the window and stood instead in front of the mirror, smoothing her white skirt down over her narrow hips. Her hair was glossy and immaculate, her face taut and youthful. She looked far less than her fifty-six years. In the kitchen she could hear the Filippino maid, Teresa, rattling the plates and saucepans. Tonight they would dine early at home, even if they were out for every meal for the rest of their stay in Houston.

She looked at the tiny diamond-studded watch on her wrist and frowned. Rex was late. The meeting with the bosses at Sigma must be running over.

He came back at nine, by which time it was dark outside the windows, the city a landscape of lights beneath a luminous sky. She could smell the liquor on his breath.

‘Rex?’

Teresa had gone to her room, the dinner slowly drying up in the oven where she had left it to keep warm. Mary pulled the cords which dropped the blinds across the huge windows. She turned on a white-shaded lamp in the corner, almost afraid to ask what had happened. Below in the street she could hear the wailing of a police siren speeding down the block.