Old Sins (98 page)

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Phaedria briskly. ‘I think it’s nice that I’ve got so much to do, and think about. Nothing like a bit of adrenaline surging through the system to keep one going.’

Henry looked at her concernedly. ‘Phaedria, as a friend, rather than a lawyer, don’t take on too much. You really don’t look very well. Do you feel all right?’

‘No, I feel dreadful,’ said Phaedria cheerfully. ‘I feel terrible in the morning and worse still in the afternoon. As for the
evenings, well, they don’t bear thinking about. But I don’t think that’s going to improve with sitting about and moping either. Do you? What did Caroline do when she was pregnant?’

‘As little as possible,’ said Henry. ‘And loved every minute of it. I think that’s why we have five children.’

Phaedria smiled. ‘Well, I don’t expect I shall have more than one. So I’ll just have to get it right first time round.’

‘Yes,’ he said, the poignancy of her situation suddenly and sharply brought home to him. ‘Yes, and I’m sure you will.’

She sighed. ‘I hope so. Anyway, until you can find me some private detective or something who can help me, let’s make a start now. What ideas do you have?’

‘Well, obviously we can – indeed have to – run searches. We are obliged to do that by law. In
The Times
and so on, and also of course in the
Law Society Gazette.
We can advertise. That will of course provide us with several Miles Wilburns, I would have thought, all claiming to be the true Christ, so to speak. But the trouble is we don’t know what we’re looking for. He might be old, or young, presentable or otherwise, he might live almost anywhere in the English-speaking world, we don’t know if he’s stupid or clever, honest or dishonest, black or white.’

‘I think,’ said Phaedria thoughtfully, ‘he’s unlikely to be stupid, at any rate. Julian wouldn’t leave the controlling share of his precious company to a moron. Quite presentable, I should think, for the same reason. I mean not sleeping under the arches, or on the beach. And I imagine he’d be fairly young. Otherwise his role in this charade would be pretty short lived. I guess he’ll be at least what my editor used to call working honest – honest enough, that means. But I agree after that we’re really in the dark. I suppose he’s most likely to be living either here or in the States. Wilburn sounds a bit more of an American name. ‘Can we advertise these as well, and in the other countries where we have sizeable interests and assets? You’ll have to advise me. Oh Henry, what an extraordinary thing it is. Tell me something, there can be no doubt I presume as to the legality of the will?’

‘Oh none at all.’ said Henry, ‘Witnessed by perfectly bona fide people, no one we know, but nonetheless genuine. Signed, dated last December. He didn’t use me to draw it up, as you know. He may even have done it himself. My first sight of it was when you sent it over. One of the oddest things of course was this
insistence on it being read publicly. Specifying that all the beneficiaries had to be there. It’s extremely unusual these days. I really cannot understand it.’

‘Oh well,’ said Phaedria, ‘he always did have a great sense of theatre.’

She sighed and was silent for a moment, her eyes shadowy and distant. He was silent, realizing the pain and the humiliation the whole thing must be causing her, not knowing how to comfort her.

‘Well,’ she said, briskly, hauling herself back to the present and the room with obvious effort. ‘Perhaps the first thing is to try to find out who did draw it up for him. Maybe nobody did. Maybe he did it himself.’

‘He might have done. But it’s been typed. I don’t think he could do that.’

‘Oh,’ said Phaedria with a smile. ‘There is absolutely no knowing what Julian could and couldn’t do. I’m quite serious. Letitia might know. I’ll ask her.’

‘How is she coping with all this? She looked very fragile yesterday, I thought.’

‘Yes, these few weeks have been the first time I’ve seen her looking anything like her proper age. She didn’t have to come, of course, but she said wild horses wouldn’t have kept her away. I hope I’m even half as splendid at eighty-seven.’

‘Oh, I think you will be,’ said Henry. ‘In fact I have absolutely no doubt about it whatsoever.’

‘Thank you. I need lots of that, Henry, lots of flattery.’

‘Then,’ he said, ‘I shall take you out to lunch at least once a week and flatter you solidly for two hours. How’s that?’

‘Oh,’ she said, smiling, ‘I don’t think I shall be able to spare quite that much time, but certainly a little on a regular basis would be very welcome.’

‘The witnesses don’t help at all, either. Nobody we’ve ever heard of. Mary Unwin and David Potter, indeed. Sounds as if he made them up.’

‘He probably did,’ said Phaedria, laughing, ‘which would make the whole thing null and void, I suppose?’

‘Yes, it would. But that wouldn’t help you at all, would it?’

‘Not really, no. Is it worth trying to track them down, though?
They might at least be able to tell us when they signed the bloody thing.’

‘Oh, I think so, yes,’ said Henry, ‘it would be enormously helpful. I will give that some thought, Phaedria, but the more I look at this whole thing, the more I think you need a private detective agency working for you. A really good one. I’ll make a few preliminary inquiries, and you can get things rolling straight away.’

‘Yes,’ said Phaedria, ‘that would be very helpful. Thank you. Although I have a nasty feeling that at least one of the really good ones may already be in the employ of Mrs Emerson.’

‘I want this person found,’ said Roz, fixing Andrew Blackworth with a steely gaze, ‘and I want him found quickly.’

Andrew Blackworth was not too much as she had imagined; he was not sleek and sharp looking, he was about forty-five years old, short, rotund, and rather learned-seeming. She liked everything about him.

‘We have a long way to travel,’ he said, ‘perhaps literally.’

‘Yes,’ she said abandoning reluctantly her vision of finding and coercing Miles Wilburn on to her side within the space of seven days, ‘yes, I suppose so. But then again, given some luck, we might do better.’

‘We might indeed. And of course, in working with us you have considerable skills working for you as well as luck. Skills and contacts. Are you prepared to put your trust in those?’

‘Yes,’ said Roz, ‘yes, I think so. Yes, I am.’

‘Good. Now then, in order to utilize them, I need all the information you can possibly give me.’

‘You’re welcome to it. But there really isn’t any. None at all.’

‘Could I talk to the widow?’

‘No,’ said Roz. It was a flat, final sound; it brooked no further discussion.

‘Right. Well, could I ask you a few questions?’

‘Of course.’

‘You are quite quite sure you have never heard your father mention this name?’

‘Well of course, he may have done. I can’t remember every name that ever passed his lips. But in the context of someone to whom he was going to leave what amounts to the controlling
share in his company, someone he knew well and presumably trusted, no.’

‘Right. And you have no idea when the will was made?’

‘None. Other than clearly it was since his marriage to Miss Blenheim.’

Blackworth’s lips twitched at the interesting demotion of Lady Morell to her unmarried state.

‘Which was June of 1983?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I have a copy of the will?’

‘Yes. I’ll ask the solicitor today.’

‘And he did not draw it up?’

‘No. He says he knew nothing about it until it was delivered into his hands by – by the widow.’

‘Interesting, that. Not to leave it in the keeping of his solicitor.’

‘Yes, well, my father was an interesting man.’ She sounded sad; he looked at her sharply. He was a kind and discerning person; he felt sure that beneath the hardness, the carefully cultivated tough talk, was someone very different.

‘Is there anyone else in the family who might be able to help me?’

‘Well, I daresay there might be, but they won’t want to talk. His mother might know something of this person, but she was quite sure yesterday that she didn’t. Same goes for his first wife. Then there are the mistresses. More of them. You might get something there, if you sifted through them. It might take a year or two.’

He looked at her in amusement.

‘I understood we did not have a year or two. Is there any particular friend, associate, who might be able to help? Someone who has known him, let us say, for a considerable time?’

‘Well, you could try. They might not want to talk. There’s Mrs Susan Brookes, she is just about his oldest friend. Most assuredly not his mistress though,’ she added with a warning look in her eyes. ‘I can give you her address, she lives in London.’

‘I shall certainly talk to her if you think she will agree.’

‘Oh, she certainly will. And then there’s Camilla North. She certainly won’t want to talk if she knows you’re acting for me.’

‘I see. Where is Miss – Ms North?’

‘Miss,’ said Roz ferociously. ‘Back in New York as from today, but again, I can give you her address.’

‘Excellent. Now where did your father spend most of his time?’

‘Well, here latterly. In New York a great deal in the sixties and seventies. He had a home there. He also had business interests in many European cities and of course in places like Tokyo, Sydney, other American cities and states.’

‘I think we should look initially more intensely at places where he had homes. Which are?’

‘Well, apart from London and New York and a house in Sussex, of course, there’s a place near Nice and a flat in Sydney, and a house on one of the Bahamian islands, Eleuthera.’

‘I see. What a fortunate man he was.’

‘Yes and no,’ said Roz with a sigh. ‘I don’t think he was really very successful with human relationships.’

‘Few rich and powerful men are,’ said Andrew Blackworth gravely. ‘Now if you can get me a copy of the will, Mrs Emerson, I will begin instigating inquiries immediately. And I think we should find ourselves getting somewhere fairly fast.’

‘Thank you Mr Blackworth. I certainly hope so.’ She stood up, looking at him, a touch of humour in her face. ‘What about rich and powerful women? Any better?’

‘Oh, I’m afraid not,’ he said, ‘in my experience, infinitely worse.’

Phaedria was sitting at the huge desk that had been Julian’s, a neat pile of papers and files at her left elbow, a large foolscap pad in front of her, which she was covering rapidly with notes. Richard Brookes and Freddy Branksome, who had both been expecting to spend most of the afternoon humouring her and dispensing sympathy, were slightly disconcerted by the turn events were taking.

‘What I’d like,’ she said, looking at them composedly, ‘is a complete breakdown of the structure of the company, the relative value of its different components, its assets, its liabilities, and perhaps, from both of you, an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. Nothing too technical –’ she smiled
briefly – ‘but a kind of gut reaction, with obviously facts and figures to support it, where necessary. For instance, I have a hunch, just a hunch, that the hotels are not really making us a great deal of money. And are costing us dear in terms of personnel, hassle, and investment generally. On the other hand, they obviously provide a high-profile visible asset. I’m also not really very sure about this new communications company. I imagine that’s an investment in the future, satellite TV and so on. Could you clarifiy that a little for me please?’ She looked at them both and smiled. ‘I must seem very ignorant, foolish even. But I am desperately anxious to familiarize myself with this company, and assess what my future role might be. I want to keep it running successfully. For Julian’s sake.’

‘Of course,’ said Richard, ‘and we will do everything in our power to assist you. Won’t we, Freddy?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Freddy, ‘everything. But, Lady Morell, there is one thing – oh, it’s a little delicate, but it has to be broached –’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I know what you mean. Roz Emerson. She has at the moment an equal share in the company, equal say in its future, equal power. I understand and appreciate that. Clearly she and I will have to establish a modus operandi. But she has the advantage of me at the moment in knowing rather more about it than I do. Of its structure and so on. She’s worked in it for years. I’ve only been involved for a very short time.’

‘Right,’ said Freddy uncertainly. ‘Er – right. But will you – that is –’ His round red face was perspiring, his bright blue eyes were anxious.

Richard looked at him and smiled, then turned to Phaedria, stretching his long legs out in front of him, looking at her with frank appreciation and a certain degree of wariness at the same time. She was going to take some dealing with, this lady. Lucky old sod, Julian had been; how had he done it? And how could he have perpetrated an act of such wanton cruelty on her as he had done with that will? And on his daughter, for that matter. She might be a tough nut (although Susan was extremely fond of her and always claiming that she was not in the least as she seemed), but he suspected in any case that Phaedria Morell could and would match her, blow for blow. God in Heaven, what a bloody mess.

‘What my learned friend is trying to say, Lady Morell,’ he said, with his careful, lazy smile, ‘is that we will need to know quite how you intend to work here. How involved you plan to be. How often you will be in the office. Where. That kind of thing. We have to work with both of you, you see, and we have to be – well, tactful, to put it mildly. Indeed we are statutorily obliged, I would say, to deal with both of you on all matters of policy, finance, the whole damn thing, as the current saying goes.’

‘Of course,’ said Phaedria, ‘I understand. I am not trying to coerce either of you into anything. I give you my word that after today there will be no meetings at board level that will not involve Mrs Emerson as well as myself. I will copy her in on everything, as I would expect her to do me. As to your question about how often I intend to be here, the answer is all the time, every day. Possibly including the weekends. After all,’ she said, flicking a brief glance down her own body, meeting their eyes with frank amusement, ‘I cannot ride or hunt for the next few months, I may as well work. And I shall base myself here, in this office. Someone has to use it.’