Rattling the Bones (31 page)

The full force of her accusing glare fell on Adam.

‘She—’ Adam broke off and his self-possession gave way to confusion and anger. ‘She was snooping round the back by the garage. I thought she was up to no good so I invited her to come in and wait for you so she could explain herself. That’s all. Whatever she chooses to tell you I’ve said, she’s lying. Not that I’ve said anything.’

Jessica moved in to take smooth command of the situation. She was as elegantly turned out as the previous time we’d met. This time she wore caramel slacks and quilted jacket and another pair of what were probably her trademark big earrings. Not a hair strayed out of place and she showed not a faintest sign of being discomposed mentally in any way. I wasn’t surprised Lottie and Adam were both momentarily at a loss. As a wild card, Jessica was a trump.

‘I came to talk to Lottie because there is something I believe she should know - and indeed you should know too, Adam. I’ve discussed this with your grandfather and he agrees, you should both have been told long ago.’ Her voice was as calm and modulated as her appearance and demeanour suggested it should be.

‘What?’ Adam and Lottie chimed together. They both looked and sounded completely at sixes and sevens. They didn’t know what was coming.

‘Shall I sit down?’

I had to hand it to Jessica for coolness under fire. I also handed it to her for stagecraft. She knew when to make the audience wait for a punchline. She pulled out a chair and seated herself elegantly; after a second or two, Adam retrieved his fallen chair and followed suit. Lottie, left alone on her feet, unwillingly took the fourth chair. They stared at Jessica in the kind of immobilised fascination rabbits are always supposed to show when faced with a stoat. A trickle of sweat ran from Lottie’s hairline down her brow and along her nose. I don’t think she was even aware of it.

As for me, my heart was pounding like a drum. With Adam and Lottie’s eyes and attention completely fixed on the newcomer, I should take my chance to bolt out of there but I didn’t intend to miss whatever revelation Jessica was about to make. Whatever it was, as a result of it, all those loose pieces of the jigsaw would fall into place. Nor could I abandon Jessica. The other two could deal with one of us at a time, but not both of us together.

‘You know me as the daughter of old friends of your grandfather’s,’ Jessica addressed Adam. ‘As such I’m also a friend of your grandfather’s.’

‘I don’t know about friend,’ Adam said stiffly. ‘I know you visit him and sit up there in his room chatting with him. It’s always seemed downright weird to me, what with the age difference and everything. He hasn’t even got his legs, for crying out loud! It’s downright indecent.’

I opened my mouth and closed it again, not wanting to draw attention back to myself. But indecent? As if Adam Ferrier knew anything about decent behaviour!

She wasn’t fazed. ‘I suppose it would to you, Adam. But, you see, I’m a little more than Henry’s friend. I’m Henry’s natural daughter - and my mother is Edna Walters.’

Chapter Seventeen

I was as thunderstruck as the others.

None of us seemed disposed to break the almost palpable silence that seemed to hang in the air. I stole a look at Lottie. Her beautiful face was frozen, as regular and expressionless as marble. She put me in mind of one of those large white angels that tower over Victorian graves.

Adam’s features, in contrast, were twitching in an alarming manner. I hoped he wasn’t going to have some kind of heart attack.

He was the first to speak. ‘Rubbish . . .’ he croaked.

‘Perhaps I should tell you the whole story?’ Jessica replied sympathetically.

‘Bloody hell!’ he burst out, her tone unlocking whatever paralysis had momentarily seized him. ‘You better had and it had better be convincing!’

‘You can check it all with Henry.’

Lottie spoke up then in a tight little voice. ‘This has nothing to do with me.’

‘Oh, but it has, dear,’ said Jessica, turning to her. ‘Because if I am Adam’s aunt, then I am also your cousin at one remove, am I not? We’re all family here.’

Lottie licked dry lips. ‘She’s not!’ she snapped, jabbing a finger towards me. ‘Get her out of here!’

‘No!’ Adam leapt up and grabbed my shoulder although I had made no move to leave. ‘She can’t go—’ He broke off, his mouth working soundlessly.

‘You
have
been blabbing to her!’ Lottie shouted at him.

‘No, I haven’t! She’s been rabbiting on but I’ve said nothing, not a bloody word! If she thinks that meant I was agreeing with her, she’s as barmy as she looks.’ He was fighting for self-control as he spoke and it was returning to him. One could almost hear the mechanism clicking round in his brain. ‘There is nothing she can tell the - tell anyone. I found her snooping round, trespassing. She doesn’t know - she can’t prove anything!’

‘
Shut up!
’ yelled Lottie furiously, swinging the finger she had pointed to me, towards Jessica. ‘Not in front of
her
!’

I was sure then, even if I’d had few doubts before, who the brain of this outfit was. Treacherous, clever, without any natural feeling or decency but ever resourceful, Lottie Forester, if anyone, would get the conspirators out of the unexpected jam they were in. But not if I had anything to do with it. What’s more, Jessica’s arrival and her shattering news had thrown all the ingredients into the cauldron anew. I decided to give the brew a stir.

‘Sometimes the first ideas are the best ones,’ I observed. They all turned their heads to stare at me. ‘I guessed from the first this might be about a will,’ I went on. ‘And it is, isn’t it? Or even two wills? Because your grandfather must have made his will, too, Adam, and probably you and your sister hope to be the main beneficiaries.’

Lottie was shaking her head. ‘I still don’t believe you,’ she said in an obstinate little voice to Jessica. ‘I won’t believe you whatever yarn you spin us here. How can you be - how can you be the daughter of that crazy old bag lady?’

Adam had become as pale as a ghost and in a manner of speaking I think everyone knew we were in the presence of the spirits of the past. We had rattled the bones and they had risen from their rest to confront us all.

‘I should explain,’ said Jessica. ‘I know this is a shock for you and I do understand that. But when I’ve told you all about it, you’ll understand.’

‘I’m with Lottie, I won’t believe it, whatever you claim.’ Adam’s features were pinched and angry, ‘Frankly, I don’t
care
what you say. I don’t care what my grandfather says. He’s an old man in poor health and you’ve influenced him. I’ll go to court over that if necessary. You may have got him to believe you’re his natural daughter, but I never will.’

Jessica gave him a patient smile. A nerve jumped in his throat and Lottie’s alabaster-pale face darkened to puce in suppressed rage.

I spoke up then. ‘I’ve been finding out a few things, too, about families.’ I looked Lottie full in the face. ‘Your grandmother Lilian and Edna were sisters. What’s more, you knew it.’

She said nothing. Her face kept that marble whiteness and immobility.

‘Did you tell Duane?’ I asked her. ‘Is that the clue that set him on the trail of Edna and allowed him to find her?’

That angered her. A dull red tinge crept into her white cheeks. ‘No! I didn’t tell him a thing! How the hell do you know?’

‘Records Office,’ I said simply.

‘Nosy-parker, aren’t you?’ Adam sneered.

‘No, I’m a detective.’

He shrugged and turned to Jessica. ‘We can get back to the Walters sisters later, if at all. I want to know how you mean to persuade me you are Edna’s and my grandfather’s daughter. I knew my grandmother. She and Henry had a very good marriage. There was never any talk of his sleeping around. Anyway, I’ve known him all my life and he was always a very proper and upright sort. He made his money peddling church vestments, for crying out loud! He sold them all over the world. Name your brand of religion and he’d supply you with everything from cassocks and surplices to birettas and skullcaps - a bishop’s mitre if you wanted one, designed to order! You’re going to tell me he had a secret life? I don’t believe it.’ He thrust out his chin pugnaciously.

‘Then let me explain,’ Jessica said, unfazed by this onslaught. ‘My mother and Henry met in the late nineteen fifties. Edna was only sixteen and so pretty. You can’t picture it now, of course, but I’ve seen photographs.’

‘Where?’ rasped Adam.

‘Henry has several. He kept them hidden away for years, all through his marriage. He couldn’t bring himself to part with them.’

Adam looked thunderstruck but Jessica looked sad. We were about to hear a tragic tale of star-crossed lovers, not that it would make any impression on either Lottie or Adam.

‘Henry was seventeen years older than Edna when they met but he fell for her hook, line and sinker. He was married, of course, married quite happily in lots of ways, as you rightly say, Adam. But passion takes over, doesn’t it? It knocks all the rules out of the way and won’t answer to any reason. He and Edna fell madly in love. He told me she made him feel as young as she was and that it was the first real love for him just as it was for her. Yet he didn’t have a bad marriage. It was what the French call a
coup de foudre
. I don’t think Henry understands to this day just how it all came about. He asked his wife for a divorce but she refused. It must have given her a terrible shock.

‘She fought back. She said she’d contest any divorce action bitterly and there would be a hell of a scandal. Anyway, she was the injured party and in those days if she chose not to ask for a divorce, there was little Henry could do about it. His wife took the view that Henry was temporarily infatuated and he would get over it. Her solution was that they take a holiday abroad somewhere, repair the crack in the marriage, and return home just the way they’d been before the hiccup in relations.

‘As for Arnold Walters, Edna’s father, well, his reaction was even worse! He was a martinet of the old school.’

Jessica shrugged and said almost apologetically, ‘Arnold’s wife had died when the girls were young and perhaps he thought he had to be extra strict because the girls had no mother to watch over them. Perhaps, if their mother had been alive, it might all have gone so differently, but we’ll never know, will we?

‘Predictably the old man hit the roof and wouldn’t even discuss any possibility of Henry getting a divorce and marrying Edna. In those days the age of majority was twenty-one. Even if Henry
had
got his divorce, they’d have needed Arnold’s permission to marry. If they had applied to a court they would have been unlikely to receive a sympathetic hearing, given the age difference and everything else. It’s more likely that my mother would have ended up as a ward of court.

‘Henry’s business partner stepped in then and put the case pretty crudely. Word was getting round and it wasn’t doing the firm any good. They were in the church supplies business, just as you said. Scandal would mean cancelled orders on a big scale. Henry had to put his house in order sharpish, which meant reconciliation with his wife and dumping Edna. Otherwise, he would be obliged to sell out to his partner. Henry couldn’t afford to do that. He’d have been forced to accept a miserly amount for his share of the company and, even if he got his divorce, he would have alimony to pay and there would still be his children to educate - plus the cost of starting up anew with Edna.

‘As for Edna’s elder sister, Lilian, she was in a panic because she had just got engaged, very respectably, to just the sort of chap her father approved of, strait-laced, old-fashioned principles, family to match. If they got to hear of Henry and Edna’s affair, her fiancé’s family would be horrified. They were all so dreadfully respectable in those days. We tend to forget. They didn’t care who got crushed in the process so long as an outward appearance of all being absolutely normal was maintained. It was a kind of hypocrisy but it sprang from fear of being ostracised by society.’

Lottie glanced up at the wall as if still expecting to see her grandmother’s wedding photograph there and then, when her gaze fell on the blank patch, frowned as if she had forgotten she’d removed it.

‘Then Arnold played his trump card. He told Henry that with no possibility of marriage, Edna’s reputation would be ruined. It was Henry’s duty to put an end to the affair. With everyone ganged up against him and being told he was set to ruin Edna’s life, Henry gave in. He patched things up with his wife and business partner. They even went off on that holiday his wife had suggested. They went to Switzerland. By the time they returned, Edna had been discovered to be pregnant. But by then it was too late and no one was going to give an inch.