The Inheritance (39 page)

No!

Brett clutched at the handrail, feeling his own knees start to give way.

Dear God, please no.

Stella Goye had been enjoying a typically relaxed evening at home with Max when the doorbell rang. Max and Mutley had returned from a long afternoon walk, and Stella had whipped up a chicken and chorizo risotto, which was rather a triumph – even if Stella did say so herself. She and Max had washed it down with a decent bottle of claret before retiring to the sofa to watch their DVD box set of
The Bridge
.

Stella’s relationship with St Hilda’s Primary School’s headmaster was not what one would describe as passionate. Both Stella and Max had been married before, Max very happily, Stella less so. But at this point in their lives, neither of them had much appetite for the whipsawing emotional rollercoaster of an intense, sexual love affair. What they had instead was warm and comfortable and easy. They cared for one another, were interested in one another, and they made each other’s lives less lonely and infinitely more convivial. It was, by and large, enough for both of them, and more than they had expected to find at this point in their lives.

Every once in a while, Stella would feel a pang that there was something missing – a momentary flash of mourning for the deep love connections of her youth. But tonight she felt nothing but happy with her lot. She loved Max and Fittlescombe and their beautiful cottage and their scruffy little dog and the studio at the bottom of the garden where she could make as much mess with clay as she liked. She loved Scandi Noir DVD box sets, and mugs full of M&Ms to be scoffed while she watched them, curled up in front of the fire.

The ringing doorbell was an intrusion. Definitely not in the script.

‘It’s half past ten at night.’ Stella looked at Max accusingly. ‘If that’s one of your sodding PTA members moaning about school business, I warn you, I might be quite rude.’

‘Not as rude as I’ll be,’ grumbled Max. A small group of this year’s parents had been getting their knickers in a twist about everything from the most recent OFSTED report to the colour of the girls’ changing room. Max had kept his temper so far, but there were limits. He opened his front door with his shoulders squared, ready for battle.

‘Good God.’ His face went white. Angela Cranley stood on his doorstep, an overnight bag at her feet. Her face was grotesquely bruised and her arm was in a makeshift sling.

‘Can I come in?’

An hour later, having put Angela to bed in the guest room with a strong sleeping pill, Max and Stella finally collapsed into their own bed.

‘What do you think?’ asked Stella, staring at the beamed ceiling. ‘Do you believe her?’

Max sighed. ‘I don’t know.’

Angela had told them tearfully that she and Brett had had a terrible row. He’d convinced himself she was having an affair and had gone off the deep end. But she insisted her injuries were accidental, the result of a fall down the stairs.

‘I was lucky. It could have been much worse. The nurse at the cottage hospital said nothing’s broken.’

Too drunk to drive, Brett had called a taxi to take Angela to A&E. According to her, he had wanted to come with her, but she’d refused. ‘I needed some space, to think. So I packed a bag and, after they discharged me, I came here. I’m sorry, I just … I didn’t know where else to go.’

She’d started sobbing then and shaking, poor woman. Evidently she was still in fairly serious shock.

‘I think she’s covering for him,’ Stella muttered furiously. ‘I’ve a good mind to call the police. Arsehole.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Max. ‘But it’s not our place to get involved.’

‘How is it not our place?’ Stella’s voice was rising, along with her feminist hackles. ‘There’s a battered woman in our spare room, for God’s sake!’

Reaching across the bed, Max took Stella’s hand and squeezed it.

‘The police can’t act unless she presses charges. You know that as well as I do.’

‘Hmm,’ Stella grumbled. He was right, of course. But the anger inside her refused to be quelled.

‘We’ll talk about it more in the morning.’

Max turned out the light.

‘Why do you think she came here?’ Stella’s voice drifted sleepily through the darkness. ‘I mean, we’re hardly close friends.’

‘No,’ said Max.

‘She must be very lonely, if we’re the only people she could think of to turn to.’

Max paused.

‘Yes.’

Stella drifted off to sleep. But Max Bingley stayed awake for a very long time.

The next morning, Angela didn’t wake until almost ten. The sleeping pill had completely knocked her for six. Max had long since left for school by the time she came down to the kitchen, wincing with pain at every step.

‘Gosh, here, let me help you.’ Stella jumped up from the table and her half-finished
Times
crossword and helped Angela into the armchair next to the Aga. ‘You poor thing. Can I get you some breakfast?’

‘No, thank you. You’ve been kind enough,’ said Angela.

In a loose-fitting white sundress and flip-flops, she looked even more tiny, bird-like and fragile than she had last night. Big, ugly purple bruises on her arms and legs matched the ones on her face.

‘I don’t think I could eat a thing anyway. I must call a cab.’

‘There’s no rush,’ said Stella. ‘You only just woke up. I’ll put on some fresh coffee at least, and then you can see if you can manage a piece of toast.’

‘Really,’ Angela insisted. ‘I have to get home. Brett and I need to talk.’

Stella stopped scooping coffee into the cafetière and looked at her pityingly. ‘You should report him, you know. You can’t let him get away with this.’

Angela sighed wearily. ‘It was an accident.’

‘You could have been killed!’ said Stella. But it was clear that Angela wasn’t going to change her mind. ‘Fine. Well if you really want to go home, I’ll drive you.’

‘Really, there’s no need,’ Angie started to protest. But Stella was having none of it.

‘I insist. I’ll drive you to Furlings and I’ll wait outside until I know you’re safe.’

Too tired to argue, Angie nodded. ‘OK. Thank you. I’m so sorry for dumping my problems on you and Max like this. I should have gone to a hotel. I don’t think I was thinking clearly.’

‘Yes, well. Most people aren’t when their husbands have just tried to kill them,’ Stella said archly. ‘Anyway, you’re very welcome. Max is terribly fond of you, you know.’

Angie tried to smile, but the effort was too painful.

‘He’s a lovely man,’ she said.

‘He is,’ agreed Stella. ‘Now where did I put those car keys?’

It took Brett almost half an hour to get the bloody, hippy Goye woman to leave. She insisted on walking Angela to the door, glaring at him all the while as if he were some sort of axe-murderer, and made an elaborate point of reminding Angela that she was just a phone call away and would ‘check in’ on her in any case over the next few days, ‘just to make sure you’re safe.’

But any irritation he felt towards Max Bingley’s girlfriend was instantly overwhelmed by the mixture of guilt and anguish that engulfed him when he looked at Angie’s face. Last night he’d been so happy she was alive and, OK, he’d barely noticed the bruises. Of course, he’d also been drunk as a skunk, which probably hadn’t helped his powers of observation. And it was dark. But today the full scale of Angie’s injuries hit home, each cut and bruise and swelling cruelly illuminated by the daylight.

‘Jesus Christ, Ange.’ He choked up. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She could see that he meant it. ‘I’ll live.’

She took his arm and they went inside. Brett made some sweet tea and brought it to her in the drawing room.

‘I never meant to hurt you,’ he said softly, his head in his hands. Quite apart from the guilt, his hangover was brutal. He felt as if his cranium might explode at any minute. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not having an affair,’ Angela said wearily. ‘I almost did, once. But I decided not to.’

Brett winced as if a wasp had just stung him in the eye.

‘When? Who with?’

‘A long time ago. In France. Does it matter?’

‘Not really,’ Brett agreed. ‘But I’m curious.’

‘His name was Didier Lemprière. He was a lawyer. We had him to dinner on the yacht in St Tropez, the night before I walked in on you and Tricia.’

Brett groaned. He didn’t want to be reminded of that trip.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, awkwardly.

‘Me too.’

They sat in silence for a while. Then Brett asked. ‘So why didn’t you have an affair with this guy? After all I put you through. Like you said to me last night, you’d have had every right.’

‘I’m not sure one ever has a “right” to an affair, exactly.’

Angela’s mind flashed back to the day in Alfriston, when she’d run into Max Bingley at the pub where she and Didier were having lunch. She’d often wondered what might have happened had Max not been there that day. Would she have taken the next step with Didier? Had Max’s presence somehow shamed her into doing the ‘right’ thing? Into resisting temptation? Probably. She remembered strongly the feeling of not wanting to disappoint Max Bingley. Of not having Max think less of her.

‘Anyway, a friend talked me out of it in the end,’ she told Brett.

Silence descended once again.

‘So what happens now?’ Brett asked eventually.

Angela looked him in the eye. ‘I think we need some time apart.’

‘A separation?’ Brett sounded stricken.

‘It doesn’t have to be formal. But we need to think,’ said Angela. ‘Both of us. We can’t go on like this, Brett. I mean, look at us!’

They both turned to their reflection in the huge gilt-framed mirror that dominated the west wall of the room. Angie looked as if she’d done ten rounds with a champion boxer. As for Brett, unshaven, green-skinned and with bloodshot eyes, he looked more like a down-and-out than a property mogul.

‘OK,’ said Brett, defeated. ‘I’ll move out. I’ll go to the flat in London for now. I’ve got a lot of business coming up in New York too, so maybe I’ll spend some time there …’ His words trailed off. ‘I love you, Ange,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I love you too,’ said Angela truthfully. ‘But I don’t know if that’s enough any more. And I don’t think you do, either.’

Brett stood up. Angela didn’t think she’d ever seen him so broken.

‘I’ll pack a bag,’ he said gruffly. ‘Can I get you anything? Painkillers?’

‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’

He left the room, closing the door gently behind him.

Only then did Angela give way to tears.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Autumn seemed to come and go in a blink that year. One minute Hyde Park was a riot of flowers and butterflies and sunshine, crammed with shirtless sunbathers and children leaping excitedly into the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain; and the next it was stark and bare, swathed in a grey blanket of frost and empty save for the few brave joggers prepared to endure the winter cold. There must have been a period in between, when the sycamore leaves turned to rust and fell, and a gleaming brown sea of conkers covered the ground. But Jason Cranley couldn’t seem to remember it.

In any event, winter had arrived now, and with a vengeance, plunging London into a cold snap that had already seen a few flurries of snow, and the inevitable delays on public transport that any change in the weather always seemed to bring. Walking up the King’s Road from his house on Eaton Gate, for his usual breakfast at The Chelsea Bun, Jason pitied the poor commuters crammed onto the number 19 bus, which was going nowhere fast.

Jason himself felt unusually cheerful. Swaddled in a heavy, black cashmere coat and scarf, he was protected from the cold, and could enjoy the childish thrill of watching his breath plume out in front of him, like a dragon’s smoke. The sky above him was that magical crisp, bright blue you only ever saw in winter, and the Christmas displays in the shop windows, put up preposterously early as usual, lent everything a cheerful, festive and happy air.

Or perhaps it was tonight’s concert that had put him in such a good mood? He’d landed the gig of a lifetime, playing a full hour-long set at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s jazz club. Well, perhaps it was a stretch to say that
he’d
landed it. The truth was that George Wilkes, the Cranleys’ art-dealer friend, was a close mate of the new manager there, and had pulled a veritable orchestra-full of strings to get Jason a slot.

‘Listen. They’re a business with a reputation to maintain. They heard your tapes. They wouldn’t have hired you if they didn’t think you were good,’ George had assured him, scores of times, as the date drew nearer and Jason’s nerves began to amp up. Jason clung to the idea that there must be some truth in what George said. This was Ronnie Scott’s, for God’s sake. Ronnie Scott’s! They weren’t in the business of disappointing paying customers.

I can do it.

George believes in me.

I just have to believe in myself.

Tatiana had been really sweet and congratulatory about it, and had promised to try to be there. Her work had been so manic lately, even more so than usual since the arguments with her board over a US school had begun to escalate, so nothing was certain. Secretly, Jason prayed that his wife didn’t make it. Not because they were at loggerheads. They’d been getting along better recently, arguing less and supporting one another more. In a weird way, they had Logan to thank for that.

Having a needy teenager in the house had turned out to be a far more positive experience than Jason had anticipated. For one thing, Logan’s presence had turned Jason and Tati into an instant family, albeit a rather unusual one, removing the unspoken pressure to think about having children of their own, at least for the moment. Then there had been the pleasure of seeing Logie mature and grow right before their eyes. Being away from Fittlescombe, from Brett and Angela, and village gossip, and that snobby school of hers, had done her the world of good. In so many ways, the fire at Wraggsbottom Farm had been the wake-up call that Logan needed. In the immediate aftermath she’d been too frozen with guilt to learn anything from her mistakes. But now, settled and happy in a new school, the changes were beginning. She barely drank any more and had given up smoking altogether. She’d written touchingly sincere letters of apology to Gabe and Laura, and to Seb Harwich, whom she knew she’d treated appallingly. Best of all, she seemed finally to have broken the spell of her obsession with Gabe Baxter and to have fallen in love properly with a sweet kid from school, Tom Hargreaves.