The Real Katie Lavender (22 page)

Cecily had called him yesterday morning, and after she’d established he didn’t have anything planned for today – Saturday – she had asked him if he would drive her down to Brighton. She’d then explained that she wanted to see her granddaughter – Katie Lavender – again. He had to admit that he was intrigued to meet her. And if she was at all interested in his opinion, he’d tell her that she would be better off having nothing to do with the family; that she should run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

Following Stirling’s explosive announcement at Dad’s funeral, the hairline crack in the family that had always existed had been blown asunder. That night, at Gina’s insistence, Stirling moved out of Willow Bank and booked himself into the Hotel du Vin in the centre of Henley. As soon as Lloyd had got wind of this, he’d suggested that his uncle stay with Pen. Pen had been only too happy with the idea, and Stirling had accepted the offer, saying, ‘It’ll only be for a short while, just until everyone calms down.’

A calm didn’t seem likely to be on the cards for any time soon. Stirling had no sooner unpacked his case at The Meadows than Scarlet and Charlie moved in with Gina. It was always possible that Gina was genuinely so devastated that she needed the company and support of her daughter, but Lloyd suspected the move had more to do with colours being nailed to the mast in a blatant display of solidarity. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned out that Rosco had put Scarlet up to it. His cousin could never resist a divisive manoeuvre; it was in his blood.

And blood would be very much at the heart of Rosco’s machinations. Rosco had never really accepted Lloyd as his equal, due to the simple fact that he wasn’t a true Nightingale – just as his father hadn’t been – but now there was a stranger in their midst who most certainly had a legitimate claim on the name. No guesses for how that was going down with Rosco.

And just as Neil had been cast as the villain of the family, so now had Stirling, and with allegiances firmly declared and a schism of enormous proportions in place, it was difficult to imagine how family accord could ever be reinstated. Not with Gina talking about divorce.

Lloyd glanced at his grandmother in the passenger seat and said, ‘Do you think Gina really will go through with divorcing Stirling?’

Cecily tutted. ‘No. But for now, she’s making her feelings very clear by punishing him in the only way she knows how. I’m not without sympathy for her; I do understand that she’ll be feeling horribly betrayed. It was wrong what Stirling did when he had that affair with Katie’s mother, but on the other hand, he’s been an excellent husband and father ever since. If he hadn’t loved Gina and Rosco and Scarlet, he would have left them a long time ago, wouldn’t he? I predict she’ll make a bit more noise and bluster for a while yet, but the reality is, she’s not the kind of woman to want to make do with half of what she currently has.’

‘You mean financially?’

‘Exactly so. Stirling has provided her with an extremely comfortable lifestyle. When was the last time Gina had to worry about the cost of anything? If she divorces Stirling – and let’s assume she gets half of what they have by way of money and assets – it’s still only half. Why settle for half a cake when you can have the whole thing?’

‘For your self-respect?’

Cecily laughed. ‘A very high ideal, but not one to which a certain type of woman is prepared to subscribe.’

Lloyd had always admired his grandmother for her candour, so he said, ‘Can I ask you a personal question, Granza?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re one of the most observant people I know; did you ever suspect that Dad was having an affair?’

‘No. But I did wonder from time to time if he was tempted.’

‘Mum told me the other day about . . . well, you know . . . that things weren’t entirely . . . um . . . not entirely that good in the bedroom, and . . .’ He couldn’t go on. Discussing his parents’ sex life was not a regular line of conversation to have with anyone, let alone his grandmother.

‘No need to be coy,’ she said, in her typically no-nonsense voice. ‘Pen told me a long time ago that she had lost interest in sex. It happens in many marriages. That’s why I wondered whether your father might be tempted to stray.’

‘You sound as if it’s perfectly reasonable to do so.’

‘Not perfectly reasonable, but understandable. I wouldn’t have endorsed such behaviour, but neither would I have censured it. Lloyd, are you angry with your father?’

The question took him by surprise, and he hesitated before answering. ‘Yes,’ he admitted reluctantly.

‘That’s to be expected. Promise me you won’t feel guilty about it, though. Anger is all part and parcel of the grieving process. Especially when it’s suicide.’

Indicating and putting his foot down to overtake a car towing a caravan, he said, ‘How about you, Granza, do you feel angry?’

‘Only at those who seem intent on making things worse for us.’

Lloyd knew exactly to whom Cecily was referring. The latest news to be reported in the press was that the police investigation had successfully tracked down the missing clients’ money to several accounts in the Cayman Islands. Spurious stories had then followed, claiming that this was where Neil had planned to escape, along with changing his identify. Oh, and he was going to do it with a woman. A lover. As far as Lloyd was aware, there was no rock-solid evidence to support these claims – other than that the family knew of Simone Montrose’s existence – but even he had to admit that he could no longer say anything with any certainty about his father.

For legal reasons the located money couldn’t be returned straight away to the clients, and so Stirling had personally made good the debts from his own pocket. This also had been reported in the press, but was given no more than a line or two of coverage. Plainly, even in the serious newspapers, it was far more interesting to fill the column inches with dubious speculation.

Stirling had come in for a good deal of scrutiny, the implication being that he must have been in on the scam, and to his knowledge he had been followed to and from the office on three different occasions. It was for this reason, so Cecily had told Lloyd, that he had decided not to visit Brighton, for fear of dragging Katie into the mire. It wasn’t difficult to picture just how much the press would love to get hold of the story of a love child suddenly popping up in Stirling’s life.

Not for the first time, Lloyd wondered just how involved Katie Lavender would want to become with the Nightingale family. Based on what she had seen and heard so far, she had to be questioning if she had done the right thing in making contact.

Unless, of course, she had made contact because her motives were not as innocent as she’d claimed, just as Rosco had speculated on the phone the other day when he’d been in touch to instruct Lloyd to keep an eye on Cecily and Pen. ‘Your mother and Granza are vulnerable right now to any sob story going,’ he’d said, ‘and since you’re closest to them, it’s your job to keep an eye on them. And let’s face it, what evidence do we have that this girl is telling the truth? She literally walks in off the street and claims to be the result of some fling Dad had thirty years ago. I mean, come on, she could be anyone trying a number on us.’

Lloyd hadn’t mentioned the conversation with Rosco to either his mother or Granza, knowing that nothing would have insulted his grandmother more. There was no one more in control of her faculties and emotions than Cecily Nightingale.

As to what Katie Lavender’s motives might be, for now Lloyd was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt if only because he was more inclined to trust the opinion of his mother and grandmother than that of a hot-headed, bigoted cousin.

Katie was a bag of nerves. She had spent the morning in a demented frenzy of tidying and dusting and vacuuming. When the phone rang, just as she was giving her all to a particularly stubborn bit of limescale on the kitchen tap, she gave a little start.

‘Hey, Katie, how’s it going?’

‘Oh, it’s you again, Tess. What do you want now?’

‘I just wanted to know if they’d arrived yet.’

‘If they had, I wouldn’t be talking to you, would I?’

‘Hey, what’s with all the uptightness?’

‘I’m not uptight. I’m just busy.’

‘Busy doing what?’

‘Cleaning the house.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve got visitors coming. As well you know.’

‘Do you clean when I visit you?’

‘No, I have to clean
after
you’ve gone. You’re the messiest person I know. A complete slob.’

‘I’m hurt. Deeply hurt. And the way you’re going on, anyone would think you had royalty visiting. Have you laid down a red carpet and put rose petals in the loo for them?’

‘Don’t be stupid. I just want to make a good impression.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want them to like me.’

‘I thought you said that you and Cecily hit it off like a regular pair of old muckers. The way you were going on about her, I was beginning to feel jealous, like you’d swapped me for a new best friend.’

‘Keep me talking on the phone any longer and I
will
trade you in for another best friend. Oh my God, I’ve just spotted a humongous cobweb!’

‘Calm down, will you? So what if you’ve got a cobweb, what’s the worst that can happen: you’ll be reported to the Serious Grime Unit? Hey, that was a joke, girlfriend.’

‘Save it for someone who’s got time to appreciate your special brand of humour. I’ll ring you later, when they’ve gone.’

‘You promise?’

‘Hand on heart.’

She was standing on a chair with a duster on the end of a wooden spoon, trying to reach the cobweb above the French doors, when the telephone rang again. She clambered down grumpily. ‘Tess, if you think this is funny, I’ll bloody well kill you!’

There was a silence at the other end of the line.

‘I’m warning you, one more joke about royalty and rose petals and I’ll be on the next train to London to burn your entire collection of Johnny Depp scrapbooks! What’s more, I’ll make you watch! Now will you leave me in peace so I can deal with the mother of cobwebs.’

‘Um . . . I think you might be mistaking me for someone else.’

‘Oh. Who are you?’

‘I’m your cousin, Lloyd.’

Katie gulped. So much for making a good impression. ‘Er . . . Hello. I’m sorry about shouting at you. I thought you were a friend.’

‘That’s OK. Do you shout at all your friends?’

‘Only the really annoying ones. Is there a problem? Aren’t you coming?’

‘No, everything’s fine. According to the satnav, we’ll be with you in about twenty minutes. Cecily just wanted me to let you know that we’re running early. She has a thing about not inconveniencing people and wanted to make sure it would be all right for us to turn up earlier than expected.’

‘Earlier is good for me.’

‘Excellent. I’ll let you get back to your cobwebs, then.’

Cheeky devil, she thought as she put the phone down and climbed back up on to the chair. He’d better not turn out to be anything like that arrogant pig Rosco.

The cobweb dealt with, she washed her hands, brushed her hair and took a deep breath. She wasn’t at all nervous about seeing Cecily again, but Lloyd was a different kettle of fish. An unknown quantity, he would be here today to size her up and report back to his cousins. And having just yelled at him, she hadn’t exactly done herself any favours, had she? Still, his approval wasn’t really that important.

Who was she kidding? As she’d just said to Tess, it was important to her that she was liked, for which read
approved of
. Cecily and Pen liked and approved of her, as did Stirling. Well, she thought he did. Although given what he now had to deal with, he may well be having second thoughts about her.

She had been surprised how disappointed she’d been when Stirling had phoned to explain that he didn’t think he ought to meet up with her again just yet. She understood his reasons and was touched by his concern to protect her, but at the same time there was a small part of her that felt excluded. Rejected, even. She couldn’t really explain it, but she wanted to feel a part of his problems. She didn’t want to feel an outsider.

And hadn’t she caused some of those problems? She had sent a card to Cecily after the funeral, hoping, within the few lines she’d written, to strike the right chord of formality that she felt the situation warranted, and had received a long letter two days later in which Cecily told her everything that had gone on at the funeral and afterwards. Katie had been appalled to read about Stirling and his wife, that he was now staying with Pen, and Gina was breathing fire about divorce. She felt horribly responsible. This was all her fault. Cecily had written,
Now, Katie, I don’t want you to blame yourself for the consequences of Stirling’s announcement. He alone is responsible for his actions. You’re not to worry. He and Gina will find a way to sort this out
. She had finished her letter by asking if she could visit Katie in Brighton.

But Katie
was
worried. That was why she had been up since seven, frantically spring-cleaning the house. Classic displacement activity. She didn’t want to be viewed by her cousin as being responsible for destroying Stirling’s marriage.

Before the day she’d lost her job and visited the solicitor’s office in London, she had begun to feel as if she was moving on from the death of her parents and was once more back in control of her life. But following that fateful meeting with Howard Clifford, everything had changed, and once again she was at the mercy of circumstances over which she had no control. The simplest thing to do would be to walk away from the Nightingales and not get involved. It would be so much easier to get on with her life as though she had never read that letter from her mother.

But how could she do that? How could she effectively put the genie back in the bottle? It just couldn’t be done. She had to go through with what she had started. Or rather, what her mother had started. Fay had wanted her to meet Stirling, and despite everything, she was glad she had.

Two things she wasn’t so happy about were her continued lack of employment, and Ian. She was circulating her CV like crazy, but the job market had all but dried up. She had never been unemployed before, and the lack of purpose to her days didn’t suit her.