Crimson (69 page)

“Shit!” At least his broken leg would mend, but he realized that his irreplaceable bike was a write-off.

As rain streamed down on him, he painfully pulled himself up on his right elbow. Where was Adam? He twisted his body to the right so that he could see behind him.

About seven feet behind, Adam lay, inert, on the road. In spite of the rain, passers-by with coat collars turned up gathered on the pavement. A woman screamed, “Someone get the police!” A man in black bowler hat and fashionable overcoat hurried towards Mike, who was now crawling down the middle of the road.

Mike shook his head to the offer of help; with gritted teeth, he inched his way towards his brother. Soon he was near enough to see that the top of Adam’s head was missing and his neck lolled at an odd angle. Blood and dark splotches of brain splattered the pavement.

With hoarse groans, Mike started to cry. A policeman came up to him and draped his black rain cape over Mike, but Mike shook it off. When the ambulance arrived, he was huddled by the side of the road, hugging Adam in his arms and rocking him back and forth. Tears ran down his filthy, bloodied, torn face.

The two paramedics gently pried Mike’s arms away from Adam’s body. One said, “It’s all right, mate, we’ll look after him now.”

“Be careful of him,” Mike said through sobs.

“He’s my brother.”

“Course we will, mate. Leave him to us.” Rain slashed down as the two paramedics slid Adam on to the stretcher. As they lifted him, his left arm flopped over the side, and Mike glimpsed a gleam of gold.

“His watch! I’d better look after his watch for him,” he said. Adam was fond of that watch for some reason. He’d never forgive Mike if someone nicked it on the way to the hospital.

The paramedics glanced at each other. The poor sod couldn’t accept that his brother was a goner. The policeman the Omega watch, replaced Adam’s arm on the and handed the watch down to Mike.

“They’ll be back for you, sir,” he said. Once again he covered Mike with his black rain cape.

A4ike glanced at the watch and turned it over. In the light of the streetlamp that had killed his brother he noticed five lines of figures engraved on the back of it.

JNlike felt sick; then he felt faint. He put the watch down beside him on the stone kerb and flopped on the pavement, Ife still hoped that this scene was as unreal as it seemed to him. He still hoped that he would have the chance to tell Adam how sorry he was for trying to frighten him.

When the paramedics returned to load Mike on to the stretcher, he forgot about the watch. It lay under the lamplight, on the blood-streaked kerb stone and the raindrops fell softly upon it.

TUESDAY, I APRIL 1969

“Darling Gran, may I phone you back?” Miranda looked at the pile of folders on her desk.

“I have a directors” meeting in ten minutes, and Adam left so much to straighten o as if I hadn’t enough work!”

“I hope you’re allowing enough time for the wedding preparations,” Elinor reminded her anxiously.

“Oh, Angus is organizing our wedding. I’m not allowed to do a thing. He won’t even tell me where we’re going on our honeymoon. Even the doctor who gave me my shots wouldn’t tell me. Just smiled as he said, “This one’s anti cholera you can’t be too careful in Brighton.””

“I can’t help wishing that you and Clare were having a double wedding.”

“You know Clare and David would hate a grand wedding. And besides, you’re only allowed your first wedding in church.” Miranda glanced at her watch.

“Darling, can’t this wait until I see you on Saturday?”

“I had the feeling that you might be so busy you’d cancel Saturday. I’m really just calling to make sure you don’t.”

“I must admit I thought of it. I reckon I could almost catch up, given an uninterrupted working weekend.”

“Not this weekend,” Elinor said firmly.

“You promised to drive Annabel down here, and it’s the last time we’ll all be together for goodness knows how long. Scott arrives on Monday to take her for her final check-up at St. George’s, and then they’re both flying back to New York.”

“Well, if you insist,” Miranda said reluctantly, “I will be there.” -Miranda,” Elinor said.

“This is important. I have to tell you all, something I should have told you a rather special story.” It’s a story .. Arling, you’ve been telling stories for forty2 11 know,” Elinor’s quiet voice interrupted, “but this is my and I can’t live alone with it any longer.” A touch of Wuthering Heights, Miranda thought” sighin “I may be the first bride to walk down the aisle of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, with a briefcase in her hand, but of course I’ll come if it’s important to you.”

SATURDAY, 5 APRIL 1969

““Only another five minutes,” Miranda said as she swung the Reliant Scimitar off the main road towards Clare’s cottage.” She added, “Now remember, Annabel, in front of Gran, you don’t mind wearing that eye patch.” - “Of course not. I adore wearing the goddamn thing. It gives me an air of mystery, like the man in the Hathaway shirt ads.” Annabel paused.

“Actually, you know, I do rather like the eye patch because it reminds me that I’m not as I was before. Oh, I know the plastic surgeon has promised me the scars will go away, and I know the glass eye will look every bit as natural as the one I lost, but in an odd way, that mugging freed me. It’s freed me to be myself and I’m only just starting to find out who I am, because up to now I’ve hidden behind an eight-by-ten glossy print. And you know what? So far my real self has been quite a surprise to me.”

“We’re all proud of the new, grown-up Annabel especially Gran.”

“She certainly seems back to normal tough as old boots.”

“Buzz says she wakes up happy every morning, just because she’s not in that grim nursing home.”

“I still don’t understand why she won’t sue that awful doctor,” Annabel said.

“Craig-Dunlop is bound to have covered himself lega ly, and it would just drag on and on in the courts, as Mr. Owen told us,” Miranda reminded her.

“It’s much better for Gran to try and forget the whole thing, and look forward to something pleasant. She and Buzz are planning a trip to the south of France. They want to find a small farmhouse, where they can start a new life and put this behind them.”

“Oh, I wish we all could.” Annabel sighed.

“There are just so many unanswered questions. I suppose Adam’s watch hasn’t turned up yet?” “No. One of the ambulance paramedics remembers a policeman unstrapping it from Adam’s wrist and handing it to Mike, but since then there’s been no sign of it. Mike probably dropped it on the street, which means anything could have happened to it. Someone may have walked off with it, or it might have been destroyed, in which case some Swiss bank will hang on to all that money! I can’t bear to think of it!”

“I don’t understand why our lawyers are offering that huge reward, especially since nobody’s even certain that those bank account numbers were engraved on the back of the watch. It’s only guesswork by Angus.”

“I’d bet on it. Those numbers must be written down somewhere, Miranda said.

“The detectives found nothing in Adam’s home or office. Besides, it really is more than guesswork by Angus. He says that those numbers have to be written down somewhere. Some people engrave them on the backs of signet rings, or maybe inside a pocket watch. We’ve checked all of Adam’s jewellery and found nothing. No, it must be that watch; he was always so protective of it. And who knows? Maybe it’ll turn up.”

“I suppose we should be grateful that Adam didn’t get all Gran’s money,” Annabel said ruefully.

No, there’s still about seventeen per cent left in the trust -a little over one and a half million pounds,” Miranda replied.

“Plus, the lawyers think the trust will be awarded all of Adam’s shares in SUPPLY KITS in lieu of the money he so clearly stole: the trust will then own forty-six per cent of the company, which is worth about two and a half million pounds. Plus, the royalties on Gran’s novels keep coming in, so there really is plenty. In American dollars, what’s left in the trust should total at least ten million.”

“That’s all well and good,” said Annabel, “but I still don’t understand why the trust wasn’t protected, when we were told it was insured for millions.”

“Because Adam was careful to do nothing overtly illegal,” Miranda explained, yet again.

“His taking money from the trust and squirrel ling it away in some secret place was obviously not Gran’s intent, but the fact remains that she gave him her’ power of attorney, a document that virtually said, “I hereby authorize Adam Grant to do anything he likes with everything I own.””

“I wonder whether Adam would have been able to get away with it if he’d been dealing with men, not women,” Annabel mused.

“Probably not,” Miranda said.

“God knows men aren’t any smarter, but most of them are brought up to be self reliant to look after themselves more, and not to always be so dependent … and trusting.”

After lunch, when Josh had gone out to play, Elinor looked at the expectant faces around the table and knew that there would never be a better moment to tell them.

Quietly, she related the truth of Miranda’s parentage.

“The dirty dog,” Buzz said. Clare looked at Miranda’s wary face and slowly said, “It doesn’t alter anything between us, you know.”

Annabel added, “Of course not.” Then they all started talking at once. Everyone hugged Miranda.

Eventually, Elinor said, “At first I didn’t want you to know about this … unpleasantness, but Miranda insisted, and when she did I realized there was something else you had to be told.” She took a deep breath.

“You all think I don’t want to talk about what happened with Adam but I do. All my life, I’ve allowed myself to ignore the lessons I should have learned and to forget the ones I should have remembered. Well, not this time! I can’t. I can’t go on pretending that bad things don’t happen, that the happy ending will always come along. Not after this. Not after I’ve seen my family almost destroyed. All because I couldn’t deal with reality and always, always refused to face unpleasant facts. I now see that if, ostrich-like, you pretend not to see your own problems, then you can’t solve them.”

An astonished silence greeted this firm speech: Elinor had clearly regained her old strength.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Gran,” Annabel said.

“We’ve survived.”

“Only just! You and I could have been killed! I almost lost my reason, not to mention most of my money. Your money. Miranda lost control of her business. Buzz found herself with no home and no income. And Clare was almost lost to me for ever. How did I let that happen?”

“Don’t blame yourself, Nell,” Buzz said.

“Nobody noticed what was happening because Adam was a con man, and nobody spots a successful con man until it’s too late. And he was very good he could have fooled anyone.” Elinor slowly shook her head.

“I mustn’t hide behind excuses. Not this time, and not ever again. I could have stopped all this before it, started, and I know why I didn’t.

Everyone stared at Elinor.

see I didn’t trust myself to handle my own prob explained

“If any man said, “This isn’t the sort. g that a woman understands,” then I immediately decided that I didn’t understand it, and let him handle it.” Gently Clare said, “Gran, I’m so pleased that you can finally admit this.” 11 always expected a man to look after me,” Elinor went on.

“I always believed that a man would know best. Now I Jmow how wrong I was, and I regret it. It’s harmed all of you.” “Nonsense, darling!” Annabel cried.

“You’ve never hurt us. And you’ve always given us everything we needed.” Elinor looked around the table.

“Yes, everything. Except the truth. That’s why Annabel and Miranda expected a perfect Prince Charming. I now realize that happiness is not hoping for protection by an illusory, perfect man, but in discovering the surprising strength of one’s imperfect self that inner core, the “real me” that every woman senses. Only Clare always said I confused romance with reality. When she fought me, I was determined not to let her win … I couldn’t let her win, because losing would mean tearing down the facade that I’d carefully erected to conceal the truth of my life most especially from myself because my reality was so painful.”

“Surely not after Daddy Billy died?” Annabel asked.

“Especially after Billy died.” Elinor paused, then continued quietly: “It’s time I also told you the truth about Billy’s death, time I stopped remembering a fake life and started to live a real one … in the real world.” Elinor paused again. She knew it would take all her ability as a storyteller and all her strength as a survivor to tell this, her most difficult story, because she had lived the he for so long that she had almost come to believe it. But now the truth had to be told without sentiment, without romance.

“on. the day Billy died,” Elinor began, “I’d visited my publishers in London. They’d called me there for press interviews, but there was also another reason they wanted to see me. When I arrived at their office, I found that Joe Grant was also there. Unsavoury stories were being spread, stories that threatened my good name and ultimately threatened my growing success as a writer. Apparently, they were being spread by Billy silly rumours to get him attention and sympathy rather than harming me. For the most part, no one had paid attention to them.

“However, the latest story was not so easily dismissed. It didn’t come from Billy, but it involved him, and it was ugly. It seems he had bothered a young girl … No, that’s not quite it.” She hesitated, determined to tell the story straight.

“It seems he had molested a young girl, or at least attempted to do so. Apparently Billy offered to photograph her, then tried to take off her clothes. Afterwards,. when the girl made trouble and threatened to contact me through my publisher, Billy confessed to Joe Grant, who tried to hush up the situation; he decided I had better be warned. In fact I already knew. Maybe not about this one, but there had been others. I had even once confronted Billy. He denied it, of course. And of course I tried hard to believe him.” In the silence of her kitchen, Clare said, “Gran, does that matter now? It all happened so long ago…”