Folly's Child (24 page)

‘There's no point raking it all up, Harriet,' she had said. ‘She's dead – for God's sake let her rest in peace.'

Her face beneath her carefully applied make-up had been deathly pale and the dark circles beneath her eyes were evidence of a sleepless night.

‘I'm sorry, Sally,' Harriet had told her. ‘I can't just go back to London and pretend none of this has happened. Anyway, that damned insurance investigator won't let her rest in peace, as you put it, until he's dug out every bit of the truth and I don't want to hear it second hand even if you do. She was my mom – I want to be right there when – if – he finds her.'

‘What will you do?' Sally had asked, knotting her hands together to keep them from trembling.

‘First I shall go to Sydney and talk to this Maria Vincenti. If it's true that she has lived with Greg Martin for twenty years then she must know something.'

‘How do you know she'll see you?'

‘She'll see me,' Harriet had said, her lips setting in a determined line.

Once in Australia, however, she had been less sure. In her hotel room at the Sydney Hilton she had lifted the telephone to call the woman, then replaced it again. Perhaps Maria Vincenti
would
refuse to see her. Perhaps she was already regretting the hornet's nest she had stirred up. In any case she might not wish to talk to the daughter of a woman who had once been involved with her lover. She was after all Italian – and Italian passions and jealousies run high. Perhaps it would be better to arrive unannounced, Harriet had decided – use the same shock tactics Tom O'Neill had used on her, even if it did not make for a very pleasant first meeting.

‘Photographer, are you?' the taxi driver asked. Harriet came back as from a long way off to see him nodding at the camera that was peeping out of her bag. ‘Which paper are you with? The
Sun? News of the World
?' Or is it one of the Yankee papers?'

‘I'm not here to take photographs,' Harriet said.

The taxi driver laughed. ‘Well, you could have fooled me. Though most of 'em don't exactly try to hide it.'

‘Most of them?'

‘The paparazzi. Jeez, lady, you're a cool one. Well, good luck to you, I say. And with the crowd that's already there I reckon you'll need it. Here we are now – you'll see what I mean.'

They rounded a bend and suddenly Harriet understood. Since they had left the bustle of Sydney's centre the streets had been quiet but here quite a crowd had gathered on the road outside and opposite a large white stuccoed house. Some stood in groups, smoking, others sat on the kerb in the shade of the trees, cameras resting on their knees. The paparazzi – the world's press – all here waiting for a glimpse of the woman who had blown the whistle on Greg Martin after twenty years.

‘Shit,' Harriet said softly.

The taxi driver laughed again. ‘What did you expect, lady – an exclusive? I don't know what the guy did – I was too busy bumming around and getting on with my own life twenty years ago to bother much with newspapers. But whatever it was it must sure as hell have been worth doing.' He stopped the cab, leaving the engine running. ‘Reckon that's as far as we go.'

Harriet looked at the crowd in dismay. What a fair! There was even a policeman stationed at the gate. She had not a cat in hell's chance of getting past him. He would assume that she was another enterprising newspaper hack, just as the taxi driver had.

‘Where is the nearest telephone?' she asked.

‘Dunno. You want me to look for one?'

‘Yes … no.' She didn't want to make such a delicate phone call from a public booth with the danger of the money running out just as she was trying to explain herself. ‘Take me back to the Hilton.'

He looked at her as if she were mad, then shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.'

As he began to turn the car Harriet's brain clicked into gear. Chicken! Any excuse not to face Maria Vincenti. Any excuse to put off the moment of learning the truth. Is that what she had come halfway round the world for – to give up at the first hurdle?

‘Stop!' she said sharply.

He pulled up, shaking his head. If he had had any doubts before, now they were confirmed – she
was
mad. But then so were all the paparazzi – and no wonder. What a way to make a living!

Harriet rifled through her bag to find pen and paper. The paper came from the pad she used to list details of photographs she took – it was printed with the logo of the film processing company. No good. That really did mark her out as a photographer and unless Maria Vincenti had heard of her and knew what she did she would be bound to be suspicious. Harriet pushed the pad back into her bag and tore a page from her diary. Not perfect, but it would have to do. For a moment she thought about what she should say, then scribbled hastily. Another search through her bag revealed just what she was looking for – an old envelope bearing her name and the address of her London home. Surely that should identify her? She placed the note inside.

‘Please wait,' she said to the taxi-driver. ‘I may need you if this doesn't work.'

He rolled his eyes. ‘Pay me now for what's on the clock if you don't mind.'

‘Oh right …' She paid him, left the cab and walked back along the street. The paparazzi came to life like a bunch of magic toys at the stroke of midnight, craning, pushing, eliciting. Harriet ignored them. One enterprising hack broke away from the bunch and made for the taxi – to see what the driver would be prepared to tell him about her, presumably. Well, too bad. They'd be able to trace her back to the Hilton if the taxi driver broke confidence – and a couple of hundred dollar bills would soon persuade him to do that – but he didn't know her name. If there was any hint of trouble she would simply check out and move on.

As she went through the gate onto the broad gravelled drive the policeman intercepted her.

‘Sorry, but you are trespassing. You'll have to wait outside with the others – for all the good it will do you.'

‘I'm not a reporter.' Harriet held out the envelope. ‘Will you please give this to Mrs Trafford?'

He looked doubtful.

‘This is a personal matter. I am quite sure Mrs Trafford will see me,' Harriet said in her most authoritative tone and to her relief after a moment's hesitation he took the envelope.

‘All right – but you'll have to wait outside the gate until you have permission to come any further.'

‘I refuse to be treated like a criminal,' Harriet said.

On the point of insisting the policeman changed his mind. There was something about the girl: he couldn't put his finger on it but he supposed it could be summed up in one word – class. She had class. Unlike most of those bums who would use any trick in the book to get inside the house for their story.

‘Wait here – but don't try anything,' he warned.

Harriet waited, looking at the house. Very grand, very colonial with its balustrades and elaborate verandah. But the shutters at the windows were half-closed; like sightless eyes they gave nothing away. Was Maria Vincenti looking at her from one of them now? Possibly. The thought was unnerving. Harriet dug her hands into the pockets of her slacks, deliberately casual, and willed herself to stand quite still, not pacing or wandering.

After what seemed an eternity the policeman emerged. Harriet's heart came into her mouth. What would she do if Maria Vincenti refused to see her? Her exit would be ignominious to say the least. Worse, she would have come all this way for nothing.

The policeman's face gave nothing away.

‘Well?' she demanded.

‘She'll see you. You can go in.'

‘Thank you.' But suddenly she was afraid, just as she had been in the taxi. Did she really want to know the truth? Might it not be far more comfortable to remain in ignorance? Unpleasant facts, once known could never be buried again. She would have to live with them for the rest of her life.

Harriet tossed her head. Her hair, tied in a long bunch at the nape of her neck, bounced defiantly. Who the hell was Maria Vincenti anyway? Harriet walked past the policeman and into the house.

‘Holy Mother of God,' Maria Vincenti said softly.
She drained her tumbler of vodka and tomato juice and crossed
the room to the drinks cabinet to refill it, a short overblown woman
with the ample bosom and hips of a typical middle-aged Italian.

Maria had never been beautiful, but in her youth her big thrusting breasts, her full mouth and dark flashing eyes had caused men to think of her as voluptuous. Now another word was sometimes used to describe her and the word was blowzy, for she had lived life too fully to have retained that glorious fleeting Mediterranean bloom – too much passion, too much pasta and lately far too much alcohol had hastened the deterioration of her face into paunchiness and her body to fat.

She drank again, gulping greedily as if her life depended on it, then looked again at the note scribbled on a page torn from a diary. Holy Mother of God, why had she started any of this? She didn't think the police believed the story she had told them but the newspapers had latched onto it like vultures. Then there had been the insurance investigator – what was his name, Tom O'Neill? – with his probing questions. And now this girl … already Maria was regretting having agreed to see her. But it was too late to change her mind now. She would already be on her way in. Maria crumpled the note viciously and dropped it in the wastepaper basket. Her hand was shaking.

Paula's daughter. Paula Varna. Now there was a name from the past! Maria had tried not to think of Paula for years; now in her mind's eye she could see her all too clearly, tall, beautiful, glowing, all the things she, Maria, could never be. But what a cow! Maria thought bitterly. A husband of her own and still not satisfied. Cuckolding him, encouraging Greg – not that Greg had required much encouragement! – a strange mixture of spoiled little girl and
femme fatale
. Maria's insides seemed to tighten as if squeezed by a relentless hand and she gripped her glass until her knuckles turned white.

Paula Varna, I hope you rot in hell. If it hadn't been for you Greg and I might have been happy. Bitch! Silly, spoiled, persistent little bitch!

As the wave of hatred passed Maria's heavy dark brows knitted together in perplexity. Bitterness she could understand. The shadow of Paula had hung over her for more than twenty years. But why should she feel jealousy? Hadn't Greg left Paula for her, Maria? Hadn't the two of them planned it all together? Then why …?

Because you know in your heart the choice wasn't made for love, she thought. It was made for money. Yes, money – the great god at whose altar Greg has always worshipped. If Paula had had access to the sort of money that she, Maria, had had, and if she had been free to lavish it on him then perhaps he would have chosen differently. Throughout the years Maria had known which of her assets it was that had attracted Greg to her. In the beginning she hadn't cared. She would have done anything to have him near her; God alone – and the parish priest who had heard her confession – knew that. But as time went by the bitterness had begun to creep in. Gradually Greg's greed and callousness had eaten away at the obsession she felt for him until it had turned to hatred and despair. And now it had come close to destroying her.

Maria gulped again at her vodka, taken neat this time, with only the melting ice in the glass to dilute it. The alcohol burned her throat and stomach and sent small fiery flickers through her veins.

A tap at the door made her turn. The maid had opened the door and the girl who stood there might have been a young Paula. Not as tall, but that glorious dark blonde hair, those clear features, figure slender yet shapely in her cream silk shin and tawny linen slacks. Maria's heart seemed to stop beating and any thoughts that she might have had that this could be a trick vanished.

This was Paula's daughter, without a shadow of a doubt.

‘Miss Varna,' she said and the edge to her voice said it all. ‘What a surprise. Do come in.'

‘Thank you for seeing me,' Harriet said.

After the bright sunshine outside it was dim inside the room behind the half-closed shutters but as Harriet's eyes adjusted she took in the cane and rattan furniture, the abundance of cushions in different shades of cornflower and delft blue, the floor tiled. Mediterranean style and strewn with rugs and dhurries. As the exterior of the house had suggested it would every detail spoke of money, but old money. If she had expected the brash Stateside gloss that might have been the trademark of a self-made American financier, it was certainly not here.

She held out her hand. ‘You must be … I'm sorry, should I call you Mrs Trafford?'

Maria ignored the outstretched hand. ‘I think I would rather drop that name. It has too many unpleasant connections. There's no point any more in not using my real name, Vincenti. What can I do for you, Miss Varna?'

‘Harriet, please. I know this is an imposition, but I had to come. As you probably know, my mother was a friend of Greg Martin's back in the States. She was with him on his yacht when it blew up.'

‘So they said.'

Harriet looked at her sharply. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing. Please go on.'

‘Well, I have always believed she died with him. Now I understand you are claiming Greg is alive and …'

‘He is.' Maria laughed shortly. ‘At least, he was the last time I saw him, a week ago.' She lifted her glass; half-melted ice clinked as she drained it. ‘ Very much alive and just the same old Greg as he always was. He may have changed his name and his appearance but underneath it all he is just the same. A cheat, a liar, a womaniser – maybe a murderer.' She crossed to the drinks cabinet to refill her glass. ‘ You want a drink, Miss Varna?'

Harriet shook her head. If anything could bring home the truth of her father's warning as to over-indulgence it was the sight of this woman, soaked with vodka like a piece of old blotting paper.