Folly's Child (47 page)

‘So you admit your fiancé, Rolf Michael, and Michael Trafford are one and the same?'

‘What's the point in denying it? You've obviously done your homework. Changing his name was the only way he could get away from her and her malicious mischief. But this Greg Martin business – the whole thing is a figment of her overworked imagination. God knows where she dug it up from. Some old newspaper lining her drawers, maybe.'

‘I don't think Maria Vincenti is the sort of woman who lines drawers with newspaper,' Tom said drily. ‘Well, you do seem to know quite a bit of the story, Miss McGuigan.'

She fit another cigarette.

‘How could I avoid it? It's been big news. But I can assure you, Mr O'Neill, Mike is not some long lost part-Italian financial wizard. Surely you don't think he could have lived a high-profile life here for the past twenty years if he was?'

‘Stranger things have happened.'

‘Oh well – if you don't believe me …'

‘I'd be more likely to believe it if Mike, as you call him, were to tell me himself.' As she glared at him, he resorted to blackmail again. ‘ Otherwise I'm afraid I shall have to take my suspicions to the Darwin police. I can call in at the station on my way back through town.'

‘Oh damn you!' she flashed. Her face had assumed a vixenish look, her features becoming sharp and pinched. He thought that at this moment she did not look beautiful at all. ‘All right – he'll be home the day after tomorrow.'

‘What time?'

‘Some time during the afternoon. He's taking me out to dinner. He should be here by four or five.'

‘Right,' he said, thinking that he did not trust Vanessa McGuigan one inch and would have to spend the next day and a half staking out the house, watching the comings and goings and following her if necessary to see where she went and who she met. She might be telling the truth and then again she might not. Either way he would have succeeded in flushing Greg Martin out.

‘And there's no need to bring the police in on this?' she pressed him.

‘None – if you are being straight with me.' He smiled, bringing his considerable charm to bear.

‘You really are a very ruthless man, Mr O'Neill,' she said. The telephone shrilled suddenly and the wariness returned to her eyes. ‘Excuse me, I must answer that.'

As she went out of the room he followed her to the door, listening. If it was Martin on the phone now and she warned him, he wanted to know about it. But the drift of the conversation was quickly obvious – it was Abbot and Skerry, the estate agents, calling to arrange an appointment for a prospective buyer to view the house.

Tom eased the door closed, taking the opportunity to have a look around the room. There was nothing to suggest that a man had been here today – everything was more or less exactly as it had been when he and Harriet had last been there. But on the occasional table beside her cigarettes was an airline folder. Swiftly he flipped it open, then his lips tightened. Two reservations on a Quantas flight to the States – dated tomorrow! So she had been giving him a line! In telling him Greg would be home the following day she had been buying time – or so she thought. If he had been stupid enough to believe her by the time he returned for his appointment with Martin the pair of them would be out of the country. Oh he was a slippery customer, all right – and seemingly never without a beautiful woman to help him cover his tracks!

He heard the sharp ‘ ting' as the phone went down and swiftly closed the airline folder. By the time Vanessa re-entered the room he was standing where she had left him, examining an entry in his note book.

‘Well, I don't think we can usefully do any more today, Miss McGuigan,' he said lightly. ‘I'll be back the day after tomorrow, when I hope your fiancé will be able to help me clear up the case satisfactorily.'

She nodded. He thought he caught a gleam of triumph in the cornflower eyes. ‘I'm sure he will, Mr O'Neill.'

Back at the Telford Top End Tom placed a call to Robert Gascoyne in Sydney. It went against the grain, handing over hard won information like this, but he could not see that he had any alternative. If Martin and Vanessa intended to leave the country they had to be stopped and the policeman was the one to organise that – if he had something he could charge Martin with.

To his relief Gascoyne sounded more interested than he had done during their previous encounter.

‘Well done, O'Neill,' he drawled. ‘You've just saved me a great deal of work. It seems the FBI have picked up the reports and we've been asked to set an investigation in motion. Martin is wanted in the States on various fraud charges – if he's alive.'

‘Oh I think you'll find he most certainly is,' Tom said. ‘And just about to step back into the lion's den.'

‘It's tempting to let him go – and leave them to clear up their own mess,' Gascoyne remarked. ‘ But I suppose I had better act on your information and have him picked up at the airport. Well, I suppose this means your job is over – you've got your man and saved your clients a great deal of money.'

‘Oh, I haven't finished yet,' Tom said. ‘In fact in some ways you could say I was only just beginning.'

‘How come?'

Tom set his jaw. In that moment he looked more ruthless than ever.

‘My job will not be complete until I discover just what happened to Paula Varna.'

Sally arrived at the hospital just half an hour after taking Harriet's frantic phone call. She came into the waiting room still holding her fur coat around her as if she were cold in spite of the almost overpowering heat inside the building.

‘Harriet – how is he?'

‘Holding his own as far as I can gather. But it's touch and go.' Harriet's face felt stiff; it was an effort to talk but she was glad not to be alone any longer.

‘What happened?' Sally asked.

‘Well… he had another attack. I was with him. It was …' her voice tailed away and she steeled herself to continue, ‘it was horrible. He looked so
ill
, Sally – and that damn machine wailing away like a banshee …'

Sally covered her eyes with her hand. She looked pale and tired and Harriet guessed she had not had time to catch up on much lost sleep before the telephone call had summoned her back. But for all that her make-up was intact and her hair as carefully coiffured as ever. Whenever did Sally look less than well-groomed, Harriet wondered? She'd probably turn up at her own funeral looking immaculate.

The door opened and they both jumped. A white-uniformed nurse came in and they stood waiting like coiled springs, half-expecting some news. But she merely shook her head with an almost imperceptible movement and offered them coffee. Harriet sipped it gratefully, glad of the liquid to moisten her parched throat, but Sally set hers down untouched on a small white painted table alongside a pile of glossy magazines.

‘I can't understand it… he seemed so much better when I left. Perhaps it was the excitement of seeing you again.'

‘Perhaps … But he was talking so strangely, rambling really. He's very upset …' Harriet broke off. There were so many questions rattling round inside her head and she felt instinctively that Sally might be able to answer some of them. But this was not the time or place. Later, perhaps, when they knew if he was going to pull through again.

Sally was pacing the room, window to door and back again, like a caged lioness. All her usual composure was gone. Harriet crossed to her, putting her arms around the aunt who had been more like a mother to her.

‘Come and sit down, Sally. You'll be making yourself ill next and that isn't going to help anyone.'

Sally pressed her hands to her mouth. Her scarlet nails made vivid patches against her pale skin.

‘He's got to be all right, Harriet! I couldn't bear it if he wasn't. Oh God – I love him so much!'

Harriet squeezed her gently. ‘I know you do.'

Sally shook her head, obsessively, like an animal in pain.

‘No, no, you don't understand. All these years I've lived with it and now … it's like a judgement. I was so wrong … so wicked … but I loved him so. I couldn't bear to lose him then and I can't bear to lose him now.'

‘You're not going to lose him,' Harriet soothed with more conviction than she was feeling. ‘Dad has a tremendous will to live and he's getting the very best of medical attention.'

But half her mind was churning – what the hell did Sally mean? First her father making cryptic remarks – now Sally tormenting herself about … what? There is something here I don't know about, Harriet thought, something that has been hidden from me all these years and sooner or later I am going to find out what it is. Dad might simply have been talking about what he did to Mum that last night, but that is not what Sally is referring to. She had nothing to do with that – she wasn't even in the country. No, she is talking about something quite different, something that has haunted her through the years, something
she
did that was ‘ so wrong, so wicked'.

‘I was so afraid of him finding out the truth,' Sally was moaning. ‘Just last week I was thinking I'd give anything – anything – so long as he never knew. And now this … If he's taken of course he never will know. But that's not important any more. Nothing is important except that he should get well.'

‘And he will. He will!' Harriet said fiercely.

‘Will he? I don't know. He's never been mine in all these years. Not really. I stole him, Harriet. I stole him from her and now she's taking him back …' Her voice cracked.

‘For goodness' sake stop this, Sally!' Harriet exploded. ‘ You're hysterical. I don't know what you are going on about but you couldn't have stolen him from Mom. She was dead. I didn't want to believe it, but now I do. She was dead. She has been dead, Sally, for more than twenty years.'

Sally's shoulders were shaking; her slim frame in the enormous fur looked almost emaciated. ‘No – no! Not for twenty years …'

Harriet turned cold. Prickles of ice ran up and down her spine. She stared at her aunt, her eyes hard and blank.

‘What are you saying?'

The door opened. They both spun round. It was Dr Clavell. He looked grave and Harriet's heart lurched again.

‘Doctor – is he …?' she tried to say but no words would come.

‘No, I'm not bringing bad news.' He smiled thinly. ‘The crisis seems to have passed – for the moment.'

‘You mean he's going to be all right?' Sally was motionless now, hugging herself.

‘It's a little early to say for certain. Prognoses in cases such as this can be difficult and I don't want to raise too many false hopes. The human heart can take just so much and no more. But for the moment the situation seems to be under control. Would you like to go in and see him now?'

‘Can we?' Harriet asked.

‘As long as he's not upset or over-excited again.' Dr Clavell turned his mournful gaze on her. ‘I can't stress too much he is a very sick man.'

‘I think we realise that,' Harriet said.

She turned to Sally. Her aunt's eyes were still wild in her pale face but her lips were parted in an expression half way to hope.

Harriet put her arm around her. Whatever dark secrets lay between them this was not the time to dwell on them. As Sally had said, nothing mattered but that Hugo should pull through.

‘Come on, Sally,' she said softly.

Together they followed the doctor along the corridor to Hugo's room.

By the time Danny, the chauffeur, returned Harriet and Sally to the triplex on Central Park South it was late evening. Jane the cook had prepared them a cold supper and a pan of home-made watercress soup which only had to be heated the moment they arrived and whilst Harriet knew it would be delicious as it always was, she also knew she was past eating and she guessed Sally would have no appetite either.

‘What I need is a drink.' She crossed to the cabinet, poured herself a large vodka and tossed it back in one. ‘What will you have, Sally?'

Sally gave a small shake of her head and Harriet poured her a brandy.

‘Drink it for goodness' sake. You look as if you need it.'

As Sally sipped her drink a little colour returned to her pale cheeks. She had gone into herself now, so silent and withdrawn that Harriet found herself half wondering if she had imagined the outburst at the hospital. Lack of sleep was making her feel light-headed and unreal, but she had gone past being sleepy. Her whole body felt tight-strung, her mind was racing. She had to know what Sally had meant by the things she had said. But how could she ask her now, when she was in such a state of distress?

Suddenly Sally drained her glass, coming out of her reverie with a snap.

‘What was your father saying to you when he was taken ill again?' she asked, her voice low and steady.

Harriet avoided her eyes. She did not want to repeat the tortured self-accusations.

‘Just ramblings. I couldn't make head or tail of them. But I think he blames himself for Mum's death.'

‘Yes, I think he does,' Sally agreed. ‘ He shouldn't, of course. He was a wonderful husband, generous, loving. He gave her everything she wanted and he would have been prepared to forgive her anything … well, almost anything.' She broke off, her eyes going far away, and after a moment, when she continued, her voice was so soft Harriet had to strain to catch her words. ‘That was the trouble, really. I thought … yes, I thought he'd still take her back. Even after what she'd done – how she'd hurt him. Even, God help us all, as she was … I thought he'd take her back and I couldn't bear it. Not for me – I loved him so much – and not for him either. What sort of a life would it have been for him? For any of us?'

Harriet leaned forward, clutching her glass between hands that had begun to tremble.