Mistakes We Make (22 page)

Molly closed her eyes and sipped at the tea. Every morning, the memories flooded back and she had to work her way through them in order to face the new day. It wasn’t all gloom. Fletcher Keir Mason had been registered as a company in January – a milestone to celebrate, because for the couple of months after Logan had disappeared, the possibility of it ever happening had seemed very remote indeed.

Julian said, ‘Don’t think about it, sweetie.’

She opened her eyes and gave him a crooked smile. ‘About what?’

‘You were thinking about your brother.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You had that look.’ He shook his head sympathetically. ‘There’s nothing you can do to bring him back, so don’t waste your energy.’

‘I just wish I knew where he was.’

‘Darling.’ Julian extended a hand. She took it. ‘It’s working out. Logan will be swigging cocktails in Brazil; you’re not to worry about him. Your dad’s fine. Your nephews are doing well. Your career has taken off. What’s to fret over?’

Adam
, Molly thought, though she would never say it, not even to Julian.

‘We need,’ Barnaby Fletcher said, ‘to keep ahead of the game, and the game is changing very fast.’

Molly looked round the table. There were five of them in the meeting – herself, Barnaby, Kenneth Mason the third shareholding director, a branding specialist they’d brought in to beef up the team (and the capital), and two young and ambitious men who were more savvy than she would ever be about the ‘new order’: social media and marketing in the digital age.

‘It’s getting harder and harder to persuade businesses to part with money for traditional marketing.’ Barnaby was never happier than when he was building strategy. He glanced at Molly and broke into one of his big bear grins. ‘We can beat the pack if we’re smart.’

Molly smiled back. I’m a split persona nowadays, she thought. Melancholy in the mornings and a vibrant shooting star of thrilling ideas and full-on animation as soon as I get into the office.

As she spent far more hours in the office than anywhere else these days, she decided that life wasn’t so bad. While she was here, she more or less forgot about Logan and the appalling trail of devastation he’d left in his wake. She was making her mark in a fast-moving, challenging industry, and she was having a ball.

Kenneth said, ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Peer influence and community orientation. We need to hook in to social media, and we can develop new ways of informing and persuading.’

Molly loved this buzz. Her strength might be event management, but she was learning about other key areas fast. She was a leader, not a follower, and she was on top of her game.

She chased a stray lock of hair away from her face and thought, it’s been this length for far too long. I’ll get it cut.

The thought pleased her. She had transformed her life; now she would transform her image as well.

Barnaby said, ‘There’s a new contract up for grabs. It’s a huge public health campaign and it’s worth a lot of money. There’ll be some very big players competing for the contract, but I believe we can win it by switching to smart, creative thinking.’ He paused and looked around the table. ‘It’ll be a lot of work. Are you up for it?’

‘Of course,’ said Kenneth.

‘Sure,’ the young men chorused.

‘Why else,’ Molly said, ‘are we here?’

She telephoned her father later as she walked briskly in the thin March sunshine to get a sandwich.

‘Hello, love. How are you?’

‘Fine. You?’

‘Cooking stew.’

‘For supper?’

‘A huge potful. I reckoned it would be a good idea to do enough for several meals and freeze it. There’s never enough time these days, and they eat so much.’

Molly laughed. If she hadn’t experienced her father’s recently acquired cooking skills for herself, she would not have believed him, but having his grandchildren in the house had transformed him. Adrienne, shocked rigid in the first days after Logan’s disappearance, had been unable to think past the next hours, let alone what the future might hold. One morning, denial had given way to anger, and anger to determination, and she had marched round to Billy’s bungalow.

‘I can’t live like this,’ she’d announced. ‘I can’t sit around moaning and feeling sorry for myself. I have to do something.’

‘I agree.’ Billy had always been direct, but his manner was so affable that no-one ever took exception.

‘I have to go back to work. We can’t afford private schools for the boys, and the house will have to go. I need you to look after the children while I’m working, and we’ll pay our way. Will you help us?’

Billy had embraced his daughter-in-law and grandchildren with open arms.

‘It’ll give me a purpose in life,’ he’d declared to a shocked Molly, ‘and company.’

Molly had been livid at Adrienne’s effrontery, but her father had been right and so far the effects of the arrangement had all been positive. The Adrienne that Molly knew – spoilt, demanding and extravagant – had become a new woman. Any selfishness had been redirected towards survival and the protection of her children. She snapped up a well-paid job as cabin crew on international flights and became a whirlwind of efficiency, economy and order, while Billy and his grandchildren began to bond in all kinds of unexpected ways.

He imposed a kind of mild-mannered discipline that the boys accepted without demur. Time spent on computers or phones, or watching television, was monitored and restricted. Instead, the boys made themselves useful around the house, learned new skills, and took it upon themselves to became responsible for Billy’s safety and wellbeing. During the weeks when Adrienne was off rota, she had time to help in the home, and she and Billy provided much-needed mutual support.

Molly laughed at her father’s words. ‘If you think they eat a lot now, Dad,’ she said, ‘just think what they’ll be like when they’re teenagers.’

Billy groaned. ‘I’ve got a year or two yet, hopefully. I remember what Logan was like when he was—’

He broke off.

They both did this all the time – they forgot that he was gone.

‘It’s all right, Dad,’ Molly said gently.

‘I just wish I knew he was safe.’

‘I know. Me too.’ Trying to make light of it, she said, ‘Julian says he’ll be sipping cocktails in Brazil. I can just see it, can’t you?’

‘Cocktails? If he’s knocking back cocktails while we’re all—’ He broke off. ‘Did I tell you Alastair’s been picked to play in goal for the first team on Saturday?’

‘Fantastic!’ Speculating about Logan’s fate would  consume them both, if they let it. Better to avoid the subject.

‘And Adrienne will be back tomorrow.’

‘Where is she this time?’

‘America, I think. Or is it India? I’ve got her shifts written down somewhere if you—’

‘No, it doesn’t matter. I don’t suppose she even knows where she is half the time. Those long-distance flights must be exhausting. Any news on Agnes Buchanan?’

Billy got news from Rosemary Blair, who had made it her business to let him know anything she knew.

‘The stroke’s left her quite damaged, they say, but there seems to be plenty of evidence that she and Logan were in it together.’

‘It’s hard to feel sorry for the woman,’ Molly said, struggling to fight the intense anger she felt every time she thought about what Agnes had done. ‘I suppose until we find Logan we won’t know whether he made her move the cash around or she persuaded him to fill in all those wretched forms and set up false accounts.’

Billy sighed heavily. ‘Who knows? Maybe Adam has more information. You haven’t spoken to—’

‘No,’ Molly said curtly. ‘Listen, if you’re OK I’d better go. I’m at the sandwich shop.’

‘Fine, lovey. I’ve got a load of things to do. Ian’s room’s a tip. I’ve told him he’ll get a beating if he doesn’t tidy it, but he takes no notice.’

Molly laughed, because the idea of Billy lifting his hand to anyone was so absurd. He might grumble, but he loved having the boys there. It was a comfort – as she made lists and organised meetings and events, wrote pitch documents, rehearsed other pitches, met with clients, pacified clients and thought about clients’ needs before they had even thought about them themselves: in short, lived her dream – to know that.

The only way to find time for such personal indulgences as a haircut was to convince herself it was a necessity rather than a luxury. As soon as she’d reached this tipping point, Molly took advice, and called a smart salon near Bond Street. She put the appointment in the diary in indelible pen.

‘Just a trim?’ Rowena, the stylist, asked.

Molly shook her head. ‘I’d like it just like yours, please,’ she said, eyeing Rowena’s smart chin-length bob.

‘Really?’ The stylist lifted handfuls of Molly’s long blonde tresses and let them fall, shimmering, through her hands. ‘But it’s so beautiful.’

‘It’s just hair. And I need a change.’

‘Cool.’

As always when she had any time to herself, Molly’s mind began to replay everything that had happened in the last few months.

The weeks after Logan’s abrupt disappearance had been nerve-shredding, and she hadn’t been able to reassure an increasingly desperate Barnaby that she would be able to join him.

One day, miraculously, her bank had telephoned. The money she needed had been lodged in her account. No warning, no explanation, it had just appeared. Adam, when she’d called him, had been stiff.

‘I’m glad I was able to do it,’ he’d said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

Typical Adam. A sense of humour so dry you could trickle it through your fingers like sand.

She’d said, ‘So what’s happening at Blair King?’

He hadn’t been in the mood for conversation. ‘The law will take its course, and the law, as you know, always takes its time.’

There was sometimes a fine line between dry humour and pomposity. She hated it when he deployed that kind of self-importance. It had been December – and it was the last time she’d spoken to him.

‘What do you think?’

She stared in the mirror. Rowena was standing behind her, angling a hand mirror this way and that to let her see the back. She hardly recognised herself.

Molly put a hand up to the back of her neck wonderingly.

‘It feels so odd!’

‘But good, I hope? You do like it, don’t you? It really suits you.’

Molly shook her head and watched the bob settle back into place. She said, ‘Thinking about the past gets you nowhere, does it?’

The mirror wavered. ‘Sorry?’

‘Don’t mind me.’ She twisted her head from side to side and watched the hair flick and swing. ‘I feel lighter.’

‘You will do. That hair was really long.’

‘No, I mean inside.’

‘Right.’ Rowena sounded doubtful.

‘The past couple of years have been rubbish, but getting this lot chopped ... it feels like I’m sloughing off dead skin. Like a snake?’ she added, seeing that Rowena still looked puzzled.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s good,’ Molly stressed. ‘It’s a new beginning, don’t you see?’

‘Oh. Oh, ta.’

Molly emerged into Bond Street smiling at everybody. From now on, she vowed to herself, I’m only going to look forward.

––––––––

A
dam thought a great deal in the grim days that followed the revelation of Logan’s dishonesty. He thought about what he would lose and about what his life now meant. Had everything to this point been meaningless? Had he squandered his education by using it for a career he had never wanted and now stood to lose? He wasn’t sure he knew who he was any more.

He hadn’t expected to feel jealousy. He’d never expected he would be lonely, but although he loved spending days alone in Scotland’s wild places, he had been astonished to discover that this was different from coming home every night to an empty house, and that he did not cope well with loneliness.

What he had thought to be natural self-confidence, he learned had depended on the knowledge that Molly loved him. Her belief in him had been a necessary prerequisite to self-belief.

Most of all, he was amazed to find that, facing ignominy and failure, he turned like a cornered beast to fight for survival.

Could it be that the law was, after all, important to him? Or was it just that all he could do was react, minute by minute, hour by hour, as events unfolded?

He met with Patrick Mulgrew at Capital Art and showed him the photos he’d taken at Agnes Buchanan’s bungalow. Patrick – assured, stylish, successful art dealer personified – slipped on his reading glasses and examined them carefully.

‘I sold her this one,’ he said, jabbing his finger at the Barbara Rae, unmistakeable with its explosion of reds and gold. ‘Fabulous painting. I could have sold it a dozen times over.’

‘Not cheap, then?’

‘She’s one of Scotland’s foremost artists. Why do you ask?’

Adam sat back and looked at Patrick. He’d been a Blair King client since he’d set up his gallery, long before success had made him wealthy. Adam liked the man, and trusted him. In any case, the bad news would be public knowledge soon enough.

‘You know she’s our chief cashier?’

‘Sure.’

‘I thought it might be a good print.’

‘A print?’ Patrick yelped with laughter.

‘What about the others?’

Patrick took the phone again and scrolled through the images.

‘Some of these were definitely handled by other Edinburgh galleries in the last few years. I keep tabs on what’s around. We all do. I can’t speak for the others, but I’d hazard a guess they’re all genuine. Miss Buchanan is astute and a very particular buyer. She knows what she likes, and what she likes is quality.’

Adam struggled to square this fact with the Agnes Buchanan he knew – or thought he’d known. The mousey woman they’d all relied on but had never valued.

‘They must have cost a fortune.’

‘And your point is?’

‘She doesn’t earn that much.’

‘Adam, I shouldn’t really be talking about a client like this.’

‘I have good reason to probe.’

Patrick shot him an appraising look. ‘I believe she came into money.’

‘Hmm. Any idea when? I mean, has she been buying from you for some time?’