Mothers and Daughters (30 page)

She’d always liked Glen, he was charming and amusing and very good company, but was he hiding something under all his charm, just as Julian had hidden his son from her? She’d learnt a hard lesson that people were not always who they seemed or who you wanted them to be.

Frank’s mind was now on his work. He was relieved that Margot’s brother had arrived and one of her sons was there. Alice, dear Alice, was being so strong, so kind, even though she was probably being over-optimistic about Glen’s part in it all. He’d seen it before, perfectly decent people being a little lax with the truth, perhaps once making a mistake on their tax return form, getting away with it and thinking it didn’t matter, then doing it again and somehow kidding themselves that it was all right, their hard work and long hours brought in so much revenue into the business and therefore to the country, so surely it did no harm to cream a little extra off for themselves? So often it became too easy and they got lazy or too cavalier and they were caught.

‘I suspect there are some dodgy deals going on and no doubt they’ve arrested everyone high up in the company as a matter of course and will soon release him when they’ve got the ones they want,’ Richard had said as they left. ‘I’m sure Glen hasn’t done anything wrong.’

Frank was aware then that Alice was watching him as if she was willing him to agree with Richard, explain the usual procedure of investigating suspected malpractice in these companies, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze, he said goodbye again and left the house. He didn’t want to say that he needed to get round to the company Glen worked for as soon as possible. There had been rumours floating about for some time about it, and he must find out how today’s activities would affect the article he was working on.

He’d left them with some trite remark, like, ‘Don’t worry, these things often seem worse than they are,’ though inwardly he felt they were very serious indeed. Though Glen could have had nothing to do with it, might only get his knuckles rapped for not keeping a more thorough eye on things. He didn’t want to think about the fraudulent people he’d written about, who’d managed to get away with their dishonesty so long just because they
were
so charming, seemed to be so honest and decent, that no one suspected them of foul play until it was too late.

Alice was silent now beside him in the car, her face turned away as she gazed out of the window. He wished he could get close to her, get back to the easy feeling they’d had between them before she’d asked him about Ned.

He’d slept badly ever since, worried about her, tortured if he were honest, by her blaming him for Julian’s secrecy. It had to be sorted now, before things festered further, and he’d gone round this morning determined to have it out with her. He understood how upset she was, wondering why Julian hadn’t told her about Ned and if there was more to it than the simple truth.

The first time he’d met Alice with Julian he’d been drawn to her but it was obvious that she was madly in love with Julian. Ned happily secure with his mother and stepfather in the US didn’t feature. He couldn’t remember now if he’d ever asked Julian if he’d told Alice about him, probably not as he assumed it was Julian’s business to do so. Alice never mentioned him and in those early days there were so many other things they talked about. Then after their wedding he’d gone to live in France and he hadn’t seen much of Alice and Julian together.

He’d heard of Julian’s death through a friend, though he’d known he was ill and had seen him a few months before. Perhaps he meant to tell Alice about it when he became ill but died before he could, but now he would never know.

But his early morning mission to go round to her and make his peace, and hopefully spend the day with her, had been scuppered by Margot’s problems, which had obviously taken over, and he must now go to the company and see what was happening, so he couldn’t stay with Alice today anyway. To his relief she seemed to have forgotten her anger with him, or perhaps Margot’s problems had overshadowed it.

She broke her silence. ‘It’s so scary. Do you think Glen was up to something he shouldn’t be? I mean, that house cost so much more than the one they sold in Fulham and the presents he gives her, Julian often talked about it, wondered how much money he was earning and he thought the so-called shares were quite dubious.’

He hated to see how worried she was; there was nothing she, any of them, could do, except stand by Margot. She could count on Alice. She wasn’t the sort of person to dump her friends if they were in trouble and he so hoped she wouldn’t distance herself from him because he’d told her about Julian and Ned. He’d kept away from her all these years because he loved her and she was Julian’s wife, but now he wanted to stay and hope that she might grow to love him...

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he said, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I’m afraid I’ve seen quite a lot of this sort of thing; it’s the bulk of my work after all, reporting on various frauds and mistakes. Perfectly decent people can get sucked into things and then keep quiet as they are afraid to lose their job, lose the money they are spending on their children’s education, good holidays, a better house and all the rest of it.’

‘So he could be guilty of something?’ Alice asked her face strained. ‘And Margot, do you think she knew?’

‘Let’s wait and see what happens, not speculate until we know.’ He smiled at her. He knew all about wives accepting expensive gifts and believing whatever story their husbands chose to tell them as to how they suddenly had money to burn. It worked both ways: he’d come across a few women who’d defrauded their company and convinced the men in their lives it was legal too.

Margot was an intelligent woman, and Alice had told him that she was apt to be cagey about discussing her husband, so did she suspect he was up to something? Or feel, as so many people did, that by pretending nothing was wrong it somehow wouldn’t be? Or was she like most wives and mothers often juggling work and home and being too busy, or just too tired at the end of the day, to confront it and demand to know what was going on? Had Alice wondered about Julian, wondered why he, Frank, never came to their house? Or was she too occupied with their busy life to care?

He went on, ‘There are troubles in that company, but I won’t tell you about it, as they might not be true, but I’m sorry but I must go there at once. I wanted to talk to you about Julian and Ned, but I’ll have to leave that until this is over. I’m so sorry, Alice.’ He turned to her, wishing he could hold her but he couldn’t anyway without causing a terrible crash on the Gloucester Road.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. She turned to him, her face anxious. ‘It’s frightening that you can live so intimately with someone for many years and they can keep such things hidden – Julian with Ned and now Glen and Margot. I’ve known Margot since we were six and she’s one of the most honest people I know. She never had much money until she got a job at Colefax and Fowler, and yet she never grumbled or tried to get hold of money she hadn’t worked for. She married Glen and he had a good job and things got better for them as he climbed up the greasy pole of success in the City. Then she and I started our decorating business and made quite good money at the beginning, hardly enough to live on, but enough, and now it seems to be taking off again. But I’m worried now the tax wasn’t paid on it, we left it to Glen’s accountant.’

‘You must have some correspondence to prove it was paid.’ He was worried for her now. Who was this accountant, was he responsible for any tax dodges Glen was involved in?

‘We do. We went through the papers the other day. It all looked all right, and we’re hardly talking mammoth sums of money here.’

‘Have you got them at home, I could check them for you?’ He couldn’t do it now but perhaps he could come back this evening, take her out to dinner.

‘No, they are with Margot. Oh God, I suppose the police will have taken them won’t they in their black sacks?’ Her voice was anguished. ‘If they were wrong, we’ll be in this too. Will we be arrested?’

He pulled over and turned to her, taking her hands in his. ‘Alice, I don’t know what,
if
anything, Glen was up to. But if you paid the tax on your business and had confirmation back, you’ll be in the clear. All the papers will be scrutinized, and it will take ages.’

‘But we’ve just started a new line which is going quite well, will we have to stop it?’

‘I don’t think so, but it may be better to keep all the papers to do with it at your house. When Margot’s calmed down a little ask her if any of them are still around. Do you have all your contacts so you can keep trading?’ It was so hard seeing her like this. She’d had so much to bear, Julian’s illness and death, her daughters’ drastic actions, then finding out about Ned and now this.

‘By luck I took our contact book home and it has the dates of our recent orders so we can finish those.’

‘Good, but fortunately your business is small fry compared to this huge financial firm. Does Glen finance your business at all?’

‘No, we were determined to do this on our own and not ask either of our husbands for money.’ She smiled, ‘It is entirely ours, so neither husband could boss us about.’

He laughed, ‘Good thinking. Was Julian very bossy then?’

‘No, he wasn’t, not often anyway, but we wanted to use our own ideas and not have too much input from outside. We did our tax returns but gave them to Glen’s accountant to file, so…’ she shrugged. ‘I just hope he did them correctly.’

He wanted to kiss her, hold her; she was so brave fighting on without Julian beside her. He wished he could help her but she was too proud to let him, too annoyed with him for keeping such secrets and no doubt felt he was ganging up on her, him and Julian together.

He could not tell her that he’d always loved her and that he felt it prudent to move away from her. As time went on he buried his love for her deep in his memory and met and married Simone, and they’d been happy enough, though their marriage had failed, and they got on better now they lived apart. He’d made a good life for himself and had two wonderful children.

‘Let me out here, please Frank, I want to go on to Peter Jones and get some ribbons for our baskets, if we still have a business,’ Alice said, seeing the lights were about to change. ‘I’ll leave you to go on to work. Thank you for coming with me to Margot’s. I’ll ring her later, see if she wants to come and stay with me for a while.’ She got out of the car before he could stop her, then leant back in. ‘I know I mustn’t ask you what’s going on, but if you find anything out about Glen, please tell me.’

‘I’ll have to see about that, but if there’s anything, it’s bound to come out. Take care. Let’s meet soon.’ He blew her a kiss and she blew one back, quickly as if it were a reflex action.

‘I know you’ll be busy with this for some time, just turn up at the wedding, that’s all you need to do.’ With a smile she was gone and he watched her through the driving mirror, her slim hips swinging elegantly as she moved away from him and out of sight.

Glen was released on bail, and Frank, when Alice, egged on by Margot, telephoned him that evening to ask what was going on, said vaguely that various complicated scams had been discovered in the bank and he couldn’t say anything about them just now.

‘They’ll take ages to get to court and these things are often hard to prove so they’ll probably get away with them,’ Frank said, ‘but don’t say that to Margot. It could be all over the press tomorrow though, so warn her. I’m sorry, Alice, there’s nothing I can do to stop things coming out, other journalists have got hold of the story now.’

‘Thanks Frank, I’ll tell her.’ She was dying to hear more, though she guessed by his tone of voice things were more serious than he was letting on. She assumed he wasn’t allowed to say or encourage any rumour before he wrote his article.

‘I’m afraid I’ll be working flat out for the next few weeks,’ he said, ‘and I so wanted to talk to you about Julian, I can’t bear for you to think badly of him, he loved you more than anyone, please hold on to that.’

‘I will,’ she said, though she felt empty inside, as if some familiar part of her had been destroyed.

‘I’ll be in touch when I can and certainly be there for the wedding and… do ring me if there is anything you need, Alice.’ There was a slight edge to his voice now, which she interpreted as him having other more pressing things to do.

The case was not widely reported in the press and was only in the financial pages, which was a relief for those concerned. Margot chose to believe that Glen was innocent and most of their friends went along with that, though he and the other directors were suspended from work, and he and Margot escaped down to Cornwall to recover, or possibly hide, from the ordeal.

‘I’ll be back for the wedding,’ she promised Alice. ‘I just want to leave London, can’t stand all the suspicious looks people we know give us, though they say to our face that they’re sure Glen is innocent. Our best friends like you are fine but some of the others are envious about the money Glen earned and can’t believe he didn’t do something dishonest to get it.’

Alice understood that Margot wanted to escape, though she wished she were still here as their nursery basket business seemed to have suddenly taken off, so it was now left to her to choose the fabrics and take everything down to Suffolk, not that she really minded as she could see Raffi, and Laura needed one last fitting of her dress. But there was so much else to do with the wedding that needed her attention, find her own outfit for a start, and because she enjoyed baking, Laura asked if she’d mind making her wedding cake.

‘They cost a fortune if you have one made and it won’t taste nearly as good as yours anyway. You make one every Christmas and it’s the same sort of cake, so you could do a wedding cake instead, couldn’t you, Mum? We only want a simple one, not masses of tiers and pillars and everything, please Mum?’ Laura begged the last time she’d seen her. She had of course agreed, though there was not nearly enough time for the mixture to marinate properly.

She’d soaked the fruit in brandy for three days and then baked it and it stood on top of the microwave being fed from time to time when she remembered. She realized she should have made a Christmas cake at the same time, after all Christmas was just after the wedding. Who would be with her, or would she be alone?