How bad a decision maker did that make me? Just as Sam had been married to a woman who went off with his best friend, I thought suddenly, which didn’t make him much of a decision maker either. Safety in numbers, perhaps.
I drove on, my gaze fixed steadily on the road ahead; behind me, it seemed, a shattered landscape. My past. Which I was finally taking leave of. No Radio Two broadcasting cheerily as usual; instead I hunched over my wheel, pensive. But I was moving on. Getting my life back. I was pretty sure, for instance, that the pill I’d taken yesterday had been the last one. I’d felt it with a quiet certainty as I’d swallowed; had known there was nothing premature about it this time. And somehow, everything Mark Harrison had just told me confirmed it. There was a lot to digest, though; he’d divulged a great deal in the space of half an hour, and not just about Emma, about Sam too. My brain was still filtering it, wondering where it left me, when my phone rang.
‘Hello?’ I whispered into my hands-free on the dashboard, not too loudly so as not to disturb Archie, who was still sleeping soundly in the back.
‘Hi, Poppy, it’s Luke.’
‘Oh – hi, Luke.’ For some reason I started guiltily.
‘Why are you whispering?’
‘Because Archie’s asleep in the back. I’m in the car.’
‘Oh, OK, I’ll whisper too,’ he lowered his voice. I smiled, liking that. ‘Have you heard the news about Emma Harding?’
‘I have, actually. Mark the huntsman told me. Apparently it’s all over the village.’
‘Forget the village, it’s all over the City!’
‘Really?’
‘The Internet is positively buzzing!’ He sounded thrilled, but then weren’t we all? ‘False accounting, they say. Plus a bit of fictitious trading thrown in for good measure, oh – and theft from a client’s account too. Well, why wouldn’t you? Word is she was even brazen enough to take a few secret commissions on share deals while she was at it – un- bloody-believable! Massively risky too. There’s talk of her doing unauthorized trading in her own name. I mean, bugger me!’
‘But how do they know all this?’ I whispered, glancing at Archie in the mirror.
‘They don’t; it’s pure speculation, pure swinging-dick talk. But there’s never smoke without fire in the square mile, Poppy; some of it will be true, I promise you. And the thing is, once you’ve got away with something, you get bolder and go for the next trick, so it’s all very plausible. I’ll say this for her, she’s got nerve. Particularly when you think she was sleeping with one of the partners.’
‘Quite,’ I said grimly. My partner. Did I detect a touch of awe in his voice?
‘Anyway, she’s been comprehensively caught with her fingers in the till now.’
‘She’d have had them snapped off if Phil had had anything to do with it. Knuckle by knuckle, probably.’ Or would she? I wondered how blind love would have been. Not as blind as that, I felt. Phil had been scrupulously honest where money was concerned.
‘She’s been taken to London for questioning by the Serious Fraud Squad; they’ve seized her files, her computer – the lot. They were in your old man’s office at seven o’clock this morning, going through her old desk – a mate of mine works next door. These guys are so thorough they’d X-ray your grandmother. Trust me, Poppy, her life will be trawled through like you wouldn’t believe. It’ll keep her thieving hands away from your inheritance at any rate.’
‘Well, quite, although actually she’d already dropped her claim.’
‘Oh, had she? I didn’t know that.’
Archie stirred behind me, eyelids flickering ominously.
‘Listen, I’d better go, Luke,’ I whispered. ‘I need to get another half-hour out of Archie or he’ll go grumpy on me.’
‘OK, my love,’ he said chirpily. ‘See you this evening. Can’t wait.’
‘Me neither,’ I agreed as I clicked the phone off.
But I was pensive again as I replaced my hand on the wheel and narrowed my eyes to the hills that rose up beyond, framing my village. If it were possible, even more pensive than the last half-hour in Mark’s cottage had rendered me. Because … had I told Luke about Phil’s will? Or about Emma Harding’s claim on it? Indeed had I so much as mentioned my inheritance? I was almost certain I hadn’t. In which case … what on earth did he know about all that?
26
