AT SOME point over the black months that followed I allowed myself to remember the thing I’d been shutting out.
I’d been in denial about the words I’d overheard, even though she’d vanished a few hours later. Now I had to face it.
She’d left me for someone else. She’d deceived me.
I didn’t believe that.
Then I went into denial again. Whatever the truth, I couldn’t bear to believe her anything but honest.
It would have been easy to put an enquiry agent on her tail, but that was the one thing I couldn’t do. She’d implored me not to, and if I went storming after her all she would see was that I disregarded her feelings when it suited me.
She had said that if I found her it would break her heart. So I had nothing left but to obey her wishes without the solace of her presence.
I know my staff thought I was unusually tetchy. It wasn’t like me, but I couldn’t help it these days.
Do I have to say that I made money hand over fist? I couldn’t breathe without making money. It was depressing.
Raymond Keller became head of Consolidated and, contrary to Grace’s dire predictions, immediately made a deal with Bullen Inc, just as if I hadn’t thumped him. I’d have liked to refuse, but it would have damaged too many people, so I set Stuart to do the negotiations.
Stuart is my right-hand man, and far more like ‘Bully Jack’ than I am. He was rather shocked that I’d taken time off for that cruise. He thought having fun was a waste of time. Only business mattered.
Having left him to do the deal, I then arranged to be away for the celebrations. Stuart represented me at those too-and did it very well, considering how festivities bored him.
The year moved on, the weather grew colder, and sometimes it was hard to remember that I’d ever cruised the Mediterranean in the sun.
Selina announced her engagement to Derek Lamming.
Grace said it was all my fault.
They married in December. I sent them an indecently generous wedding gift, which made Jenny giggle and say, ‘There’s no need to make your relief quite so obvious.’
Jenny always had a gift for hitting the nail on the head.
She looked at me anxiously. ‘Are you all right, Jack?’
‘Of course. Why?’
‘You look older. You’re not really all right, are you?’
I shrugged. I wasn’t so good with the words these days.
‘How’s my future godson?’ I asked, to change the subject.
She patted her stomach happily.
‘Getting ready to make a grand debut. It was the yacht, you know. Those three days Charles and I vanished.’
Soon after that I slipped away. It was a subject I couldn’t bear to talk about.
Over Christmas I invented a pile of work that had to be done, and managed to persuade Grace to spend the festive season with Harry.
Winter became spring, and I told myself that I ought to be well over Della by now. But I wasn’t, and I began to be afraid that it would never end.
Grace lost patience with me and, being Grace, showed it in a way that felt like being kicked in the head.
I spent less time in our house now, but I was still there some days. One evening, as we sat over dinner, she leaned over and set something down before me.
It was Charlie.
‘That is the brooch you bought her, isn’t it?’ she said in a smug tone.
I’d have liked to deny it, but there was the slight bend in the pin where I’d trodden on it. There was no doubt that this was the brooch I’d bought Della.
‘I found it in a pawnshop,’ Grace said triumphantly. ‘She’s sold it outright.’
I turned it over and over in my fingers, keeping my face stony so that Grace shouldn’t see how much this hurt.
‘Now will you see sense?’ she asked. ‘You had a lucky escape.’
I tried to keep my temper. It was harder these days.
‘That’s your view, Grace, but mine is different. I don’t know why she did this, but I wish she’d come to me.’
‘A cheap little floozie-’
She stopped because I met her eyes quickly. I recalled Charles telling me that I’d become scary these days. I’d dismissed it, but now the way Grace fell silent made me wonder.
‘It’s natural that you should be sentimental about her,’ she said at last, a little more carefully. ‘But she was very damaging to you.’
‘You don’t know that,’ I growled.
‘As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve found out who she is and, more important, what she is.’
‘Are you going to tell me that you know where-?’ I demanded in disbelief.
‘Oh, yes, I know her whereabouts. That was the easy part.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘Would you have thanked me for telling you that she’s in prison?’
For a moment I was winded. Then I recovered and snapped, ‘Nonsense.’
‘It isn’t nonsense. Pearl told me. She was visiting someone there and saw her.’
Pearl is Grace’s maid and had seen Della on the boat. This story began to have a horrible likelihood about it, but I still said mechanically, ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Oh, I have no patience with you! Then believe this. After Pearl told me what she’d seen I hired a private enquiry agent.’
‘I expressly forbade you to do that,’ I said furiously. ‘I told you she wouldn’t like it.’
‘Yes, and now we know why. You’d never have seen through her if I hadn’t done something. I’ve found out things about your precious Della that explain exactly why she kept so quiet.’
She stopped there, waiting. In truth I was in agony, but hell would freeze over before I was going to ask her.
At last she repeated, ‘Oh, yes, there are things she didn’t want you to know, and I’m not surprised.’
‘That was her choice,’ I said curtly. ‘When I see her, perhaps she’ll choose to tell me.’
‘She won’t have much choice in prison, will she?’
My control broke.
‘What the blazes is she doing there?’
‘She’s a crook.’
‘Don’t say that,’ I told her angrily.
‘Della Martin is on remand on a charge of stealing an extremely valuable diamond bracelet. She was caught red-handed. Apparently she comes from a notorious family of crooks. There’s a whole gang of them-conmen, sneak thieves, pilferers. She was brought up dishonest. It’s the only way she knows how to live. When I think that you invited her onto that boat to live with us- Anything might have happened.’
‘I’ll tell you what did happen,’ I said furiously. ‘I gave her a fortune in jewellery and she left it behind. No thief would do that.’
That took her aback for a moment, but then she shrugged her shoulders.
‘Very clever. Of course you’d have sent the police after her if she’d taken everything.’
‘No, it was hers to take,’ I said coldly. ‘And she knew it.’
I got up and prepared to go.
‘I was only thinking of your best interests,’ Grace protested.
