Gemma Makes Her Mark

She and Mark had been together forgetting on for two years now and to be fair they had had theirmoments. It was always an option that they could do what Markplainly wanted and settle down with enough money to live more thancomfortably for as long as they wished. The thing was that shewanted something more, or at least different. It wasn’t just theweekend in London; she couldn’t help feeling that he held her back,that what he wanted was fine for him but not for her. To put a morepositive spin on it, she didn’t think it was the best thing forMark anyway; he might go on about how pleased he was with things,but he wasn’t the type to sit back and just take it easy. He mightbe a good deal older than her but he was still only in hismid-thirties.

Enjoying the wine andsun, Gemma was flattered and excited that Victoria and Rebecca wereso keen on her moving up to London.

‘Yes Isuppose I could, the thing is Mark. He assumes we’re going to staytogether and I didn’t tell you this, he even asked me to marry himthe other day when I told him I was coming up here. Typicallydesperate, really. I’m not sure he really meant it but the thing isI do feel bad about it.’

Rebecca and Victoriacouldn’t contain themselves. Rebecca started.

‘Oh Gemma, like Ijust said, he’ll drag you down, you know that, you’ve said soyourself. You must put yourself first.’

Victoria chippedin.

‘Yes, andyou’ve told us you don’t really love him anyway. Look, he might bea nice guy, I’m sure he is, but you can’t spend your life with himjust because of that. You know you’ll have more fun up here with usaround.’

She paused to letGemma think before pushing on.

‘Look ,whydon’t you stay tonight as well? There’s no rush for you to get backto Sussex, is there? We could go and eat at the Belvedere – it’sbrilliant, it’s some sort of seventeenth-century mansionapparently, on Abbotsbury Road. Daddy knows the manager orsomething and the food’s meant to be amazing. We can talk itthrough, it always helps to get things out into the open and tohave someone who’ll listen. You can stay with Rebecca and mewhenever you want while you’re getting everythingfixed.’

Gemma realisedthey were just being honest and she knew they were trying to helpand were right too; of course, what they didn’t know was that sheand Mark had planned and carried through the murder of her motherand that she had to be pretty careful with how she handled him. Shehad been assiduous in making sure that there was no direct evidencelinking her to her mother’s death: she’d bought none of thepoisons, except the mushrooms, of course, but there were noreceipts involved there, and she knew she could manage Roger easilyenough if she had to. As well as that, given Mark’s previousrecord, she had more than enough on him to ensure it would bestraightforward enough to put all the blame and guilt on him shouldit come to it. She was well aware that, logically, if it came downto his word against hers there would only be one winner, butnonetheless she was also well aware that he could at the very leastmake life more than a little awkward for her. As well as that,though, she did acknowledge that Mark had helped her avenge herfather’s death and life and she never intended to be unfair to him,or to hurt him unnecessarily. She would try her best to let himdown as gently as possible. Anyway, that was all a little besidethe point for now: why not stay another night? She was beginning tolike London and could see herself having a future here.

‘Yes thatwould be nice, if the two of you are sure you don’t mind me stayinganother night. And I know you’re right, I fancy doing somethingdifferent and I know I can’t stay with him as well. Basically Ilike him but that’s all. It’d be good to have a chat tonight andI’ll do my best to clear things up with Mark when I’m back inPetworth.’

***

Looking back,it had been a long nine months. Finalising the details of herlegacy had taken most of the year so far and had been a long-windedand tedious process. Gemma’s solicitors, a well-established localFarnham practice, had assured her that there were no obvious issuesand that it would be basically straightforward; on that basis shehad let them take over managing the probate. Things hadn’t movedthat quickly, however; it had taken a couple of months before shehad even got the grant of representation, as it was called. Afterthat there’d been a lot of organising, advertising and selling todo. It was amazing quite how much her parents had stocked up in,after all, only around twenty-five years. The house itself hadattracted a fair bit of interest when they’d put it on the marketin late March and there had been a sort of bidding war before itwas sold by the end of May for slightly above the initial askingprice of £120,000. The real bonus, though, had been the paintingsand furniture. Mark had been careful to get everything properlyvalued and they had resisted selling the whole lot as one deal, inspite of the various offers to ‘take the lot’ from antique dealersin Guildford as well as Farnham. She had to admit that he had donea really good job and had been right to insist on sellingeverything individually, either through the ‘buy and sell’ advertsin local papers or at auction. The Parrish paintings had been thehigh spot and they’d got almost £30,000 for the two of them, alongwith another £3000 for the unattributed oil painting plus goodprices for the various watercolours. Then the Victorian furnitureand numerous other decorations and vases had got decent prices too.On top of that there were the shares and savings that her motherhad been left after her own father and uncle had died. That hadbeen the real surprise, the icing on the cake as far as Gemma wasconcerned. Both her grandfather and great uncle had boughtsubstantial shares in the Cunard company between the 1930s and’50s, which had