Chapter 23
Jill Dundas, now without the guiding hand of her father, realised the responsibility and burden on her shoulders. Not only was there Gilbert Lawrence’s substantial real estate holdings to concern herself with, but there was also Caroline, Gilbert’s daughter, close by, attempting to find out more, and now Ralph. As far as she was concerned, he was a man of little worth, a man who had justifiably been derided by his own father. What worried her was that there were people out there who used violence as a weapon, and she was the most likely target. Even a modicum of information from her, a password, an account number, could be worth millions. And some people knew how to hack computers, even though her father had been fastidious about ensuring that no one other than the two of them knew the full extent of Gilbert’s wealth, and the office computers, the internet connection, had the best protection that money could buy.
Jill knew of the account squirrelled away in the Cayman Islands, one of the places in the world that didn’t enquire too closely into where the funds came from. That was her father’s special account, unknown to anyone in the office, and even she didn’t know the passwords, but she knew where to find them. There was also a house there, set back from the beach, no more than two miles from the centre of Georgetown, the capital. Idyllic when the tourists weren’t there, annoying when they were. All in all she believed that with her father’s tutorage she was well placed to deal with all financial matters, but violence frightened her. Even as a child, a fight in the school playground would upset her for days, but that was other people, and if whoever had confronted Ralph hauled her off to some dingy room and threatened her, even hit her, she knew she would weaken.
And now Caroline was adamant that Ralph would come along to the meetings at the office as her special adviser. It was a weakening of her position, Jill knew. Ralph may be many things, most of them negative, but he wasn’t naïve about how to conceal money in foreign bank accounts, how to set up companies and trusts to hide assets. Jill was aware that he would be asking pertinent questions, questions that she couldn’t divert with legalese and financial jargon. The man was a threat, and if she knew who it was that had beaten him, she would have asked them why they hadn’t finished the job.
Jill Dundas made a phone call. ‘Caroline, we need to meet.’ She hadn’t wanted to make it, she knew she had to.
The two women did not meet at the office of Dundas and daughter, nor did they meet at Caroline’s house. The conversation was important, and they met at the Savoy hotel in the centre of London, in Westminster, on the Strand.
‘Caroline, we have a problem,’ Jill said. There had been a brief embrace when first meeting, more a courtesy than a show of affection. Caroline was under no illusion, and she had not brought Ralph with her, at Jill’s request, ‘to each other’s mutual benefit’ had been the words that the solicitor had used. Ralph was still convalescing, drinking too much, and complaining at not being fully mobile, and Michael bringing his girlfriend over every other night, their bed banging on the shared bedroom wall, was making him crankier by the day. Caroline knew that with his current temperament he wasn’t much use to her anyway.
Ralph’s temper, justified at the reading of their father’s last will and testament, was not needed now. Now, it was time for reasoned argument, a breaking down of the barriers that Leonard Dundas, and now his daughter, had put up.
‘It’s just you now. What are you going to do?’ Caroline said. She was not in a mood to be conciliatory.
‘Ralph is in trouble, isn’t he?’
‘That’s Ralph, but what’s it to you? You’re not the bleeding-heart type, and I doubt if you care what happens to him, to us. To you, Ralph and I are like something the cat dragged into the house.’
‘Honest words, Caroline,’ Jill said. ‘Neither of you deserve any of your father’s money. The man was a genius, my father’s friend. What are you and Ralph, the spawn of a great man? Your only skill was to be born his child. I worked hard for what I’ve got, so did my father, so did yours.’
At least the woman is honest, Caroline thought. ‘You’ve opened up, but why and now?’
‘Ralph’s just a pawn, a charming nonsensical pawn. It’s me that’s the target. I’m the one with all the information, and I’m willing to admit that I’m afraid, more so than ever before.’
They were sitting in the Thames Foyer. Jill ordered afternoon tea, a favoured pastime of the hotel’s guests and tourists to the city of London. She helped herself to a cake, Caroline chose a homemade scone with clotted cream and jam.
‘What are you suggesting? That we make some kind of a deal?’
‘We need to protect ourselves, and at this time, you’d quite happily see me go to the devil,’ Jill said.
‘You and your father have stolen our legacy. I don’t know how, maybe I never will, but your father had managed to control my father and to take his money.’
‘Your father was eccentric, maybe even slightly crazy with your mother upstairs, but he still knew what he was doing. Your father had amassed a fortune, and he put in safeguards to ensure it was not squandered. And yes, my father helped himself to plenty, but he wasn’t going to throw it away, and nor am I. Work with me, Caroline, to protect ourselves, and I’ll make it worth your while.’
‘Pretty words, purely because you’re frightened, but what do they mean? The police are out looking
