As they lifted her into her container, Ivy Brennan, who had been Baldwin, looked like nothing more than a broken dol. There was something especially tragic about her, the tiny, flawed innocent who had deserved so much more from life than to be the victim of George Rosewell, that even the black humour of the attendants was silenced.
Mario had banished his earlier weakness; grateful that only his friend had been there to see him overcome. It had been replaced by a huge, towering rage, which seemed to emanate from him in waves as he thought about everything that had gone wrong so suddenly in his life, and contemplated what he was going to do to the man who had brought it al about.
'Are you absolutely sure,' asked Mcllhenney, forcing his way into his musing, 'that Ivy couldn't have been El a Frances?'
McGuire turned away as a mortuary porter placed the lid on the coffin; he walked across to the window and peered through the slit between the drawn curtains. 'I'm as sure as she's dead,' he answered harshly. 'Ivy lived her odd life with her old sugar daddy next door, but she had no idea of what he was really up to.
'If she had, she wouldn't have pointed me at him with the tip about the beard, or made up that daft story about Uncle Beppe; no, she'd have done the opposite of those things. What she might have done, though, innocently, was set up the Viareggios.'
'Uh?'
'Maybe. I asked Paula some more about her last night. She started coming about the deli in Stockbridge when Rums was no more than an infant. Talked nineteen to the dozen, according to Paulie; she asked all sorts of questions about the shop. She told her that she didn't just come to buy stuff; she said that she liked being there, she liked the smell of it.
She said that she liked just to stand there and breathe in because it reminded her of where she used to live… although she never said where that was, and Paula never asked.
'She asked her about the special wines we stock as well, and whether you can buy them anywhere else. Paula remembered telling her no, that we imported our own, and that we owned a commercial warehouse where they were bonded.
'There was a man too,' said McGuire. 'She told me that once or twice, at weekends, a bloke came into the shop with Ivy; an older bloke, stocky, swarthy, hard-looking, with a grizzled beard. Paulie thought he might have been her father, but she never asked about that either. She said that she was happy to talk to the kid… she liked her well enough… but she didn't want to get involved in her life, so she always tried to keep her at arm's length. She never spoke to this man, and he never spoke to her.'
'But you think he was listening?' asked Mcl henney.
'Chances are that he was. Maybe he told Ivy what to ask, maybe not, but the likelihood is that's how he came to know about our warehouse and to know Paula Viareggio by name and sight.'
'I agree; that's probable. But you've stil got to convince me that Ivy wasn't involved. Everything you've told me about her makes it seem that she was quite an actress.'
'Okay, I'l convince you. There's some more checking I want you to do, then a man I want you to see.'
'Who's that?'
'Walter Jaap, funeral undertaker. He's the only man alive I know who's actually met El a Frances, as such.'
'Okay,' said Mcl henney, 'but I'm not doing it, we are. I've got orders from very high up not to let you out of my sight.'
'Is that right? In that case I might have to sleep with Paula tonight, if you're going to be on the sofa.'
71
It occurred to Sarah that Clyde Oakdale looked more like a lawyer than anyone she had ever known. He wore a three-piece, pin-striped suit, the jacket cut long, a blue shirt with a white collar, and he peered at her over half-moon spectacles as she laid the last will and testament of Leo and Susannah Grace on his desk.
'You're sure you understand al of this, now you've read it?' asked the interim senior partner of Grace, McLean, Wylie, Whyte and Oakdale.
'I think so, but perhaps you'd summarise it for me.'
'Of course,' he answered. 'Some time ago your father consolidated all his investments into a trust fund for his benefit and that of Susannah, during their lifetimes. With their deaths you inherit everything, other than his continuing interest in the law firm, which is distributed among the surviving partners; you and your husband are joint executors of the estate, and have absolute discretion over its disposal. You can dissolve the fund, or continue it in being for your own benefit. Alternatively you may appoint your children as beneficiaries.
'The wil places no constraints upon you of any sort. It does not require you to resume residence in the United States, nor does it require your children to become American citizens as a condition of benefit. In case you're surprised by that remark, I have seen such conditions imposed in situations such as these.'
'What's the total value of the estate?'
'The current valuation of the fund is just under eight mil ion dollars, and the two properties are worth in the region of one-and-a-half million.
There are no borrowings attached to either.'
Sarah whistled. 'I always knew I had a rich daddy, but that surprises me.
'I have to tell you that it would be to your advantage to continue the ftmd in being, for the immediate future at least,' said Oakdale. 'It is extremely tax-advantageous, and the firm would be happy to continue to manage it for you, through our associated brokerage, for the same fee arranged with your father.'
'I'll come back to you on that. Obviously, I'l have to discuss it with my husband. However in the meantime would you please proceed as soon as possible with the sale of the lakeside cabin. Neither Bob nor I have any wish to see that place, ever again.'
'I don't blame you; I'll instruct a real estate agent on your behalf, once the police give me the all clear to proceed.'
'Good,' she said. 'Now if that's al, I must be going. I have another engagement.'
Oakdale held up a hand. 'There is just one more thing.' He rose, ponderously, and walked towards the wal of his office. Behind a mirror, there was a wall safe, which he opened by dial ing in a combination. He reached in and took out a long legal envelope, with a red wax seal on the back.
'A few weeks ago,' he announced, 'Leo gave me this, with the instruction that should he fail to reclaim it before his death, I was to give it to your husband; to no one else but him. I have spoken with him by telephone, and he said it was okay for you to receive it on his behalf, as long as you don't open it.' He handed it to her. 'I must say that I was surprised that he gave it to me rather than to Jack, who was, after all, my senior partner at the time.'
'Do you have any idea what it is?' she asked.
'No. All I can tell you is that, from your father's demeanour when he entrusted it to me, it is very important.'
72
Skinner was still dazed by the enormity of Joe Doherty's death as he walked along the tree-lined street in which the Walkers lived. He had stopped believing in coincidences when he was around eighteen years old.
'Why couldn't you take a hint, old pal,' he muttered, sadly. 'As if Wylie's boat blowing up when we should have been on it wasn't enough to give you the message.'
The thing that surprised him to an extent was that he felt no real threat to his personal safety. He was sure beyond any doubt that the explosion had now been reclassified as an accident, and that the remains of Jack Wylie's computer were as useless as they had no doubt looked when they were recovered from the hulk.
