Believing the Lie

Angelina took a sip of tea. “It’s stupid how arguments between partners grow from nothing. One makes a suggestion that the other doesn’t care for and before you know it, tempers flare. Things get said. It’s ridiculous.”

To this Barbara didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have a partner, had never had one, and had no possibility of some chance encounter leading her to having one. So arguing with one? Hurling objects at one? There was small likelihood that she’d find herself having that experience any time soon. Still, she made a mumbling, “’S hell, that, eh?” and hoped that would suffice.

“You know about Hari’s wife, don’t you?” Angelina asked. “I expect he’s told you: how he left her but there’s never been a divorce.”

Barbara felt a bit prickly with this direction of conversation. “Well. Right. Yeah. I mean, more or less.”

“He left her for me. I was a student. Not his, of course. I’ve no brain for science. But we met at lunch one day. It was crowded, and he asked to share my table. I liked his… well, I quite liked his gravity, his thoughtfulness. I liked his confidence, the way he didn’t feel he had to answer quickly or amusingly in a conversation. He was very real. That appealed to me.”

“I c’n see how it would.” For it appealed to Barbara as well, and long had done. Taymullah Azhar had appeared from the first to be exactly who he seemed to be.

“I didn’t want him to leave her. I loved him — I love him — but to break up a man’s home… I never saw myself as such a woman. But then there was Hadiyyah. When Hari knew I was pregnant, he’d hear of nothing else but our being together. I could have ended the pregnancy, of course. But this was ours, you see, and I couldn’t face not having her.” She leaned forward and briefly touched Barbara’s hand. “Can you imagine a world without Hadiyyah in it?”

It was a simple question with an equally simple answer. “Can’t,” Barbara said.

“Anyway, I’ve wanted her to meet her siblings, Hari’s other children. But he won’t hear of it.”

“That was the row?”

“We’ve gone through it before. It’s the only thing we ever argue about. The answer’s always the same. ‘That will not happen,’ as if he determines the course everyone’s life is supposed to take. When he says that sort of thing, I don’t react well. Nor do I react well when he declares that he and I will not be giving her a sibling either. ‘I have three children,’ he says. ‘I will have no more.’”

“He might change his mind.”

“He hasn’t in years and I can’t think of a single reason why he would.”

“Behind his back, then? Without him knowing?”

“Take Hadiyyah to meet her siblings, you mean?” Angelina shook her head. “I’ve no idea where they are. I’ve no idea what their names are or who their mother is. She might have returned to Pakistan, for all he’s told me about her.”

“There’s always an accidental pregnancy, I suppose. But it’s a bit low, that, eh?”

“He’d never forgive it. And I’ve already asked him to forgive a great deal.”

Barbara thought Angelina might go on at that point, revealing her reasons for having left Azhar and Hadiyyah for her “trip to Canada” as it had long been called. But she didn’t do so. Instead she said, “I love Hari so much, you know. But sometimes I hate him in just the same way.” She smiled at the irony of her own statement. Then she seemed to shrug it off. She said, “Wait an hour then ring him on his mobile. Hari will do whatever he can to grant your favour.”

LAKE WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

Manette had reckoned on the previous day that her father hadn’t been telling the truth about Vivienne Tully. She had also reckoned that emotional cowardice was what was preventing her from pushing the subject further. It was stupid, really, but the fact of the matter was that she hadn’t wanted to show any sign of weakness in her father’s presence. She was still infuriatingly that little girl who believed she could morph herself into the son Bernard Fairclough so wanted if she tried hard enough. Big boys didn’t cry, so neither would she. Thus anything that threatened a wellspring of emotion from her while her father stood there observing, evaluating, and dismissing her was something that had to be avoided.

But the subject wasn’t closed. How could it be? If Ian had been making monthly payments to Vivienne Tully for years, there was more than one reason that Manette had to get to the story behind that: There was also her mother to consider. Her mother, after all, owned Fairclough Industries. It had been her inheritance. Her father might have run it for decades with great success, but it was a private company with a small but powerful board of directors. Her mother and not her father was its chairman. For Valerie’s own father had been no fool. Just because Bernie Dexter had become Bernard Fairclough, this did not mean he had Fairclough blood running through his veins. So there was no way on earth that Valerie’s father would have risked Fairclough Industries falling into the hands of someone who was not a Fairclough born.

She’d talked everything over with Freddie. Thankfully, he’d not had a date with Sarah on the previous night, although he’d had a lengthy conversation with the woman, his hushed voice sounding amused and affectionate. Manette had gritted her teeth through this, and when her jaw had begun to ache and the conversation did not end, she’d gone into the sitting room and used the treadmill till the sweat ran down her chest and soaked her jersey. Finally, Freddie had wandered in, his face slightly flushed and the tips of his ears quite pink. She would have concluded they’d had telephone sex, but Manette didn’t see that as Freddie’s style.

She ran for another five minutes to make her workout look legitimate. Freddie mouthed wow in ostensible admiration for her endurance and took himself into the kitchen. There she found him bent over a book of crossword puzzles, looking thoughtful and tapping the non-business end of a Biro against his lip.

She said to him, “Not going out tonight?”

He said, “Giving it a bit of a rest.”

“The old prong tired, is he?”

Freddie blushed. “Oh no. He’s very up for the job.”

“Freddie McGhie!”

Freddie’s eyes got wide and then he caught the innuendo. “Lord. Didn’t mean it that way,” he laughed. “We decided — ”

“You and the lady or you and the prong?”

“Sarah and I decided to slow things just a bit. Seems that a relationship should have more to it than tearing off one’s clothes within ten minutes of hello.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Manette said without thinking.

“Are you? Why?”

“Oh, well… I…” She thought for a moment and came up with, “I don’t want you to make a mistake. To be hurt. You know.”

He gazed at her. She felt the heat climb her chest and ease its way up her neck. A change of subject was needed and Manette’s conversation with Bernard was just the ticket.

Freddie had listened in that Freddie way: giving her his complete attention. When she was finished, he said, “I think we both must talk to him at this point, Manette.”

Manette was surprised by the strength of her gratitude. Still, she knew that they had only one option when it came to getting information from her father. It was likely that Mignon had managed to learn whatever it was she’d learned via either her impressive skills with the Internet or her dexterous turning of the screws of their father’s guilt. Mignon had never been wrong about their father’s preference for Nicholas. She’d merely dealt with that preference in a fashion that served her own ends from the first, becoming more expert at this the older she grew. But neither Manette nor Freddie possessed that sort of manipulative expertise. The way Manette saw it, only Valerie’s presence and Valerie’s learning about the money drain would move Bernard now. There was simply too much on the line — the ruin of an entire firm, just for starters — to let matters lie. If Manette’s father wasn’t willing