A Little Revenge Omnibus (17 page)

Heavens, but you’d have thought that a young man with Ritchie’s brains would have known immediately that the whole thing was a scam. There had been enough warnings over the years in the financial press about this type of thing, but then Ritchie was studying the classics and Ward doubted that he had ever read a financial article in his life.

His father was similarly naive and had been hopelessly out of place in the large, sprawling urban jungle of a school where he had taught and where Ward himself had been a pupil. Ward had perfectly understood what his mother had meant when she had told her son gently that one of the reasons she wanted to accept Alfred’s proposal of marriage was that she felt he needed someone to look after him properly.

Ward could still remember how some of the other boys had mocked and taunted him because their softie of an English teacher was now his stepfather, but Ward had soon shown them the error of their ways. He had been big and strong for his age, with a tongue that could be just as quick and painful as his fists when it needed to be.

Ward had grown up in an environment where you had to be tough to survive, and the lessons he had learned there had equipped him very well when it had come to surviving in business. But now those early thrusting, exhausting years were over. Now he never needed to work again.

He got up and walked over to stare out of the window. Down below, the Yorkshire moors rolled away towards the town. The stone manor house he had made his home was considered by many to be too bleak for comfort, but Ward just shrugged his shoulders at their criticism. It suited him. But then, perhaps, he was a bleak person. He certainly was one it wasn’t advisable to try to cheat.

He looked again at the statement. He suspected that J. Cox and A. Trewayne, whoever they might be, were by now very safely out of reach; that was the way of such things. But the streak of stubbornness and the drive for justice that were such a strong part of his personality refused to allow him to dismiss the matter without making at least some attempt to bring them to book.

Now that he had sold his business, his time was pretty much his own. There were certain calls upon it, of course. He made regular visits to his parents, who were now living happily and genteelly in the spa town of Tunbridge Wells. He took a very vigorous interest in the local workshop he had founded and funded which taught youngsters the basic mechanics of a wide range of trades—thus not only providing them with some skills but also providing older men who had been made redundant with a new job which gave them a renewed sense of pride in their trades.

It was a project to which Ward devoted a considerable amount of his time, and he had no time for shirkers. Everyone accepted onto it, whether as a teacher or a pupil, was expected to work and work hard. Tucked away at the back of Ward’s mind was the possibility that, should the right opportunity arise, it might be worthwhile establishing an eclectic workforce comprising the best of his young trainees and encouraging them to work both as a supportive group and on their own.

‘Ward, you can’t finance the apprenticeship of every school-leaver in Yorkshire,’ his accountant had protested when Ward had first mooted his plans to him.

But Ward had shaken his head and told him simply, ‘Maybe not, but at least I’ll be able to give some of them a chance.’

‘And what about those who are simply using your scheme, your generosity—the ones who are using you?’ his accountant had asked him.

Ward had merely shrugged, the movement of his big shoulders signifying that they were broad enough to take such small-mindedness and greed. But if either his accountant or anyone else had ever dared to suggest that he was an idealist, a romantic at heart who wanted only to see the best in everyone, to help everyone, Ward would have dismissed such a statement instantly with a pithily scathing response.

He frowned as he studied the papers Ritchie had given him again and then flicked through his phone book, looking for the number of the very discreet and professional service he sometimes used when he wanted to make enquiries about anyone. As a millionaire and a philanthropist he was constantly being approached for financial help, and whilst Ward was the first man to put his hand in his pocket to help a genuinely deserving cause or person he was street-wise enough to want to make sure that they were genuinely deserving.

Whilst he was waiting for his call to be answered, his attention was caught by some papers awaiting his attention on his desk.

They carried his full name—once the bane of his life and the cause of many a childhood scuffle; where he had grown up there had sometimes been only one way of convincing his jeering taunter that the name Hereward did not mean that he was a victim or an easy target for the school’s bullies.

Hereward.

‘Why?’ he had once emotionally demanded of his mother.

‘Because I like it,’ she had told him with her loving smile. ‘I thought it suited you. Made you different...’

‘Aye, it’s done that all right,’ he had agreed bluntly.

Hereward Hunter.

Perhaps deep down inside his mother had been motivated by much the same impulse that had driven the absentee father in Johnny Cash’s famous song ‘A Boy Named Sue.’ She had known, not that it would make him different, but that it would make him strong. Well, strong he undoubtedly was, certainly strong enough to ensure that J. Cox and A. Trewayne paid back every penny they had gulled from his naive half-brother, even if he had to up-end them and shake them by the seat of their pants to make their pockets disgorge it.

A single bar of sunlight streaming in through the narrow window of his office touched his thick dark brown hair, burnishing and highlighting the very masculine planes of his face. His eyes were as cold and dark as the North Sea on a stark winter’s day when he told the girl who answered his call whom he wanted to speak with.

Oh, yes, J. Cox and A. Trewayne were most definitely going to regret cheating his half-brother. Legally it might be possible to pursue them through the courts for fraud, but Ward had already decided that they merited something a little swifter and more punitive than the slow process of the law.

Like the bullies who had tried it on with him at school, their type relied on their victim’s vulnerability and fear—not, of course, fear of violence, but of being publicly branded either foolish or, even worse, financially incompetent. And that fear prevented the truth of what these con men were doing from being disclosed.

Well, they were soon going to discover that in trying to con his half-brother they had made the biggest mistake of their grubbily deceitful lives.

CHAPTER TWO

‘A
NNA
! H
ELLO
! H
OW
are you?’

As Anna Trewayne heard the pleasure in Dee’s voice her heart skipped a small, uncomfortable beat. Dee wasn’t going to sound anything like so happy once Anna had broken the news to her that she had to break.

Unhappily, she wondered whether the three of them—Dee, Kelly and herself—would have taken the decision they had taken to try to bring to book the man who had so nearly destroyed the life and broken the heart of the fourth member of their closely-knit quartet—her own god-daughter, Beth—if they had known just how things were going to turn out.

Kelly, the first of them to pit herself against Julian Cox and reveal him as the cheat and liar that he was, even with Dee’s encouragement and backing, had in the end not been able to go through with their plan to unmask him by pretending to be a rich heiress. Yes, Julian had shown an interest in her, and, yes, he had also made overtures to her whilst still paying court to his existing girlfriend. But then Kelly had fallen in love, and, as Dee had generously acknowledged, there had been no way she could have continued with their plan to unmask Julian once Kelly had fallen in love with Brough and he with her.

And so Dee had announced that they would take their plan to stage two, which meant that she, Anna, had had to intimate to Julian that she would like his financial advice. She had, she had told him when they had met up, a sizeable sum of money she wanted to invest to produce a good return.

Coached by Dee, who had also supplied the fifty thousand pounds Anna supposedly wanted to invest, Anna had listened wide-eyed and apparently naively whilst Julian, true to form, had informed her that he knew just the deal for her and that all she had to do was to write him a cheque for fifty thousand pounds and relax.

‘Fifty thousand pounds, Dee,’ Anna had protested when she had reported this conversation to her. ‘It seems such a lot...’

‘Not really.’ Dee had stopped her firmly. Although at thirty-seven Anna was Dee’s senior by seven years, Dee’s mature and businesslike manner often made Anna feel that she was the younger one.

As a foursome they were perhaps a disparate group, she recognised. Beth, at twenty-four, was a dreamer, gentle and easy-going, which was what had made her such an easy victim for Julian Cox.

Kelly, Beth’s friend and business partner in the pretty shop they ran in the small town of Rye-on-Averton, where Anna had encouraged them to move and open up a business, was much more vivacious and impetuous. Brough and she would make a very good couple, Anna acknowledged.

Dee was their landlady; she owned the building which housed the shop and the flat above it where both girls had lived until Kelly had met Brough. Dee’s father had been a very well thought of local entrepreneur and had been on several local charity committees until his unexpected death just as Dee had been about to leave university. Immediately Dee had changed her plans, and instead of pursuing her own choice of career she had come home to take up the reins of her father’s business. It had been Dee who had been the prime motivator in their decision to bring Julian Cox to book for the way he had humiliated and hurt Beth, although Beth herself was still unaware of this decision.

‘We won’t say anything about any of this to Beth,’ Dee had informed them. ‘It wouldn’t serve any useful purpose and it could even do some harm, especially now that she seems to be getting over Julian and putting what happened behind her.’

‘Yes, she does. She’s tremendously excited about this glass she’s found in the Czech Republic,’ Kelly had agreed, and Anna had been too relieved to hear that Beth was getting over the pain that Julian had caused her to want to protest or argue.

It had been Dee’s idea to persuade Beth to visit Prague on a buying trip after the break-up of her relationship with Julian Cox.

Since her return Beth had thrown herself into the shop with a determination and single-mindedness which had rather surprised Anna, who was more used to her god-daughter’s dreamy habit of allowing others to take a leading role in things.

Perhaps she felt that now that Kelly was soon to be married it was down to her to become the senior partner in their business, Anna decided. She herself was the oldest member of the quartet; Beth’s mother was her own cousin, which was how she had originally come to be asked to be Beth’s godmother. Both families were based in Cornwall and had been for several generations.

At twenty-two Anna had married her childhood sweetheart, Ralph Trewayne. They had been so much in love. So very happy together. Ralph had been a quiet, gentle boy, their love for one another a very youthful, tender one. What it might have grown into, how it would have weathered the tests of time, they’d never had the opportunity to find out. Ralph had been killed; drowned whilst out sailing. They had only been married a very short time and after his death Anna had been unable to bear the sight of the sea or the memories it brought her and so she had moved here to Rye to make a new life for herself. Rye was inland and the river that ran close by was shallow and placid. Even so, Anna had deliberately chosen to buy a house outside the town, and with no views from any of its windows of the river.

Dee had commented on this once in some surprise when the subject had been raised. ‘Well, this house is certainly in a lovely spot, Anna, but most people who move to Rye look upon properties in a riverside location as being in a prime position.’

Anna had seen that Dee was curious about her decision but she had simply not felt she had known her well enough at that stage to confide her feelings to her.

‘This house suits me,’ was all she had felt able to say. ‘I like living here.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly made a very comfortable home of it,’ Dee had responded approvingly.

Ralph had been very well insured, and financially Anna was comfortably off. She had never had any desire to remarry. Somehow it would have seemed a betrayal, not so much of their love, which had now faded to a soft, fuzzy, out-of-focus memory she could sometimes scarcely believe was hers, but of the fact that Ralph was no longer alive, that his life was over, cut off cruelly short. And yes, a part of her somehow felt guilty because she was alive and he wasn’t.

She was sad not to have had children but she enjoyed living in Rye. She liked the town’s quiet pace and the beauty of its surrounding countryside. She enjoyed walking and was a member of a rambling club. Needlework was one of her hobbies, and she was currently working on a communal project involving a tapestry depicting the history of the town.

For the past five years she had been doing voluntary work, helping to provide community care for the elderly, and through her friendship with Dee she had found herself being co-opted onto several charity committees.

‘I’m not quite sure I shall be very much use,’ she had protested when Dee had first asked her to join one of them.

That had been in the early days of what had then been more of an acquaintanceship than a friendship, and Anna, who was normally rather retiring and reticent about making new friends, had surprised herself a little at the speed with which she had become so close to Dee. Despite Dee’s outward air of self-sufficiency, Anna sensed there was an inner, hidden vulnerability about the younger woman that touched her own sensitive emotions. She liked Dee and she respected her and she acknowledged that it was Dee’s energy and insistence that had encouraged her to become more involved with the town and its activities.

‘Nonsense,’ Dee had told her sternly. ‘You undervalue yourself far too much,’ she had scolded Anna, and, with Dee’s encouragement, Anna had even taken the step of starting to train for voluntary counselling work. What was more, she had surprised herself by discovering how instinctively skilled she was at it.

She had her cat and her dog, and her small circle of friends, and all in all she was quite satisfied with her gentle, compact way of life. Yes, it might lack excitement and passion and love, but Ralph’s death had caused her so much pain and despair that she had been afraid of allowing herself to love another man.

All in all, until Julian Cox had become involved in their lives, she had considered herself to be very content. And now here she was, feeling anything but content, dreading having to give Dee the bad news. She knew there were those who considered Dee to be too businesslike, too distant, but Anna knew there was another side to Dee—a softer emotional side.

Taking a deep breath, she announced, ‘Dee, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. It’s about Julian Cox and...and the money...your money...’

‘He hasn’t backed out of advising you on investing it, has he?’ Dee asked her sharply. ‘Although it has taken some time to lure him in, I thought he’d well and truly taken our bait.’

‘No. He hasn’t backed out,’ Anna told her, ‘but...’

She paused and cleared her throat. There was just no easy way for her to tell Dee this.

‘Dee, he’s disappeared, and he’s taken the money, your fifty thousand pounds, with him.’

‘He’s what?’

‘I know, I’m sorry; it’s my fault...’ Anna began guiltily, but Dee stopped her immediately.

‘Of course it isn’t your fault. How could it be? I was the one... Tell me exactly what has happened, Anna.’

Anna took another deep breath.

‘Well, I did as you’d said, and I told Julian that I’d got fifty thousand pounds to invest and that I wanted a good return on it. He said he knew just the right kind of investment for me. He also suggested that we keep things very informal. He said that the deal he had in mind was an off-shore thing—something to do with Hong Kong—and he said that the less paperwork involved, the better the profit would be for both of us.

‘I did try to ring you to get your advice but you...’

‘I was in London on business. I know. I picked up your message, but even if I’d been here it wouldn’t have made any difference because I would most certainly have told you to go ahead.’

‘Well, I agreed to what Julian was suggesting and wrote him the cheque. I thought that the mere fact that it would have to go through my bank account and his would be proof that he had had the money. He said he’d be in touch. I hadn’t really intended to ring him at all—after all, it was only last week that I gave him the cheque—but then I bumped into Brough’s sister Eve with your cousin Harry and she just happened to mention that she had seen Julian at the airport. Apparently he was just getting out of a taxi as they were getting into one. She said that he didn’t see them and...

‘Anyway, I don’t know why, but I just got a feeling that something wasn’t quite right so I rang Julian. His telephone had been cut off and when I went round to his address his place was up to let. I tried his bank and all they would tell me was that they had no knowledge of his whereabouts. Brough’s made some enquiries, though, and he’s discovered that Julian has closed his account.

‘No one seems to know where he’s gone, Dee, or when he’s coming back and I’m very much afraid...’

‘That he won’t be coming back,’ Dee finished grimly for her.

‘I think you’re probably right, given what we know about his precarious finances. With fifty thousand pounds in his pocket he could quite easily have decided to cut his losses here, and dodge his debts, and simply start the whole dishonest game afresh somewhere else.’ Anna bit her lip.

‘Dee, I’m so sorry...’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Dee assured her immediately. ‘If anyone’s to blame, it has to be me.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Anna asked her anxiously.

‘What you are going to do is relax and stop worrying,’ Dee told her gently. ‘As for what I shall do...I’m not sure yet, Anna. God, but it makes me so angry to think he’s getting away with what he’s done absolutely scot-free. The man’s only a hair’s breadth away from being a criminal, if indeed he isn’t legally one, but it isn’t so much the actual money he’s cheated other people out of that—’

Dee broke off and Anna could hear the emotion in her husky voice as she continued shakily, ‘It’s the damage he’s done to other people, the hurt and harm he’s caused.’

‘Well, Beth seems to be recovering from her heartbreak over him now.’ Anna tried to console her.

‘Yes,’ Dee agreed. ‘But it isn’t just—’ She stopped abruptly, and not for the first time Anna had the distinct impression that there was much, much more to Dee’s determination to unmask Julian Cox than just the heartache he had caused Beth. She knew better than to pry, though. Dee was an extremely proud woman, and a rather vulnerable one behind that pride. If she wanted to confide in her Anna knew that she would do so, and until, or unless, she did so Anna felt that she had no right to probe into what she guessed was an extremely sensitive issue.

‘Perhaps Dee and Julian were an item once,’ Kelly had once mused to Anna when they were discussing the subject. ‘Perhaps he dropped her in the same way he did Beth.’

But Anna had immediately shaken her head in denial.

‘No. Never. Dee would never be attracted to a man like Julian,’ she had told Kelly firmly. ‘Never.’

‘No. No, you’re right,’ Kelly had agreed. ‘But there must be something.’

‘If there is and if she wants to tell us about it then I’m sure she knows she can,’ Anna had pointed out gently then, and a little shamefacedly Kelly had agreed that Dee was entitled to her privacy and her past.

‘Dee, I feel so guilty about your money,’ Anna repeated unhappily now. ‘I should have realised...suspected...’

‘There’s no way I want you to feel guilty, Anna. In fact...’

Dee paused and then continued quietly, ‘I rather suspected that something like this might happen, or I thought he might be tempted to try to abscond with the money. What I didn’t allow for was that he would do it so openly or so fast. You aren’t in any way to blame,’ she added firmly. ‘His situation must be even more desperate than I thought for him to have behaved so recklessly. After this there’s no way he can come back, not to Rye. No way at all.

‘What are you doing this weekend?’ Dee asked, changing the subject.

‘Nothing special. Beth’s going down to Cornwall to see her parents. Kelly and Brough are away. What about you?’