Country Plot (41 page)

‘How do I explain bringing Harry home?' Jenna asked.

Xander looked bitter. ‘I dare say you'll think of something.'

Jenna slept like the dead, and woke late with a sense of doom hanging over her. It was a moment before she remembered the events of the day before, and remembering did nothing to lighten the gloom. She remembered the way Xander had looked at her before he swung on his heel and went out. He hated her. Or despised her, which was worse. She would be for ever besmirched in his mind with the taint of conspiracy, even if she had helped save Kitty's house, exposed villains and saved him from marrying an evil woman.

Oh my God, unless he still means to marry her?
she thought, feeling sick. Maybe he loved her so much that, whatever she had done, he would stick by her. Try to save her from herself – a noble work. Maybe he didn't believe she was really in on it. But he had the DVD. He only had to watch it – another swooping of her stomach at the thought. Oh poor, poor Xander! Well, maybe he wouldn't watch it, just lodge it with a solicitor? But he had to know what was on it to make Sullivan and Beale do his bidding. And – excuse me, but wasn't that a form of blackmail, even if for the best of reasons? How come he was OK to do it, but not her and Harry?

Oh my God, Harry! How was she going to explain him away to Kitty?

She imagined Xander interviewing Derek Sullivan. She wasn't much afraid of the Silver Fox, whatever his connections, but the thought of Roger Beale made her shiver. She guessed he was the real brains behind the business, and the really ruthless one as well. Suppose he just decided to have Xander killed? She sat up in bed clutching her arms around her in dread. But no, that's what the DVD was for, to make sure nothing happened to him, as well as to apply leverage for the scheme to be dropped.

She hauled herself out of bed, stood under the shower for ten minutes, then dressed and limped downstairs. Her thigh looked like a Jackson Pollock, and ached like a broken heart, but that was nothing to the pain of her broken heart, which ached worse than a broken leg. She had done everything for the right reasons, and still Xander hated her. Maybe it was better if Roger Beale did get her. At least it would be quick.

She was too late for Mrs Phillips's breakfast, so she sneaked along to the kitchen to put the kettle on and rummage for a slice of bread. The pop of the gas lighting sounded too loud in the silence of the house, and as if she had been summoned by it like a genie, Kitty appeared in the kitchen door. Jenna smiled at her, and for the first time in their acquaintance Kitty didn't smile back. She folded her arms grimly and said, ‘Awake at last? Now you are going to tell me what's going on.'

‘Why should anything be going on?' Jenna said feebly.

‘Xander came here late last night and talked to you for ages on the terrace.'

‘How did you—?'

‘I was awake. I'd finished reading and I remembered it was a full moon so I went to one of the back bedrooms to look at it. I always wish on a full moon.' She waved away any comment. ‘Old habit, from childhood. Anyway, I saw you down there. Then he walked off, not looking happy. You phoned someone and then you went off. I heard your car start, so I know you drove somewhere. You came back later, and now there's someone sleeping in one of my spare rooms. Not Xander, I suppose?'

She shook her head. ‘Harry Beale.'

‘Harry Beale.
He's
up to no good, if I know him! Now, are you going to tell me what's happening?'

‘I can't. I'm not supposed to say anything,' Jenna said unhappily.

‘Does it concern me?' Kitty said sharply.

‘Well – yes, but—'

‘Then you tell me, right now! When I want protection from the truth I'll let you know, but it won't be until I really
am
old, frail and senile. Until then, I won't be patronized. So out with it.'

So Jenna told her everything.

Kitty took it very well, better than Jenna would have thought. She seemed, in fact, almost braced by it. ‘If they think they're getting Holtby that easily, they have another think coming,' she said. ‘Why did you bring Harry here?'

‘Xander thought he might be in danger.'

‘In
danger
?' It was derisive rather than nervous.

‘Just until he'd let them know the DVD was with a solicitor.'

Kitty snorted. ‘I've known Roger Beale for years, and I can tell you he's not
that
big a man. He's a vulgar blowhard and a bully, but he'd never risk murder. Besides, Harry's his own son! Whatever he thinks of him, he'd never hurt him. What can Xander have been thinking?'

‘I think he was upset. We all were, but—'

‘Yes, it must have been hard for him to learn what Caroline is really like. Oh dear!' It came home to her. ‘First Stephanie, and now Caroline. And he sets such store by loyalty and honour and so on. This will be a terrible blow to him.'

‘I'm afraid he blames me,' Jenna said in a small voice.

‘A case of shooting the messenger?'

‘Partly that. And he doesn't like the underhand way Harry and I went about it.'

‘Well, I don't see how else you could have found things out. And he went and found out about this Purcell chap, didn't he?'

‘All the same—'

‘Yes. But I expect he'll get over it, in time,' Kitty said. ‘He'll see it wasn't your fault. He's a just man, and he'll treat you justly. But it's going to be hell for him, breaking his engagement with Caroline. It's bound to get out – some of it, at least – and whatever she's done, he'll want to defend her purely from chivalry.'

‘Do you think he really will break his engagement?'

‘My dear, he can't marry a girl who was trying to force me from my home. And who was involved in bribing public officials for monetary gain.'

‘I suppose not,' Jenna said. It ought to have made her happy to think that at least he wasn't going to be Caroline's dupe any more, but it didn't.

Harry appeared at last, bleary eyed, and Jenna made him coffee while Kitty sat with him on the terrace and questioned him some more about the whole sorry business. He seemed relieved that she knew, and babbled away to her for ages. They were all still sitting there when, in the middle of the afternoon, Alexander arrived, looking as if he hadn't slept for a week.

He took in the situation with a single glance, and Kitty jumped to their defence. ‘I made them tell me,' she said. ‘I suppose it was your ridiculous idea to keep it from me. I'm not a child, Xander – or a helpless old lady. I have every right to know when my home is threatened.'

‘You're right,' he said, rather dazedly. Jenna jumped up and brought another chair out from the conservatory and he almost fell on to it without seeming to have noticed who brought it. ‘Well, I've seen them both,' he said. ‘I showed them a copy of my notarized statement – which included the fact that I had deposited a DVD with Hudson Carstairs. They both read it.'

‘And?' said Kitty.

‘There was a certain amount of bluster,' said Xander, ‘but Roger Beale at least could see the game was up. Sullivan tried to threaten me, but he told him to shut up in the end. Then he asked me what I wanted. I told him there must be an end to any scheme surrounding this house or any land in or adjacent to Holtby. And no reprisals against anyone involved.' He stopped, and Kitty had to prompt him.

‘He agreed?'

‘Oh yes. But he couldn't believe that was all. He thought I must want something for myself – money, or to be part of some other scam he's running. Then Sullivan asked when he would get the DVD back. I told him never. It would be surety for his good behaviour, and Beale's. They didn't like that. I think they thought there would be some easy end to it all.'

Kitty frowned. ‘They'll leave Holtby alone? But what about their other schemes? Are you going to let them get away with it? Bribery and corruption?' she said indignantly. ‘And Sullivan getting into Parliament so he can do more wicked things? They ought to go to prison, both of them.' She caught sight of Harry and said, ‘I'm sorry, but you know it's true.'

‘I know,' he said. ‘My dad's a bad lot. I've always known it.'

Her pity was instantly aroused. ‘Oh, my poor boy! I wasn't thinking how awful it must be for you – and having lost your mother, too. What will Roger Beale do about Harry, Xander?'

‘He's promised no reprisals. But he may cut him off, of course. I can't really prevent that. And there's the question of the flat.'

‘I don't care if he does cut me off,' Harry said, with as much conviction as he could manage. ‘I'd sooner try and make my own way.'

Jenna smiled faintly, remembering their conversation on that point.

‘Good for you,' Kitty said heartily. ‘And you can come and stay here if you need to. Look on this as your home from now on.'

Jenna was watching Xander's face. ‘But what about Caroline?'

He looked at her, and spread his hands slightly. ‘That's why I can't go too far – why I have to let them “get away with it”, Kitty, to a certain extent. Caroline's bound up in it, and I know it's her own fault, but she's a woman, and you can't destroy a woman's reputation the way you can a man's. I had a long talk with her after I'd left Beale and Sullivan.'

No wonder he looked exhausted, Jenna thought.

‘She'll have to remake a life for herself,' he said quietly, ‘if she gets away from her stepfather. I can't make it too hard for her.'

‘If?' Kitty queried.

‘She was defiant at first,' he admitted. ‘Said it was none of my affair, and I didn't understand how business worked these days. Said she was putting our finances on a firm footing for our future together. I told her it was her finances, not mine, and that I wanted nothing to do with any money she made that way. Told her she was a beautiful woman and could do better for herself than that sort of grubby scheme.'

‘But – you're not still going to marry her?' Kitty said doubtfully, hopefully.

‘No, that's all over,' he said. He looked round vaguely, as if half waking from a dream. ‘What time is it? Is it lunchtime?'

‘Nearly teatime,' Kitty said. She looked round too. ‘None of us has had any lunch.'

Jenna got up. ‘Omelettes all round, I think.'

‘I'll come and help,' said Harry.

‘And let's have some champagne,' Kitty added. ‘To celebrate the scotching of a wicked plan.' She looked at Xander. ‘And because it's very good for shock,' she added.

Later, when Jenna had carried the empty plates back into the house, Xander followed her and caught her up in the kitchen.

‘I owe you an apology,' he said.

‘Oh no,' she said. ‘It's all right. I understand.'

‘I implied you were wrong to use the methods you did,' he went on, determined. ‘I'm really very grateful that you went to so much trouble for Kitty's sake. Anything I said to you that – well, if I hurt you, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking straight.'

‘Hardly surprising,' she said.

‘I see now that Caroline was suspicious of you from the start, and she coloured my view of you. It was when you asked me at the Buckminsters' party why I wanted Kitty out of here that it made me think about Caroline's attitudes – wonder whether in fact
she
wanted Kitty out, and why. I started to reassess a lot of things she'd said and done. It was painful to me to start doubting her, but once I started I couldn't stop. And it made me realize I'd been uneasy about her for a long time.'

‘It must have been hard for you.'

‘It was. I value loyalty, and the last thing I wanted was to be disloyal myself.' He frowned. ‘I haven't come very well out of all this. I let Caroline influence me when I should have stepped back and used my own judgement. I think I behaved badly towards you on several occasions, when all the time you were Kitty's truest friend.'

She couldn't bear this. ‘Well, it's all over now,' she said. ‘Least said, soonest mended.'
God, there I go with the clichés again!
‘What will you do now?'

She didn't know why she asked that, except to try to move on from the awkward apologies, but it seemed to release something in him and words burst out of him.

‘When I said to her she could do better, she said – she said she could certainly do better than me, and that she was going to marry a man with real power and drive who would go to the top, not a weakling content to sell second-hand furniture all his life.'

‘Oh Xander, I'm sorry,' Jenna said, her throat tightening at the thought of the hurt to him.

‘I suppose that's what I am, when it comes down to it,' he said bitterly, staring at the floor.

‘People aren't their jobs. I mean, that's not how you measure the worth of someone.'

‘Isn't it?'

‘Well, look at me – I don't have a job at all. Does that make me nothing?'

He did look at her, with that odd, arrested look in his eyes she had seen once before. ‘No, you're not nothing,' he said at last. And then, ‘I'm very glad you came here to help Kitty. You might have been the saving of us all. I dread to think—'

‘Well, now we can all concentrate on Kitty's opening,' she said, a little too heartily. When he looked at her like that she could only think that he had loved Caroline, and must now be heartbroken.

‘Yes,' he said, and removed his too-intent gaze from her at last. ‘I'd like to help with that, if I may?'

‘Kitty would be delighted,' she said, and then, thinking it sounded unwelcoming: ‘We'd all be delighted. There's an awful lot to do, and you have expertise that will be invaluable.'

‘Yes,' he said thoughtfully, ‘we must move on, and the opening will be a very good therapy for us all.'