Katie smiled, but before she could say anything, Zac said, ‘Clearly there’s something going on here that I don’t know about. Would anyone care to put me in the picture?’
In the end, and after he had been put in the picture, Zac and Tess talked Katie out of doing anything drastic with her hair, and she reluctantly opted for what she’d originally made the appointment for, a trim and blow-dry.
She and Tess then went for lunch and a quick blast around the shops, ending up at Beyond Retro, where, to feed her ongoing
Mad Men
fixation, Tess bought herself a classic sixties figure-hugging short-sleeved dress with a viciously nipped-in waist. She also bought a Don Draper-style fedora for Ben to add to his ever-growing hat collection. To Katie’s amusement, they were as bad as each other, neither having grown out of messing about with the dressing-up box.
Back at the house, Katie opened a bottle of wine and they made themselves comfortable in the garden. With the sun high in the cloudless sky, it was a perfect summer’s day. Katie was glad that Tess had taken matters into her own hands and come down for the weekend. It was so typical of her. She had been the most wonderful of friends, fantastically supportive and always so generous with her time. Although when Mum had died, Tess and Zac had had family troubles of their own to deal with – their mother was undergoing a course of chemo for breast cancer, from which, thank goodness, she had since made a full recovery. It had been a horrendous time for them all and was probably why Katie had leant on Ian to the extent she had when he’d come into her life.
She and Tess had been friends since they’d met at a fancy-dress party in Freshers’ Week at university; along with many others, they’d been unimaginatively dressed as nuns. The only difference between them was that Tess, for some strange reason, was sporting a moustache of stupendous proportions. In their second and third year they’d lived in a house together with two other friends, and when they’d graduated they’d moved to London and shared a flat with Zac until they’d found a place of their own. For the last four years Tess had worked for a PR agency – her current clients included an ex-MP trying to put his involvement in the expenses scandal behind him and forging a new career for himself as a TV commentator, a past
X Factor
winner, and a celebrity chef with a new TV series and accompanying book to push. She always made her work seem fun and there were any number of interesting tales to share – she’d told plenty over lunch – but Katie knew, just as with any job, it was hard grind at times.
That was why Katie appreciated Tess giving up her weekend to be here. She had done exactly what she’d said she would: she had distracted Katie. In fact she had done such a good job, Katie could almost kid herself that yesterday had been a totally normal day.
But just articulating that thought was enough to set her off again. And whether or not it was the wine they’d drunk that was giving her the courage, she stood up abruptly and went inside the house to the kitchen.
She rejoined her friend in the garden. ‘Will you do something for me, Tess?’ she said.
Tess opened her eyes. She stretched languidly. ‘It’s nothing too energetic, is it?’
‘Nothing very taxing at all. It’s a silly thing, and I could easily do it on my own but I’d rather you were here when I did it.’
Tess sat up straighter. ‘This is about yesterday, isn’t it?’
Katie nodded. She sat in the chair next to Tess and put the envelope on the table in front of them. She gave it a tap and said, ‘It contains the name of my biological father and how to make contact with him.’
Tess sucked in her breath. ‘OK, so no biggie, then.’
Katie smiled. ‘No biggie at all.’
She picked up the envelope and opened it. She unfolded the sheet of paper and smoothed it flat on the table so that Tess could read it with her. It didn’t take them long to discover what they were both looking for.
Katie’s biological father’s name was Stirling Nightingale.
Monday morning, and sweeping out through the gates of his riverside home at Sandiford, some six miles from Henley-on-Thames, Stirling Nightingale was on his way to work.
He couldn’t put his finger on why, but he couldn’t get his mind to settle on the day ahead. Normally when he got behind the wheel of his Aston Martin and set off early to beat the traffic, his thoughts were instantly clear and focused. Today, for instance, he should be thinking about the two client meetings he had that morning followed by a strategy meeting after lunch. But try as he might, his thoughts kept being sidetracked by a sense that something wasn’t right.
What was it? What was his brain trying to flag up? Was there something important he’d forgotten?
He was a stickler for detail and getting things right, and was frequently telling those who worked for him that the devil was in the detail. He ran through a mental checklist of work-related things he might have overlooked, but nothing came to mind. Next he tried home-related matters, in particular important family dates. It wasn’t his wife’s birthday, he knew that much. Gina’s fifty-sixth birthday had been last month and he’d taken her to Paris for the weekend. As for their wedding anniversary, he was off the hook there, as that had been a week after Gina’s birthday, when they’d celebrated thirty-four years of marriage.
Thirty-four years, it didn’t seem possible. If they were both to be brutally honest, neither could say with a hand on their heart that it had been three and a half decades of wedded bliss, but they’d been happy enough. Wasn’t that all anyone could hope for? Especially in this day and age, when it was damn near a miracle to stay married to the same person this long.
Confident that he hadn’t made an oversight regarding his wife, he turned his thoughts to his children, Rosco and Scarlet. Again he drew a blank. Rosco’s thirty-second birthday had been back in February and Scarlet’s had been in April, when on her twenty-ninth birthday she had announced she was pregnant.
He smiled at the thought of Scarlet – from the way she was carrying on, you’d think she was the first woman to experience pregnancy. His mother had said much the same in private to him yesterday afternoon when he’d gone to help hang some pictures for her.
When his mother had first mentioned that she thought it was time for her to move out of the house she had lived in for over half a century, Stirling had been surprised but hugely relieved. He and his brother had often talked about which of them was going to be brave enough to suggest to Cecily Nightingale – the archetypal matriarch – that it was time for her to live somewhere more manageable. Stirling had been all for her moving in with him and Gina at Willow Bank; they had plenty of room, after all, and who knew, that day may yet come to pass.
For now, though, Cecily had swapped a rambling five-bedroom cottage with two acres for a two-bedroom second-floor flat that was part of an exclusive development of retirement homes. The glossy brochure that had sold her the idea of South Lodge had described the set-up as being ideal for those wanting their own luxury self-contained home but secure in the knowledge that support and care was available if required. South Lodge boasted several acres of beautifully landscaped gardens and a number of communal facilities; they included a library complete with computers, an indoor swimming pool and a croquet lawn. There was also a regular shuttle bus to and from the centre of Henley just two miles away.
From the day she moved in, just before Easter, Cecily confessed that she wished she’d done it years ago. She had made plenty of friends with her neighbours – most of whom were younger than her, but all of whom were in the same boat, having reached an age when they wanted to take things a little easier, and most importantly didn’t want to be a nuisance to their families. Or as Cecily put it, she didn’t want her family to become a nuisance to her.
Of all the important family dates Stirling had to remember, Cecily’s ninetieth birthday was the one there was absolutely no danger of forgetting. It was next Saturday and the celebrations, thanks to Gina, were all in hand. As was to be expected, Cecily had said she didn’t want any fuss, but she should know the family better than that; there wasn’t a chance in hell of letting such a momentous occasion slip by without a great fuss being made of her.
He pulled into the car park of the modern three-storey office building that was home to Nightingale Ridgeway Investments and parked alongside his brother’s bright red Porsche. It was a family joke amongst the younger members, including Neil’s son, Lloyd, that he was too old for such a car, but let’s face it, the Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet was a beautiful piece of machinery, and why shouldn’t Neil have precisely what he wanted?
It was as he was looking at Neil’s personalized number plate that something in Stirling’s head stirred. It was, he realized, the ‘something’ that had been nagging at him. And it was something that Cecily had said yesterday afternoon about Neil. She had asked Stirling if he thought Neil was all right. He registered now that he hadn’t answered his mother’s question; he’d been distracted by his mobile going off – it had been Scarlet talking excitedly about something she and Charlie wanted to discuss with him.
He had a pretty good idea of the sort of thing Scarlet and Charlie wanted to talk to him about, and the thought made him shake his head with wry acceptance. The pair of them were two of a kind; they were inherent dreamers. Some might say they made a dangerous combination, but what wasn’t in doubt was that they loved each other. Charlie might not have been Stirling’s first choice for his daughter, but if the boy made her happy, then that was good enough for him.
Charles Rupert Benton-Norris, to give him his full name, was the youngest son of John and Caroline Benton-Norris. The Benton-Norrises were a family steeped in history; they could trace their lineage all the way back to the Plantagenets. Yet whilst they were property-rich, they were cash-poor, and the great pile they lived in was literally crumbling to dust around them. Gina always dreaded an invitation to Wilton Park; the place was as draughty as a barn and colder than a morgue. Stirling had once felt something brush against his foot at a dinner party, only to find a mouse nibbling at his shoelaces when he’d looked under the table. His startled reaction had provoked laughter from his hosts. There’d been no embarrassment on their part, not even an apology, just a joke about their idle pack of hounds not doing enough to keep the rodent population down.
Taking the lift up to his office on the third floor of the building they shared with two other businesses – a firm of accountants and an insurance broker – Stirling’s thoughts returned to his brother and the question Cecily had asked yesterday afternoon about him.
One thing he and Neil had always been able to count on was their mother’s knack for spotting a potential problem long before anyone else did. Stirling hoped in this instance that Cecily’s antenna for trouble was off-beam. The last thing he and Neil needed right now, as co-owners and joint managing directors of Nightingale Ridgeway Investments, was for one of them to lose focus. These were tough times. Businesses the length and breadth of the country were fighting for survival, and theirs was no exception. It had been bad enough last year but they’d started this year knowing that the outlook was bleaker still and that very likely next year wouldn’t be much better. Which, on a personal level, meant he and Neil hadn’t been able to pay themselves their usual dividend for the last eighteen months. It was basic maths, if targets weren’t met and profits were down, the dividend couldn’t be paid. They’d never known a time like it. Not as prolonged at any rate.
The downturn in the market had hit just as they’d started negotiations to buy out another investment management company. They’d been considering the move for some while and had high hopes for the future, but the recession had put an end to their plans and they’d reluctantly withdrawn their interest. Rosco had been particularly disappointed, having seen himself as playing a pivotal role in the newly formed company. With a law degree and an MBA in business management, he was impressively book-smart and already an asset to the firm, but just occasionally he displayed a clumsy eagerness to move too fast. But that wasn’t surprising; Rosco was young and in a tearing hurry to get on. Stirling had been the same at that age. Even so, he believed his son needed reining in now and then; he needed to learn to temper his ambition with a little more life experience. Dynamism was all very well, and Rosco had plenty of that, but there was no substitute for an equal measure of coal-face know-how.
Maybe all fathers thought that of their sons. Perhaps if Stirling had wanted to follow in his own father’s footsteps and be a heart surgeon, his father might have always doubted his capabilities. It was the same in the animal kingdom: the male lion – the head of the pride – never accepts his cub has come of age.
He stepped out of the lift and smiled at the analogy. He hoped he’d never have to fight his own cub.
The day flew by, and at the end of it, when Stirling had dealt with the last phone call and given the last instruction to Joanne, his highly efficient personal assistant of fifteen years, and ordered her to go home to her husband, he slipped some papers into his briefcase to read later that night and walked along the deserted carpeted corridor to Neil’s office.
After the strategy meeting had broken up, he’d asked Neil if he could have a word with him when they’d finished for the day. It seemed to him that Neil was definitely not his usual self. He’d been visibly distracted during the meeting they’d chaired together, and at one point, when Rosco had been asking him a direct question, he’d appeared not to hear and Rosco had jokingly tapped the table and asked if anyone was at home. Neil had quickly pulled himself together, but not before Stirling had caught the troubled expression that flickered across his brother’s face.
Cecily had been right, he concluded, there most certainly was something wrong with Neil. Usually his brother was one hundred per cent on the ball; nothing got past him, and he’d be the first to rap someone’s knuckles during a meeting if they weren’t paying strict attention.