Читать книгу Dangerous to Know - Barbara Taylor Bradford - Страница 9

“Why me?” I repeated later that evening, staring up at Jack. “Why did you elect me to be the spokesperson for this family?”

He had just arrived for supper a few minutes ago, and we were in my small den at the rear of the house, a room he preferred: It was intimate, warm, with its red brocaded walls and old Persian carpet. He hovered in front of me, his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets.

Returning my stare, seemingly at a loss, he did not answer. Then shaking his head in a thoughtful way, he started to speak, stopped, frowned, and pursed his lips.

“Well, Vivienne,” he said at last, “I’m not sure why.” He shook his head again. “Liar,” he said emphatically. “I’m a liar. And a coward. That’s why I sicked the Times on you. I didn’t want to talk to them myself.”

“But you’re the head of the family now. I’m not,” I protested.

“And you’re a journalist. A respected journalist. You know better how to deal with the dreaded press than I do.”

“Luciana could have spoken to them. She’s Sebastian’s daughter.”

“You’re his ex-wife,” he shot back.

“Oh, Jack, please.”

“Okay, okay. Look, she’s been out of it all day, ever since we got here. She can barely speak to me, never mind the New York Times. You know how fragile she is. The least little thing upsets her.”

“It always has. I never even expected her for supper tonight, even though she accepted. I knew she wouldn’t come,” I retorted. When we were children growing up together, Luciana had usually been the one to hang back, to drop out, to claim tiredness, even sickness, when she didn’t wish to do something, or if she was faced with a difficult situation. But fragile she wasn’t. I knew that for a fact. She was strong. And tough. Not that Luciana ever let anyone know this. Dissembling came to her readily and with great ease; she was a facile liar, an expert spinner of tall tales. Her father once told me she was the cleverest liar he had ever known.

“How about a drink?” Jack said, cutting into my thoughts about his half sister.

“Of course!” I exclaimed, jumping up. “How rude of me. What would you like? Your usual scotch? Or a glass of wine?”

“Scotch, please, Viv.”

I went to the antique Georgian table near the door, which held a few bottles of liquor and a bucket of ice. I fixed his scotch, a vodka on the rocks for myself, and carried them back to the fireplace. Handing him his glass, I sat down.

He muttered his thanks, took a great gulp of the amber-colored alcohol, and stood nursing it in both hands, ruminating.

“It’s been a terrible day,” I said. “The worst day in a long time. I still can’t quite accept the fact that Sebastian’s dead. I keep expecting him to walk in any minute.”

Jack made no comment, merely sipped his drink and rocked back and forth on his heels.

I regarded him over the rim of my glass, thinking how unsympathetic and without emotion he was. I experienced a little spurt of anger. Jack could be so cold, cold as an iceberg. At this moment I hated him, as I had sometimes hated him as a child. His father had been found dead this morning, and in the most peculiar circumstances. Yet he was behaving as if nothing had happened. And he certainly wasn’t showing any signs of grief. It struck me as being most unnatural, even though father and son had never really been close. I had been distressed for the entire day, fighting tears, engulfed by sadness. I mourned Sebastian, and I would go on mourning him for a long time.

Suddenly, without preamble, Jack said, “They took the body.”

Startled by this announcement, I gaped at him. “You mean the police took the body away?”

“Yep,” he answered laconically.

“To Farmington? For the autopsy?”

“You got it.”

“I really can’t stand you when you’re like this!” I exclaimed, and I was surprised at the harshness of my voice.

“Like what, sugar?”

“For God’s sake, come off it, you know what I mean. So cold and hard and detached. Half of it’s pretense anyway. You can’t fool me. I’ve known you for the best part of your life and mine.”

He shrugged indifferently, drained his glass, went and poured himself another drink. Walking back to the fireside, he continued, “That detective, Kennelly, told me we’ll get the body back tomorrow.”

“So quickly?”

He nodded. “Apparently the Chief Medical Examiner will do the autopsy first thing tomorrow morning. He’ll take out tissue and organs, plus blood and urine samples, and—”

Shuddering, I shouted, “Stop it! You’re talking about Sebastian! Your father. Don’t you have any respect for him? Any respect for the dead?”

He gave me an odd look but made no comment.

I said, “If you have no feelings for him, so be it. But just remember this, I do. I will not permit you to speak of him in such a heartless, cold-blooded way.”

Ignoring my remarks, Jack said, “We can have the funeral later this week.”

“In Cornwall,” I murmured, trying to adopt a softer tone. “He once told me he wanted to be buried in Cornwall.”

“What about a memorial service, Viv? Should we have one? If so, where? More importantly, when?” He grimaced. “As soon as possible. I have to get back to France.”

Though he was infuriating me again, I held myself still. Exercising great control, I responded calmly, “In New York. I think that would be the best place, certainly the most appropriate.”

“Where?”

“At the Church of St. John the Divine,” I suggested. “What do you think?”

“Whatever you say.” Jack flopped down in the chair near the fireplace and regarded me for the longest moment, a speculative look entering his eyes.

“Oh, no,” I said, catching on at once. “Oh no, no, Jack! You’re not going to talk me into arranging the funeral and the memorial. That’s for you to do. You and Luciana.”

“You’ll help, though. Won’t you?”

I nodded. “But you’re not going to shrug off your responsibilities, as you have so many times in the past,” I warned. “I won’t allow you to do that. You are the head of the Locke family, now that Sebastian’s dead, and the sooner you understand this the better. There’s the Locke Foundation to run, for one thing, and you’ll have to pick up the torch he dropped when he died.”

“What do you mean?” he asked quickly, sharply, his eyes instantly riveted on mine. “What torch?”

“The charity work, Jack. You’ll have to carry on where he left off. You’ll have to tend to the sick and the poor of the world, those who are suffering, just as he did. Thousands are depending on you.”

“Oh, no! No way, sugar. If you think I’m going to hand out money like a drunken sailor, then you’re crazy. As crazy and as foolish as he was.”

“This family’s got so much money it doesn’t know what to do with it!” I cried, furious with him.

“I’m not going to follow in Sebastian’s footsteps, trailing halfway round the world and back, dispensing largesse to the great unwashed. So forget it, Viv, and don’t bring it up again.”

“You’ll have to run the Locke Foundation,” I reminded him. “As the only son and heir that’s not only your inheritance but your responsibility.”

“Okay, okay, so I’ll run it. Long distance. From France. But I ain’t no savior, out to cure the world of its ills. And illnesses. Just remember that. My father was a madman.”

“Sebastian did a great deal of good, and don’t you ever forget that.”

Slowly, he shook his head. “It’s odd. It really is.”

“What is?”

“The way you adore him still after all these years. And after all the things he did to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that. He treated me very well. Always.”

“Better than the other wives I’ve got to admit. He liked you.”

“Liked me! He loved me. Sebastian loved me from the very first day we met, when I was twelve—”

“Dirty old man.”

“Shut up! Furthermore, he continued to love me after we split up.”

“He never loved anyone,” Jack announced swiftly, scathingly, giving me a pitying look. “Not me. Not my mother. Not Luciana. Not her mother. Not your mother. Not his other two wives. Not even you, sugar.”

“Stop calling me sugar. It’s disgusting. And he did love me.”

“I told you, he wasn’t capable of loving. He couldn’t love anyone if his life depended on it. It wasn’t in him. Sebastian Locke was a monster.”

“He was not! And I know he loved me, do you understand that? I know he did,” I answered heatedly, swallowing my anger, clinging to my composure.

“If you say so,” he muttered, giving in to me, which he frequently did. Averting his head, he stared into the fire, a morose look settling on his face.

As I sat watching him, thinking how sad it was he was so wrong about his father, thinking how little Jack had known about him, it occurred to me that he bore a strong resemblance to Sebastian tonight. Their profiles were the same; Jack had inherited his father’s strong jawline and aquiline nose, as well as his fine head of dark hair. But his eyes were a faded, watery blue, not the bright cornflower hue his father’s had been. As for their characters and personalities, they were as dissimilar as any two men could be.

The moroseness stayed with Jack throughout supper. He ate sparingly, drank a lot, and said little.

At one moment I reached out and touched his hand, and remarked softly, in my most conciliatory voice, “I’m sorry I shrieked at you.”

He did not answer.

“Honestly, I am. Don’t be like this, Jack.”

“Like what?”

“Mute. Unresponsive. And infuriatingly mule headed.”

He stared at me, then he smiled.

When Jack smiled his face lit up, and he was engaging, almost irresistible to me. That was the way it had always been. I smiled back, my affection for him once more intact. “It’s just that I can’t bear it when you’re nasty about Sebastian.”

“We see him differently, you and I,” he mumbled, swigging more of my best red wine, the Mouton Rothschild which Sebastian had sent me last year.

He continued, “You’ve always been…agog about him…so…so adoring and worshipful. Look, I don’t wear the same kind of rose-colored glasses, Viv.”

“You adored him too, when you were little.”

“That’s what you think. But it’s not true.”

“Oh Jack, don’t lie to me. This is Vivienne you’re talking to…good old Viv, your best friend.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Jesus, don’t you ever let up? When it comes to persistence, you’re like a dog with a bone.”

“Only when we’re discussing Sebastian Locke,” I countered.

“Well, one thing is certain, your loyalty is commendable, sugar.”

“Thanks. And stop calling me sugar in that awful tone of voice. You know I hate it. You do it just to get my goat.”

He grinned, reached out and squeezed my hand. “Truce?”

“Truce,” I agreed and as quickly as I had when we were children.

We spoke about other matters for a short while after this. About France, Provence to be exact, and our respective homes there, houses which Sebastian had given us at different times. Although I did not dare remind him of this. It was obvious to me that he was as unrelenting about his father in death as he had been during his lifetime. Jack had never given Sebastian the benefit of the doubt, nor apparently did he intend to do so now. When it was too late, anyway.

It was when we returned to the den to have coffee that Jack suddenly started to talk about the circumstances of Sebastian’s death once again.

Settled in an arm chair, with his coffee and cognac on a small side table next to him, he said, “The police had me check through his things. In the library. The rest of the house. No valuables were taken. As far as I could tell.”

“Does that mean they’ve now ruled out the possibility of an intruder?”

“They didn’t say.”

“It’s perplexing.” I sat back in my chair, my mind turning over the few facts we had. “When I lunched with Sebastian he mentioned that Mrs. Crane was away on vacation…” I stopped and looked at him.

“What are you getting at, Viv?”

“I guess I think it’s a bit odd that Sebastian came up to the farm when there was no one there to look after him. When she was away. Even the police think that, Jack.”

“He told me on Thursday that he had some work to finish. He gave me the impression he was looking forward to being alone up here, from his tone and his attitude.”

“Maybe he wasn’t alone, though.”

Jack threw me a swift look and his brows puckered. “That’s a possibility. Somebody could have been with him. Yes, of course they could.”

“And that somebody might have ended up doing him bodily harm,” I pointed out.

“Only too true.”

“By the way, why did you and Luciana suddenly come to the States? Was there a special reason for this visit?”

“We didn’t come to kill Sebastian,” he said, and gave me a smirk that was oddly ghoulish.

“For God’s sake, I wasn’t implying any such thing. And do stop it. You know your facetious talk only infuriates me. Grow up, act your age, Jack. This is very serious…a serious situation.”

“Sorry, Viv. Luciana and I came in for the annual meeting of Locke Industries,” Jack explained in a quiet, more subdued tone, sounding suddenly and effectively chastised at last. “It was supposed to be held tomorrow. Naturally, it’s been canceled.”

“I should hope so! Anyway, I must go back to my original reaction of earlier today, when you first told me Sebastian was dead. I was certain he’d had a heart attack, or possibly a stroke. And to tell you the truth, I still believe, deep down, that that’s what happened.”

When Jack made no response, I gave him a penetrating look, asked, “Well, don’t you?”

He brought his hand up to his face, rubbed his mouth and his chin, suddenly reflective. “I don’t know,” he answered. “This afternoon I would have agreed with you, but now I’m vacillating. Not sure of anything.”

“Do you honestly think he was attacked? By an intruder?” I pressed.

“Maybe. He could have gone into the farmhouse and surprised a burglar.”

“Before the burglar had an opportunity to steal anything? Is that what you think? After all, you said there’s nothing missing.”

“Well, the paintings and the major art objects are in place. On the other hand, Sebastian could have had something else there worth stealing, something to tempt a thief.”

“Such as what?” I frowned, shaking my head. “I don’t get it, Jack.”

“Cash, Vivienne. You know Sebastian always carried a lot on him. I was often warning him about that. Or maybe there were some documents around.”

“Documents,” I said sharply, staring at him. “But if someone stole documents that smacks of premeditation, doesn’t it? Listen, a thief breaking in at random, looking for loot, is one thing. A thief breaking in and stealing documents is a different thing altogether. It suggests prior knowledge to me.”

Jack nodded. “You’re right there.”

“What made you think of documents? Are there any missing? And what kind of documents did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know, and to be honest, I don’t know why I thought of them. Except that Sebastian said he was going to the farm to work. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t a liar. If he said he had to go over papers, then he was telling the truth. But there weren’t any, at least none that he’d been working on—”

“What about all those scattered around the library?” I cut in.

“The letters on the floor and spread over the desk were just the usual things. Correspondence, bills, personal notes from people. The way he spoke on Thursday he sounded as if he had real work to do on important documents. Come to think of it, he did actually say documents. I guess that’s why I just thought of them now.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Look, I haven’t been at Laurel Creek Farm in a coon’s age, Viv, so how would I know if there’s anything missing? Mrs. Crane’s the best person to ascertain that, but then only as far as the art is concerned. Not even she would know if any papers have disappeared.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” I let out a long sigh. “It looks as if we’re back to square one.”

“Yep…” Jack shook his head, his puzzlement surfacing again. Then he said suddenly, in a torrent of words, “Look, Viv, I disagree with you. I don’t think he died of natural causes, as you do. I think he was killed. Most probably by an intruder. Sebastian surprised him. The intruder ran out. Sebastian chased him. They struggled. And Sebastian got himself killed. Sort of inadvertently.”

“Or he was murdered by someone who was with him at the farm, for reasons we don’t know,” I remarked.

Jack pondered for a moment. Then slowly, and more thoughtfully than usual, he said, “We’re speculating. We’d better stop. It’ll lead nowhere.” Pinning me with his eyes, he added, “Let’s admit it, Vivienne, we won’t know exactly how he died until the police get that autopsy report from the Chief Medical Officer in Farmington.”

I could only nod. I agreed with him, at least as far as his last comment was concerned.