The Inheritance

  They’d had the same battle over Jason years ago, with Brett constantly being painted as bad cop. If he’d moped around the way his children did, he’d have been given a good hiding and told to pull himself together, and quite right too. Angela was far too soft on them and she called that ‘love’. But it did them no favours in the end. Brett loved his children every bit as much as she did. He loved them fiercely. But somehow he’d lost both of them, and now Angie was slipping away from him again too.

  Brett wasn’t an introspective person. He’d learned long ago, as a child, to contain his emotions and repress them, brutally if necessary. He always looked forward, never back. But at times of severe stress, his subconscious didn’t always co-operate. For the last few nights he’d been plagued by unsettling, vivid dreams. Some were about his mother. The events were confused, but they always ended with his mother walking away from him, slowly and calmly, and with Brett calling out for her to return, shouting louder and louder, unable to make her hear him. He would wake from these dreams feeling quite desolate.

  Others were about Tatiana. Those were similar and equally painful. Not erotic, which would have been something at least. Instead they mirrored the mother dreams. He needed to tell Tati something, but couldn’t make himself heard. These he would wake from with clenched fists, and a jaw that ached from a night spent grinding his teeth.

  Bizarrely, Angela didn’t feature in his nightly torments at all. It was almost as if she were disappearing, slipping away from him on every level. Becoming a shadow in his life.

  With an effort he brought his attention back to the screen in front of him.

  He would work for an hour, then go down for a drink.

  Get a grip, Brett.

  At seven o’clock the lobby was starting to get busy. The gold and marble atrium buzzed with people, most of them in suits, heading either to the triple Michelin-starred Jean-Georges restaurant or the bar at Nougatine. It was resolutely a business, rather than a fashion crowd, which put Brett at his ease and was one of the reasons he had chosen this hotel over its many trendier, West-Village rivals. Brett liked the clack, clack of expensive stilettos on marble, and the way the sound echoed upwards, ricocheting off the high ceilings. He liked the ringing of mobile phones, too important to be switched off for something as trivial as dinner, and the constant, efficient tapping of the keyboards behind the concierge desks. It was a symphony of distraction, a scene dipped in wealth and privilege and comfort, like a strawberry dipped in warm chocolate.

  Taking a seat at the bar, Brett ordered a Scotch on the rocks, which arrived immediately in a beautiful cut-crystal glass. The viscose amber liquid tasted as smooth as it looked. Brett already felt a little better. A couple of beautiful young women in skintight jeans and mink jackets sat together at a table in the corner, eyeing him in an overtly predatory manner. He felt better still, ordering a second Scotch, but deciding against sending a bottle of champagne to the girls’ table. They were clearly semi-pros, working models who supplemented their earnings with ‘gifts’ from rich men such as himself, but (oddly in Brett’s view) did not consider themselves hookers. New York was full of such women, and London was catching up fast. Not that Brett was averse to the occasional hooker. But he didn’t have the energy tonight, physically or emotionally.

  Turning away from them, back towards the lobby, he’d just shovelled a handful of warm cashews into his mouth when he saw her. Tatiana Flint-Hamilton, as he would always think of her. But, to the world now, Tatiana Cranley, his daughter-in-law. Jason’s wife. The words still stuck in his throat, like poison.

  What the fuck is she doing here?

  In jeans, flat ballet pumps and a loosely cut beige cashmere sweater, Tati looked far more casual than any other woman in the hotel and infinitely more desirable. Her hair was piled up in a messy topknot, with strands escaping everywhere, and she wore dark glasses to hide what Brett assumed were tired eyes. She had clearly come straight from the airport. A porter was busy taking her luggage while she checked in at the desk. Despite her slouchy clothes and half-hidden face, she still managed to radiate sex appeal, like a tigress casually sauntering into a room full of sheep.

  Brett tightened his grip on his glass.

  He hated her.

  ‘Cheque please,’ he said to the barman, spinning back around on his stool suddenly as if he’d been stung.

  ‘Certainly, sir. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. I just want my bill.’

  The bar was no longer an anonymous sanctuary. Slipping his black titanium Amex card across the polished rosewood, he signed the cheque and left a hefty tip. He would go upstairs, pack and check out before Tatiana saw him. The last person on earth Brett wanted to run into in his current, unsettled state of mind was Tatiana. Tatiana who had toyed with him and used him and weaselled her money-grabbing way into his family, to the point where she now had both of his children living under her roof. Even in his goddamned dreams she tormented him.

  But he was too late. Walking towards the bank of elevators with a bus boy in tow, weighed down with her Louis Vuitton luggage, Tatiana saw him. Her upper lip instantly curled with distaste.

  ‘My, my,’ she drawled. ‘Look what the cat dragged in. And I thought this was an exclusive establishment.’

  ‘It was until you got here,’ Brett shot back, deadpan.

  The lift arrived. Tatiana stepped inside. Brett followed.

  ‘Going up, sir?’ the bus boy asked Brett.

  ‘Yes. Fourteenth floor.’

  The doors closed on the three of them and the elevator swooped upwards with stomach-splitting speed. It was a large lift, but Tatiana’s mountain of luggage meant that she and Brett were squashed at the back like two sardines, while the bus boy was practically flattened against the doors. Tati could feel Brett’s body next to hers, bristling with tension and resentment, like a coiled cobra ready to pounce. She hadn’t seen him in the flesh in a long, long time. Years. But he hadn’t changed. Nor had the unsettling effect he always had on her.

  ‘Does Jason know you’re here?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Of course. I don’t have secrets from my husband,’ Tati said virtuously.

  Brett guffawed. ‘Of course not. Only from your board members. Right?’

  Tati’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. What did Brett Cranley know about her relationship with her board?

  ‘You’re here to look at sites for a new school, I assume?’ he elaborated. ‘They won’t like that.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d make it a belated New Year’s resolution to give up assuming,’ Tati said waspishly. ‘You’re not very good at it. You assumed Jason would spend the rest of his life as your punch-bag. That didn’t work out too well, did it?’

  The bus boy shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. This was starting to get ugly.

  ‘He escaped, he’s with me, and he’s very happy,’ Tatiana went on. ‘So’s Logan by the way. In case you were wondering. All she needed was someone to listen to her for a change. But listening isn’t your strong suit either, is it Brett?’

  Brett tried hard not to show how hurt he was. He missed his daughter, and his son for that matter. Underneath the bravado he was all too well aware of his failings as a father. But he couldn’t let Tatiana see that. ‘Save the Mother Theresa spiel for someone who doesn’t already know you,’ he said gruffly. ‘You used my son for his money. Jason may not know it, but I do, and so does the rest of the world. He’ll see through you eventually. Logan too.’

  ‘There you go again. Assuming. You assumed it meant something to me when we slept together, didn’t you?’ Tati goaded him, laughing cruelly. ‘You couldn’t believe that the great Brett Cranley was just another insignificant one-night stand. But that’s all you ever were. Unlike Jason.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Brett flung out his arms in frustration. Mistaking the gesture, thinking that he might be about to hit her, Tati’s hand shot out, grabbing him by the wrist.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ she hi
ssed.

  ‘Dare what?’ said Brett. ‘You think I’d hit a woman?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re capable of,’ said Tati. ‘Just remember, I’m not a passive little woman like your wife. I’m your fucking equal, Brett.’

  ‘Fourteenth floor!’ the bus boy’s voice rang out loudly, a note of panic clearly audible. ‘This is your stop, sir.’

  Shaking his arm free, easily breaking Tatiana’s grip, Brett straightened his jacket and walked out. He had to fight the urge to run. Ridiculously, he felt tears stinging his eyes. Being around Tatiana felt like sticking his hand into a naked flame.

  Did he really mean nothing to her?

  No. He didn’t believe that. Couldn’t believe it. Although the mere idea that it might be true, that Jason might be the one she really wanted, burned like acid on his skin. Even now, after all these years, Tatiana had the power to get to him the way no other woman ever had.

  But she wasn’t his. She would never be his.

  Tati was Jason’s wife now. Whatever her true feelings, Tatiana belonged to his son.

  In the past, Angela had always been able to heal the wounds Brett suffered from other women, or from knockbacks in business. If Tatiana was fire, Angie was water, the cooling comfort of lapping waves, washing away Brett’s pain. Brett could bring Angela his failures, his rejections, like a cat dropping a mouse at his mistress’s feet; and she would make them insignificant with her love. With her patience and forgiveness. With her kindness that seemed to have no bottom, no limits.

  But perhaps that was part of the problem, Brett realized now. He needed limits.

  What had Tatiana said to him just now? I’m not your wife. I’m your equal.

  The words played over and over in his head as he made the lonely walk back to his room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  On her hands and knees in Furlings’ garden, weeding one of the kitchen garden beds, Angela Cranley watched a bumblebee going about its business. There was something intrinsically comic, but at the same time sad, about the way that this fat, round, awkward ball of a creature flew from flower to flower. As if it were drunk, or blind, or both. Everything it did seemed haphazard and clumsy, as if its very design were one of nature’s private jokes: the gluing of gossamer-thin, fairy wings onto a graceless, sumo wrestler’s body.

  It’s like me, she thought. Blundering through life looking ridiculous, doing the only thing it knows how.

  She and Brett were both trying. A few days ago, Brett had brought her flowers, unsolicited. Later that same evening, he’d suggested they play cards, something they used to do a lot when they were first married but had given up once the children were born. Aware that Brett was making a huge effort, Angie tried to respond in kind, cooking him his favourite meals – beef Wellington and French onion soup – and agreeing to do things together as a couple, from walking down to the village shop to watching television programmes together in the evening. Simple things, obvious things. Things they hadn’t done for one another in many, many years.

  Perhaps, Angie thought now, her eyes following the bee as it buzzed noisily away towards the hollyhocks, perhaps that’s the problem? Perhaps we feel so stiff and awkward and stilted because we’re out of practice?

  Because it was awkward. Painfully so at times. All the ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ and ‘would you mind awfullys?’ were choking her, choking them both. Intimacy, it seemed, could not be switched back on like a light after such a long time. Even if both parties really, really wanted it.

  As for sex, Angie was seriously starting to wonder if there might be something physically wrong with her. She couldn’t seem to bring herself to let Brett near her. It was almost like an allergy. Whenever Brett touched her, she froze. Her entire body stiffened from toes to neck, like a corpse going into rigor mortis. Brett had been unusually patient and kind about it, but she knew it hurt his feelings and made him anxious. This in turn made him try even harder with the romantic gestures, and so the dance of forced affection and excruciating awkwardness went on.

  The one subject they had been able to discuss more normally was Logan – a good thing, as term time was looming. Brett had yanked her out of St Xavier’s, but she still had nowhere to go in September. Brett still wanted her back home. ‘She can damn well go to the local comp and like it.’

  But for once, he listened to Angela when she told him this was impractical.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind her going to a state school. Brockhurt Comprehensive is actually fine academically. It’s her living back here that’s the problem. She won’t do it.’

  ‘She’ll do what she’s bloody well told,’ said Brett.

  ‘It’s all very well saying that,’ Angie sighed. ‘But the fact is, she won’t. She went to Jason and Tatiana’s because she was miserable here after the fire. She can’t face Gabe and Laura, or Seb, or all the whispering in the village. She’s mortified.’

  ‘As she bloody should be.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Angela patiently. ‘But if we drag her back, she’ll only do another runner.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Brett admitted grudgingly. ‘But I don’t like her under that woman’s roof. I don’t like it one bit.’

  As ever when Tatiana was mentioned in a conversation, however tangentially, Brett’s temperature started rising. Only by using every ounce of her tact and diplomacy had Angie been able to persuade Brett to allow Logan to stay on at Eaton Gate for now. By shamelessly dropping the Hamilton Hall name, Jason had managed to secure Logan a place at MPW, the famous sixth-form college on Queensgate. It wasn’t a perfect scenario. Privately Angela shared some of Brett’s fears about Logan living with Tati and Jason. What if they let her run wild? If the fire had proven anything, it was that Logan needed boundaries. Jason was depressed, and Tati was always working, which made them far from ideal as parental substitutes to a troubled teenage girl. Plus, if her own teenage years were anything to go by, Tatiana was hardly the best role model for Logan.

  Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Jason was convinced Logie had learned her lesson after the accident at Wraggsbottom and turned over a new leaf. And maybe some time alone together at Furlings would help her and Brett to resolve the problems in their marriage?

  At five o’clock, tired of gardening and with a sore lower back from so much bending down – I’m getting old – Angela decided to take Gringo for a walk. Grabbing the lead from a hook in the kitchen, she waited for the elderly, arthritic basset to waddle over to her, tail wagging excitedly.

  ‘You’re even older than I am, boy.’ She ruffled his floppy ears affectionately. ‘Don’t worry. We won’t make it a long one.’

  It was a pretty afternoon. The air was still warm and the light had faded from its harsh noon brightness to a mellow, honey-coloured glow. Walking down the driveway from Furlings towards the village, Angie could smell wood smoke from the cottage fireplaces. Rooks cawed overhead, and a sweet scent, either honeysuckle or jasmine, wafted over from the hedgerows, mingling with the smell of freshly mown grass from the village green in a heady cocktail. Closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, Angie felt suffused with peace, and gratitude. Whatever mistakes she’d made in her life, whatever heartbreaks she might face, this place remained beautiful and unchanging.

  She took a left turn at the start of the High Street, up Foxhole Lane, towards Wraggsbottom Farm. A number of long walks started here, with footpaths snaking up into the Downs, some going almost as far as the coast, although Gringo was too decrepit for such far-flung adventures these days. Taking one of the gentler paths through the woods, towards Brockhurst, Angela soon became lost in a daydream about Australia and her childhood friends. It was only after about twenty minutes that she looked down and realized that Gringo was no longer trotting faithfully at her heels.

  Irritated, with herself more than the barmy old basset, she began calling his name, whistling and clapping loudly. The dog was so deaf, he wouldn’t hear her unless she made a serious racket, and even then the odds weren’t good if he’d go
ne too far.

  Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Then an hour. Angela crisscrossed all the paths in the vicinity and had gone twice up to the main road. She’d passed a number of fellow walkers in that time, but none of them had seen Gringo.

  It was cooler now, but Angela dripped with sweat, a combination of exertion and anxiety. As much as she moaned about him, she’d never forgive herself if anything happened to that dog. In desperation she was about to head home – perhaps he’d somehow made his way back there, and if not she could call around locally and put the word out that he was missing – when a piercing scream stopped her in his tracks.

  ‘No! STOP IT! I said get off!’

  She recognized the voice as belonging to Penny de la Cruz. Come to think of it, she must be near Woodside Hall, Penny and Santiago’s idyllic house nestled deep in the Brockhurst woods.

  ‘Penny!’ she shouted out, hurrying down the track. ‘Are you all right?’

  Moments later, she saw what the commotion was about. Penny, wearing a pair of men’s pyjama bottoms, Ugg boots and a Greenpeace T-shirt covered in motor oil stains was standing in the garden at Woodside Hall waving a broom and shrieking at the top of her lungs. At first glance, she looked like a card-carrying lunatic. However, closer inspection revealed that the object, or rather objects, of her ire were Gringo, and Penny and Santiago’s wire-haired dachshund bitch, Delilah. Gringo, God bless him, was enthusiastically humping Delilah, who seemed by no means displeased by his attentions.

  Catching sight of Angela, Penny waved frantically. ‘Can you get him off? If she has another litter of mongrels, Santiago’ll hit the roof.’

  Angela giggled. ‘It seems rude to interrupt them. Poor Gringo.’

  ‘Poor Gringo my arse,’ said Penny, also laughing despite herself. ‘Your bloody dog is the Jimmy Savile of Fittlescombe. He must be ninety years old! Delilah’s only two.’