Just a Family Affair Read online

  ‘What? Sorry, I was drifting.’

  ‘Bertie’s having a moment. He thinks he’s missing out,’ Lucy explained.

  ‘Children. Life is nothing without children.’

  ‘Um . . . No. Yes. No.’ Mickey floundered, not sure what he was supposed to say.

  ‘Actually, you’re right. Life’s bloody awful without them in the house. I can’t stand it without Patrick and Sophie and Georgina. It’s horrible,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Bertie. ‘It’s up to me, then. To get myself a pretty little wife and have a clutch of children I can dump on you. So I can take her off to Capri or Sardinia or Cap Ferrat for a long weekend.’

  Lucy clapped her hands in delight. ‘I’d love that!’ she cried. ‘I wanted another baby but Mickey said I was mad.’

  ‘Did you?’ Mickey looked at her, horrified. ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes. Remember? Just before you went off for the snip. You couldn’t get to the clinic fast enough.’ She turned to Bertie, eyes shining. ‘I’ll look after all your babies for you, darling. So hurry up.’

  As Lucy drained the pasta in the sink, Mickey busied himself finding plates and cutlery so he wouldn’t have to speak as he digested this latest piece of information. Lucy had wanted another baby? Somehow he’d missed that. Obviously they’d talked when he’d decided to go for the vasectomy, and although she had been a bit wistful, he hadn’t appreciated that she’d expressed a real desire. Though perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps she was just rewriting history. People did that, didn’t they? But then, he wouldn’t have put it past himself to ignore what she’d been saying. He did that all the time. Shut his ears to things he didn’t want to hear.

  He hadn’t been able to shut his ears to Kay. He couldn’t gloss over that bombshell. A long-lost daughter wasn’t like a bill that you could shove to the back of the drawer. And the implications were far, far greater. If Flora was five, that was another thirteen years of responsibility. Well, more than that, because you didn’t cut kids off at eighteen, not if Sophie and Georgina were anything to go by. Patrick was pretty self-sufficient and paid his own way, but the girls were always tapping him up for funds. And could he resist them? No . . .

  Another daughter. Another little girl. Never mind what Lucy was going to say. What about Sophie and Georgina? Sophie would be a walkover, but Georgie could be very judgemental and unforgiving. And she was a bit of a daddy’s girl. How would she take to a half-sister being dropped like a cuckoo into the nest? And Patrick! Mickey had always worried that he felt a bit of an outsider, because he was only a half-brother to Sophie and Georgina, and a stepson to Lucy. Even though Lucy had been absolutely wonderful to Patrick, treating him as her own, and far better than bloody Carola, his real mother. When Mickey had wrestled Patrick from Carola’s clutches and fought her tooth and claw for custody, the little boy had barely any clothes and no toys at all, because Carola didn’t believe in them. Lucy had soon rectified that.

  Darling Lucy. The angel he didn’t deserve. Mickey slid another shot of wine into his glass. She didn’t deserve to have another of his spawn dumped on her this late in life, especially when she’d just expressed a desire for one of her own. It would rub salt into the wound, to have Kay flaunting Flora. Not that she’d do that deliberately, Mickey felt sure. Kay had changed; there had been a softness and vulnerability to her that had shocked him. The tough, ruthless, rather self-centred Kay had gone. Her only motive was to do what was best for her child. She wouldn’t use Flora as a weapon, or rub Lucy’s nose in it.

  But there was the nasty question of half a million quid that wasn’t going to go away. Mickey knew Kay had been serious about that. His stomach churned as the full implication hit him. Where the fuck was he going to get that amount from? He’d been so absorbed in the mere fact of Flora’s presence on this planet that he’d overlooked this minor detail. Could he remortgage the house? Honeycote House must be worth over a million. But no building society in their right mind would give him a half-million-pound mortgage at his age.

  ‘Mickey!’ Lucy was calling him, holding a vast bowl of steaming seafood linguine. ‘Can you get something to put this on?’

  ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

  As they sat down to eat, Mickey eyed his supper with distaste. Usually it was his favourite: big fat juicy tiger prawns in a creamy sauce livened up with a slug of Limoncello. But his appetite, not entirely surprisingly, had vanished. He managed to pick through it, sustained by several more glasses of wine. By the time Bertie left, Mickey was half cut. The Viognier had done the trick, blotting out the finer details of his meeting earlier and numbing his emotions. He couldn’t bring it up with Lucy now. He’d be slurring his words, getting everything muddled. Anyway, he reasoned through the fug, it was probably best to sleep on it. See how an illegitimate daughter and a demand for a king’s ransom seemed in the morning.

  Kay lay in the middle of the bed in the Honeycote Arms, knowing that she should be grateful for the luxury of goose down after her mother’s stretchy brushed cotton sheets, but completely unable to sleep. She thought about burrowing in her handbag for the sleeping tablets the doctor had given her, but she didn’t want to be a zombie when Flora woke up the next morning. The little girl was snuggled up beside her, her curls spread out on the pillow. She always slept like a top, even with the bedside lamp still on and the telly burbling away in the background.

  Kay thought she’d reached rock bottom just after Lawrence’s funeral. But now she felt lower than ever. Coming back was a huge mistake. The Honeycote Arms, with its chic-but-low-key designer comfort, its almost tangible Englishness, made her feel homesick - but the irony was she didn’t have a home. This was just a temporary haven. She’d be out on her ear in just a few days’ time, if her bank balance was anything to go by.

  Having Mickey in her room, so solid, so real, so normal, had brought home to her just how desperate her situation was. How on earth could she have thought that throwing herself on his mercy was going to be an easy way out? She could picture Mickey now, sitting with Lucy in the kitchen at Honeycote House. She and Lawrence had been there a few times, for drinks parties and post-hunt suppers, because the Liddiards were madly social and seemed to invite all and sundry back to their house at the drop of a hat. At the time, Kay had felt no envy. She, after all, had lived at Barton Court, which was practically a stately home, and was pristine, perfect, almost like a museum. But now she realized Honeycote House was perfection. A warm, slightly shambolic family home, bursting with life and love and laughter. Kay had almost looked down on it - everything covered in dog hairs and the cupboard doors falling off. Now, she’d give anything for a place like that.

  She remembered thinking nothing of her affair with Mickey. As far as she had been concerned, it was insignificant, just a bit of titillation for the two of them. She’d never considered Lucy’s finer feelings either; after all, if Lucy was so bloody perfect, Mickey wouldn’t be so horny all the time. She had not considered the truth: that the more sex men had, the more they wanted. She had felt all-powerful, knowing she was fucking him, knowing that if she crooked her finger, he would come running. Now, looking back, she just felt cheap. Worse than a hooker, because she hadn’t even been paid. She despised herself for it. And she despised Mickey. How could he have sacrificed everything that he had? Everything that Kay realized now was important.

  Everything that she was never going to have. She had no husband, no house, no money. Though she hoped she had gone some way towards rectifying the last two. Kay knew she had pulled out the pin and lobbed a live grenade into Mickey’s life but actually, she didn’t care. He deserved to face the consequences of his actions. Even if Lucy didn’t. But Kay wasn’t going to analyse that too closely. If it was a toss-up between protecting Lucy and protecting her daughter, Flora won hands down.

  For a moment, she wondered what Lawrence would say if he knew what she was doing. He’d probably be furious that she had gone back to the past and got herself embroiled with the Liddiards agai
n. Was it betraying him, to revert to the biological father for support, when Lawrence had loved Flora so unconditionally? He’d never thought much of Mickey, primarily because he was a lousy businessman. Lawrence had always said Honeycote Ales was a potential gold-mine, and that Mickey was a fool. So Kay doubted that he would be impressed by her actions.

  But then, he was the one who’d got himself killed and left them with no money. What the hell was she supposed to do? Kay felt the tears rising, and before she could stop them she was sobbing uncontrollably. Seeing Mickey had brought the past rushing back and reminded her of all her mistakes. It was all her fault that they were here now. And she still didn’t know if what she was doing was for the best. Should she have kept Pandora’s box shut, stayed with her parents, relied on state handouts, got some pathetic little job in Slough and scratted around for the rest of her life?

  It was too late now.

  Flora sat up next to her.

  ‘What is it, Mummy? Is it Daddy?’ She felt the little girl’s arms go round her neck, and her soft cheek on hers. ‘It’s OK. He’s with the angels, remember?’

  ‘Thank you, sweetheart.’

  Kay swallowed down her sobs, hoping Flora was right. She really did. At least if that was the case, one of them was being looked after.

  Seven

  Mayday was used to PC Robert Dunne popping in for a coffee every now and again. Patrolling the streets of Eldenbury wasn’t an unduly stressful beat, except for the odd spate of shoplifting and the occasional drunk, so he quite often came in for a chat and a gossip, giving her useful snippets of local information: who’d been banged up in the cells overnight for being over the limit, who was going to be up before the beak for petty theft or driving without insurance, and who’d been having a domestic.

  So when Rob came into the hotel lobby at midday on Tuesday and asked to see her in private, Mayday was puzzled by his formality. Perhaps one of the staff had been up to no good. Pilfering from the bedrooms? Or dealing drugs?

  She led him into her office and shut the door. He stood in the centre of the room, feeling awkward. He was tall, Rob, as tall as you wanted a policeman to be, but with a gentle manner that belied his toughness. He looked at her solemnly, his brown eyes with their unexpectedly long lashes filled with concern.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mayday. It’s your gran.’

  Mayday gave a half smile. ‘What on earth’s she done?’ She couldn’t imagine what Elsie would get up to that would involve the police.

  Rob gave an awkward cough. ‘I’m afraid she’s . . . passed away.’

  He was used to being the bearer of bad tidings. It was one of the downsides of the job. But he particularly hated it when he knew the person he was informing. Especially when it was someone he liked. And he had a lot of time for Mayday. She always made him feel important, even though he was just a lowly PC. And it wasn’t because she was sucking up to him because he was a copper. Mayday was the genuine article.

  All the colour had drained from her face and Rob rushed to get her a chair. He hadn’t told her the bad bit yet.

  ‘What happened? Who found her? I only saw her last night. She was fine.’ Mayday sank into the chair.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Mayday.’ Why couldn’t he think of something more original to say? ‘It looks as if she took her own life.’

  ‘Gran? She can’t have. She wouldn’t . . .’

  Rob cleared his throat to make way for his explanation.

  ‘There was an empty bottle of pills by her chair.’

  ‘Who found her?’

  ‘The neighbour was worried because she didn’t pull her curtains or take in her milk. She called us out.’

  Mayday seemed to shrink before his eyes. She went from being the larger-than-life extrovert character that he so admired to a helpless young girl. Mayday, who could stop a bar brawl with a single bellow, who threw out difficult customers without batting an eyelid and who he had seen shamelessly pinching his chief inspector’s bottom at the station’s Christmas party, slumped in her chair and began to sob quietly. Somehow Rob had expected her to take it in her stride. He waited awkwardly, knowing from experience it was best to allow people to have a few moments to let bad news sink in.

  ‘I suppose my mother’s been told,’ she finally managed, through gritted teeth. ‘I suppose she’s already rifling through her drawers looking for bundles of hidden cash.’

  Rob’s eyes widened in shock. Angela had indeed been informed, and was at the scene.

  ‘Yes. Your mother’s at the house now. She’s called the undertaker.’

  Mayday stood up, gathering herself together and wiping away her tears.

  ‘Would you mind driving me out there, Rob?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got to make sure everything’s done properly for Gran. My mother won’t have the first idea what she’d want.’

  Rob readily agreed. He would gladly have driven Mayday to the ends of the earth if she’d asked him. ‘The patrol car’s outside.’

  Mayday managed a smile. ‘That’ll give everyone something to talk about.’

  Rob stood aside to let her through the door, touching her arm in sympathy as she went past. She had spirit, Mayday. Cracking jokes even in her darkest hour. You had to admire her.

  When Rob and Mayday arrived at Elsie’s house, they found Angela in the kitchen. She looked dreadful. She’d been working at the kennels when she was informed, and was wearing a rather tight baby-pink velour tracksuit that had originally been expensive but had been relegated when she spilt bleach down the zip-up top, which didn’t quite cover her stomach. Rob was shocked to see she had a pierced belly button, rather inappropriate for a woman of her age, he thought. Tears and mascara were tracking through the thick foundation on her face; her hair was dishevelled, and the glue where her extensions were attached was showing in several places.

  As soon as she saw her daughter, she went for her.

  ‘I blame you for this, you know that!’ Angela shrieked at Mayday, her eyes wild.

  Mayday gazed at her coolly. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘It wasn’t me who tried to force her into a home.’

  ‘You came round here last night. You must have said something that tipped her over the edge.’

  ‘What? Like “Don’t worry, Gran, you don’t have to go into a home. I’ll look after you.” That sort of thing?’ Mayday’s voice was level but deadly.

  ‘She was quite happy when I left her.’

  ‘I brought her some food. And did her hair for her. I left her watching Emmerdale—’

  ‘So why did she swallow a bottle of painkillers?’ Angela’s voice went up an octave.

  ‘Now let’s just calm down,’ said Rob nervously. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in trying to apportion blame at this stage.’

  Angela gave him an evil glare.

  ‘At what stage do you suggest, then?’ she demanded.

  Rob stepped back. He knew Angela’s type. Nasty. Best to stay out of arm’s reach.

  ‘Can I see her?’ Mayday asked with a quiet dignity that made him feel proud.

  ‘Yes. Might as well have a look at your handiwork,’ snapped her mother.

  ‘She’s in the lounge,’ said Rob. ‘We’re just waiting for the undertaker to arrive.’

  He put a protective hand on Mayday’s shoulder as she walked towards the living room. Angela followed, her diamanté flip-flops slapping on the quarry tiles, and he resisted the urge to tell her to keep her nose out. He wanted Mayday to have peace and quiet when she paid her respects, but he didn’t want to antagonize her mother, so he said nothing. He was on hand to intervene if things got out of control.

  Elsie looked as if she was sleeping. Sat back in her chair with her eyes closed, her hair still in the curls Mayday had set less than twenty-four hours ago. The most remarkable thing was that her face seemed ten years younger, presumably because she was no longer in pain.

  Mayday swallowed down a lump that rose in her throat. She couldn’t have done any more for her. She knew that. She’d left
no stone unturned in her quest to alleviate her agony. She’d been to the GP with her on countless occasions, and raged about the futility of it. She’d tried to arrange for a home help, but had been rebuffed - and she couldn’t blame her grandmother for not wanting the indignity of a stranger in her house. She’d tried to get her to try acupuncture, but Elsie didn’t hold with it. She’d looked at diet, but to no avail. Elsie was matter of fact about her fate.

  ‘Look, love, I’m crippled with it and that’s the end of it. You can’t fight Mother Nature when she’s made up her mind.’

  All that was left was to be able to make her life as comfortable as possible. She’d bought her an electric blanket, to warm her aching bones. Twice a week she brought her food from the hotel. On a Friday afternoon she cleaned the house from top to bottom, changed the bed linen (she suspected that Elsie had been having accidents at night, unable to face the arduous journey to the bathroom, but she never mentioned it). She’d bought her the remote for the television with extra large buttons, so she could negotiate the channels. And a walkabout phone so she could clip it to her belt, instead of having to try and rush to answer it.

  ‘After everything we did,’ Angela’s voice wavered. ‘You can’t do enough for some people. It’s a wicked thing to do, take your own life. What about the people you leave behind? I don’t think I’ll ever get over this.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, when you get the cheque.’ Mayday knew she shouldn’t have said it, but she couldn’t bear the pantomime.

  Angela’s head whipped round, her face a mask of fury.

  ‘Have some respect, can’t you?’ she snarled. ‘And rest assured there’s nothing in the will for you. So all that dancing attendance on your grandmother was a total waste of time.’

  Mayday looked at her evenly. ‘Funnily enough,’ she replied, ‘I didn’t do it for the money. I did it because Gran looked after me when I needed her.’ Despite herself she found her voice rising, furious at her mother’s implications. ‘I did it because I loved her!’