Page 107 of Save Us
It’s a tiny pub, and there’s not much room between the tables, so I can’t help wondering how anyone’s meant to get through, especially with a tray. But at the moment, the only people here other than Percy and me are a couple of men sitting in a corner watching football on a tiny wall-mounted TV. We sit down and the waiter brings us dining menus. Neither Percy nor I even glance at them.
“What I’m doing here will probably cost me my job,” Percy says after a few minutes. His voice is calm, as if he’s already come to terms with that.
I watch him, waiting.
Percy clears his throat and opens his mouth, but then the waiter reappears to ask if we want anything to drink. Not taking my eyes off Percy, I order a large bottle of water and two glasses. Then we’re alone again.
“At the end of last year,” he begins eventually, “I overheard your father on the phone.”
I open my mouth, but Percy seems to know what I’m about to ask.
“The intercom in the car was on.” He hesitates. “I didn’t think much about it at first. Your father talks about all kinds of things with me around. But I couldn’t stop mulling it over.”
I swallow hard and look expectantly at Percy.
He stares silently at the table for a few seconds. Then he takes a deep breath. “I couldn’t stop thinking about his words, because what he said was ‘Cordelia is dead. I need your help.’ ”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. “Then what did he say?”
“He said he’d be there in twenty minutes and asked the person on the other end to meet him alone.”
My thoughts are whirling in confusion, my heart beating ever faster.
“Where did you drive him?” I croak.
“To Clive Allen’s.”
“Clive Allen, our lawyer? Why would Dad be meeting him in secret?”
Percy opens his mouth, but he’s interrupted by the waiter, who picks this moment to come back to the table and bring us our glasses and the water.
“When was that?” I go on.
“The night your mother died.”
My stomach lurches, and one thought fires up in my brain. What if Mum’s death wasn’t an accident? What if Dad was involved? But then I remember the night I saw him with the family portrait in the dining room.
I’ll never forgive you. Now I’m on my own with the two of them and I can’t do anything right and it’s allyourfucking fault!
There’s no way that was an act. He seemed like he knew he was making mistakes. And he cried in front of me. I know there’s not much Dad isn’t capable of, but he loved Mum.
“For the first little while after that, I was too…had too much on my own mind to think about it. But I couldn’t forget the conversation. And once I’d chatted with Ophelia this weekend, I knew that I had to tell you about it.”
“What did Ophelia say?”
“She told me that in recent months, there have been worrying developments at Beaufort’s. Your father fired a chunk of the board.”
“He didn’t fire them, they left voluntarily. It was discussed at the meeting today,” I say, but at the same moment, it occurs to me that that’s probably only the official version of what happened. My stomach is already feeling queasy.
“Ophelia said that she wasn’t always in agreement with the way your mother ran the company, but at least she knew that for her, the spirit of Beaufort’s and your family traditions always came first. Now that seems slowly to be changing.”
I thought something similar in the meeting with my father this afternoon. In the past, if Lydia and I visited the head offices and saw Mum at work, I always felt the passion behind every decision that she and her colleagues made. Beaufort’s had heart. But today’s meeting was chilly and tense, and people’s words were emotionless clichés.
“I know what she means,” I say quietly.
“Ophelia doesn’t think your mother would have shared Mr. Beaufort’s visions.”
I frown. “Mum and Dad always used to work hand in hand.”
