As the Crow Flies (65 page)

It
took Mrs. Trentham a few minutes to locate Room 14 and Harris almost as long to
respond to her sharp knock. When Mrs. Trentham was eventually allowed to enter
the room she was surprised to discover how small it was: only just large enough
to accommodate one bed, one chair and a washbasin. Her eyes settled on the
woman who was sprawled across the bed. She was wearing a red silk blouse and a
black leather skirt far too short in Mrs. Trentham’s opinion, not to mention
the fact that two of the top buttons of the blouse were undone.

As
Kitty made no attempt to remove an old raincoat that had been thrown across the
chair, Mrs. Trentham was left with little choice but to remain standing.

She
turnd to Harris, who was checking his tie in the only mirror. He had obviously
decided that any introduction was superfluous.

Mrs.
Trentham’s only reaction was to get on with the business she had come to
transact so that she could return to civilization as quickly as possible. She
didn’t wait for Harris to start the proceedings.

“Have
you explained to Mrs. Bennett what is expected of her?”

“I
most certainly have,” said the detective, as he put on his jacket. “And Kitty
is more than ready to carry out her part of the bargain.”

“Can
she be trusted?” Mrs. Trentham glanced doubtfully down at the woman on the bed.

“‘Course
I can, long as the money’s right,” were Kity’s first words. “All I want to know
is, ‘ow much do I get?”

“Whatever
it sells for, plus fifty pounds,” said Mrs. Trentham.

“Then
I expect twenty quid up front.”

Mrs.
Trentham hesitated for a moment, then nodded her agreement.

“So
what’s the catch?”

“Only
that your brother will try to talk you out of the whole idea,” said Mrs.
Trentham. “He may even attempt to bribe you in exchange for... “

“Not
an ‘ape,” said Kitty. “‘E can talk ‘is ‘ead off as far as I’m concerned but it
won’t make a blind bit of difference. You see, I ‘ate Charlie almost as much as
you do... “

Mrs.
Trentham smiled for the first time. She then placed the brown paper parcel on
the end of the bed.

Harris
smirked. “I knew you two would find you had something in common.”

N
ight after
night I would lie awake worrying that Daniel must eventually work out that
Charlie wasn’t his father.

Whenever
they stood next to each other, Daniel tall and slim, with fair wavy hair and
deep blue eyes, Charlie at least three inches shorter, stocky, with dark wiry
hair and brown eyes, I assumed Daniel must in time comment on the disparity. It
didn’t help that my complexion is also dark. The dissimilarities might have
been comic had the implications not been so serious. Yet Daniel has never once
mentioned the differences in physical makeup or character between himself and
Charlie.

Charlie
wanted to tell Daniel the truth about Guy right from the start, but I convinced
him that we should wait until the boy was old enough to understand all the
implications. But when Guy died of tuberculosis there no longer seemed any
point in burdening Daniel with the past.

Later,
after years of anguish and Charlie’s continued remonstrations, I finally agreed
to tell Daniel everything. I phoned him at Trinity the week before he was due
to sail for America and asked if I could drive him down to Southampton; that
way at least I knew we would be uninterrupted for several hours. I mentioned
that there was something important I needed to discuss with him.

I
set out for Cambridge a little earlier than was necessary and arrived well in
time to help Daniel with his packing. By eleven we were heading down the A30.
For the first hour he chatted away happily enough about his work at Cambridge
too many students, not enough time for research but the moment the conversation
switched to the problems we were facing with the flats, I knew he had presented
me with the ideal opportunity to tell him the truth about his parentage. Then
quite suddenly he changed the subject and I lost my nerve. I swear I would have
broached the topic right there and then, but the moment had passed.

Because
of all the unhappiness we subsequently experienced with the death of my mother
and with the life of Mrs. Trentham while Daniel was away in America, I decided
my best chance of ever being frank with my son had been squandered. I begged
Charlie to allow the matter to drop once and for all. I have a fine husband. He
told me I was wrong; that Daniel was mature enough to handle the truth, but he
accepted that it had to be my decision. He never once referred to the matter
again.

When
Daniel returned from America I traveled back down to Southampton to pick him
up. I don’t know what it was about him but he seemed to have changed. For a
start he looked different more at ease and the moment he saw me gave me a big
hug, which quite took me by surprise. On the way back to London he discussed
his visit to the States, which he had obviously enjoyed, and without going into
great detail I brought him up to date on what was happening to our planning
application for Chelsea Terrace. He didn’t seem all that interested in my news,
but to be fair Charlie never involved Daniel in the day-to-day working of
Trumper’s once we both realized he was destined for an academic career.

Daniel
spent the next two weeks with us before returning to Cambridge, and even
Charlie, not always the most observant of people, commented on how much he had
changed. He was just as serious and quiet, even as secretive, but he was so
much warmer towards us both that I began to wonder if he had met a girl while
he had been away. I hoped so, but despite the odd hint clumsily dropped, Daniel
made no mention of anyone in particular. I rather liked the idea of him
marrying an American. He had rarely brought girls home in the past and always
seemed so shy when we introduced him to the daughters of any of our friends. In
fact he was never to be found if Clarissa Wiltshire put in an appearance which
was quite often nowadays, as during their vacations from Bristol University
both the twins were to be found working behind the counter at Number 1.

It
must have been about a month after Daniel returned from America that Charlie
told me Mrs. Trentham had withdrawn all her objections to our proposed scheme
for joining the two tower blocks together. I leaped with joy. When he added
that she was not going ahead with her own plans to rebuild the flats I refused
to believe him and immediately assumed that there had to be some catch. Even
Charlie admitted, “I’ve no idea what she’s up to this time.” Certainly neither
of us accepted Daphne’s theory that she might be mellowing in her old age.

Two
weeks later the LCC confirmed that all objections to our scheme had been
withdrawn and we could begin on our building program. That was the signal
Charlie had been waiting for to inform the outside world that we intended to go
public.

Charlie
called a board meeting so that all the necessary resolutions could be passed.

Mr.
Merrick, whom Charlie had never forgiven for causing him to sell the van Gogh, advised
us to appoint Robert Fleming to be our merchant bankers in the runup to the
flotation. The banker also added that he hoped the newly formed company would
continue to use Child and Company as their clearing bank. Charlie would have
liked to have told him to get lost but knew only too well that if he changed
banks a few weeks before going public, eyebrows would be raised in the City.
The board accepted both pieces of advice, and Tim Newman of Robert Fleming’s
was duly invited to join the board. Tim brought a breath of fresh air to the
company, representing a new breed of bankers. However, although I, like
Charlie, immediately took to Mr. Newman I never really got on the same
wave-length as Paul Merrick.

As
the day for issuing the tender documents drew nearer, Charlie spent more and
more of his time with the merchant banker. Meanwhile Tom Arnold took overall
control of the running of the shops, as well as overseeing the building program
with the exception of Number 1, which still remained my domain.

I
had decided several months before the final announcement that I wanted to mount
a major sale at the auction house just before Charlie’s declaration of going
public, and I was confident that the Italian collection to which I had been
devoting a great deal of my time would prove to be the ideal opportunity to
place Number 1 Chelsea Terrace on the map.

It
had taken my chief researcher Francis Lawson nearly two years to gather some
fifty-nine canvases together, all painted between 1519 and 1768. Our biggest
coup was a Canaletto The Basilica of St. Mark’s a painting that had been left
to Daphne by an old aunt of hers from Cumberland. “It isn’t,” she
characteristically told us, “as good as the two Percy already has in
Lanarkshire. However, I still expect the painting to fetch a fair price, my
darling. Failure will only result in offering any future custom to Sotheby’s,”
she added with a smile.

We
placed a reserve on the painting of thirty thousand pounds. I had suggested to
Daphne that this was a sensible figure, remembering that the record for a
Canaletto was thirty-eight thousand pounds, bid at Christie’s the previous
year.

While
I was in the final throes of preparation for the sale Charlie and Tim Newman
spent most of their time visiting institutions, banks, finance companies and
major investors, to brief them on why they should take a stake in the “biggest
barrow in the world.”

Tim
was optimistic about the outcome and felt that when the stock applications came
to be counted we would be heavily oversubscribed. Even so, he thought that he
and Charlie should travel to New York and drum up some interest among American
investors. Charlie timed his trip to the States so that he would be back in
London a couple of days before my auction was to take place and a clear three
weeks before our tender document was to be offered to the public.

It
was a cold Monday morning in May, and I may not have been at my brightest but I
could have sworn I recognized the customer who was in deep conversation with
one of our new counter assistants. It worried me that I couldn’t quite place
the middle-aged lady who was wearing a coat that would have been fashionable in
the thirties and looked as if she had fallen on hard times and might be having
to sell off one of the family heirlooms.

Once
she had left the building I walked over to the desk and asked Cathy, our most
recent recruit, who she was.

“A
Mrs. Bennett,” said the young girl behind the counter. The name meant nothing
to me so I asked what she had wanted.

Cathy
handed me a small oil painting of the Virgin Mary and Child. “The lady asked if
this could still be considered for the Italian sale. She knew nothing of its
provenance, and looking at her I have to say I wondered if it might have been
stolen. I was about to have a word with Mr. Lawson.”

I
stared at the little oil and immediately realized it had been Charlie’s
youngest sister who had brought the painting in.

“Leave
this one to me.”

“Certainly,
Lady Trumper.”

I
took the lift to the top floor and walked straight past Jessica Allen and on
into Charlie’s office. I handed over the picture for him to study and quickly
explained how it had come into our possession.

He
pushed the paperwork on his desk to one side and stared at the painting for
some time without saying a word.

“Well,
one thing’s for certain,” Charlie eventually offered, “Kitty is never going to
tell us how or where she got hold of it, otherwise she would have come to me
direct.”

“So
what shall we do?”

“Put
it in the sale as she instructed, because you can be sure that no one is going
to bid more for the picture than I will.”

“But
if all she’s after is some cash, why not make her a fair offer for the picture?”

“If
all Kitty is after was some cash, she would be standing in this office now. No,
she would like nothing better than to see me crawling to her for a change.”

“But
if she stole the painting?”

“From
whom? And even if she did there’s nothing to stop us stating the original
provenance in our catalogue. After all, the police must still have all the
details of the theft on their files.”

“But
what if Guy gave it to her?”

“Guy,”
Charlie reminded me, “is dead.”

I
was delighted by the amount of interest the press and public were beginning to
take in the sale. Another good omen was that several of the leading art critics
and collectors were spotted during the preview week studying the pictures on
display in the main gallery.

Articles
about Charlie and me began to appear, first in the financial sections, then spreading
over to the feature pages. I didn’t care much for the sound of “The Triumphant
Trumpers,” as one paper had dubbed us, but Tim Newman explained to us the
importance of public relations when trying to raise large sums of money. As
feature after feature appeared in newspapers and magazines, our new young
director became daily more confident that the flotation was going to be a
success.