Trail Of Love

Shaking her head, Kay squared up. ‘The only person I can explain it to is Sir Charles. Can he fit me in, do you think?’

Mrs Rivers looked at her squarely for almost a minute, then sighed again. ‘You’re very persistent. I’ll see what I can do. All I can promise you is a long wait with no guarantee.’

That was all Kay wanted—a chance. ‘I’ll wait.’

The secretary smiled wryly. ‘You may live to regret saying that. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable over there?’ She indicated a low couch nestling behind a coffee-table on which lay several magazines. ‘I’ll let you know if Sir Charles will see you.’

Kay flashed her a smile and once more took a seat. She picked up a magazine and began to flip through it, but, having come so close to her goal, it was impossible to think of anything but the reason she was there. That, of course, was the diary.

Kay sighed at the memories that brought. There had only been the two of them since her father left them when she was only a baby, and her mother’s tragically early death from cancer had been a blow, so suddenly had it happened. It had left Kay with the sad task of clearing her mother’s house, and she had come across the diary at the bottom of a case containing various other personal items. These she had taken home with her to go through at another time. Only the diary had called for her attention. She had read it in the expectation of finding out more about her mother’s early life—a subject she had been reticent about—but the entries had been spasmodic, covering no more than a few years at most, the pages crossed in a small neat hand.

They had begun with her daughter’s birth. The entry was simple: ‘K came today. She’s so beautiful’. The wording had not struck her then, nor the singularity of her name only being referred to by the initial. But even that wasn’t so very unusual for someone keeping a diary, and Kay had forgotten about it until, several weeks later, her interest had been piqued by a television documentary on kidnapped children who had never been returned after the ransom had been paid. One case which had featured prominently was that of Kimberley Endacott.

A passing interest it might have remained, but for the anonymous letter. Addressed to her mother and redirected from her house to Kay’s flat, it had demanded money, said the writer would be in touch, and had contained clippings of the very same Kimberley Endacott case.

She had assumed it was the work of a crank, and torn it up angrily, refusing to give it credence, until one evening she had answered the telephone. The caller had asked for Jean, and when she had told him her mother had died, he had demanded to know if Jean had read the clippings.

‘No,’ Kay had told him with satisfaction. ‘I tore them up. Mother died several weeks ago, so you’re too late with your sleazy attempt to blackmail her!’ she had declared coldly and slammed the receiver down.

Only the call had added substance to the letter and somehow she couldn’t stop thinking about it. In the end she had had to go to the library and get photocopies of the clippings and then read the diary again.

Things had started to click in her mind. At first she had laughed it off as preposterous. It was only a coincidence that the first entry was on the same day as little Kimberley had disappeared. That the ransom had been paid and collected on the day her father had left them. That Kay was an odd name to call a child christened Sarah, and that the initial ‘K’ could refer to Kimberley as much as it did Kay.

All coincidences, and yet they had preyed on her mind. Because if, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, it should be true, then that could make her gentle, hard-working mother a kidnapper. For that was what the anonymous letter had surely been implying.

A thought that made her feel as if a gaping hole had opened up beneath her feet. A thought so alarming that she had dismissed it as ludicrous. This had happened in the north of England, and she had lived in London all her life. No! She was Kay Napier, an actuary, aged twenty-four. Her birth certificate said so. It also, dismayingly, gave an address in Alnwick.

Then the doubts had resurged. ‘What if?’ nagged at her day and night. Questions crowded in, but there were no answers, and no one to ask. Disloyalty and guilt at what she was allowing herself to suspect of someone who had shown her nothing but love warred with an increasing need to know. Which was why she had screwed her courage to the sticking place and come here today. Because a university degree and a down-to-earth job as an actuary in a highly reputable firm in the city couldn’t allay her primal fear. She knew it wouldn’t go from her mind until she had a definite ‘no’.

At which point she dragged her thoughts back to the present. Time passed slowly, and she had drunk a cup of coffee and flipped through two magazines before the secretary, who had slipped discreetly through a door, reappeared and beckoned her over.

‘Sir Charles has agreed to give you five minutes. Go on through.’ She nodded to the open door. With a fast-beating heart, Kay stepped into the inner sanctum.

Sir Charles Endacott was sitting at a large desk by the window. Now in his seventies, he still possessed a full head of hair, although it was silvery grey, like his moustache. Puffing on a pipe, he watched Kay approach him through sharp grey eyes.

Kay stared at him as he rose to his feet and waved a hand in the direction of a chair. It struck her then, that the question she was about to ask had far-reaching implications. This man, this stranger, could be her grandfather! And that really was absurd, because she felt nothing. There was nothing in his distinguished face that reminded her of herself.

It was enough to clear her vision and to tell her that coming here was totally preposterous. She wasn’t an Endacott, she knew it in her bones. Realising her foolishness in allowing one malicious person to manipulate her, she hesitated with her hand on the back of the chair. It would take some doing now, to extricate herself from this with her dignity intact.

‘Well, young woman?’ Sir Charles prompted in a brisk voice. ‘My secretary tells me you insisted on seeing me. Did you think I would be flattered that such a lovely young thing should seek my advice on something personal? Unfortunately I can’t say I approve of your methods. Do you make a habit of thrusting your way into people’s offices?’

Kay wished the floor could open up, and horrified colour washed into her cheeks because, after all her wangling, she knew she was wasting his time. ‘I’m most terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake.’

Grey eyes narrowed. ‘Have you indeed? Am I to take it you didn’t wish to see me?’

‘No! That is, I thought...’ she began disjointedly, only to be halted by his abruptly raised hand.

Sir Charles began by frowning, then a look of dawning comprehension swept across his features. ‘Ah,’ he said, and reached for the telephone, punching out a number. ‘Ben? Get in here, would you?’ he ordered down the line before replacing the receiver and eyeing her unwaveringly.

Perplexed by this seemingly illogical action, and not sure if it was a dismissal or not, Kay began a diplomatic retreat. ‘You’re busy. I’m sorry. I’ll just...’ The sound of the door opening behind her halted the flow, and she turned.

‘What’s this all about, Charles?’ a smooth male voice queried, punctuating the question with the closing of the door.

The man advancing into the room was in his mid-thirties, tall, six feet at least, and slim of hip. Even the most conservative of suits couldn’t hide the lean muscularity of his frame, nor the almost cat-like quality of his movements. Kay suffered an unfamiliar tightening of her stomach muscles. Out of the blue, her senses were bombarded with messages that set her nerves tingling and her heart thumping. She raised her eyes to his handsome face. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen, and his mouth was a criminal temptation. Set in a strong face, surrounded by thick waves of black hair, they were an attraction she recognised with a shock. Potent and heady as the finest wine.

But there was more to come. Because for a moment their eyes met, and clashed, and something like a bolt of lightning shot through her. The shock she knew to be on her face was duplicated on his. She could see the fine tension in him suddenly. It had been total recognition. Elemental and instant.

Yet while she was trying to assimilate it, his eyes lifted to her bright copper hair, where they lingered. The change in him was instantaneous. For a second he sent her a fulminating glare which was doused by the appearance of a cynical smile on his lips. Automatically she braced herself, without knowing why.

‘Now then, young woman,’ Sir Charles reclaimed her attention. ‘This is Ben Radford. I expect he’s the man you expected to see, isn’t he?’ Clearly he found it amusing, although the man who stopped beside him, arms crossed, wasn’t laughing.

His, ‘I hardly think so, Charles,’ mingled with her,

‘I beg your pardon?’

From the name she recognised the younger man as the other partner in the bank. He was well-known and respected in the City, and was widely suspected to be the real motivator behind the bank’s continued success. Which was well enough, but she was at a loss to understand why Sir Charles should imagine she wanted to see him.

There followed a brief pause when they all looked at each other. Sir Charles frowned and Ben Radford’s eyes were cold. Kay found herself stiffening defensively.

The older man cleared his throat. ‘You mean she isn’t one of your damn flirtations?’

Kay was far from amused to find herself lumped in with a host of women who apparently chased after Ben Radford, even though, after her own response, she could understand why they did it. No wonder he was looking down his elegant nose at her. ‘There seems to be some mistake,’ she said frostily, dispelling the idea immediately.

‘And you made it,’ Ben Radford cut in swiftly, making her gasp. Who did he think he was? Handsome is as handsome does, she thought, and he falls a long way short. Of all the conceit!

Sir Charles was none too pleased either, but for apparently different reasons. ‘Ben!’ he remonstrated, but the younger man remained unperturbed.

‘What does she want?’ he asked shortly, and in a tone guaranteed to put her back up. Even if she weren’t a redhead, with all the temper that implied.

Kay focused narrowed eyes on him, angry for herself and Sir Charles, who was a true gentleman. ‘Nothing. I’ve already said I made a mistake. I was about to leave.’

That cynical smile deepened. ‘Yet you obviously came here with some purpose in mind.’

On her mettle, Kay raised her chin, refusing to be browbeaten by his look or tone of voice. ‘Yes, I did. There was a question I intended to ask Sir Charles, but I changed my mind.’ Let him make what he liked of that, she thought. Clearly his character wasn’t as attractive as his looks.

‘Really?’ he scoffed.

Her anger, hinted at by her hair, but usually kept under wraps, boiled up. ‘Yes, really!’ she snapped back.

Sir Charles banged his pipe down. ‘Stop harassing the girl, Ben!’ he ordered, and the younger man took his eyes from her briefly. Kay experienced a shaky kind of relief, only now aware of the quality of tension that had crackled between them. It was to be short-lived.

‘Charles, the girl is a redhead. A strawberry blonde, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said incisively.

There was a tangible change in atmosphere. Something new and disquieting had entered the lists against her. Automatically Kay raised a hand to her glittering locks as two pairs of eyes speared her. ‘I fail to see what that has to do with it,’ she argued, very aware of a pronounced chill in the air.

‘Do you, Miss...? Do you have a name, I wonder, or should I guess?’ Ben Radford probed scathingly.

Kay wondered how she could, even for a second, have found that cynical face attractive. ‘My name is Kay Napier,’ she replied with seething dignity.