The Perfect Sinner

‘Oh, did you? Good. Maddy will be pleased. She was afraid that he might miss Leo’s first performance in the play school Christmas play,’ she told him with a smile.

She wasn’t smiling ten minutes later, however, as she hurried back to her car, pitting her body against the cold of the sharp east wind. Maddy had confided in her only a few days ago that she was concerned about Leo’s growing antagonism towards his father.

‘Gramps thinks I’m overcoddling Leo, but I’ve tried to explain to him that it’s because he doesn’t see very much of Max and Max isn’t … Max doesn’t …’

Maddy’s voice had trailed off, but she hadn’t needed to explain. Jenny knew exactly what her eldest son was and what he wasn’t. Joss spent more time with, and was far closer, to his small nephew than his father, and Jon, too, made sure that he gave his small grandson as much attention as he could.

Maddy wasn’t there when Max arrived at Queensmead. She had gone out to do some shopping, taking both children with her. The rich scent of the greenery and fruit she had used to make the Christmas garlands that decorated the hallway and stairs, as well as the warmth of their seasonal colours against the mellow patina of the panelling, might have caused another man to stop and savour not just the seasonal spirit they evoked but also the quiet skill of the woman who had made them, but Max gave his wife’s handiwork no more than a brief, cursory frown as he headed for the stairs. Before he could climb them, his grandfather’s study door opened and the older man limped painfully into the hallway, his austere expression giving way to a warm smile as he saw his favourite grandchild.

‘Max,’ he exclaimed eagerly. ‘You’re back. Come and have a drink with me.’

Max watched the way his grandfather’s hand trembled as he poured them both a Scotch. He was aging rapidly, his once-tall, ramrod-straight frame now spare and bent, his walk betraying the wariness of someone who had lost the security of being able to depend on his own physical strength.

‘Maddy’s gone out—shopping,’ he told Max. ‘Why on earth do women need to make such a fuss about Christmas? You’d think Maddy was going to be feeding an army from the way she’s been carrying on. She hasn’t even had time to change my library books for me this week,’ he added with the petulant selfishness of the elderly. ‘And she forgot to make my nightcap last night.

‘Come over here,’ he instructed Max abruptly. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

Frowning, Max followed him, watching as he struggled with the lock on the drawer of his desk before removing a card, which he thrust in front of Max.

‘It’s from David,’ he told Max tersely. ‘It came yesterday. It’s post-marked Jamaica …’

‘Jamaica …’ Max’s frown deepened. The last they had heard of David was that he was somewhere in Spain, but that had been more than a year ago, and despite all his own father’s attempts to do so, he had not been able to trace the whereabouts of his twin brother.

‘I knew he wasn’t in Spain, told Jon so, too, but he wouldn’t listen,’ he could hear his grandfather complaining.

‘It’s time he came home, Max. I want him home. This is where his place is. This is where he would be if that damned woman hadn’t driven him away.’

It was no secret to Max that his grandfather blamed Tania, nicknamed Tiggy, David’s estranged wife, for his son’s disappearance, claiming to anyone who would listen that it had been Tania’s unstable temperament and the eating disorder she suffered from, along with her dangerous mood swings and her extravagant life-style, that had prompted David’s near fatal heart attack and then caused him to disappear.

Max frowned as he studied the postcard his grandfather had handed him, not really paying much attention to what the older man was saying. After all, he had heard it all before, and if it had not been second nature to him to keep on his grandfather’s good side, he would have lost no time in cynically pointing out that there were far easier ways of removing an unwanted wife from one’s life than to flee the country.

Even so, he couldn’t resist saying jibingly, ‘Well, Uncle David has nothing to fear from Tiggy now that she’s got a new man in her life.’

‘Exactly,’ his grandfather pounced. ‘I want David found, Max. I want him found and I want him to come home before …’ He stopped, wincing as he started to massage his aching hip.

‘Dad’s already made several attempts to trace him,’ Max pointed out uninterestedly, ‘and …’

‘Using detective agencies. Pah … useless … Jon should fly out to Jamaica himself, and if he had any real brotherly love for David … But then, of course, he’s always been jealous of David and I …

‘I’d go myself if it wasn’t for this damned hip,’ he told Max angrily. ‘Damned if I wouldn’t. I know David … he’s my son … my flesh … my blood ….’

Listening to him, Max forbore to point out that so was his own father, but then Ben most certainly did not know Jon, and what he knew of David was only what he had allowed himself to know … what he wanted to believe David to be rather than what he actually was.

Jamaica … Max dropped the card onto the table, where it lay face up, white sands gleaming under an impossibly blue sky and an even bluer sea … Jamaica …

His body suddenly stiffened.

‘If you really want someone to go and look for Uncle David, I suppose I could fly out there and do a bit of checking up, look around …’ he began, pseudo-hesitantly.

‘You!’

The delight in the old man’s voice might have touched the heart of another man, but Max refused to allow anything, anyone, to touch his, and he simply, instead, gave him a calculated smile.

‘But how can you?’ his grandfather protested shakily. ‘Your work …’

Max shrugged carelessly.

‘As it happens, things are pretty slack at the moment, and I had been thinking of taking a few weeks’ leave. I may as well spend some of it in Jamaica as here under Maddy’s feet …’

‘You mean you really would go, Max?’

Max watched dispassionately as his grandfather fought to control his emotions, coming over to him and grasping his shoulders as he blinked rapidly and told him huskily, ‘I knew I could rely on you, Max. You’re your uncle David all over again. He wants to come home, I know he does. Once he knows that that unhinged woman isn’t going to make a nuisance of herself … My God, just let her try. She’s already caused enough damage. When I think …’

‘It’s going to be an expensive trip,’ Max warned him, ignoring his comments about Tiggy. ‘And …’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ his grandfather quickly assured him.

‘Jamaica’s a fair-sized island, and there’s no saying just whereabouts David might be,’ Max pointed out—or even if he would still be there, Max acknowledged, but he kept that thought to himself. A few weeks in Jamaica at his grandfather’s expense was exactly what he needed right now. Smiling to himself, he mentally thanked Harold. Who knew, he might even be able to pick up some potential new clients while he was out there.

Finding David was, of course, another matter entirely and not one he was inclined to give any serious thought to. After all, if his uncle genuinely wanted to return home, there was absolutely nothing to stop him from doing so.

Silently he studied his grandfather. Did he really honestly believe what he was saying; that the only reason David had left—disappeared—was because his marriage had broken down? Well, if so, it was no business of his to enlighten him, but the old man really must be losing his grip.

‘Max, you don’t know how much this means to me, my boy,’ he heard Ben telling him gruffly. ‘I should have known I could rely on you. Your father …’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘It’s always been a disappointment to me that Jon doesn’t … that he isn’t … he doesn’t know how lucky he’s been to have a brother like David,’ he finished heavily. ‘I lost my twin brother …’

Max looked impatiently at his watch.

‘Look, Gramps,’ he interrupted, cutting across the old man’s all-too-familiar reminiscences, ‘if I’m going to Jamaica, I should make a few phone calls. It’s not going to be easy getting a flight to the Caribbean at such short notice at this time of the year. Half of Belgravia and Sloane Square will be flying out there on the first flights out of Heathrow after the New Year, and then I’ll have to get myself sorted out with a hotel.’

Given the choice, Max would have infinitely preferred to ignore the Christmas and New Year celebrations at Haslewich completely, of course, and taken the first flight he could to the Caribbean, but he knew that not even Maddy would wear that one.

‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ his grandfather agreed.

‘And … I think we should keep this thing just between the two of us for now,’ Max told his grandfather smoothly. ‘As you’ve said, Dad doesn’t seem to be too keen on having David home and …’

‘Yes. Yes, you’re right,’ his grandfather conceded.

Max smiled confidently at him. The old boy was amazingly easy to manipulate once you knew which buttons to press. The one marked ‘David’ was always a dead cert. Contemptuously, Max wondered why his own father didn’t press it a little bit more often. There was no way that he, Max, would allow the old man to patronize him and put him down, comparing him unfavourably to others the way Ben did with Jon. No way at all, and it irritated Max that Jon should do so. After all, his father could be stiff-necked and stubborn enough when it suited him, and Max already knew that the news that he was going to Jamaica to look for David would not be received well in his parents’ household—for a variety of reasons.

The last thing his father would want was for David to be found and encouraged to come home. Not because, as Ben seemed so deludedly to believe, Jon was jealous of his twin. Max knew that Jon wouldn’t welcome the complications and hassles that would arise with having David and all the potential problems surrounding his fraudulent behaviour back on his doorstep.

In his father’s shoes, Max knew that he would have lost no time at all in informing Ben of just what his precious son had done. But Jon, to Max’s disgust, had gone to inordinate lengths to protect his father from discovering the truth about his favourite.

David wouldn’t come back to Haslewich, of course, and Max knew full well that it was extremely unlikely that he would even be able to find him—not that he intended to try very hard! A leisurely month or so relaxing in the sun was more the kind of thing he had in mind. He would pay some local agency to make a few general inquiries, of course, just to keep Gramps happy.

He would wait until after Christmas to break the news to Maddy that he was going to Jamaica. That way, there was no risk of him coming under family pressure or disapproval and no risk either of his father or anyone else bending Ben’s ear to try to make him change his mind.

‘Oh, Maddy, he looks so sweet.’