Coming Home

Jenny had said nothing. If David had committed a murder, Ben would have expected and even demanded that Jon claim the crime was his to spare David any punishment.

‘If you didn’t let Ruth pay back the money, could you ever forgive yourself?’ Jenny had asked him.

The bleak smile he had given her had supplied the answer. Jon was the most honest and upright man there could be and Jenny knew how torn he was by his own conflicting desires to protect their clients from the results of David’s weakness and to save David from the consequences of his actions.

Nor could she forget, either, that David had suffered a heart attack at that very birthday party, one brought on by the stress he was under. Jon might live a far healthier lifestyle than his twin brother, but it wasn’t unknown for twins to share the same health problems, which was one of the reasons she was so insistent on Jon’s not working too hard at the practice.

But her concern for Jon’s health did not mean that she wanted to see Olivia putting a strain on her own marriage by trying to do too much. Perhaps she ought to suggest to Jon that he consider taking on another full-time qualified solicitor.

The arrival of Aarlston-Becker, the huge multinational drug company, in the area some years ago had brought a dramatic increase in the firm’s workload. Aarlston had their own legal department, of course, part of which was headed by Saul Crighton, another in the family caught up in the field of law.

As the tea tray gave a faint rattle, Jon quickly replaced the photograph and turned round to face her. Giving no indication that she had noticed anything out of the ordinary, Jenny smiled her thanks at him as he pulled out the small table they used for their suppers.

‘You won’t believe it, but Katie actually saw the inkstand and bought it. She sends her love,’ Jenny added chattily, but she could see that Jon still wasn’t really giving her his full attention. Now wasn’t the time to probe and pry. Ben’s distress over David’s absence was obviously affecting Jon, but what if David were to come back? Such an event would give rise to all manner of problems and conflicts and she certainly had no wish to see her beloved Jon pushed into second place again or made to feel that he had to shoulder the burden of protecting his brother.

Would it be very wrong of her if she were to offer up a tiny prayer that things could continue as they were and that the warm contentment of their lives should not be disrupted? Maybe not wrong, she acknowledged, but perhaps a little selfish.

AS DIDI FINISHED cataloguing the weeks’ sales from the antiques shop for its owner, Guy Cooke noticed that his normally chatty cousin seemed rather preoccupied.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked her quietly when they had finished their business discussion and had moved on to talk about family matters and the forthcoming eighteenth birthday of Didi’s son, Todd.

‘I’m a bit concerned about Annalise,’ she admitted worriedly. Annalise was her niece, the eldest child of her brother, whose acrimonious divorce had caused a good deal of discussion within the family four years earlier when it had taken place.

‘Paul’s eldest?’ Guy asked, surprised. ‘But Paul was saying only at Christmas how well she was doing at school.’

‘Yes, but in the past few weeks she’s apparently changed completely, neglecting her school-work, going out and refusing to tell him where she’s been or whom she’s been with. Paul says that she’s either lost in some kind of day-dream or snapping at the boys, so much so that she actually made little Teddy cry the other day when she told him off for forgetting to bring his sports kit home from school. And Paul said he has to speak to her at least half a dozen times on some occasions before he gets any kind of response from her.’

‘Sounds like she could be in love,’ Guy suggested.

‘Yes. That’s what Paul’s afraid of,’ Didi admitted.

Guy gave her a rather wry look. ‘Girls of seventeen do fall in love,’ he pointed out with a small smile, ‘or at least they think they do.’

‘Well, yes, but because of her parents’ divorce and her own rather serious nature, Annalise isn’t perhaps quite as aware as most other girls of her age. In some ways as a little mother to the others, she’s very mature, but in other ways—so far as boys go—she’s quite naïve.

‘Paul has tended to be a bit overprotective of them all since the divorce from their mother was a particularly unpleasant one. There had been … relationships with more than one other man before she eventually left with a lover. As you know, his wife’s a Cooke, too, another member of our large family and you also know how old gossip and exaggerated histories tend to be exhumed at times like this. Paul has been determined that his children, and especially Annalise, should remain free of any taint of “carrying the wild Cooke genes”. I have tried to hint gently to him since Annalise started to grow up that there is such a thing as being too protective where boys, sex and relationships are concerned, but you know how prickly Paul can be at times.’

‘Yes, a difficult situation, whichever way you look at it. Do we know who it is that Annalise has fallen so deeply in love with or—’

‘We do, and it poses a problem. It’s a boy called Pete Hunter. Paul is not disposed to think kindly of him because he’s the lead singer with a local group that’s all the rage at the moment.’

‘You mean Salt?’ Guy asked, naming the group of five young local boys who all the teenagers raved over.

‘Mmm … that’s them.’ She gave Guy a curious look. ‘I’m surprised you know the band’s name. I wouldn’t have thought their kind of music was to your taste, Guy.’

‘It isn’t,’ he agreed, ‘but Mike, my sister Frances’s boy, is a member of the group.’

‘Oh, yes, of course he is. So you’ll know Pete, then?’

‘Sort of. A tall, dark-haired lad with what I personally feel is just a little too much “attitude”,’ Guy returned wryly.

‘That’s the one,’ Didi sighed. ‘I mean in one way I doubt that Paul needs to be too worried. Pete is very self-aware and very sure of himself and what he wants from life. I doubt that normally he’d look very hard in Annalise’s direction. Not that she isn’t attractive, she is, and she’s going to be even more so, but right now she’s still very much a seventeen-year-old and a young seventeen-year-old at that.

‘From what I’ve heard, the girls Pete normally squires around are rather more streetwise and, dare I say it, bimboish, and if Paul hadn’t been silly enough to go storming round to Pete’s parents’ house and demand that Pete stay away from his daughter, I’m sure her crush would have died a natural and early death. Of course, Pete being the type of young man he is, Paul’s interference has had exactly the opposite effect from the one he wanted and now, apparently, Annalise has been seen in several clubs around the area where the band has been playing, very much a member of the band’s entourage.’

‘And does Paul know about this?’

‘I’m not sure, but once he does find out, as he’s bound to do … Annalise is at a very vulnerable age and if Paul starts trying to come the heavy father—’

‘Or if in his anxiety he panics and starts telling her she’s going to end up like her mother …’

‘Exactly,’ Didi agreed. ‘I’ve tried to talk to Paul, but he just doesn’t want to know. He can be so stubborn at times. I suspect whilst Annalise believes herself to be deeply in love with Pete, as only a young, idealistic girl can be, Pete is anything but in love with her. I hate to use such an ugly word, but my feeling is that he’s just using her and that once he’s bored he’s just going to push her to one side.

‘Normally, I’d say that that kind of experience is just a part of growing up. We all go through the pain of teenage heartache, but the disparity between Annalise and Pete makes me very anxious for her. Of course, I’m anxious for Paul, as well, especially since the whole thing is inevitably going to be conducted in public …’

‘Mmm … and of course it couldn’t come at a worse time for Annalise’s education, what with her A levels ahead of her,’ Guy added.

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh dear, the perils of a father of teenage daughters,’ Guy sighed. ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do to help …’

Since his marriage to Chrissie, who was seen to have tamed this wild Cooke, not quite knowing how or why it happened, Guy discovered that he had been elected to the role of paterfamilias within the Cooke clan and that inevitably, at some stage or another, various members of the family would bring their problems to him.

This was one problem where he suspected that Chrissie’s gentle touch would be much more beneficial than his own.

‘We’ve got a family gathering looming soon, haven’t we?’ he asked Didi. ‘I’ll see if Chrissie will have a tactful word with Paul, if you like.’

‘Would you?’ Didi smiled in relief. ‘I haven’t dared say anything to Paul, but I have heard a whisper that Annalise has been bunking off school to be with Pete. The band practises in an old barn out at—’

‘Laura and Rick’s farm, yes, I know,’ Guy said, nodding. ‘They used to use Frances’s garage, but she gave Mike an ultimatum and told him that there was no way she would continue to allow them to use it unless they agreed to keep the noise level down. Laura stepped into the breach and offered them the use of one of their barns.’

‘Well, as I said, it seems that Annalise has been sneaking off school to spend time with them there.’

‘Leave it with me. I’ll do what I can,’ Guy promised.

DAVID TENSED as he watched Maddy’s car come up the drive towards Queensmead. He had been watching the house ever since his arrival in England some days earlier, sleeping at night in unlocked garden sheds and open hay barns. After several weeks at sea sharing cramped quarters with the rest of the crew, the solitariness of his present existence was a relief. He missed Father Ignatius, of course; the two of them had become very close in the time they had worked together. As well as missing him, though, David was also concerned about him. Despite the priest’s vigour and positive attitude towards life, David had sensed recently that the older man was not quite as stalwart as he had once been.

Had he done the wrong thing in leaving him to come home? Had he made the selfish decision—again?

In the car with Maddy were her three children, the second youngest, Emma, with her solemn eyes and determined expression reminding him so much of his own daughter Olivia’s at the same age. It was odd the things that memory retained without one’s being aware of it. If asked, he would have been forced to admit that he had paid scandalously little attention to either of his children as they grew up. Olivia had spent more time with Jon and Jenny than she had done at home, getting from Jenny the loving mothering she had never received from Tiggy, his frighteningly fragile and vulnerable ex-wife. Given the number of years he had been away, David had assumed Tiggy would have divorced him by now and this had indeed been confirmed when he overheard a comment about her having moved away and established a new life for herself with another man. David was shamed to realise that he felt more relief than grief at this discovery. His ex-wife’s loss was one thing; seeing Emma in the garden with her brothers Leo and Jason and being reminded of Olivia was quite another.

But was it his nephew’s children David had really come to see, familiar to him now by name and expression as he watched them play and call out to one another? They tugged at his heartstrings in a way that reinforced how much he had changed.

The eldest child, Leo, who was physically so very much a Crighton, seemed fascinated by him. David had ached to talk to the children and to hold them, but he had restrained himself. Seeing them, though, reinforced just how much he had lost. Man and child had not spoken with one another, but David sensed that both he and Leo felt the tug of the blood bond that existed between them. ‘Grampy Man,’ Leo had wailed in protest as David made a hasty exit from the garden when Maddy had come to the garden door.

Was it, then, his own adult daughter and almost adult son who had brought him back home like a lodestar? Or had it been his need to see his father? He was an old man now, who spent most of his day in a chair apart from his twice daily walk around the garden with Maddy or Jenny, Jon’s wife, or sometimes with Max.

Max!