Folly's Child

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• Janet Tanner
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• Preface
  
• PART ONE
  
• CHAPTER ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWO
  
• CHAPTER THREE
  
• CHAPTER FOUR
  
• PART TWO
  
• CHAPTER FIVE
  
• CHAPTER SIX
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER NINE
  
• CHAPTER TEN
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE
  
• PART THREE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
• PART FOUR
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  
• PART FIVE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  
• PART SIX
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY
  
• PART SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  

Janet Tanner is a prolific and well-loved author and has twice been shortlisted for RNA awards. Many of her novels are multi-generational sagas, and some – in particular the Hillsbridge Quartet – are based on her own working class background in a Somerset mining community. More recently, she has been writing historical and well-received Gothic novels for Severn House – a reviewer for
Booklist
, a trade publication in the United States, calls her “ a master of the Gothic genre”.

Besides publication in the UK and US, Janet's books have also been translated into dozens of languages and published all over the world. Before turning to novels she was a prolific writer of short stories and serials, with hundreds of stories appearing in various magazines and publications worldwide.

Janet Tanner lives in Radstock, Somerset.

My grateful thanks are due to Tom Winward, who advised me about insurance claims and investigations, and Julie Dammers of Dammers Models, Bristol, who was such a fount of knowledge on the fashion industry in the sixties since she was herself a Mattli couture model at that time. If I have made any slips in authenticity, neither of them are to blame!

Thanks also to my daughters – Terri, whose thesis for her BA (Hons) degree in Fashion Design gave me the original idea, and Suzanne, who helped me devise the plot. To Rosemary Cheetham, who can always inspire me and make me determined to work harder. And of course, most of all, to my husband, Terry, for playing second fiddle to a word processor with such cheerfulness for a whole year!

From the
Daily Mail
, July 1967:

YACHT TRAGEDY OFF ITALY – FINANCIER AND
FORMER MODEL DIE IN MYSTERY EXPLOSION

A prominent American financier and entrepreneur and a former top fashion model are missing feared dead after a luxury yacht was lost yesterday off the west coast of Italy. Greg Martin, well known for his backing of enterprising ventures, and Paula Varna, the beautiful former model and wife of top fashion designer Hugo Varna, were holidaying at Mr Martin's villa near Positano in the Gulf of Salerno. When they failed to return from a day's sailing worried staff at the villa alerted the authorities and their disappearance was connected with an explosion which had been reported by fishermen. A search of the area revealed debris including a lifebelt belonging to the yacht – the
Lorelei
– but there was no sign of any survivors. Mr Martin, 40, is a single man but Paula, 29, and said to be the inspiration for her husband Hugo Varna's success, is the mother of a four-year-old daughter, Harriet.

From the
Daily Mail
, January 1990:
RETURNED FROM THE DEAD!
FINANCIER FAKED HIS OWN DEATH, WOMAN ALLEGES

A prominent US financier who was thought to have died in an explosion on his luxury yacht off the coast of Italy has been fooling the world for more than twenty years, according to a woman who claims she has been living with him as his common law wife ever since his so-called ‘death'. The loss of the boat – and the lives of its two occupants, Greg Martin and the beautiful former model Paula Varna, wife of Martin's business partner, world-famous fashion designer Hugo Varna, made headlines around the world at the time but though debris from the boat was washed up along the Italian coast their bodies were never found.

Now Maria Vincenti, daughter of a wealthy Italian fabric manufacturer, has told police in Sydney, Australia, that the man sharing her luxury home at Darling Point, and known by friends and business acquaintances as ‘Michael Trafford' is in fact Martin. ‘The explosion was a way of escaping the threatened collapse of his business empire in the States,' she told police. ‘Everything had gone wrong and he wanted to be free to start a new life.'

In 1967 Martin left behind him a web of intrigue – debts and crooked dealing which would certainly have brought him before the courts had he not ‘died'. Now police in two continents are searching for him in order to substantiate the claims of his one-time lover and bring him to justice, albeit twenty years late.

Tom O'Neill came through the revolving doors on a blast of icy air and stepped out on the other side into a blanket of almost oppressive warmth. Outside London might be shivering in the biting cold of a January morning, here in the foyer of the British and Cosmopolitan Insurance building centrally heated air oozed steadily from a series of concealed vents to waft summer warmth into every corner.

Tom unbuttoned his overcoat, fished in the pocket of the dark suit which he scathingly referred to as his ‘city uniform' for his identity card and flashed it at the uniformed security man. He did not like wearing suits and he liked a collar and tie even less. He was far more at home in jeans and a sweater or the favourite scuffed old flying jacket he had inherited from his father, who had been a Spitfire pilot in the war and he wore them whenever he could. Occasionally his job as a private insurance investigator allowed him this privilege but there were occasions which called for him to dress more formally. Visiting the Head Office of one of the companies that used his services in response to an urgent summons was one of them.

Without waiting for his nod and wave Tom strode past the security man to the block of six lifts beyond him. One had just arrived at ground floor level; Tom followed two girl clerks into it and pressed the button for the fifteenth floor. He felt rather than saw the two girls glance at him appraisingly but took no notice. At just over six foot, with thick curling brown hair and eyes that owed their startling blueness to his Irish ancestry, Tom was used to being the object of female appreciation whilst being slightly puzzled by it. He had never thought the reflection which looked back at him each morning from the shaving mirror was particularly handsome. His nose was too large and a little crooked since taking a devastating straight left in the boxing ring when he was fifteen years old, his chin too irregular. But women certainly seemed to like it and that of course had its compensations. Tom had not reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine without discovering quite a few of them.

The lift halted at the twelfth floor for the girls to get out, then whispered on towards the fifteenth. When the doors opened again Tom emerged into a corridor, thickly carpeted in grey. Like the twelfth floor, glimpsed through the lift doors when the girls had got out, the walls were covered with a pale lemon wash, unlike the twelfth they were hung with pictures, not Old Masters but not Boots the chemists either – prints of hunting scenes and ships and a beautiful soft sunset over a bay that might have been St Ives – pictures deemed suitable for the Executive floor of a great international company.

Tom passed them by without a glance, heading for the door at the very end of the corridor. He knocked briskly and without waiting for a bidding went in.

The secretary seated behind the desk in the outer office looked up accusingly, then her features softened and a faint pink flush coloured her cheeks. ‘ Tom!'

‘Morning, Lucy. I understand the Great White Chief wants to see me.'

‘That's right, he does. I'll buzz him.' She depressed the button. ‘Mr O'Neill is here, Mr Swansborough.' She glanced up at Tom, a little regretfully. ‘He says to go straight in, Tom.'

Tom nodded. ‘Thanks.'

Watching him disappear into the inner sanctum, Lucy sighed. Why was it the gorgeous ones passed through so fleetingly while others, like that paunchy, moist-palmed Vic Tatum from Marine Claims always managed to delay in her office, ogling, leering and making suggestive remarks that she could probably take to a Sexual Harrassment Tribunal if she had a mind to!

‘Come in, Tom, come in!' Roger Swansborough half rose from his executive chair holding out his hand in greeting. He was a big bluff man with a receding hairline and aggressively triple chin which somehow managed to make him look powerful but not fat – like a back row rugby player, Tom thought. He had already removed his jacket in the cloying warmth of the office but his white shirt was immaculate and as he reached across the desk Tom caught the gleam of gold cufflinks against the stiff white cuffs.

‘I had a message that you wanted to see me urgently,' Tom said.

‘That's right. Take your coat off, Tom, do. This place gets hotter every day. I'd open a window but …' He gesticulated towards the expanse of glass that surrounded the office on two sides. Beyond it the sky was lowering grey, shrouding the roofs of the buildings and filtering cold dull half-light onto the streets and the distant river.

From up here on the fifteenth floor the view was a panoramic one – unfortunately this morning it was also infinitely depressing.

Tom did as he was bid, hanging his coat on the heavy carved stand behind the door.

‘What's going on then, Roger? Who's trying to swindle you this time?' he asked smiling wryly – his job had made him cynical.