The Corrigan legacy (11 page)

'But Lily, if your mother has custody of you, I can't see how you'll be able to avoid going with them. Where would you live if you didn't?'

'With my Dad.'

'I'm not sure that would be approved if he's not your real father.'

'He is. He's the one who brought me up, has always been there for me. Don't I have any choice about my life?'

'Well, the courts will ask for your opinion, since you're over twelve, but still . . .'

'So you'll let my mother drug me and take me forcibly out of the country, then dump me in a boarding school"? I thought you were here to help me!' She began sobbing again.

'I think you're exaggerating about them taking you forcibly out of the country, Lily.'

'I'm not. Wayne has his own plane and he's very rich. He said they'd sedate me and carry me on board if necessary, pretend I'm afraid of flying.'

There was a long silence, then Mrs Gipson looked at her severely. 'I hope you're not exaggerating about this, Lily.'

'No. I'm not. That's exactly what he said they'd do, so now I'm afraid of him. And he said they'd be putting me in a boarding school over there, so why take me anyway?'

'I'm sure you've mistaken what they said.'

'Why will you not listen? I'm telling the truth. He said sedate. He said boarding school, too. So it's not even as if I'd be with my mother. I'd be in a strange country, away from everyone I know.'

Mrs Gipson made some notes then looked up. 'I think you'd better go home for the rest of the day, Lily. We'll talk about this again tomorrow.'

'I'd rather stay at school. If I had my choice, I'd never go home again, not to her anyway.' She stood up. 'Thank you for listening to me. And please - don't let them take me to America.'

'I'll talk about the situation to someone. Come back and see me tomorrow before school if you're still upset, otherwise I'll make an appointment to see you in a week's time.'

'Yes, Mrs Gipson. Thank you.' Lily made sure she walked out slowly, shoulders drooping. She was very quiet in all her classes, not answering unless the teacher asked her something directly, instead of volunteering as she usually did. She sat quietly at lunchtime, too, not eating much so that the prefect in charge of her table asked her if she was feeling all right.

Letting the tears well up again, she left the table hurriedly. But it was a while before she could stop crying. She didn't know any more where pretending to be upset ended and real weeping began.

Rosemary said afterwards, 'I've never seen you like this, Lily. You're usually so strong and confident.'

'I've never felt like this before.' She blinked her eyes furiously and opened her locker to take out her books for the next lesson. 'I'm not going to America, though. I'll run away first.'

'They'll only bring you back and force you to go.'

'We'll see about that.'

Lily skipped athletics practice after school and went straight home, getting back over an hour before her mother usually returned. She put her things in her room, set out a biscuit on a plate in the kitchen and ate half of it, filled a glass with orange juice and drank half of it, then began her search. Her mother's computer was now password protected, so she couldn't email her dad. No doubt Wayne had done that. Her mother wasn't very good with technical stuff.

She began going carefully through her mother's drawers in the desk where the business papers were kept, hoping to find a clue about who her real father was. Maybe he would help her - if only to keep her quiet.

Why hadn't he wanted her? Even if he was married, he could have come to see her from time to time. Only - if he had still been hanging around her mother, she wouldn't have her dad, who was better than any stranger could ever be.

She heard her mother's car drive up and the automatic garage door open, so she put the papers back in the desk carefully and went into the kitchen to sit in front of her half-eaten biscuit.

'There you are, Lily dear. Did you have a nice day at school?'

She stared at her mother, surprised by the endearment and gentle tone of voice. 'No. I was too upset.'

'We'll have to cheer you up, then. I thought we could go shopping at the weekend for some new clothes. You've been growing again and you'll want something smart for our wedding.'

'No, thank you.'

Her mother swung round. 'What do you mean by that?'

'I mean, I don't want to go shopping. I can wear my blue dress for the wedding. I've only worn it once. And I keep telling you: I'm not going to Texas with Wayne.' She saw her mother's face tighten and added, 'What's more, there's nothing you can take away from me now that I care about, so how are you going to force me to go shopping with you? I'm twelve, not two, so you can't carry me. I have a mind of my own, you know, and I have my own plans- for the future, too.'

'You're still dependent on me, however.' 

'I'm not. My dad pays for my keep. I want to go and live with him.' 

'I keep telling you he's not your father.'

'And I keep telling you he is and always will be. And what's more, he's a better father than you're a mother, so-'

Her mother slapped her across her face, something she hadn't done for years.

Seeing a face at the kitchen window, Lily jerked away and began to scream, 'Don't hit me! Don't hit me again!'  just as there was a tap on the back door.

Kerry swung round to see their neighbour from next door staring through the glass panels on the door as Lily cowered back against the wall. She turned to her daughter. 'You'll regret this. Stop play-acting at once!' She flung the door open, but Mrs Baxter was already backing away.

'I'll - er - come back later, Kerry. When you're not - er - busy.'

After the gate had clanged shut, Lily straightened up, smiled at her mother then walked out of the kitchen and up to her bedroom.

Kerry glared after her. 'You little bitch!' she muttered under her breath. She went to pour herself a glass of white wine and sank down at the kitchen table, sipping it, trying to work out what to do about this. Lily wasn't going to win. She was coming to Texas and that was that.

And not just for the obvious reasons. The marriage with Wayne might or might not last. Kerry suspected it wouldn't because he'd had three other wives already. But she intended to give it a good go and if not, come out of it with money. You could rely on money. People only let you down, usually when you most needed them.

Cal waited impatiently for someone to pick up the phone. 'Kerry?'

'Oh, it's you.'

'I want to see Lily.'

'Seeing you upsets her.'

'Stop playing games, Kerry.'

'The answer is no. She's not your daughter and you have to accept that.'

'Never!'

'Anyway, we're taking her down to Brighton for the weekend. A break will do her good. Perhaps the following weekend?'

Frustrated and afraid of doing something that would jeopardize his chances of remaining in his daughter's life, he put down the phone. He continued to email Lily every day but there had only been one email from her friend on her behalf. That could only be because Kerry was keeping her away from computers. He felt helpless, needing to fill the weekend with something, someone . . . but at the moment he didn't want to see his other friends, most of whom were either happily married with children or shacked up together testing out the possibility of marriage.

The happiness of such friends made him wish he had someone special in his life. On that thought Judith's face came into his mind and he shook his head to banish it. How stupid could you get? He'd only met the woman once. But the memory of her warm smile wouldn't stay banished and he was enjoying their email exchanges. She understood what it was to be separated from a child and seemed to be missing her son a great deal.

He would, he decided on the Friday morning, make an appointment for the following week to see someone at the Children's Department about his legal position with regard to Lily. If necessary he'd then get his lawyer to do whatever lawyers did in these cases - take out an injunction to stop Kerry taking Lily out of the country perhaps. He should have done something before but had been terrified of being told he had no rights whatsoever.

Kerry seemed so confident about her ability to take her daughter away from him and she didn't usually make mistakes about things like that.

In the meantime hard physical labour like spreading out a trailer load of muck would be an excellent way to work off some of the tension. He picked up the phone . . .

Judith spent a peaceful week, with no more tricks being played on her. The manure was a pungent reminder of her ex, though, and she didn't lower her guard about security, closing all the windows as well as locking the door every time she went out. She ordered a new security system to be fitted, resenting the money it cost, but needing it to stay comfortable in her own home. 

Thank you, Des!

Cal emailed her on the Monday, thanking her for her hospitality and asking if there had been any more incidents. She replied and before she knew it they were emailing every evening about their daily lives. She visited his web site and it seemed to be a reputable business. Indeed, it was an elegantly simple site, unlike some of the cluttered, fussy ones she'd seen. She liked it artistically. She liked him too, had never taken to someone so quickly. It was as he'd said: it felt as if they were old friends.

Still feeling that she was marking time with her life, she started going through the house, doing what she could to set it in order without spending much money. Her aunt had let it get very run down as she grew older but Judith had sneaked out some furniture from her old home before she split up with Des. She must have been prescient! In storage in London she had the furnishings and equipment from her studio, every single thing, and also the stuff from a small sitting room they never used because Des said its colour scheme looked faded. She'd bet he'd not even noticed the things had gone, because he never went into either room.

The removal men who brought her things carried the old suite from the living room out to the shed for her. Her new suite looked perfect and she moved the smaller pieces of her aunt's furniture around until she was satisfied that her sitting room looked attractive in a comfortable, understated way.

The kitchen was extremely old-fashioned but that would have to wait until she reached a settlement with Des. She hadn't cooked for years and was starting to get her hand in again, had forgotten the sheer pleasure of making a dish that was exactly what you wanted. Her aunt had some lovely old-fashioned cookery books which didn't pretend that fat was a dirty word.

Mitch emailed her most days, too, amusing little messages telling her the latest jokes, mentioning some of the highlights of his week, giving her Gran's love, but saying little about his father. She missed her son greatly and sent him long emails in return, telling him all about her new house. She phoned him a couple of times too and they agreed that he and her mother would come to see her during the summer holidays.

When Cal repeated his offer to come and spread the manure for her at the weekend she hesitated, waiting several hours before replying. But after a week of solitude interrupted only by a visit to a physiotherapist to check how her knee was going, she was tired of being alone.

In the end she emailed back to say she'd love to see Cal, then wished she hadn't because she didn't want to give him ideas.

Or were the ideas simmering already in both of them? She couldn't help remembering, with a little shiver in her belly, how attractive he was.

James, who was Mark Felton's second in command at the private investigation agency, reported to Miss Corrigan on Thursday. He had quite a lot of news for her this time.

'Your brother's wife has gone up north to live in Lancashire and he is seeing a lot of Tiffany Roberts, his mistress of several years.'

'Is this Tiffany person of interest to us?'

'I shouldn't think so. She's not borne him any children. She's good-looking, another blonde - he does go for them, as you said - but unlike the other women, she seems genuinely fond of him.'

'I want to hear more about his son.'

'Mitch is well liked, not very good at sport, which upsets your brother, but ambitious and academically gifted, a straight A student. He's aiming for Oxford or Cambridge.'

'Does Des see much of him?'

'No. He took his son and mother-in-law out for dinner on the day his ex-wife moved up north, but hasn't seen them since.' James put a photograph on the table in front of her. 'This is quite a good one of Mitch.'

She picked it up with a hand that shook. 'Dear heaven!'

'Is something wrong?'

'He looks just like Leo as a boy, even to the red hair. I'd like to meet him. I think I'll write him a letter. Could you get someone to deliver it to him in person?'

'Is that wise, Miss Corrigan?'

'None of what I'm doing is wise, but see if you can arrange it anyway. What of my brother's other children?'

James put photos of each daughter down on the table as he summed them up. 'Lacey, the elder girl from his first marriage, is getting married next week. Big wedding, father paying for everything. She seems a nice young woman, is fond of her half-brother, but she's not nearly as intelligent as Mitch. She's quite good at golf and tennis, though, and Des has been paying to have her privately coached. Her sister Emma is doing well at university and is going on to do a postgraduate degree in Biochemistry. She might bear watching, too, for jour purposes.'

'Fine. What about the illegitimate child?'

'She lives with her mother. Des doesn't seem to have visited her or even met her, but he pays very handsomely indeed for her keep.'

'Hmm. I'll leave her for the time being.' Maeve leaned back, thinking about her options, knowing James would wait patiently. All Mark Felton's operatives were patient. I think I'd like to meet Mitch's mother before I contact him. It wouldn't be fair to make any offers to her son without telling her.'

'Do you think that's wise?'

'You keep using that word. It's not a concept that matters much to me now. I'll do what's necessary to make sure my hard-earned money isn't wasted and I'll do what pleases me.'