The Legacy (28 page)

I'd set fire to the place before I let him have it.
Richard's angry words came to mind as if he'd spoken them. Shocked by the thought that followed, Christina sat down. She swallowed her drink, as much to shut out the picture of his dead body being ravaged by his own son.

‘I can't do it,' she said it out loud. ‘I can't let him have RussMore; I won't let him have it.'

Capitulation was her first instinct—to shield Belinda. She couldn't risk her finding out that the father she adored was not her father, that she wasn't a Farrington, but the child of a man who left her mother after a brief affair. But if she
was
his daughter, if that could be proved before the case came to court … The telephone shrilled beside her and she grabbed it.

‘Rolf?'

‘No,' Harry's voice said, ‘it's not Rolf. Are you all right?'

‘No,' she answered, ‘I think I'm drunk.'

‘Won't do you any harm. You'd had a lover before you met Richard? That's what that bastard has over you, isn't it? Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Because I didn't want to,' Christina said. ‘Harry, I've made up my mind. I'm not giving in. Jane was right. I'm bloody not.'

Harry put his hand over the phone and said to his father, ‘She's a bit pissed, poor sweet. Christa, good for you. Get some dinner down you and don't drink any more; you've no head for booze. I'm going to take a trip to London, then I'm coming down to hold your hand. And don't let me find Attila there.'

‘Attila? What are you talking about?'

‘Never mind. Talk to you tomorrow. God bless.'

Dear Harry. But Harry couldn't help; it was Rolf she needed now.

‘Mrs Farrington,' Humfrey said, ‘the Home Office would never give permission, that's why your stepson secured a sample before the burial. I wish I could suggest something else, but I can't.' Privately, he was a little shocked at her suggestion. He wondered who had put it into her mind. Briefly he glanced at Rolf Wallberg; it was the kind of ruthless expedient that he would think up. ‘Exhumation is a very serious business,' he explained to Christina. ‘You'd have to give a very strong reason, and a dispute which hadn't even come to court wouldn't be acceptable. I'm sorry.'

Rolf intervened. ‘Supposing Mrs Farrington wanted her husband buried somewhere else. I've looked that up, permission is given in those circumstances.'

Humfrey said sharply, ‘Yes, but not to open the coffin. If reburial is to take place, the original coffin is enclosed in a second container to protect the corpse from any kind of violation. The rules derive from the nineteenth-century crime of body-snatching. Graves were robbed and the corpses sold for medical dissection. It's a serious offence to desecrate a grave.'

‘I would have thought it was more serious to traumatize a child,' Rolf said angrily, ‘or rob her of her home and inheritance.'

Christina broke in, ‘If that's impossible, what can we do, Humfrey? I've made up my mind, I'm not handing over RussMore.'

She had already made that plain before the meeting. Her vigour had surprised him; there was an angry resolve he hadn't seen before, and a sense of collusion between her and Wallberg. Now, despite earlier distance, they were working as a team.

‘There must be something, some legal device,' Christina insisted. ‘I mean it, I'll never give in to that unspeakable brute. When I think of what he did to my husband. I tell you, I'll set fire to RussMore before I let him put a hand on that house!'

Humfrey was used to clients losing control, but there was a fierceness about this woman in her new-found anger that alarmed him. She might actually carry out that threat; the idea made him shudder.

‘Mrs Farrington,' he said soothingly, ‘Mrs Farrington, let me talk to your counsel. Let me fix a meeting with Ken Hubert and see what he has to suggest. And try to be calm, please, I know what a terrible emotional shock this has been to you. In a way, it's a pity you had to hear the details.' He directed the rebuke at Wallberg.

‘I'm glad Rolf told me,' Christina interrupted. ‘I might have given in if I hadn't known exactly what he did. I had a right to know that my husband's body had been outraged. You're right, it was a terrible shock. I didn't think straight when I first heard; I was knocked back … All I could think of was Belinda learning she wasn't Richard's daughter. I've told you everything, just as I told Rolf.'

‘Who hadn't mentioned it to us,' Humfrey noted.

‘That's why I thought if I could get a DNA test done before the case, I'd have a clear choice. Now, I just know I'm not going to be beaten; I'm not giving way. Do please contact Mr Hubert and explain the situation. I can't believe there's nothing to be done.'

She stood up, ending the meeting on her own initiative. Yes, Humfrey decided, there had been a fundamental change.

At their first meeting when he came down to RussMore, after Richard Farrington had engaged them as his solicitors, he had found a charming, rather serene woman, unconsciously in the shadow of her older husband. A very secure and loving marriage had given her that calmness, that reliance on the dominant man to solve everything for her. What death and bitter family dissension had failed to do, that single act of barbarism committed by her stepson had achieved in one. She had found herself; she was in control for the first time. They shook hands. He tried once more.

‘Try not to dwell on what happened,' he suggested. He wanted to say, and calm yourself, but he didn't like to; it wouldn't have been well received by this new woman.

‘I'll call Hubert's chambers and set up a meeting as soon as possible. I'll be in touch.' Rolf opened the office door.

‘I'll see Mrs Farrington out,' he announced. They went down together in the lift. ‘You were good,' he said to her, ‘very strong. You have to push lawyers, or they will push you into taking the easy way out. I'm sorry my idea didn't work, but he knows the law. We'll think of something else. When can I see you?'

‘I don't know,' Christina answered. ‘Thank you for trying. You're right, we will think of something. Thank you for not trying to talk me into settling.' They walked out to the car park together.

‘I'll only do that when I know there is really no way out, but I told you, I'm going to find one. You're more beautiful now, you know that? This thing has lit a fire in you, Christa; it was never lit before.'

‘I've never hated before,' she said quietly. ‘If I'm going to stop hating, I've got to defeat Alan.' She reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Then there'll be time for us,' she said in Swedish.

8

‘It's not enough, Mr Farrington. You can't just produce this DNA report out of the blue and say it's tissue taken from your father.'

Alan stared at his solicitor. He had expected congratulations on his cleverness, instead, there was the old fart—as he dubbed him privately—Mr Ronald, God Almighty, Hamilton, looking down his anteater nose and throwing cold water over his announcement.

‘What do you mean, it's not enough? I've given you my sample, it matches my father's. What more is there?'

‘Proof that it is Richard Farrington's DNA,' was the answer. ‘There's nothing here to say how it was obtained; there's no corroboration that confirms it. Your word isn't going to be enough, that's what I mean.'

He tried to be patient, reminding himself that not long ago he had felt sorry for this aggressive hectoring young man. He had to remind himself again that his personality was the result of parental harshness.

Alan said after a pause, ‘You want to know how I got something viable to test, is that right?'

‘Your stepmother's lawyers will certainly want an answer, and I need one before I enter it as evidence.'

Alan folded his arms; Hamilton recognized the defiant body language.

‘I took some hair and skin tissue off my father's body. I thought I might have a fight on my hands, and that I'd need it if he'd tried to disinherit me. Will that do you?'

Ronnie Hamilton stared at him for a moment. ‘You did what?'

‘I went to the chapel of rest, or whatever they call it, and took the sample, and if you want a bloody witness, call the undertaker; he knew what I'd done. He wouldn't look me in the face at the bloody funeral. His name's Garrett; funeral specialist to the Farrington family. And I don't know what you're making such a big deal about; he was dead, he didn't feel anything.'

Ronnie Hamilton swallowed. He said, ‘I've been in practice over thirty years and I've never come across anything like this. I really don't know what to say.'

‘How about well done for quick thinking?' Alan demanded. ‘For Christ's sake, if I'm right about that little brat, I've won the case for you! All you've got to do is ask for a sample, a blood sample is enough from a living person, that's all I had to give, and I'll lay you a thousand to one, Christina won't risk it. She'll back down.'

Hamilton buzzed his secretary. ‘Pauline, could you bring me some coffee, please.' He didn't include Alan. He drew a heavy breath. ‘My personal inclination is to refuse to act for you. I find this the most disgraceful act, perpetrated on a dead man—your own father.'

Alan's dark eyes had a reddish light in them. The rage was rising in him, threatening to get out of control.
His father
; that cold, unloving man, always so remote from him and so cruelly indifferent, even contemptuous, of his wife's misery.
A disgraceful act.
He stood up so abruptly that the chair rocked and nearly tipped over backwards.

‘If I thought it would prove my right to RussMore, I'd have cut off his balls. If you don't want to continue acting for me, then I'll get someone else. There are plenty of people out there who'd be glad of the fees you're getting, and who are just as good as you. It'll be no skin off my nose.'

He pushed his way past the secretary who was coming in with the coffee. She had brought two cups. She said, ‘He's got another twenty minutes left. Anything wrong, Mr Hamilton?'

‘I just told him I didn't want to act for him. I don't know what the senior partners will say, but I'm not backing down. Thank you, Pauline. Pour it for me, will you? I could do with a good strong cup.'

Alan didn't go back to the office. After a storm of temper, depression usually set in. He had no appointments that couldn't be put off and, in his present mood, he didn't feel like seeing anyone. ‘Count your blessings,' Fay reminded him when he fell into the trough. He had refused counselling with angry scorn, but Fay had taken advice instead, because she needed help in order to help him. Cool-headed and pragmatic, she had dispensed with the professional's services as soon as she had gained the necessary insight into her husband's problems—people like that tended to cling on, playing God to dependent clients. Fay cut off the visits, paid the bill and forgot about the incident, but she learned enough to discard the psychobabble and make use of the good advice.

She was out when he came home; she'd gone out to lunch and a fashion show with friends. The young nanny was nervous of Alan; sometimes he was friendly, other times short-tempered and sharp-tongued. It made her jumpy because you never knew what mood you would find him in.

He cut her explanations short. ‘Where are the boys?'

‘Timmy's out to tea with a friend, and Robert's upstairs. We were doing some nice drawing.'

‘Bring him down to the sitting-room. Bring some toys and books … I'm no bloody good at drawing; had too much of it when I was a kid. “Draw a nice picture for Mummy …”' He mimicked a long-dead nanny, a starchy middle-aged version, quite different from the easy going twenty-two-year-old who looked after his sons. She fled upstairs.

Count your blessings.
He could hear Fay saying it. ‘Look at all you've got. Me, the boys, this lovely house, the cottage and our place in Antibes. We have everything we want. And look at the success you've made! You built the business up from one little sandwich shop. Alan, stop doing yourself down. We have a great time, a super life, lots of friends … stop looking back, for goodness sake!' At this point he usually interrupted.

‘I know, I know; you've forgotten the fucking Bentley. I know I'm lucky; I know I am.' And wait for her to soothe him like a discomfited small boy. She was a tough bird, he reckoned, but not with him. She was the only woman who could mother him sometimes and get away with it.

She wasn't there, but he knew the antidote: his children. Timmy was out to tea; he smiled at the idea; Timmy was six and already he had a full social life. Robert was shy, less self-confident. Robert was very close to his heart, but Timmy was his eldest and his feelings for his first-born son were almost atavistic. Robert came in, carrying a story book and a box with a jigsaw puzzle. Alan held out his arms.

‘Come on, come on Daddy's knee. There, now tell me, have you had a good day?' He never asked them if they had been good boys; childhood inhibitions again. He hadn't been good and the question used to turn into, Why haven't you been good today, Alan? Nanny tells me you did … on and on, the list of complaints becoming more serious as he grew older. The stern face of his father, angry, disapproving, with that poor shadow in the background, so often ill and absent, beaming silent sympathy towards him. Even now, thinking of his mother brought Alan close to tears. He gave his little son a hug. ‘Let's play a game, Robby.'

‘What game, Daddy? I was drawing a picture.'

‘I know, never mind the picture. How would you like to live in a great big house in the country?'

The little boy said simply, ‘That's not a game. I brought my jigsaw.'

‘In a minute,' Alan said. ‘We'll do the jigsaw in a minute. Think of a big house, very big, with lots of rooms and a lake, and birds swimming in it … You could have puppies and a pony. Wouldn't you like that, Robby?'