Anne Mather - No Gentle Possession

‘Are you sure, sir? It’s no trouble.’

Alexis smiled. ‘No, I know. Thanks all the same. But I need a shower, and quite honestly hunger is not one of the things that’s troubling me at the moment.’

Blake nodded politely. ‘Did you have a good holiday, sir?’

Alexis considered before replying. ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that,’ he conceded grudingly. ‘By the way, make me some coffee, will you, and I’ll have it after I’m dressed again. It won’t do to arrive smelling too strongly of alcohol.’

Blake allowed himself a smile at that. He was rather a solemn-faced individual, and as he was inclined to stockiness and was going bald, he did not at first strike one as being particularly amiable. But in fact, he had been with Alexis for six years now, and Alexis was well aware of the sharp sense of humour he possessed. Now, he collected Alexis’s casually strewn jacket before disappearing through a door into the kitchen, and Alexis walked across to his bedroom.

In the shower, Alexis contemplated the evening ahead without pleasure. How much more enjoyable it would have been to arrive home and have nothing more pressing to do than lounge on the couch in front of the television all evening. Such a prospect attracted him. It was strange that someone who should become so easily bored with the so-called fleshpots, should find the idea of simply behaving like any one of another hundred million people so desirable.

He examined his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he dried himself and was relieved to see that the past couple of weeks of exertion had successfully dispersed the faint thickening of his waistline that had been present before he left. Now there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on his lean body, and the outline of his rib cage was coated only with muscle.

He dressed soberly in a charcoal grey lounge suit, to fit the occasion, he thought without humour, and drove down to Maidenhead, reaching his father’s house just before eight o’clock. Falcons faced the river, and in summer it was very pleasant to sit in the garden, watching the pageant of craft on the water. But in the middle of January, it had no such connotations, and although Alexis had spent part of his childhood here, he found the sight of the bare trees and the frozen, snow-covered gardens rather depressing.

Searle, his father’s manservant, admitted him. Once Searle had had the title of butler, but in these days of shortages of staff, his duties encompassed so many other things, that such an appellation would have sounded pretentious. However, the old man seemed not to mind, and he welcomed Alexis warmly.

‘It’s good to see you again, sir,’ he exclaimed, taking his overcoat.

‘How are you, Searle?’ Alexis bestowed one of his rare warm smiles upon him.

‘Can’t grumble, sir. Mr. Howard’s waiting for you in the library.’

‘Has my father had dinner?’

‘Not yet, sir. He’s been waiting for you.’

‘Good.’ Alexis found that the drive had awakened his appetite. ‘Thank you, Searle.’

He crossed the hall to double panelled doors, and taking a handle in each hand, he swung them open and stepped into the book-lined room which his father used as his study.

Howard Whitney was seated behind his desk, and he looked up dourly as Alexis closed the doors behind him and leaned back against them, surveying the room thoroughly.

‘So you’ve finally decided to appear!’ he remarked grimly. ‘Not before time!’

Howard Whitney’s voice still had traces of his northern ancestry that no amount of southern intonation could entirely dispel. He rose from his desk to face his son, and in his dark evening clothes he was quite impressive, big and broad and physically dominating.

But Alexis was never dominated. He was as tall as his father and although he was leaner, it was a leanness of muscle and sinew that was far tougher than his father’s loose flesh.

‘I got held up,’ he said now. ‘Besides, I don’t see why I should account to you for my movements. I’m not a boy.’

‘No, you’re not!’ muttered Howard, reaching for a cigar, but refraining to offer one to Alexis. ‘If you were, you wouldn’t create the kind of mess we’re in at the moment.’

‘What do you mean?’ Alexis moved away from the door.

‘I mean Janie Knight, Alex.’

Alexis frowned. ‘I seem to have missed something along the way. As I recall it, last night we were discussing Frank Knight, not Janie.’

‘It’s all the same thing,’ retorted Howard. ‘My God, what is there about you that makes a woman like Janie Knight prepared to go to any lengths to get you back?’

Alexis glanced across at the tray of drinks on a side table. ‘Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning,’ he advised dryly. ‘Do you mind if I have a drink?’

‘Help yourself!’ said Howard Whitney irritably, and Alexis poured himself a generous measure of Scotch. ‘Go on!’ he said.

Howard shuffled the papers on his desk. ‘I wish to God you’d never got involved with her!’

Alexis swallowed half his drink, surveying the remainder in his glass thoughtfully. ‘It was your idea,’ he pointed out.

Howard clenched his fists. ‘Do you think I’m likely to forget that?’

‘Well?’

‘Knight left a note – a suicide note.’

‘I see.’ Alexis was beginning to understand. ‘Where is it? Have the press got it?’

‘Nothing so simple, Janie’s got it. When the night watchman phoned her about Knight’s attempted suicide, she was first on the scene, before the ambulance or the police. She took the note, and she still has it.’

‘You mean she’s attempting blackmail?’ Alexis frowned. ‘What does it say, for God’s sake?’

His father heaved a deep sigh. There were lines of strain around his mouth and it was obvious he was most disturbed. ‘Well, he mentions the difficulties his company has got into, and how he can see no future short of selling out to a larger corporation. He apparently owes money all over the city.’

‘But that’s not what’s worrying you, is it?’ Alexis was impatient.

‘No. No, he goes on to say that – he knows his wife is being unfaithful to him, and that she’s – the mistress of the son of the man who has been systematically trying to ruin him!’

Alexis finished his Scotch and replaced the glass on the tray, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. For a few minutes he said nothing, and then, when his father was beginning to get agitated, he asked: ‘Have you seen this letter?’

Howard Whitney frowned. ‘What kind of a fool do you think I am? Of course I’ve seen the letter.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday evening. In my office.’

‘You mean Janie Knight walked into your office with the actual letter her husband wrote?’ Alexis gave his father an old-fashioned look. ‘Wasn’t she afraid you’d take it from her?’

Howard sighed. ‘She wasn’t alone.’

‘You mean someone else knows about this?’

‘Yes. That chap Lorrimer – her lawyer.’

‘Philip Lorrimer?’ Alexis shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him!’

‘Maybe not, but there it is.’

‘But how can you be sure the letter was written by Knight?’

‘If it wasn’t, it’s a damn good facsimile. Good enough to fool me!’

‘But not good enough to fool a handwriting expert.’

‘My God, Alex, what good is that? Even if the whole thing is a hoax, even if we take them to court and prove it’s a hoax, it’s going to cause a God-awful stink, and that’s something I could do without right now.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Alexis was bitter. ‘It wouldn’t do to jeopardize your knighthood for services to industry, would it? That’s quite a pun, isn’t it?’