Jenny Oliver - One Summer Night At The Ritz

‘Yes it is my family,’ he replied. ‘And, interestingly enough, not yours. So I’m left to assume—’ he was about to continue, possibly to say something about the money again, but this time she cut him off.

‘Just so I’ve got this straight, you came here just with the intention of buying me off?’ she asked at a volume that made him flinch in his jacket and glance behind him to see if anyone was listening. Jane saw a couple of women in the corner give him an appraising once-over.

The barman had edged closer as he dried some glasses.

William did an awkward cough.

‘Are you going to answer my question?’ Jane could feel herself fuelled by annoyance. She wasn’t someone who raised her voice often, but she hated being talked down to, being made to feel small and insignificant. She’d felt it every time she went to hospital with her mum and was told that there was no more help available. That she would have to do herself harm before they could step in. And Jane would question how her mum was ever going to do herself harm while Jane was looking after her twenty-four/seven. And they would look pityingly at her.

‘I, er…’ William seemed embarrassed. Like he wished he’d sent his secretary to meet her and was still sitting at his desk in the office.

Jane, who’d been sitting perched upright, shoulders back so she looked her best in her dress, shuffled backwards into her seat, leant against the chair rest, picked up her wine, and said, ‘Read them now.’

‘I’m sorry?’ He coughed into his Old Fashioned.

‘Read them now,’ she said.

‘I really don’t think…’

‘From the moment you sat down, you’ve treated this meeting like an inconvenience and you’ve insulted me. I would never have dreamt of taking this story to any journalist. All I thought would happen is that we’d have a quick chat about how interesting it all is and go on our separate ways. Had you taken the time to get to know me and talk to me about what’s written here you would have known that. But…’ she swallowed. ‘A better story for the press than this one in the diary would be the CEO of a hotel chain trying to bribe someone for information in a public bar. Don’t you think?’ She glanced up and the barman raised his brows as he looked back down at his glass. ‘Don’t you think that would make a better story, Mr Blackwell?’ she said, just loud enough to be asking the barman and perhaps anyone sitting behind William as well.

‘OK, Ms Williams, I take your point, calm down.’ He held a hand up.

‘Don’t tell me to calm down, Mr Blackwell.’

He ran his tongue along the bottom of his top teeth. He clearly wanted to leave.

Neither of them spoke.

‘OK, let’s start again,’ he said, as if this was the boardroom and he was taking control.

‘No.’ She shook her head, her foolish highlights flicking in front of her eyes. ‘I don’t want to start again. I want you to read the pages.’

She sat back, arms folded across her chest. She’d had enough of being the one who did things for other people, who stayed calm when they didn’t. And she wasn’t leaving here with the taste in her mouth of being weak.

He watched her for a moment, deep-brown eyes studying her, weighing her up as an opponent. She glared back at him. Slowly his lips twitched up into a hint of a smile. ‘OK, Ms Williams,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I’ll read the pages. Waiter? Same again,’ he added with a raise of his brow at the barman, as if he’d been chastised, and brought him in cahoots.

Jane watched as he then unfolded the papers and leant back in his chair, pulling his jacket out either side of him and making himself comfortable and while she felt in theory she had won, it also seemed somehow like at the last minute he’d managed to turn the victory round onto himself.

Chapter Five

Earlier that day…

‘So what have you got on this Jane character?’ William leant back in his chair, hands behind his head while his PA sat in the chair opposite, the sunlight bouncing off the buildings of the wrap-around London view.

‘Nothing.’ Dolores shook her head. ‘Not even a Facebook page. She’s not on LinkedIn, I don’t know what she does. All I have is that she gave the eulogy at her mother’s funeral earlier in the year. One Angela Williams. Father Unknown on birth certificate.’

‘That’s interesting. Are we looking for him?’ William leant forward, flicked through some files open on his desk and glanced across at the list of emails building on his laptop.

‘Yes.’ Dolores carried on skimming down her list. ‘Oh and there is this… First prize in a dahlia competition at some Cherry Pie Island Show.’

William glanced up. ‘I’m not sure I needed to know that.’

‘Well she won it with Emily Hunter-Brown, you know of Giles Fox fame? He left her at the altar – big Hollywood hoo-ha. There’s a connection there to the media. Possible risk.’

William tapped his fingers to his lip. ‘Bollocks.’

‘Other than that, as I say, I have nothing.’ Dolores stood up, flipped her pad over and pushed her chair in. ‘You have meetings at four, five and six o’clock. You’re due at The Ritz at seven and then you have dinner with…’ She looked at her pad again as if she’d forgotten the name but Will knew Dolores never forgot anything. ‘Heidi,’ she said as if the name tasted sour. ‘At seven-thirty.’

‘The Ritz,’ Will sighed as he scrolled through, adding the dates and times on his iPhone. ‘It’s so old fashioned,’ he said, then paused, ‘I haven’t had an Old Fashioned for ages. Maybe I’ll have one there. So what, I’ve got quarter of an hour with her?’

Dolores nodded. ‘You could possibly squeeze it to twenty minutes – if you get a taxi.’

‘No, no. Fifteen minutes is quite enough. Just enough time to drink an Old Fashioned.’

Dolores shook her head, then paused as she opened the door. ‘You might find it interesting, you never know. She might not be after money, Will.’

Will raised a brow. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dolly, everyone’s after money.’

She tutted at his cynicism.

‘Come on.’ He held his hands out wide. ‘What did you email me this morning?’

She looked away from him towards the view of the Shard.

He laughed then started to scroll through his emails. ‘Here it is…’ he said, ‘Bro, hope you’ve had a good morning. I’m gonna need another five grand. Zeph . And – hang on – let me find the next one. Here we go, William, I know we agreed the terms of the deal but my lawyer feels the company assets are worth more than your offer suggests. Hope you’re well, Aunty Violet.’ Then he tilted his head as if his point was proved.

Dolores sucked her lip.

Will’s phone rang. He paused before picking it up. ‘When you have evidence of widespread altruism, Dolly, I’ll give this Jane character more than twenty minutes. Mum, hi,’ he said as he picked up the phone. ‘I’ve got ten minutes, max.’

‘Hello, darling. You work far too hard.’ Francis Blackwell’s voice always had the calming melody of someone who had nothing to do except read her book in the sunshine with a glass of rosé. ‘Right, so ten minutes. OK. Well, I was clearing out the attic yesterday and I remembered something about those diary pages. You’ve read them, haven’t you?’

‘Course I’ve read them.’

‘Yes, well you’re so busy—’

‘I’ve read them.’

‘Well, it was something your father said years ago. He knew her. This Enid character. Well he didn’t know her as such, but he knew of her. He went to that little island. Strawberry something?’

‘Cherry Pie.’

‘Cherry Pie Island, of course. He went. His mother took him. He said they stood on the bridge and they watched this woman at the cafe and her child playing outside. I remember him saying that they didn’t go over the bridge, just stood on it and his mum just stared and then they left. But he never knew why and they never went again. I suppose this is why, isn’t it? She knew, Granny knew. She was always a cold fish, they all bloody were; the Blackwells. I hear Violet’s asking you for more money? What happens if you say no?’