Jeffrey Archer - The Sins of the Father

Stan didn’t see the first punch coming, and when it landed in his solar plexus, he bent double, so he could be excused for not recovering before the second blow landed on his chin. The third sent him sprawling to the ground like a felled oak.

Stan lay on the floor, clutching his stomach, expecting a boot to be put in. The schoolmaster towered over him, and waited for him to recover. When he finally did, Stan rose unsteadily to his feet, never once taking his eyes off the schoolmaster as he edged slowly towards the door. When he thought he was at a safe distance, he looked back at Maisie, who was still lying on the floor, curled up in a ball, sobbing quietly.

‘You’d better not come home till you’ve got my money, my girl,’ he growled, ‘if you know what’s good for you!’ Without another word he stormed out into the corridor.

Even after Maisie heard the door slam, she was still too frightened to move. The rest of the class gathered up their books and slipped quietly out of the room. No one would be visiting the pub that night.

Mr Holcombe walked quickly across the room, knelt down beside his charge and gathered her trembling body in his arms. It was some time before he said, ‘You’d better come home with me tonight, Maisie. I’ll make up a bed in the spare room. You can stay for as long as you want to.’

‘SIXTY-FOURTH AND PARK,’ said Emma as she jumped into a taxi outside Sefton Jelks’s Wall Street office.

She sat in the back of the cab and tried to think about what she would say to Great-aunt Phyllis when, or if, she got past her front door, but the car radio was so loud that she couldn’t concentrate. She thought about asking the driver to turn the volume down, but she had already learnt that New York cabbies are deaf when it suits them, although rarely dumb and never mute.

While listening to the commentator describe in an excited voice what had taken place at somewhere called Pearl Harbor, Emma accepted that her great-aunt’s first question was bound to be, what brings you to New York, young lady, followed by, how long have you been here, and then, why has it taken you so long to come and see me? To none of these questions did she have a plausible answer, unless she was willing to tell Great-aunt Phyllis everything – something she wanted to avoid because she hadn’t even told her own mother everything .

She might not even realize she has a great-niece, thought Emma. And was it possible there was a long-standing family feud that Emma didn’t know about? Or perhaps her great-aunt was a recluse, divorced, remarried, or insane?

All Emma could remember was once seeing a Christmas card signed Phyllis, Gordon and Alistair. Was one a husband and the other a son? To make matters worse, Emma didn’t have any proof that she really was Phyllis’s great-niece.

Emma was even less confident about facing her by the time the cab drew up outside the front door and she’d handed over another quarter.

Emma stepped out of the cab, looked up at the imposing, four-storey brownstone and changed her mind several times about knocking on the door. She finally decided to walk round the block, in the hope that she would feel more confident by the time she returned. As she walked down 64th Street, Emma couldn’t help noticing that New Yorkers were scurrying back and forth at an unusually frantic pace, with shocked and anxious looks on their faces. Some were looking up at the sky. Surely they didn’t believe the next Japanese air raid would be on Manhattan?

A paperboy standing on the corner of Park kept shouting out the same headline, ‘America declares war! Read the latest!’

By the time Emma arrived back outside the front door, she had decided she couldn’t have picked a worse day to call on her great-aunt. Perhaps it might be wise to return to her hotel and leave it until tomorrow. But why would tomorrow be any different? Her money had almost run out, and if America was now at war, how would she get back to England and, more important, to Sebastian, whom she’d never intended to be apart from for more than a couple of weeks?

She found herself climbing the five steps to face a shiny black door with a large, highly polished brass knocker. Perhaps Great-aunt Phyllis was out. Perhaps she’d moved. Emma was about to knock when she noticed a bell in the wall with the word ‘Tradesmen’ printed underneath. She pressed the bell, took a pace back and waited, far happier to face the person who dealt with tradesmen.

A few moments later a tall, elegantly dressed man, wearing a black jacket, striped trousers, a white shirt and grey tie, opened the door.

‘How may I help you, ma’am?’ he enquired, clearly having decided that Emma wasn’t a tradesman.

‘My name is Emma Barrington,’ she told him. ‘I wondered if my great-aunt Phyllis is at home.’

‘She is indeed, Miss Barrington, Monday being her bridge afternoon. If you’ll be kind enough to step inside, I’ll let Mrs Stuart know you’re here.’

‘I could always come back tomorrow, if it isn’t convenient,’ stammered Emma, but he’d closed the door behind her and was already halfway down the corridor.

As Emma stood waiting in the hall, she couldn’t have missed which country the Stuarts hailed from: a portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie above crossed swords and a Stuart Clan shield hung on the wall at the far end of the hall. Emma walked slowly up and down, admiring paintings by Peploe, Fergusson, McTaggart and Raeburn. She remembered that her grandfather Lord Harvey owned a Lawrence that hung in the drawing room of Mulgelrie Castle. She had no idea what her great-uncle did for a living, but he clearly did it well.

The butler returned a few minutes later, the same impassive look on his face. Perhaps he hadn’t heard the news about Pearl Harbor.

‘Madam will receive you in the drawing room,’ he said.

How like Jenkins he was: no surplus words, an even pace that never varied, and somehow he managed to display deference without being deferential. Emma wanted to ask him which part of England he came from, but knew he would consider that an intrusion, so she followed him along the corridor without another word.

She was about to start climbing the stairs when the butler stopped, pulled back a lift grille and stood aside to allow her to step in. A lift in a private house? Emma wondered if Great-aunt Phyllis was an invalid. The lift shuddered as it reached the third floor and she stepped out into a beautifully furnished drawing room. If it were not for the noise of traffic, blaring horns and police sirens coming from the street below, one might have been in Edinburgh.

‘If you’ll wait here please, madam.’

Emma remained by the door while the butler walked across the room to join four elderly ladies who were seated around a log fire, enjoying tea and crumpets while listening intently to a radio that had never blared.

When the butler announced, ‘Miss Emma Barrington,’ they all turned and looked in Emma’s direction. She couldn’t mistake which one of them was Lord Harvey’s sister, long before she rose to greet her: the flaming-red hair, the impish smile and the unmistakable air of someone who isn’t first generation.

‘It surely can’t be little Emma,’ she declared, as she left the group and sailed across to her great-niece, the hint of a Highland lilt still in her voice. ‘The last time I saw you, dear girl, you were wearing a gymslip, short white socks and daps and carrying a hockey stick. I felt quite concerned for the little boys playing in the opposing team.’ Emma smiled; the same sense of humour as her grandfather. ‘And now look at you. You’ve blossomed into such a beautiful creature.’ Emma blushed. ‘So what brings you to New York, my dear?’