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'You ought to see him,' Lindsay said. 'Stephen might not be too happy to come back and find that Daniel Randall has been inspecting his account books.'
'I suppose you're right.' Reluctantly, Alice left the room. Lindsay heard her voice from the hall. 'Hallo, Mr Datchet…'
Lindsay went to the window and looked out. The sky was clouding over, the sun had vanished behind a bank of stormy slate-blue cloud hanging low over the surrounding rooftops, and a sudden wind was whipping the tops of trees into frothy green tangles of leaves. She decided she should bring the two children back into the house, it looked as if it might rain at any minute.
The hall was empty, and she heard Daniel's voice from a little room leading off it which Stephen used as a study and office. Lindsay walked through the kitchen and into the garden. Matt was running aimlessly around the lawn while Vicky shovelled sand into a small bucket. They both started towards her eagerly.
'It's cold,' Matt said. 'Can we come in?'
'In,' said Vicky, lifting her arms.
Lindsay hoisted her up and Matt darted past her into the house, shouting: 'Mummy, Mummy!'
When Lindsay went into the kitchen a moment later, Vicky clinging to her like a little monkey, she found Alice kneeling on the floor unbuttoning Matt's jacket.
'Your hands are frozen,' she was saying, and Matt was looking reproachfully at Lindsay.
'Auntie made us stay in the garden for hours!'
'He's almost blue!' complained Alice turning a glare on Lindsay.
'It was sunny when I put them out there, I thought they would have fun playing in their sandpit.'
'Poor baby!' crooned Alice snatching Vicky from her. 'Is she cold, then?'
'Sorry,' said Lindsay under the barrage of three pairs of accusing eyes, and slipped out of the room, feeling very guilty.
A few moments later Alice took the two children upstairs, talking cheerfully to them. Lindsay heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the bedrooms—Alice had decided to vent her fury with Stephen on the housework and the children were helping, Lindsay heard Vicky chattering to herself as she fetched and carried for her mother. Daniel and Mr Datchet were still in the study, their voices low. Conspiratorial? wondered Lindsay, listening at the door unashamedly. What exactly was Daniel up to in there?
It was a Saturday morning; Lindsay should have been doing her own housework in the flat, or her shopping, which she always did at weekends. After she had divorced Daniel she had had to go back to work, of course. She hadn't been able to face the idea of working in another bank, secretarial work didn't exactly enthrall her and she had had no training for any other career. For a few months she had worked for ail agency, doing temp work in a variety of firms, but always keeping an eye open for a job which might be exciting. When she was sent to work for a few weeks in the publicity department of a national
cosmetics firm she had enjoyed herself so much that she had jumped at the chance of working there full-time. Her first job at Vivons had been badly paid, tiring and repetitive; she had been put in charge of answering letters from the public for which a standard letter had been printed. All Lindsay did all day was to type in the name of the person to whom the letter was going, then type their name and address on the envelope. After a week of this, she was almost climbing the wall, it was even more boring than working in a bank. But she had gritted her teeth and stuck it out, and after three months, which had seemed like an eternity at the time, she had been promoted to a job with more responsibility and a lot more job-satisfaction.
Now she was second in command in the public relations department, she earned more than she had ever earned before and she loved her work. She had discovered she had a flair for thinking up ideas, she had learnt how to work with the press and how to block stories which could harm the firm. She worked in a busy, lively office full of people with quick, alert minds, she was successful and self-reliant. She was no longer the unsophisticated innocent who had been bowled over by Daniel Randall's first smile, it had cost her a good deal, but she had made herself into a woman she could respect. When you despise yourself, life isn't worth living.
From learning to respect herself, she had learnt more about other people, too. She saw Daniel Randall far more clearly, for a start, and she did not trust him. She met a lot of men like him in the course of her jobs opportunistic, devious men with corkscrew minds and no scruples. Lindsay was worried about his intentions towards her brother's firm. Stephen was going to be horrified when he found put that Daniel had been prying into his affairs. Why had Alice allowed Mr Datchet to show Daniel the books?
The sound of rain on the window made her look lip. The weather had broken, the clouds sagged low over the roofs opposite and the pavements were dancing with great spots of rain. The two security men sat in their car staring out glumly. There was no sign of the reporter—he must have given up and gone.
Stephen still hadn't got in touch with Alice— what was the matter with him? Now that Lindsay knew he was safe, she saw his behaviour as even more out of character. Stephen had always taken his responsibilities so seriously, it wasn't like him to let Alice worry. Was he having a nervous breakdown? Something must be very wrong with him or he wouldn't be doing this. He must Have been carrying an intolerable load for months without any of them noticing. They took him for granted, Stephen had always been able to cope, whatever life had thrown at him. Lindsay loved and respected her brother, she had always felt she could depend on him whenever she had problems, but now she realised that she had never wondered if he needed any help or support; he had seemed so much in control of his life. This silence of his was a cry for help which he hadn't been able to put into words, she saw that now, and she was angry with herself for not having realised anything was wrong with him until now.
A car drew up outside the house. Lindsay glanced at it and did a double-take, her body stiffening. Stephen's car! She started towards the sitting-room door. From upstairs she heard the vacuum cleaner—Alice must have missed the engine note. Lindsay flung open the front door and looked out. Stephen was talking to the two security men, a few feet away. He was wearing a cream raincoat, his head bare, and the rain was pelting down around him.
'Stephen!' Lindsay called, and he turned towards her. The men stood back, watching. Stephen slowly came up the drive, his body heavy and slumped, his hair plastered to his skull, rain running down his face like tears. He couldn't meet her eyes, he looked haggard and beaten. Lindsay ran to meet him and hugged him, trying not to cry.
Pulling him into the house, she shut the front door on the watching security men, resenting their curiosity.
Stephen looked up the stairs. Alice stood at the top of them, staring down at him, her face working. Lindsay walked into the kitchen and shut the door; when she was alone she let her tears escape, they stung her eyes and made her throat ache. Poor Stephen! she thought, remembering his expression as he stood looking at Alice. She had never thought she would ever see her brother look like that.
CHAPTER FIVE
'What did Stephen have to say when he realised you'd seen his firm's books?' Lindsay asked Daniel later.
He was driving her back to her flat in the slashing rain which had apparently settled in for the day, and Lindsay had to raise her voice to be heard above the clatter of the windscreen wipers and the hiss of tyres on wet roads. She would have turned down Daniel's offer of a lift if it hadn't been for the weather, but it was a long walk to the nearest tube station and she hadn't wanted to ask Stephen to take her.
Daniel glanced at her sideways, shrugging. 'He didn't have much to say about anything, did he?'
Stephen had come downstairs and gone into the study, talked to Mr Datchet for a few minutes and then walked with his accountant to the front door. Both men had been very quiet; Lindsay had got the impression Stephen was too depressed to care what happened to his firm. If Daniel's interest in his financial position bothered him, he hadn't shown it, and Lindsay had decided not to say any more to her brother than she could help. As soon as Mr Datchet had left, she had told Alice she was going, too, and Alice had been openly relieved. Obviously, she had wanted to be alone with Stephen. They had a lot to say to each other, and they didn't want a third party around, even if she was a member of the family.
