But why was Sander so keen to get her back? Her tough Greek husband was such a macho guy. Was it simply his possessive streak? Was he like a dog with a discarded bone he wanted nobody else to touch? Had his belief that she was now with Robert Miller powered Sander’s desire to reclaim his wife? It was a desire that astonished her, for she knew his parents had probably heaved a sigh of relief when their son’s marriage failed. She had not impressed her snobbish in-laws as an acceptable wife for their only surviving son. Her illegitimacy and downmarket background had offended them. When she and Sander had still been happy together, his parents’ attitude had seemed unimportant because, aside of Petros Volakis working with Sander in the family business, the older couple had taken very little interest in their son or his wife during their brief marriage. Nor had they attended the sad little funeral for their infant grandchild, choosing to send only a card expressing conventional regret.
While Tally waited to board the ferry at the cross-channel port, she realised that she was looking forward to the prospect of her mother’s company in London because she was in no mood to be on her own. What had happened with Sander, however, she resolved to keep entirely to herself. Fortunately, she was not so involved with Robert that she owed him any kind of an explanation either. The less time she spent agonising over events that she could not change, the happier she would be, she decided doggedly.
Unfortunately, when Tally returned to London she found her mother to be in a brittle, evasive mood and more interested in looking up all her old friends than spending time with her only child. Just a week later, however, Tally called in at her apartment to pick up a colour swatch she had forgotten and walked into the midst of an astonishing scene. A stockily built older man in a suit was telling her sobbing mother that tears weren’t going to change anything …
‘What the heck is going on here?’ Tally demanded on the threshold of the room.
Wild-eyed, Crystal flung her a daughter a startled look and, emitting a strangled sob, she scrambled upright and fled into her bedroom without another word.
In bewilderment Tally directed her attention to her mother’s visitor instead. ‘Maybe you could tell me what this is about?’
‘I’m afraid that I’m not at liberty to do so. This is a very confidential matter,’ the older man responded starchily as he lifted his briefcase and headed for the door. ‘I’ve left my contact details on the table. Perhaps when Miss Spencer has had the chance to consider her options she will call me.’
Mystified, Tally saw him out and then sped back into the lounge to lift his business card and frown down at it: Henry Fellows. He was a solicitor and she had never heard of him before. Rapping her knuckles lightly on the door of the guest room, Tally went in.
Standing by the window with defensively folded arms, her mother shot her an apprehensive glance from reddened eyes. ‘Has he gone yet?’
‘Yes, he’s gone. What did he want with you?’
Crystal’s slim shoulders drooped. ‘I might as well tell you because you’ll find out soon enough. Roger is threatening me with the police.’
Aghast, Tally stared at the older woman. ‘The … police? Roger? What on earth are you talking about?’
The story that Crystal began to tell was not entirely unexpected. Over the years, Tally’s mother had often got into financial trouble and Tally was not surprised to learn that the older woman had been in debt when she first moved in with the retired businessman, Roger Tailford, in Monaco.
‘At the beginning I managed to keep up payments on what I owed out of the allowance that Roger gave me for clothes.’
‘Couldn’t you have told Roger the truth?’ Tally asked ruefully.
‘Roger was very puritanical about money and I knew he would think less of me if he ever found out, so I kept it a secret,’ Crystal admitted grudgingly. ‘But then the interest kept on rising and the payments got steeper so I was desperate for more money … and one day I forged Roger’s signature on a cheque and managed to cash it. He insisted on still using cheques—he was very old-fashioned that way. He didn’t hold with debit cards, online banking and the like …’
Tally was studying the tear-stained older woman fixedly. ‘Did you say that you forged Roger’s signature on a cheque? That’s a crime!’
‘I’m not stupid. I know that, but it kept the peace between Roger and I and he was so well-off he never missed the money …’
‘Are you saying that you did it more than once?’ Tally pressed in horror.
‘I was in debt to my eyeballs!’ Crystal cried defensively. ‘I had to keep the creditors away from the door somehow!’
‘But it was stealing! Surely you can see that?’ her daughter challenged her. ‘You were stealing from Roger! Why was that solicitor here?’
‘Roger’s accountant questioned some of the cheques and Roger found out what I’d done. That’s why we broke up—he threw me out!’ Crystal sobbed. ‘He sent the solicitor here to tell me that he won’t prosecute me for the forged cheques if I repay all the money I took.’
Tally was ashen pale. ‘How much money are we talking about?’
Her mother mentioned a sum that made Tally gasp: it was a much larger sum than she might have expected. Having got away with her initial theft, Crystal had become bolder and
had begun dipping into Roger’s account whenever she had overspent or needed more money. In the course of two years she had helped herself to a pretty substantial amount of cash. Tally was appalled by the total.
‘Are you able to pay back anything?’ Tally asked worriedly, a look of hope in her eyes.
‘I haven’t a penny,’ Crystal confessed dully. ‘I’ve never had savings. You know that.’
‘Well, when it comes to ready cash, I can’t help you. What I have is in the business and I’m bound by my partnership with Robert to leave it there,’ Tally volunteered unhappily. ‘And in the current economic climate, I’ll never get a loan for that amount. There’s only one thing for it: we’ll have to ask my father for help—’
‘Don’t waste your time. Anatole would probably love it if I was sent to prison for theft.’
That night, when Tally phoned her father, she was relieved that he didn’t laugh when she told him about her mother’s predicament, but he didn’t sound sympathetic either. ‘Why don’t you approach your husband for
assistance? Oh, yes, I forgot. You got bored with him and walked out on your marriage …’
Smarting at his sarcasm, Tally muttered, ‘It wasn’t like that.’
But it was very clear that Anatole wasn’t interested in hearing her side of that story. As far as he was concerned, when he had put pressure on Sander to wed his daughter because she was pregnant he had helped Tally make a ‘good’ marriage and in leaving her husband she had recklessly thrown away her golden opportunity.
‘Look, I’ll be in London on Wednesday,’ he told her abruptly. ‘I’ll meet you for lunch at the usual place. One o’clock.’
And with that unanticipated invitation, Tally had to be content while she wondered if there was any real prospect of her father offering his help in order to save Crystal from what he would undoubtedly see as her just deserts. She was well aware of how much her father had resented having to maintain Crystal throughout the years of his older daughter’s childhood. When she got back from a day spent working out a new interior scheme for a client who was infuriatingly given to changing her mind every five minutes, she found her mother sitting in floods of tears at the kitchen table.