They were the words Jean Parker had been waiting for. Once she was sure she was alone, she made a brief phone call and arranged a lunchtime meeting in the pub by the Ribble where they had often met before. It was a big, rambling place, but there were not very many people there at a wet Thursday lunchtime, and the many nooks and crannies of the place afforded privacy for those who sought it.
Brian Jacobs felt no qualms about putting his palm firmly on top of his mistress’s hand as they sat together at the small round table.
It was curious how that still gave her a thrill, Jean thought. Sex was a strange thing. It was an important — perhaps the most important — part of life. Yet after all the things they had done in bed, after all the intimate things they had muttered to each other and repeated to each other over the years, she still felt that little surge of warmth running through her body when Brian simply put his hand on top of hers. Love was a curious business, at once complicated and very simple.
She said, ‘We’re muddling through. People have been very understanding. I’ve managed to postpone most of the meetings he’d arranged.’ She wouldn’t refer to Dominic O’Connor by name; Brian was still absurdly sensitive about that. He couldn’t bear to hear her pronounce the name of the man he had so hated.
‘Yes. People will be very accommodating, for a while. Then they’ll get impatient. You can’t do without a Financial Director for very long. Not with the scale at which Morton Industries now operates.’ It was the nearest he would come to acknowledging the success of his late rival’s work with the firm.
Jean Parker smiled at him, then brought up her other hand to clasp his. ‘That’s why I thought we should meet. The MD came in to see me this morning. He thinks as you do that the firm urgently needs to make an appointment.’
Jacobs gave her a small, contented smile. ‘Great minds think alike.’ He had no baggage with the MD at Morton’s, who had been appointed after he had left the firm. He’d met the man on neutral ground and got on well with him. ‘He’s right. You need as seamless a transition as possible, and that means a swift appointment.’
‘It might carry a partnership, if they replace exactly.’
‘Yes, I’d forgotten that. He’d worked himself a partnership in the firm, hadn’t he? He knew how to feather his nest, after he’d done his cuckoo act and tipped any rival out of it.’
It was a good metaphor, she thought, but it was absurd that he wouldn’t even mention Dominic O’Connor. You couldn’t go on hating a dead man; there was no substance in it, nothing left to hate. She said, ‘I think if you applied, you’d stand a very good chance.’
It was an outrageous idea. But he’d known the suggestion was coming, known from the moment he’d received that excited phone call two hours ago. ‘They say you should never go back.’
‘They aren’t always right. Especially if the reason you left no longer exists.’
‘The new man won’t want me. He’ll think I left under a cloud.’ He was ticking off the objections that others, not he, might make.
‘But you didn’t. As far as the records are concerned, you were an ambitious man who wanted more responsibility and sought it elsewhere. You needed to spread your wings.’ After the cuckoo had pushed you out, she’d nearly said. She was pleased to push the bird metaphor along. It seemed to keep them on the same wavelength — or was that a different metaphor? The brain was a strange organ. Why should she be concerning herself with metaphors, at this key moment in her life?
‘I’m not sure that I’d want to put in a formal application. It might compromise my position with my present firm.’
‘I think Morton’s might be prepared to approach you, if I said you were available. I’d have to plant the idea subtly, of course, let the MD think it was his notion. I’m only a humble PA who is at present without a boss.’
Brian grinned at her. ‘Behind every successful man there is a clever woman. And you’re the clever woman I want behind me, Jean Parker.’ He squeezed her small hands between his, pouring more emotion into that small contact than into many a coupling between sheets.
‘The MD’s going to pop in to see me at the end of the day. I’ll suggest tentatively that there might be a man available who’s already enjoyed success at Morton’s and knows the ways of the firm. And who’s gone on to broaden his experience through success with another firm. Or let him come up with those ideas for himself.’
‘This man sounds the ideal candidate, whoever he is. I can’t see how Morton’s could turn him down.’
‘I can only plant the thought. My humble station doesn’t allow more than that. But there’s nothing to be lost, is there?’
‘Nothing at all, my darling. You go ahead and be the clever woman behind me!’
She left discreetly before him. Brian Jacobs looked at his watch, bought himself another drink, and settled back comfortably into his chair. He’d told that bastard at the time that he’d suffer for what he’d done. Well, you couldn’t have more complete revenge than this. Your enemy lying stiff and cold in the mortuary, his widow bedding another man, and you yourself about to step into the job and the partnership he had left behind. Cheers, Mr Dominic O’Connor!
They were becoming familiar with the impressive modern mansion where James, the elder O’Connor brother, had lived. Drugs and prostitution were lucrative industries to add to your more respectable portfolio, thought DCI Peach, as he and DS Northcott drove past the gardener and up to the main entrance of the house. Well, James O’Connor would never have to answer to the law for his sins now.
His widow seemed even more composed than when they had seen her previously. Her long dark hair was lustrous and impeccably groomed. Her face was skilfully made up and had more colour in its cheeks than when they had seen her on Tuesday. Peach wondered whether she had chosen the bright blue dress especially for them. It looked to him elaborate for this time of day, but perhaps it was her habit to dress to impress. Lucy would have had an opinion on that; he wouldn’t ask for Clyde Northcott’s view.
He said once they were seated, ‘We shall be able to release your husband’s body in the next few days. You can begin to plan the funeral.’
‘Thank you. Both I and my daughter will be glad to have closure. For different reasons, of course. I told you on Tuesday that I’d ceased to be close to Jim by the time he died.’
‘You told us that you’d taken to sleeping with his brother. It’s Dominic’s murder we are now investigating.’
‘It wasn’t a casual shag, as you imply.’ She watched him for a moment, as if assessing the impact of the harsh word from her well-groomed lips. ‘As far as I was concerned it was a serious relationship. Dominic apparently thought differently. But he isn’t here to defend himself, so you have only my account of the liaison.’
‘Precisely. And it’s my opinion that you were very bitter when Dominic O’Connor chose to end it. He may well have known things about your husband’s death when you met last week, as you claimed. But I think you were also hoping to revive your affair when you met Dominic at the Grouse Inn last Thursday evening.’
‘I can’t prevent you thinking whatever you choose to think. It hardly matters, now that Dominic is also dead.’
‘He died within twenty-four hours of that meeting.’
Sarah O’Connor showed the first signs of strain she had allowed them to see. ‘You’re surely not suggesting that I had anything to do with that? Not the old “Hell hath no fury” cliche, for God’s sake. Don’t waste my time and yours!’
‘It’s a cliche because it is so often true, Mrs O’Connor. We’ve seen it operate many times. Where were you on Friday night, please?’
‘I’ve told you that before. I was here. My daughter Clare was with me during the day, but she went out in the evening.’
Peach looked at her steadily. ‘I’m giving you the opportunity to revise that statement, in the light of information we have now received.’