‘I’m still in the VIP lounge. They’ve taken Susie’s body away to a hospital in Nice. A police officer came with the ambulance crew. I tried to persuade him to let me take her to Monaco, but no way. I’ve just spoken to the British Embassy in Paris, and told them what’s happened. They’re going to get involved, and send a consular observer to the autopsy. It’s a judicial procedure; the authorities have to satisfy themselves that the death was natural. Once they’ve done that, they’ll release the body.’
‘Who’ll organise the funeral?’
‘Me, if I’m still around. I’ve just had a blazing row with Duncan. He knows about our being appointed to the board. It went public as scheduled; the text that he had must have tipped him off. As soon as he finished that phone call I told you about earlier he came storming in here and started yelling at me, even though I was in the middle of talking to the police officer. What the hell did I think I was playing at, I’d manipulated a dying woman, and it was all that witch Primavera’s doing; nasty, furious, threatening stuff. Eventually the policeman intervened, and told him to have some respect. Duncan didn’t understand him, of course, so he just carried on. He might have been arrested if the airport manager hadn’t intervened and explained who he was, and that he’d just lost his wife. He quietened down after that, and walked out again. I don’t know where he is now. And I don’t know what to do.’
‘That’s obvious, Audrey. You get yourself back to Monaco as fast as you can; it’s essential that you’re there when Conrad gets back with the kids. Have you called him?’
‘Not yet. It’s not easy; the children will be in the car with him.’
Tom appeared at my side with a large glass of yellow-hued wine. ‘Don’t say anything about what’s happened,’ I suggested. ‘Just ask him what time he expects to arrive, and tell him that things have changed with Susie, and that you’re not going to Scotland any more.’
‘But I have to, Primavera; the board meeting.’
‘There will be a quorum without you, trust me. You’re needed in Monaco; things have happened over the last couple of days to make that essential, now that Susie’s gone. Listen,’ I said, ‘Susie’s intention in appointing us to the board was to protect the children’s interests. That was when she was alive, and it’s all the more important now that she isn’t; you have to be with them. I will handle the board meeting on my own, don’t worry.’
‘What about the other things she asked you to do for her? Setting up the trust, her will?’
‘I don’t know. She gave me a very clear written mandate, and her signed authority to implement it. It’s clear that while she accepted Duncan as her husband, she didn’t want him controlling her kids’ inheritance in the event of her death.’
‘Maybe we’ve got him wrong,’ Audrey said. ‘Perhaps he’ll agree to what Susie wanted.’
‘Can you see the sky where you are?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied, puzzled.
‘Are there any pigs up there? Audrey, don’t be naive; all the peaches have fallen off the tree at once and landed in bloody Duncan’s lap. Damn it!’ I snapped. ‘Why the hell did she have to fly so soon? Didn’t she know how fragile she was?’
‘Yes, she did. Her doctor spelled it out for her the last time she saw him. He was okay with the Vegas trip, but told her she should stay in Arizona for another two weeks at least, preferably a month, with her platelet levels being monitored, before even thinking about flying transcontinental. He said her blood chemistry was still too unstable.’
‘Was Duncan aware of that?’
‘Yes, we both sat in on the meeting.’
‘And he let her fly?’
‘Yes, but so did I, Primavera, so did I. I didn’t want her to, but she insisted; she told me that she knew she was going to die soon anyway, and wanted to see her kids before she did. I suggested that we could fly Janet and wee Jonathan out to Arizona, but she said the trip would be too tough for them, since they would know why they were going, or at least Janet would, for sure. Duncan backed her up; he said that if I didn’t book the flights, he would.’
‘God,’ I snapped. ‘You’re making it sound as if he wanted her to die.’ I’d forgotten completely that Tom was sitting alongside me. At the edge of my vision I saw him stiffen in his chair, glanced at him and saw his eyes ablaze with a fury that his wing chun master definitely would not have liked.
‘I’m only telling you how it was,’ she replied. ‘Do you know what her last words were? After she said she was going to sleep on the flight to be alert when she met the kids, she said, “I’m not looking forward to telling them what I’ve done.” Now I’ll have to tell them, unless Duncan gets to them first.’
‘You won’t,’ I said. ‘They know already. And they’re not happy.’
‘In that case, I’ve got to go, now. I’ve just seen, literally a couple of seconds ago, Duncan getting into a taxi, and you can bet he’s heading for Susie’s. The swine’s even left me to take care of the baggage.’
‘Then get off your mark and call me later, in Glasgow.’
I ended the call. ‘What did you mean?’ Tom asked, immediately. ‘About him wanting Susie Mum to die?’
‘Nothing. Forget I said it. I was angry, like you’re always telling me not to be.’
‘If Dad was alive, he’d be angry,’ he countered.
‘If your dad was alive, Duncan wouldn’t be there, would he?’
I sighed, feeling suddenly tired myself. I thought of Susie on her last flight and had a moment of panic. What if I wasn’t here either? None of us know the moment when it will end.
I needed comfort. I called Liam.
‘Hey,’ he said, cheerily. ‘Are you not on board yet?’
I told him what had happened, and put an end to his happy morning. ‘Oh shit,’ he murmured. ‘That’s terrible. I am so sorry. Those poor kids.’
‘Yup.’
‘What are you going to do? Go to Monaco or come back here?’
‘Neither. Audrey’s staying at home, but I still have to go to Glasgow; there will be a board meeting in the morning and I will be in the chair, as Susie wanted it.’
‘How’s that going to go down?’
‘With the bereaved widower? Spectacularly badly. With the rest of the board? I have no idea. But I have to do it.’
‘Wish I could help,’ he murmured.
‘You just did. Be there when I get back, okay?’
He chuckled. ‘I will, I will, honest.’
I ended the call and went to check the flight status. It showed ‘Boarding’. We didn’t rush to get there, as we were fast-track category, and by the time we did, most of the passengers were in place. I let Tom have the window place. He shoved his man-bag under the seat in front, once he’d retrieved his iPad (a Christmas present from Grandpa Mac; Janet had the same) and the Bose in-ear phones he’d had from me, and held them in his lap, obedient to the regulations, until we were in the air and the seat-belt sign was off, when he disappeared into a combination of Beyoncé and a Spanish e-novel called The Sun over Breda, one of the adventures of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s swashbuckling swordsman, Captain Alatriste.
He didn’t say much during the flight, even declining the meal, and I left him to his thoughts. He’d been introduced to death far too young to understand it fully … ‘Who does?’ you might ask … and I wondered whether the latest encounter would make him revisit the first.
Once we touched down in Heathrow, however, he was his usual self. Just as well, for I didn’t need any hassle. I’m one of those people who will take any alternative to flying through Heathrow, particularly when I have to change terminals, and my pawing in Barcelona had made me even less enthusiastic as I approached the transfer process. But we got lucky. The bus left as soon as we stepped on and our business class status speeded us through security. The lounge was packed, in complete contrast to the other one, so busy that we went for a Starbuck’s instead, and a sandwich, since Tom had decided that finally he was hungry. Looking back, the journey and its complexities formed a bubble around us both, one that isolated us from the awful thing that had happened earlier. It would come back to haunt us later, I knew, but at that moment, the presence of so much bustling life around us kept the dead at bay.