Anna came smartly to the rescue. Thank God, as ever, for Anna, who, of course, had not stumbled unnecessarily to her feet, but remained sitting, a picture of composure, throughout the somewhat awkward confrontation. Anna’s eyelashes fluttered briefly. She looked up at Marcus from beneath their pale fringe. Anna McDonald had never particularly liked or trusted Marcus Piddell, and neither did she fear him.
‘Don’t let us keep you newlyweds,’ she said sweetly. ‘I am sure you would rather be alone...’
Mercifully Marcus led his young wife away to a table at the far end of the restaurant. They were elegance on legs, he all Armani and Gucci as usual, she dressed in a style which said, simply, class.
‘Good God, what on earth was all that about?’ asked Anna.
‘I wish I knew,’ said Jennifer. ‘And I wish I hadn’t fallen apart like I did. Without you I think I’d have died.’
‘I doubt that,’ replied Anna. ‘You might have succumbed to his evil clutches again, though...’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He was with his new wife for Heaven’s sake.’ Jennifer was trying very hard to behave like a successful independent woman again.
‘Really?’ said Anna. ‘And what the hell was he doing in this restaurant? It’s hardly New York’s answer to The Ivy is it? I reckon the bugger found out it’s one of your places. He’s probably been dragging his child bride here every night since they’ve been in the city, just waiting to put the pair of you together.’
‘That’s absurd,’ said Jennifer.
‘Is it? I’d never put anything past that man. He wanted to see you wriggle. He’s obsessed with you.’
‘Well I’m certainly not obsessed with him any more.’
‘I do hope that’s true — for your sake.’ The gentle grey eyes were momentarily serious. Then they started to twinkle.
‘It’s just occurred to me — that poor little cow has become blessed with the name of Pam Piddle,’ said Anna, chuckling into her third martini.
‘Piddell,’ corrected Jennifer, smiling easily now. Anna was making her feel better again, as usual.
‘Piddle to me,’ said Anna ‘And always will be...’
It was Anna who later told Jennifer that Marcus had bought a mansion in Kent — which in Anna’s opinion gave the marriage half a chance of working because it meant that with all his city commitments, Marcus had to spend most of the week apart from his wife.
He had risen to become chairman and chief executive of his newspaper group. Jennifer heard about it in New York and wondered idly how he had managed that so swiftly, and also how much power Freemasonry really had in the world order of things. His reign was controversial, decisions were constantly being taken which hit the headlines in other newspapers. They seemed to have no pattern. The left-wing political stance of the newspaper was frequently turned upside down. With Marcus at the helm the Recorder appeared to have little or no direction. It did of course — it went unfailingly the way which suited the aims of Marcus and those who pulled his strings.
None the less the paper kept its circulation and its profitability, because Marcus was an excellent newspaperman who employed the best journalists and insisted on the best stories, both when he was editor and later — as long as they did not interfere with any of his masterplans. For the readers the Recorder was still the best popular paper going. Only the readers mattered — and how they mattered!
When the Recorder somersaulted right on to its head and backed the Conservatives at a crucial general election, Marcus and his newspaper were widely credited with having brought about what seemed unthinkable at the time — a Tory victory over the incumbent Labour government. Marcus was duly rewarded with a knighthood.
In New York, Jennifer chuckled to herself. Trust Marcus. He had a wife with a title so he would have to match it, and he had promptly done so. Everything that she read about him told her that he was becoming more and more powerful. His integrity was frequently questioned in the papers, but then, wasn’t that the case for any super-successful man?
In New York, one sunny Sunday morning, the phone rang in Jennifer’s apartment. Her mother was on the line. Her father had just suffered a major heart attack and been rushed to hospital.
Jennifer took Concorde out of John F. Kennedy Airport. She couldn’t mess around. She dreaded that her father might die before she reached him. And when she arrived at Heathrow and immediately called Devon, her worst fears were realised. She tried to remember when she had last been home to Pelham Bay and couldn’t quite. She hired a car at the airport, and could not stop crying throughout the three-and-a-half-hour journey to North Devon — she shed tears of grief for the father she had truly adored, and tears of guilt too. As is so often the case, the guilt was probably hardest to bear.
The funeral was well attended and curiously comforting. Her brother Steve had flown back from his home in Australia. If Mrs Stone wished that just one of her two children lived near to her, she never said so.
As she stood by her mother’s side in Pelham Bay’s pretty little church, Jennifer was surrounded by familiar faces from her past. She spotted Bill Turpin sitting at the back. He hadn’t changed a bit. Strange how he always stood out, that man. She had forgotten that her father even knew him, but then, her father knew everybody.
Todd Mallett was there, a sergeant now. More solid and dependable-looking than ever.
Outside the church he appeared quietly at her side and took her hand briefly.
‘He was a good man, I’m sorry Jenny,’ he said. She held her tears back and thanked him for his sympathy.
‘You’re a good man, too, Todd,’ she wanted to say, but she didn’t. Instead she asked him about Angela and his family; three fine boys, she had heard.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Bill Turpin slipping quietly away, speaking to nobody. Typical of what she remembered of the strange old man.
Johnny Cooke’s parents were also there. It was the first time Jennifer had seen them since the trial, how many years before? She had not recognised them at first, but they had attracted her attention, even through her distress at her father’s death. Mr and Mrs Cooke had a weariness about them. Their son was still in jail. Mabel Cooke continued to make her monthly visits. Charlie Cooke just pretended Johnny had never existed. They barely raised their heads during or after the service. Jennifer’s mother, kindly even in grief, had sought them out in the churchyard and invited them back to her home afterwards to join the family and other mourners.
Mrs Cooke looked grateful, but shook her head.
‘No dear, thank you,’ she said. ‘We just came to pay our respects...’
‘Who was that?’ Jennifer had asked.
‘You know them — that Johnny Cooke’s poor parents,’ her mother replied. ‘Thank God I’ve got you and Steve.’
Jennifer had held her close in the car as they were driven back to the little terraced house. She vowed to visit more often in future. But she didn’t of course.
Thirteen
Jennifer didn’t even tell Anna McDonald at first when she started to see Marcus again. All the half-told stories about him and his activities, both personal and professional, over the years made her feel uneasy and slightly embarrassed. From the moment Marcus had started to rise to power she’d suspected that she would find many of his business dealings shocking. Yet that would probably be so with most big businessmen. And Marcus had become one of the biggest. A genuine tycoon. Chairman of a giant publishing house with a property company and a chain of launderettes also under his wing. Launderettes? Trust Marcus. His very first business venture had been to buy a launderette soon after he first arrived in London in 1970. It was a boom time for that business and Marcus was always quick to spot the main chance. Most unlike a journalist. Jennifer remembered asking at the time how he had found the money for such a venture. A bank loan, he had replied shortly. It seemed reasonable, because although he had little or no collateral, if there was one man who could talk a bank into a loan for no good reason at all it would be Marcus Piddell. And nothing had changed.