Decider - By Dick Francis Page 0,86

his manager and goes to Conrad or William… used to go, poor lamb… for advice, and has proper audits… but that know-it-all Forsyth, he went his own way and wouldn’t listen to anybody and he bought a huge warehouse on a mortgage and thousands of lawn mowers that were supposed to cut the grass while you sat and watched, but they were already going out-of-date when he signed a contract for them, and also they kept breaking down. The people who sold them to him must have been laughing themselves sick, William said. William said Forsyth talked about “cornering the market”, which no one can ever do, William said, in anything. It’s a short cut to bankruptcy. So there is Forsyth with this vast stock he has contracted to buy but can’t sell, paying a huge mortgage he can’t afford, with the bank bouncing his cheques and Ivan facing having to cover this enormous bank loan… and you can guess what happened.’ She paid attention to her drink.

‘A little fire?’ I suggested, swirling the ice round in my own glass.

‘Little! Half an acre of it. Warehouse, mowers, radio controls, all cinders. William said everyone took it for granted it was arson. The insurance company sent investigators. The police were all over the place. Forsyth went to pieces and confessed to William in private.’

She paused, sighing.

‘So, what happened?’ I asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No. It’s not a crime to set fire to your own property. William paid it all off. He didn’t claim the insurance. He paid off the warehouse mortgage with penalties and sold the land it had stood on. Paid off all the contracts for the rotten mowers, to avoid lawsuits. Repaid the money the bank had lent, plus all the interest, to save Ivan losing the garden centre to the guarantee. It all cost an enormous amount. William told all the family that they would each inherit a good deal less from him because of Forsyth’s business venture and criminal folly. None of them would speak to Forsyth after that. He whined to William about it and William told him it was Coventry or jail, and to be grateful. Forsyth said Keith had told him to burn the warehouse. Keith said Forsyth was lying. But William told me it was probably true. He said Keith always said you could get rid of things by burning them.’

Like fences at open ditches, I thought. And grandstands, by blowing them up?

‘There!’ she said, as if surprised at herself for the ease of the telling, ‘I’ve told you! I can’t feel William standing at my shoulder telling me to shut up. In fact… it’s the other way round. I think he approves, dear, wherever he is.’

I wasn’t going to question that feeling. I said, ‘At least Forsyth’s was a straightforward fraud. No rapes or drugs involved.’

‘Yes, dear, much harder to cover those up.’

Some nuance in her voice, a quiet amusement, made me ask, ‘But not impossible?’

‘You’re encouraging me to be wicked!’

Once started, however, she’d been enjoying the saga.

‘I won’t tell them,’ I said. ‘I’ll be like you, with William’s secrets.’

I don’t know if she believed me. I don’t know that I meant what I said. It encouraged her, all the same, to go on.

‘Well… there was Hannah…’

‘What about her?’ I prompted, when she paused.

‘She grew up so bitter.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘No self-esteem, you see, dear.’

‘No.’

‘Keith never let her forget she’d been abandoned by her mother. By Madeline, poor dear. Madeline used to cry and tell me she’d give anything for a miscarriage, but we were both young then and we didn’t know how to get her an abortion… you had to know someone in those days as you’d never get a family doctor to help you. No one would ever help a young married woman get rid of her first child. Keith got to hear she’d been asking about it and he flew into a terrible rage and knocked two of her teeth out.’ She drank deeply of gin at the memory. ‘William told me that Keith told Hannah her mother had wanted to abort her. Can you believe it? Keith had always been cruel, but saying that to your own daughter! He wanted Hannah to hate Madeline, and she did. William said he tried for Madeline’s sake to love Hannah and bring her up properly, but Keith was there, poisoning her mind, and she was never a sweet little girl, William said, but always sullen and spiteful.’

‘Poor Hannah.’

‘Anyway, she grew up very pretty in a sharp