tell? She wanted to know if I was proud of Zita and I told her of course I was.’
‘Let’s hope she doesn’t start putting two and two together. Forty years! God, after all that time, it’s coming back to haunt us.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Rita said firmly. ‘We don’t have to admit anything. There’s no proof.’
‘You’ve got to tell Zita the truth, so she knows to keep mum if that woman starts asking questions. I don’t trust the newspapers…’
‘OK. I’ll go tomorrow after I’ve finished work.’
Barbara showed Maggie into George’s study. He looked up at her with open hostility. As if he hadn’t enough on his plate, he was expected to answer this woman’s stupid questions. Barbara ought never to have let her in, but she was here now and it wouldn’t do to rub her up the wrong way. He motioned her to a chair. ‘What can I do for you, Miss Doughty?’
‘Mr Kennett, is it true you own Melsham Construction and that Mr Browning is merely fronting it?’ Barbara, leaving the room, heard Maggie’s question clearly before shutting the door. She stood leaning against it, her heart beating uncomfortably fast, not deliberately listening, but unable to walk away.
‘Of course it isn’t true,’ George said. ‘And if you print it, I shall sue.’
‘Mr Browning worked for you for how many years?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Fourteen, fifteen.’
‘And he was always loyal?’
‘He appeared to be. But no doubt he was working towards going it alone. I’ve accepted that and bear him no ill will.’
‘And Mr Younger. Did the same thing apply to him? He’s family, isn’t he?’
‘What the devil are you talking about?’
‘You surely knew that his wife is your half-sister? No, probably not, or you wouldn’t have been screwing her daughter. Your own niece, Mr Kennett.’
Barbara waited, hardly daring to breathe, for George’s reply. It seemed a long time coming. And then he blustered. ‘Where did you get that tarradiddle from?’
‘From the register of births, Mr Kennett. It’s there in black and white. Rita Symonds, baseborn to Dora Symonds, father Frederick Kennett. Would you like to comment?’
‘No, I would not. And if you publish one word, I’ll see you never work in journalism again.’
Barbara felt sick. She knew it was true. The signs had been there all along. Elizabeth’s antipathy towards Rita, her insistence she meant trouble. For over forty years Elizabeth had lived with the knowledge that her husband had betrayed her and had an illegitimate daughter, now it was all bubbling to the surface again. At least Elizabeth had been spared any more pain and upset.
Barbara began to wonder about her own particular skeleton. How long would it be before that started rattling its bones and bursting out of its cupboard? It made her afraid for Jay-Jay, until now only on the periphery of events. Please God, don’t let him be hurt, she begged, wondering what penance she could make to keep him from suffering. Thank goodness there was nothing on his birth certificate to arouse suspicion.
She didn’t want to hear any more. She went up to her studio, put a canvas on her easel and began daubing it with paint. Anything was better than her tortured thoughts. She wasn’t aware that Maggie had left, nor did she hear George go out a few minutes later.
George parked the car in the town hall car park and walked to Zita’s flat. Work on the market had finished for the day and the open space, surrounded by wire fencing, was a clutter of sand, bricks, paving and diggers. He walked round it, his anger growing with every step. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose it all. He could cope with business problems but personal traumas he had never found easy. And when one led to the other and got all mixed up, he began to panic.
He looked furtively about him before entering the block of flats and climbing the stairs. Zita had rung him several times at work, demanding to know why he had not been to see her. He had tried fobbing her off, but she had threatened to go to the press with her story. He had to shut her up.
‘Oh, it’s you.’ She opened the door in a faded dressing gown. Her hair had just been washed and hung damply round her cheeks. Without make-up her face glowed. A few weeks ago it would have turned him on, but now he was repulsed. ‘About time too.’ She turned her back on him to go back inside.
He followed and