eyes that didn’t miss a field mouse. As a great racehorse will find a way through a testudine of closely packed, galloping quarters, Valent saw gaps in the market: retirement homes with people of your own background, and ‘Attractive and Affordable’ houses for young couples that were cheap and charming to look at, and came with a red rambler rose in a blue tub to grow up the wall. Happy Prentice placed bright and trustworthy youngsters, who hadn’t necessarily blossomed at school, in friendly flourishing companies. Another company provided sympathetic people to help you downsize, while a gently massaging rubber hand successfully winded babies and helped couples to avoid sleepless nights. His laboratories had produced an energy source and a method of disposing of waste. His latest product, Rinstant, saved a mass of water by enabling hand-washed clothes or even hair to be rid of soap or shampoo after a single rinse. Although he didn’t need it himself, he was working on a cure for baldness.
But even Valent couldn’t find a cure for a broken heart.
In Duty Free, he discovered he had bought Rive Gauche, Pauline’s favourite perfume, and a bottle of Benedictine, which she had loved; just as when at home, he still found himself making two cups of builder’s tea in the morning.
She had died in the Cotchester train crash three years ago, just at the moment when he’d decided to stop spending his life in Concorde and superjets and devote some real time to her. Now it was too late … His son wouldn’t speak to him because of Bonny. This was not helped by Valent forgetting his and his wife’s and his grandchildren’s birthdays. Now he expected Pauline to be there when he got home, expected her voice on the end of the telephone longing to hear about his trip, delighting in every new achievement.
When he’d started to go through her things, he found every note he’d ever sent her, and gave up. She wasn’t dead, it hadn’t happened, he must sail his yacht across the Styx to find her.
Valent had houses in London, Geneva, New York, Cape Town, the Caribbean and now Willowwood, which was the one Pauline had longed for. She had so wanted to move to the country, with fields and woods for the grandchildren.
The row had erupted earlier in the day when he and Bonny reached his big white house in St John’s Wood and Valent had announced he was flying down to Willowwood to check on the builders instead of going to a ‘Luvvies’ party with Bonny and her friends.
During the shouting match that followed, Valent had uttered the deadly words, ‘Pauline wasn’t a bitch like you, so shut oop.’
Now he was feeling like hell.
27
Patches of snow lurked on the lawn and the piles of rubble at Badger’s Court. The black craters were frozen over. Electric gates hadn’t been installed, so Valent drove straight up to the house, surprised, despite the extensive security measures, to find a dim light on in his temporary office.
Marching in, he bit the inside of his cheek instead of his chewing gum and gave a terrified gasp as he caught sight amid the gloom of a white-faced horse. Beau Regard, Christ! His blood froze, his heart pounded and he was about to run for his life when he took in, beside the horse, an old biddy in a dirty blue twinset, with wood shavings in her messy grey hair. Then he realized that the rest of the white-faced horse was small and greyish and at his bellow of:
‘What the hell is going on? Get that fooking animal out of here or I’ll call the police,’ it struggled to its feet and hurled itself, trembling, against the jutting Adam fireplace.
‘Oh, please don’t shout,’ begged the old biddy. ‘She’s terrified of raised voices, particularly men’s.’
Putting her arms round the trembling filly, she tried to calm her.
Valent was wearing a navy-blue cashmere overcoat with the collar turned up. His square broken-nosed boxer’s face betrayed all the outrage of a football manager denied a penalty in injury time.
‘What the hell’s she doing here?’
‘I thought you were still abroad,’ stammered Etta. ‘I’m so sorry, it’s so cold outside. I’ll pay for any damage. She was abandoned in the wood. We – I mean I – rescued her.’
She mustn’t shop Joey.
Valent realized the old biddy wasn’t that old, probably his age in fact, just tired and unmade-up, with hair like a hurricane-trashed bird’s nest.
To make matters worse, Martin had heard the shouts