The Monte Carlo Proposal Read online

  ‘Because I’d rather die.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I snarled. ‘I’m not sure what I did to deserve that, but it tells me where I stand.’

  ‘If it makes you go away it’ll do its job very nicely.’

  ‘But it won’t make me go away, so get used to that.’

  She glared at me, but didn’t reply.

  ‘Let’s start again,’ I said at last. ‘Tell me about your family.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s much you don’t know after reading that report. We’re a load of crooks.’

  ‘All of you?’

  She shrugged and made a face. ‘It’s what I grew up with. It wasn’t called dishonesty, it was called “making the best of your opportunities”. Stealing from the rich didn’t count: they had plenty to spare.’

  ‘And that’s what your parents taught you?’

  ‘I didn’t know my parents. I told you they both died when I was two. Grandad raised me. He wasn’t quite the same as the others. He was dodgy but he tried not to be, especially for my sake. He said he couldn’t afford to go to jail because of having to look after me. He’s a wonderful man and I love him to bits. Remember you told me about your Grandpa Nick, and I said my Grandad was the same? He really meant it about going straight for my sake. He didn’t always stick to it, but he tried.’

  ‘Last year he had a sort of “final fling” and ended up in prison. I was determined not to let that happen again, so while he was away I worked hard to earn as much money as possible and save it, so that when he came out we’d have enough.’

  ‘You mean you’d have enough to support him?’

  ‘And why not?’ she flashed. ‘He supported me all those years.’

  ‘Was that what you were doing when we met?’

  ‘Yes. He was due out very soon. The day before I left you I called home and found him there. He’d been released early so I had to get back.’

  ‘I heard you. Do you mean that he was “darling”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me what was happening.’

  ‘You were the very last person I wanted to know. Have you any idea what it does to me to see you here, know what you’re thinking?’

  ‘You can’t begin to imagine what I’m thinking,’ I said harshly. ‘Tell me what happened when you got home.’

  ‘We were fine for a while, but then the money ran out. I sold my new clothes, and we lived well on them for a while. The trouble was that I couldn’t get a job. I couldn’t leave him alone at home because he got depressed, and then-’ She gave a tired shrug.

  ‘I thought he’d get better, but he didn’t, and the money got lower. That’s when I pawned Charlie. I thought I’d be able to redeem him, but things got worse so I had to sell him outright.’ She looked away from me. ‘I hated doing that.’

  I think I hit rock-bottom at that moment. I’d known this woman feisty, unafraid, cheeking everyone-especially me. Now she couldn’t look me in the eye, and that hurt like hell.

  ‘Anyway, Grandad tried to do his bit. He got a job as a waiter in a hotel. He started on lunches, and did so well that they promoted him to evenings. That was the trouble.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It’s in the evenings that people wear diamonds. There was this woman in a diamond bracelet, and the clasp must have come undone. Anyway, Grandad says he found it on the floor when they were clearing up later, and just couldn’t resist. As soon as he told me I knew I had to return it-fast. So that’s what I did, but it all went wrong.’

  ‘You don’t mean you took it back yourself?’ I demanded, aghast. ‘Just walked in there and-?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at me truculently.

  ‘But that’s not the way,’ I said. ‘You should have sent it by mail.’

  ‘Suppose it hadn’t got there?’

  ‘You send it Special Delivery and you protect yourself from discovery by going to a post office where you aren’t known and giving a false address.’

  I stopped because she was staring at me.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You sound like one of my family. They know all the tricks too. My Uncle Alec would have said the same.’

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t consult him, then.’

  ‘I did. And he told me not to worry, that he’d return it for me. As though I was born yesterday! I said he wasn’t getting his thieving paws on it, and we had a row and I stormed out.

  I groaned. ‘Your family are a big help, aren’t they?’

  ‘You leave my family alone,’ she flashed. ‘They are what they are. It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I won’t even try to answer that. Just tell me what happened next. You tried to return the bracelet, right?’

  ‘Yes, only I had to be clever and waltz in there when the place was crawling with police. And-how’s this for luck?-one of the policemen knew the family and recognised me. So then he makes me turn out my pockets, and there’s the bracelet.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just say all this?’ I demanded, nearly tearing my hair.

  ‘Because I can’t split on Grandad.’

  ‘Great. You’re loyal to him, but where’s his loyalty to you? Why doesn’t he come forward with the truth?’

  ‘Because I’ve told him not to. Don’t you see? It wouldn’t help. They caught me with the stuff on me. If he confesses it wouldn’t help me. They’d just have both of us. And he can’t go back to prison. He’d die.’

  ‘But it’s all right for you to get locked up, is it?’

  ‘No, but I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to be done. Why don’t you just go?’

  ‘Perhaps I should,’ I snapped back. ‘At least while you’re here I know where you are and what you’re up to.’

  ‘Fine! Then we’re both happy.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. From now on you’ve got to be sensible.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning that you do it my way. Give me your home address-I mean, please.’

  ‘You’re not to make trouble for Grandad.’

  ‘I’m trying to save him as well as you. He needs you on the outside, looking after him. Otherwise he’ll do something else stupid.’

  She nodded wretchedly and I realised that this thought had tormented her. She was trapped, unable to defend herself properly for fear of hurting the old man she loved, but knowing that whatever she did would probably be bad for him. And I hadn’t been there to help her. The thought made me feel savage.

  ‘Write your address there,’ I said, pushing paper and pen towards her. ‘And when I send a lawyer here don’t refuse to see him.’

  ‘I already have a lawyer.’

  ‘You haven’t. I just fired him.’

  ‘Oh, really? Bully Jack is showing his teeth now, is he?’

  ‘You’d better believe it. From now on Bully Jack is going to bully to some purpose. Starting with getting you out on bail.’

  ‘I don’t want bail.’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re damned well told.’

  That made her stare. She wrote the address down and pushed the paper towards me.

  ‘The lawyer will call soon,’ I said, pocketing it. ‘Do everything he tells you, and sign a paper authorising him to tell me anything I want to know.’

  ‘He’ll tell you anyway.’

  ‘True, but let’s keep things legal.’

  I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

  ‘You had to put it like that, didn’t you?’ Della asked bitterly. ‘Keep things legal. You simply had to say it.’

  ‘It was a slip.’ I backtracked hastily. ‘Just a meaningless phrase.’

  ‘It was you stomping all over me with your size nines, Bully Jack.’

  ‘Oh, great! And that was something you had to say, wasn’t it? OK, you’ve had your revenge. I’m going. I’ll be in touch.’

  Why did I bother? Why did I take such trouble for a sulky, ungrateful, sharp-tongued female? Asking these questions of myself, I sto
rmed out of the prison and around the corner.

  And there was my Rolls, with all the tyres removed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Della’s Story

  L OOK , I’ve got a great family, OK? They’re not quite like anyone else’s family, but they’re great. Especially Grandad.

  My mother was his daughter, and the person Grandad loved best in all the world after his wife had died. When she got married everyone in the family thought Grandad would hate sharing her, but he and my father took to each other from the first.

  They shared the same vice-gambling. Nothing serious. Just the odd visit to the bookies and a bit too much wagered on how fast a horse or dog could run. Kindred spirits.

  They moved in with him, everyone lived happily until I was born, and then they were even happier. It lasted for three years. Until Mum and Dad died together in a car crash. After that, as I’d told Jack, Grandad raised me.

  It took a while for me to understand that I came from a family of crooks. Or, as Uncle Alec used to say, we lived on the edge. He meant the edge of the law, the edge of a jail sentence.

  Alec’s speciality was insurance fraud, or what he called ‘victimless crime’.

  ‘Who loses?’ he’d cry. ‘So maybe they put a penny on the premiums, but nobody notices that.’

  Grandad would frown in a puzzled way, but he wasn’t great at arguing things through. And Alec could always silence him with a wink and a compliment about our new kitchen. Recently an insurance firm had replaced everything after a fire under a chip pan had covered the old one with soot. It now looked really lovely.

  I’d been away staying with friends at the time, so I hadn’t seen the fire, but I knew Grandad didn’t like it mentioned.

  Someone who could really argue the toss was Uncle Harry. He was a lawyer, and the one really respectable member of the family. He lived a good, decent life, paid his taxes without a murmur and maintained honest values.

  The problem was his wife, who seemed to have a poor sense of direction and kept walking into doors. Alec loathed Harry. He kept making barbed remarks like, ‘Nobody’s ever seen my wife with a black eye.’

  Which was true. Him, maybe. Her, never.

  I was fond of Alec, and when he said that Harry was a poor advertisement for honesty I had to agree.

  Their father was Grandad’s brother, Tommy, who used to refer to himself sentimentally as ‘one of the old-style villains’, trying to sound like the Godfather. Grandad said he was just a small time con artist who made a mess of everything he touched, but he had status because he’d been around so long and had done more time than anyone else. This didn’t seem to me a great recommendation, but my family sees things in their own way.

  Tommy had six offspring, five of whom had gone into the business, and their offspring had followed. So I guess that made us a dynasty.

  They lived by low-level crime, usually starting with shoplifting when they were under ten. Aunt Hetta: now there was an expert! She’d go into a big store with her three daughters, who’d collect things and deliver them to her. The cameras would pick up the kids, but they were always clean by the time they left the store. Aunt Hetta would sail out, loaded to the teeth, with nobody taking any notice of her.

  She took me on one of these raids when I was eight, and I was really good at it. But then Grandad found out and hit the roof. I heard part of the row he had with Hetta, although I didn’t understand much. He said if he caught her leading me astray again he’d make her sorry she was born. She said he was depriving me of the family heritage.

  ‘How’s the poor girl ever going to earn a decent living if she doesn’t learn now?’ she wailed.

  Grandad had been raised amongst all this, but he always claimed that he swore to go straight when I was growing up because he didn’t want to get sent to jail and have me put in care.

  Like everything he said there was a pinch of truth in there, buried deep under a load of tinsel.

  We lived reasonably well, because Grandad would occasionally have a big win on ‘the gee-gees’. But the wins were too big and too regular to be pure chance.

  Later I realised that he had friends who knew what was going to win and tipped him off. I met one of them once, and he winked and said. ‘I like to pay my debts.’

  But he wouldn’t say what Grandad had done to be repaid. Or when. Grandad wouldn’t say either.

  He supplemented his wins with a few cash-in-hand jobs at a builder’s yard, plus, of course, all the state benefits he could apply for. Harry, being a lawyer, was a big help with getting the forms and telling him what to say on them. Alec said it was the only time in his life Harry ever did anything useful.

  This was Grandad’s notion of ‘going straight’. I learned early on that he had his own version of everything. No story was ever quite as he said, but always embellished to make it more entertaining. To a child this seemed wonderful. So what if he was a bit dodgy? All right, more than a bit. How easy do you think it is for a man who was raised to be a crook to suddenly go straight?

  He gave me a happy, magical childhood, and the security of knowing that he loved me without limit and I loved him without limit. And there was no more to be said.

  Sometimes he’d get sentimental about the old days and want a ‘final fling’. Since he was useless at it he always got caught and went away for a few months.

  When this happened I’d live with my cousins, who’d gone into white-collar crime and were big-time now. I’d live in their flash houses, receive expensive presents and go on their luxurious holidays.

  That was how I discovered high living, but, given that Grandad had raised me to be honest, it might have been better not to know about it. I met a lot of the wrong people. Charmers, all of them, but you couldn’t have a sustained relationship with someone who might vanish into jail at any time.

  Then I set my heart on being an actress. I got almost no work, but Grandad assured me we were in the money and he could keep me going.

  Of course that was one of his daydreams, and I ought to have known it. But I suppose I blinded myself to what I didn’t want to know until I got a call from a police station. Grandad had returned to his old ways. It was a disaster. If he’d ever had any skills, which I seriously doubt, he’d forgotten them. He ended up behind bars and I did some thinking.

  This was my fault. How was he supposed to stay on the straight and narrow when I was being a drain on him? He’d always looked after me, and now it was time for me to look after him.

  I abandoned the theatre, which didn’t seem to notice my departure any more than it had noticed my arrival, and I got jobs demonstrating in stores. I lived as frugally as possible, saving for when Grandad came home.

  I saw him on every visiting day, and it broke my heart to see him in that place. He was too old for prison, and I had to keep his spirits up by talking about the times we’d have together when he was released.

  On my last visit I’d told him about being a waitress on The Silverado.

  ‘It’s just for a few weeks,’ I assured him. ‘I’ll come and see you as soon as I’m back in England. You’ll be out soon after that, and we’ll never let this happen again. Will we?’

  ‘Never,’ he said, holding up his hand. ‘That’s a promise.’

  The trouble was, it had always been a promise. He was easy-going, and people could talk him into things.

  So from now on I was going to be in total control of everything-my life, his life, the lot. No more nasty surprises.

  And what did I have to go and do? Fall in love with a man I could never have. Brilliant!

  Right from the start I knew Jack and I had no future.

  It didn’t matter that I’d never been a crook. Practically everyone else I knew was. Mud sticks. Jack might be a millionaire, but he couldn’t afford me.

  So our time together had to be something apart. I would enjoy, leave it, and remember it without bitterness.

  I didn’t know how long we’d have. Jack had wanted us to stay together for a whi
le after we left the boat. I thought we might even have a month.

  But then I called home and found that Grandad had been released early. So I had to return at once. I allowed myself that one last evening with Jack. I thought I could handle it, but he took my breath away by asking me to marry him. The one thing I’d never thought of.

  For a few glorious moments I let myself dream. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life, and I never will again.

  But I couldn’t say yes, for his sake. He made it hard for me by talking about love in a voice that seemed to wrap itself around my heart. If only, I thought, he would stop talking like that. If only he would never stop.

  I made him give me a little time, just to put off actually saying no, which was going to break my heart.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have made love with him, but I knew that if I didn’t spend that night in his arms I’d regret it all my days.

  I remember returning to our cabin after an evening at a little restaurant on the shore. There was some foolery with the dreary nightdress which I found pushed away under the bed, and he took it from me and tossed it away.

  After that there was no going back. He grabbed me in a sort of frenzy. I suppose he was rough, but I didn’t mind because I knew it was only frustration, and I was feeling it too. If he’d gone on being restrained I’d probably have thumped him.

  I heard some material tear and thought it must be my dress. Actually it was his silk shirt, as I discovered when I stepped over it later.

  But if he didn’t rip my dress it was only because he didn’t need to. He was an expert in removing delicate things without damage, but I was pulling my own clothes off at the same time as his.

  I suppose we were naked at about the same moment, and that was like a confirmation that this was really going to happen at last. So then there was no need to rush to bed. There was time to stand there and feel our bodies against each other.

  It was so good. I knew his body well from having spent so much time gazing at it. I knew the heaviness in his shoulders, the hint of power kept in reserve, seldom needing to be used. I knew the way his torso narrowed down to lean hips and long, muscular thighs. I could still feel him lying against me, as he’d done the first morning, his desire unmistakeable. I’d wanted him then and I wanted him now.