An unwanted inheritance, p.23
An Unwanted Inheritance, page 23
‘I get where you’re coming from,’ he said slowly. ‘But I can’t see Nath agreeing to that. What did Ellie say?’
Caroline noted that he had just assumed she had already spoken to Ellie, and of course, he was right.
‘It’s a bit strange,’ she said. ‘Yesterday she totally agreed with me. Today she’s totally against.’
‘No mystery there,’ said Max, pouring himself a glass of water from the tap and taking a drink before he continued. ‘That’s James speaking.’
‘She said she was worried about it leaking and damaging your dad’s reputation.’
Max’s eyebrows shot up and Caroline was tempted to comment, but she bit her tongue. She was treading a fine line here, and it was the concept of them stealing the money that she wanted Max to focus on, not Tony himself.
‘What do you think, Max?’ she asked instead.
He cocked his head on one side as he went over both arguments in his head. Caroline’s eyes never left his face.
‘On balance, I’m with you. But I can see Ellie’s point of view as well.’
Caroline knew that she needed to make her point more clearly. She needed him firmly on her side and at the moment she could see that he could still go either way.
‘It’s wrong to take it, Max. It’s as clear as the nose on my face,’ she said. ‘What if whoever the money does belong to found out that we had it? It wouldn’t be that difficult to find us. We’re easy enough to track down. What if they demanded it back, threatened me and the boys? We have no idea who we’re dealing with here, what kind of people. And what if other people found that we’d taken all that money? It wouldn’t just be your dad’s reputation on the line then.’
She let the thought hang in the air so Max could catch up with where she was.
‘I’d just feel much happier if we let the police deal with it,’ she continued after a moment. ‘And then, if it’s all totally legitimate, we’ll get it back and everything will be fine.’
‘Okay,’ said Max, nodding slowly.
‘The trouble is, Ellie and Nathan could outvote you. But I feel so strongly that handing it over would be the wrong thing to do. This isn’t as simple as a little bit of tax. This is about the rights and wrongs of it. This is fundamental to the kind of people we are.’
Max sniffed, taking in what she had said before he spoke again. ‘I agree that it’s not ours to take,’ he began. ‘And you’re right, Ellie and Nathan can outvote me, just like we outvoted Nath before.’
Caroline needed to lead him slowly through her thought processes. She was used to doing that. She adored Max, but sometimes his thinking was downright pedestrian.
‘You should say that for something as serious as this there has to be unanimity,’ she said.
‘Well, that would never work,’ replied Max quickly. ‘Even if we could talk Ellie back round, Nath will never agree.’
‘Perhaps he would if the alternative is no money at all,’ Caroline said sharply.
Max’s face went dark and Caroline realised she was treading a thinner line than she had realised.
‘I really don’t want us all to fall out,’ she said in a softer tone. ‘But I feel so strongly about it. It’s just wrong to take the money. You can see that, can’t you?’
There was a pause, then Max nodded. ‘Yes. I see that,’ he agreed. ‘God, I wish we’d never found the bloody stuff. Who knew a quarter of a million pounds could cause so much trouble? Let me speak to the others myself. We’re going round in circles here, but if I talk to them, I’ll have a better idea of where we stand.’
Caroline could feel her throat thickening. She hadn’t realised she was so close to tears. She wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from, this strength of emotion. But she couldn’t have anyone accuse her and Max of theft or cheating the system or, in fact, anything dishonest at all. She knew people always assumed guilt if there was any hint of wrongdoing. There were already some who were suspicious about Tony and his business dealings. Valerie, for one, and she was better placed to know than most people, but also Lesley at work and she hadn’t just conjured that rumour out of thin air. She must have heard something unsavoury about him to think as she did.
And it was a very small hop from people accusing Tony to people accusing her and Max. Caroline had been there. She knew how it stung to have all eyes on you, accusing you of something. She had seen people’s expressions as they reframed their opinions of her based on what they believed her father had done. She might have only been a child, but it had left its scar on her. It hadn’t just been her father who had been accused of taking the money for the wheelchair. It was the whole family, tainted by association, because they looked at her and her mother and wondered, if her father could steal money from a disabled boy, then who knew what the rest of the family was capable of? Her little family, blown apart by the accusations, had never recovered, and there was no way she was going to let anyone do that to Max and the boys.
She just couldn’t let it happen a second time.
46
Max could feel things spiralling away from his grasp and he didn’t like it. He definitely understood where Caroline was coming from with her argument. She was right that they knew nothing about the provenance of the money, and it was obvious there was something dodgy about it. Anyone could see that. Why else would it have been hidden as it was? So he could see the sense in getting it checked out before they spent it. He didn’t want anything to come back and bite them at a later date.
There was also the issue of reputation to consider. Nobody wanted to be accused of being dishonest, he assumed, and least of all Caroline.
Caroline had always been scrupulously honest. It was one of the things he loved most about her. If she got given the wrong change in a shop she would own up. If a delivery contained items she hadn’t ordered, she sent them back, even though he was sure it was legal to keep unsolicited goods. Whichever way he cut it, the money was clearly dubious, and the honest thing to do would be to hand it over to the police and let them decide what happened next.
But his siblings apparently didn’t see things like that. It had been obvious from day one that Nathan just wanted to get his hands on his share, but now it seemed Ellie felt the same way – or at least James did. It actually made no difference which of them was leading the other. If that was the position Ellie had decided to take and she sided with Nathan, then they were two to one against him. Even if they included spouses in the vote, he and Caroline would be on the losing side.
Max had left the house to go for a walk and clear his head. If they had a dog then that would have given him the perfect excuse. He had always thought that just walking without a purpose was a strange thing to do. Maybe he could buy a lead for Monty. Did cats wear leads? He thought probably not, and he didn’t really want a dog, so walking on his own it would have to be.
He pulled his mind back to the matter in hand and began running through the points. There was also the tax issue to think about. If they handed the money over to the police, then it would surely alert the authorities to its existence. They all spoke to one another, he assumed, in some convoluted way, especially when such big sums were involved. The police may well conclude that the money was clean, but merely by asking them the question would they be forfeiting forty per cent of it? Did that make sense? Max wasn’t sure.
As he stomped along the street, hands in pockets and head down to avoid eye contact with anyone else, he tried to decide what to do. Should he be siding with his siblings or his wife? That was basically the question, and the answer was obvious. His wife. It was a no-brainer.
But was she right? There was no point causing the enormous row he knew was coming over something that was a mere whim. Who should he be trying to talk round here? Caroline or Ellie and Nathan?
He wished he could chat it through with someone else, but who was there? His friends were no good. It would be a huge ask to keep such a juicy story to themselves, and even if they tried to anonymise it as they recounted the tale to open-mouthed acquaintances in the pub, it wouldn’t be that hard to fit the pieces together and bring it back to his family. There was Valerie, but she had made her views pretty clear. She had divorced Tony and whilst she was still his mum, she had left her ex and his dodgy dealings in her past.
‘For God’s sake, Dad,’ he said out loud. ‘What a mess.’
What would his dad have advised him to do? Keep the money! But that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t what he was searching for here. At a more fundamental level, and going back to first principles, what would his dad have said? Well, Max knew the answer to that, unhelpful though it might have been. Tony would have told him to follow his instincts.
‘Always go with your gut, Max,’ Tony had said. ‘Learn how to separate your head from your heart and be sceptical about them both. Either one can take you up the wrong path. Instead, follow what your gut tells you. That won’t ever lead you far astray, even if it feels like it might sometimes.’
So, what was his gut telling him? Max was surprised to discover that he knew what that was immediately.
47
Max called Nathan first. His brother picked up on the first ring, as if he had been hovering over the phone just waiting for it to leap into action.
‘What’s going on?’ Nathan asked at once. ‘What’s the hold-up?’
Max’s heart sank. Why had he done this? He had nothing new to tell Nath, nothing that he would want to hear anyway, and there was no way he would be able to discuss Caroline’s proposal with him rationally. All he had achieved by calling was to put himself in the firing line for more flak.
‘Just a few logistics to iron out,’ Max said cagily. ‘I wanted to keep you in the loop so you know where we are. Speak soon.’
He ended the call.
His walk was taking him past some huge houses, he noticed. Some of these, tucked away behind electric gates and hidden up long drives, were even bigger than Ellie and James’s place. What did people need with all that space? he wondered. Maybe the families that lived there hated one another and had to have plenty of room to avoid unnecessary contact. Max couldn’t really understand that. When the three Frost siblings had been growing up, there had been friendly fire between them but no real hostility. And his household now was calm and ordered. It must be horrible to live in a family that fought.
An unwelcome thought shouldered its way into his head. Wasn’t a fighting family precisely the uncharted territory that he was about to march into himself? If he and Caroline stuck to their guns, or Caroline’s guns at least, it was going to cause one almighty row from which there may never be any return. He couldn’t imagine having a family at war. But surely, he thought as he passed yet another huge house, this one with ridiculous stone peacocks on the gateposts, it would never come to that. The three of them were too close. They were never going to let something like a bit of cash cause fissures to open up between them. Everyone would get a bit aerated whilst they tossed the options backward and forward, but they wouldn’t fall out, not seriously anyway. They were all right-thinking adults who could see both sides of any argument. After all, he had no difficulty understanding everyone else’s point of view, so it wouldn’t be a problem for the rest of them.
He rang Ellie, holding the phone tightly to his ear as if that would somehow cement the connection between them.
‘Hi, Max,’ she said. She sounded less cheerful than usual, he thought, but then it was Friday evening, the end of a long and challenging week for all of them.
‘Hi. Listen, Ellie,’ he said, ‘I just wanted to sound you out on this money business.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘I gather Caroline’s told you that she thinks we should hand the money over to the police,’ he continued, listening hard for any subliminal signals that Ellie might be giving off.
‘She has,’ Ellie replied cautiously.
‘And what are your thoughts?’ he asked neutrally.
There was a pause. Max realised he was holding his breath so as not to interrupt the silence and alter what Ellie might be about to say.
‘It’s difficult, Max,’ began Ellie. ‘On the one hand, I can see where Caro is coming from. I think we can all agree that the money is probably suspect. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out. But if we take it to the police, well, I just think awkward questions will be asked. And it won’t only be about Dad. We’ll all come into the firing line. Nathan has clearly got himself into some kind of financial pickle, which I wouldn’t want investigating, and James’s business really doesn’t need that kind of scrutiny right now either. I mean, Caro is right that the honest thing to do would be to report it, but sometimes life just isn’t that black and white.’
Max listened. Ellie sounded so calm and reasonable and he could totally understand her point of view.
‘So, if we had to vote on it . . .’ he said.
‘I’d vote against handing it in,’ she finished. ‘I’d opt for just taking the cash and splitting it between us now. It’s the rational thing to do. I know it’s not ideal for very many reasons, but it’s the best option in a field of bad ones.’
A pause.
‘And,’ she continued, ‘Nathan would vote with me, so that would mean it didn’t really matter what you thought.’
Her tone had changed. Her voice was sharp, brittle as broken glass. She was warning him. It was polite and reasonable, with no suggestion of an argument, but underlying her words was the clear understanding that she would get her way and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He heard her loud and clear. But he wasn’t going to be browbeaten by the pair of them.
‘I’ll have a think,’ he said. ‘Speak soon.’ He ended the call.
He set off back home again, his pace faster now as his mind became clearer. Ellie had used words like ‘difficult’ and ‘awkward’ to show that she understood that this wasn’t at all clear-cut, but when push came to shove, her position was crystal. There had definitely been a threat in her words, veiled and civilly delivered, but there nonetheless. If he didn’t vote with them they would gang up together and he would be out in the cold.
That was the trouble with having three children. It was the main reason he and Caro only had two, despite her pushing for another. With three you were either all together or someone was being left out. Over the years, it had generally been Nathan on the outside, but that was mainly because he was so much younger. They didn’t really notice the nine years now they were adults, or he didn’t at least, but it had been an almost insurmountable gap when they were kids. It was inevitable that he and Ellie, being a more conventional two years apart, would grow up together whilst Nathan had tagged along on his own, for all intents and purposes an only child.
Max had never really considered how that might have felt for Nathan, watching as his siblings shared private jokes that he could never understand. Max knew he had never excluded Nathan maliciously – it had always been as a result of his age and nothing else – but now he wondered. Had Nathan felt less supported than he and Ellie had, less loved, even? Could how they had treated him when he was a child have led to his difficulties as an adult?
No, Max told himself, that was ridiculous. If anything, Nathan had been showered in love and attention because he was so little and often quite cute. There was no correlation between Nathan now and some kind of childhood deprivation of affection. If he had got himself into a mess then it was of his own making and not the fault of his family.
But feeling like the outsider . . . Maybe that was something Max was beginning to understand. The thought that it might be he who was pushed out of the tight little band left him with a strange and unfamiliar sensation. And he didn’t like it.
As he rounded the corner into their road and saw the generally comforting outline of their house, he felt a tension starting to build across his shoulders and up his neck. Whatever happened next, someone he loved was going to get hurt. Max was in for a fight that he really didn’t want to have.
48
Ellie opened her eyes on her fortieth birthday and immediately concluded that she didn’t feel any different. For nearly ten years, she had been anticipating this day – first worrying about it, slowly getting her head around the idea and then, ultimately, almost looking forward to it. A new decade was something to be celebrated; after all, many people never had the luxury of getting there. And everyone she knew who had reached the milestone before her seemed to be enjoying it. Apparently, going into your forties brought with it a kind of inner self-confidence and calm that women in their thirties just couldn’t match. After all, didn’t life begin at forty, and all that?
Ellie wasn’t feeling that calm about hers, however. There was far too much happening over the next two days for that. At least the funeral wasn’t until two, so there was no need to start racing around straight away. She could enjoy the pre-school time with the girls and James. They would have treats lined up, she was sure, so she could focus on enjoying that and move into funeral mode later.
The real celebration would be the party the next day. That was okay. She was forty, not fourteen; she could wait another twenty-four hours to step into the spotlight.
She pushed a foot over to James’s side of the bed but found an empty space. It was clear from the temperature of the sheets that he had been gone for some time. A cold shiver of dread ran through her as she thought what he might be doing, but she told herself that he was just as likely to be up early arranging surprises with Olivia and Lucy as trying to rescue his failing business. In fact, she knew it was probably a bit of both.
Now that she was aware of what was going on, she had noticed that his sleeping patterns were more erratic than they had been before. It was all so very hard to process. James had always been the steady one in their marriage, the rock that she clung to when things got bumpy. To see him losing his footing now was discombobulating and Ellie didn’t like it at all.
