Chapter Forty-Six
It was Monday and Nick found herself at a loose end. Rafe told her that the Lees were interested but as yet hadn’t made an offer. Bernard Payne, the building’s project manager, had arrived on site first thing and she had spent an hour with him handing back the reins. After that, her time was her own. Leaving Ohana with Mary she grabbed her bike and decided to exhaust herself with a big ride through the Cotswold hills. As she returned she was already making plans to head over to the Malverns tomorrow; that would be a much tougher day and she needed to check if Mary was happy to have Ohana for the entire day. As she cycled past the building site, she heard a girl’s laugh peel out of one of the open windows and she screeched to a halt. Dropping her bike on the verge she ran towards the house and into the ballroom.
‘Aster!’
Aster had been crouched on the floor with a group of builders, where she was apparently demonstrating something with the plaster that they were using. Turning as she heard her name, she sprang up and ran over to her sister, giving her a big hug.
Neither girl was given to big displays of public affection, but they hadn’t seen or spoken in ages and they clearly missed each other.
After a huge hug both stepped quickly back.
‘Ugh, too much!’
‘You’re so needy! ’
Laughing at each other, Nick asked Aster what she was doing with the builders. Jordan explained how Aster was demonstrating a way of using plaster to polish it and give it layers of colour.
‘And what the hell do you know about plastering?’ asked Nick incredulously.
‘It’s called Venetian stucco, actually. And I picked it up in Italy, I was working on a building site and it was an indoor job so I asked if I could do that.’
Nick had so many questions. ‘Why were you working on a building site?’
‘A girl’s gotta eat.’
The ridiculousness of that statement – coming from a girl with a private bank account and a title – didn’t pass by either of the sisters, but Nick decided to let it go. She would find out what Aster was really up to later. Or not. It didn’t matter, what did matter was that Aster was here and had clearly flourished under the Italian sun.
‘Look at you, you’re nearly as tanned as I am.’
Nick and Aster used to delight in annoying their pale-skinned sisters by being able to tan without going red or freckly. Clem and Paddy, with their gorgeous red hair, didn’t stand a hope of a tan without resorting to a tub of creosote. Ari felt that having dark hair it was hugely unfair that she also burnt at the first hint of sunshine. Nick and Aster tended to go walnut in a heartbeat and their father had joked that it was his pirate blood coming out.
Jumping up, Aster brushed the dust from her knees. She was wearing a pair of dungaree shorts in a dark blue linen, and a short-sleeved white blouse. The elegant casualness of it made her look very Italian.
‘I like your hair up like that.’
Aster’s hair swung from a high ponytail.
‘Trying to make myself a bit taller, what do you think?’
‘I think you’d need stilts.’
Unlike Clem, Aster had never been bothered by her lack of height, like Nick she liked blending into the background.
‘Right, come on then, hugs and insults exchanged,’ said Aster decisively. ‘Let’s get to work. We need to sort your mess out. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get here, I was at sea and only got Ari’s message yesterday. Why didn’t you call me?’
Saying goodbye to the builders she strode out of the ballroom and shouted over her shoulder at Nick to hurry up. She smiled sheepishly at Jordan and ran to catch up with Aster. Nick could always rely on Ari, Clem gave her constant grief, Paddy was her rock, but Aster tended to be ‘kill or cure’. She tended to provoke heart attacks or offer brilliant solutions. Nick wondered what she had come bearing this time.
As they walked towards the other wing, Nick saw Mary and Ohana approach and had a bad feeling. Aster was incredibly protective about her family. It was the one thing that the sisters could rely on – Aster would overreact to any perceived threat or insult. She had embraced Ottoline and the girls felt that she had met a kindred spirit in the older woman, but Nick wasn’t sure how she would perceive Mary.
‘Play nicely,’ muttered Nick as she waved to Mary.
‘I see you got a dog and a grandmother whilst I’ve been away. She’s very small. ’
Nick wasn’t sure who she was referring to but now they were too close for her to ask. Plus she didn’t like Aster’s tone, it was bored and disinterested, sure signs of trouble ahead.
‘Aster,’ said Nick, ‘this is Mary. Our grandmother.’ Smiling at Mary she continued, ‘And this is my youngest sister, Aster.’
Mary looked at the unsmiling girl and nodded her head.
‘It’s a strong family resemblance and you scowl like your great-grandmother.’
Aster decided to ignore the comparison. ‘So, you’re the woman that abandoned my father?’
Nick jumped in quickly ready to stop the building row in its tracks.
‘Mary didn’t abandon Da, Aster. He was taken from her whilst she was at work. She spent the rest of her life looking for him.’
‘She didn’t find him though, did she?’ Staring hard at Mary she ignored the pain in her eyes and turned to Nick. ‘Come on, I’ve set up in the sitting room.’ She began to walk towards the house, but Nick was furious.
‘No. You can bloody well apologise to Mary.’
‘For saying the truth?’
‘For being rude.’
‘Oh, and manners are more important than family, are they?’
‘She is family.’
‘In blood only.’
‘It’s all we’ve got!’
The two sisters were now roaring at each other and Ohana was cowering behind Mary’s ankles .
‘Enough, or I’ll bang your heads together.’ Both girls fell silent, startled by the expression that their father always used to break up a fight. ‘Letta, you have had a while to get to know me, and you went to Ireland and saw where your father grew up. Aster has had none of that. Her reaction is hardly surprising given what you girls went through. She was only ten when she lost her parents. She’s bound to be more sensitive than you are about it. Now take Ohana, you’ve scared her.’ She then looked at Aster. ‘This is a shock, I know. And it is for me as well. You may not like me or the situation and that is your right. I hope that we get to know each other but for now I’ll keep out of your hair.’
Turning, she walked back off towards the woods.
‘That was bloody rude of you.’
‘So what?’ Aster looked curiously after her grandmother’s retreating back then shrugged her shoulders. ‘Right, tell me the dates you apparently tampered with your files.’
Nick narrowed her eyes – there was no point in continuing the discussion with Aster. She had clearly dismissed the issue of Mary for now and wanted to crack on with Nick’s problem.
‘First off, I’m having a shower, I’m sweaty after my ride plus I want to calm down.’
‘Calm down?’
‘Over how you treated Mary.’
Aster rolled her eyes. ‘Are you still going on about that?’
‘It was a minute ago and she’s been my guest these past few weeks. ’
Aster’s eyes narrowed and her mouth dropped into a flat line. ‘Are you choosing her over me?’
‘Jesus, Aster. I’m not choosing anyone. And if I did, it would always be you. But she is an old woman who has had a sodding hard life. She had her child stolen from her and when she was finally reunited with her family, she discovered the child that she has been searching for all her life died over a decade ago. For once in your life, try to see it from the other side.’
With that, she headed off to have a shower, shouting out the dates in question back to her hostile little sister.
***
When Nick came back downstairs, she found Aster tapping away at a laptop and scribbling on a notepad. A full cup of tea was to one side.
‘Your tea’s going cold.’
Aster looked up at her and blew her cheeks out. She was about to speak then, thinking better of it, returned to the screen.
‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’
Aster nodded and carried on typing.
Nick picked up the cup and walked into the kitchen where Mary was reading a book.
‘Did I make it wrong?’
Nick sighed – how to explain her sister?
‘Aster’s really protective and cautious. She won’t accept anything from anyone until she is completely happy about the exchange of obligations. It’s a bit difficult to explain. ’
Mary smiled. ‘Not difficult at all. Incredibly old-fashioned – I mean positively medieval – but I know where she’s coming from. It’s a trust thing.’
‘Yes! It is about trust. When you’re in you’re in, but until then…’ Nick trailed off. ‘If it helps, Ari was married to her first husband for three years; Aster never once accepted a thing from him.’
‘He’s the one that drowned?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, let’s hope she comes to accept me before I die.’ Mary took a sip from her own tea. ‘Tell me, your other sisters? Do you think they will react the same way?’
Nick was cross all over again at Aster.
‘Absolutely not. Aster was always going to be the tricky one. Clem is likely to try and track your parents down and shout at their graves. Paddy will weep a lot and hug you until you can’t bear it and Ari will find you something to do.’
Mary smiled. ‘I look forward to meeting them. In the meantime, go and help your little sister and I’ll cook dinner.’
Nick walked back into the sitting room where Aster was leaning back in her chair smiling at the screen. As Nick walked in she smiled up at her.
‘You’re in the clear.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Yes. I’ve just checked the back-ups and they show a different pattern of trading. Quite frankly, I don’t know why you haven’t already done this? Unless there’s something more? ’
‘What?’ Nick stepped forward to look at the screen. ‘The back-ups are the problem. They prove I’ve allegedly been fiddling the system.’
‘Yes, those back-ups do, but I also installed a redundant back-up. It goes to a non-writable file, more like just taking a picture of what happened each day. The critical thing is it can’t be altered. I thought it would be good for you to have some sort of permanent record in case of a catastrophic failure of your database.’
Nick stared at Aster in astonishment. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘I did. You asked me to run over your computer network and make sure it was stable and secure.’
‘But you didn’t mention a back-up of the back-up!’
‘Of course I did. Maybe you misheard me? Anyway, that’s not important right now, what is important is that it is a solid piece of evidence.’ Aster smiled at Nick. ‘Especially in light of the other back-up.’
‘Are you sure? My solicitor felt my handwritten accounts from the time were borderline.’
‘Understandable – you could have written a false account as an insurance plan, but these files show the actual transactions, how the money was moved, where the money came from and where it went. And each transaction is at odds with the “official” record that the FCA have. What I have here shows what actually happened on the day and can’t have been tampered with. This totally exonerates you.’
Nick slumped down on the sofa in relief. ‘Christ, you have no idea how good it is to hear that.’ She fell silent – the news was almost too momentous to comprehend. She knew better than to celebrate just yet, she wouldn’t do that until the FCA dismissed all charges but finally, she had hope that that would happen. Realising that Aster hadn’t said anything more she looked at her sister who was still working on the laptop.
‘What are you doing? You’ve found the evidence, what more is there?’
Aster frowned at Nick. ‘You’re not normally stupid, what’s wrong with you?’
‘What? I’m innocent, you’ve found the evidence.’
Aster signed and stopped typing. ‘Of course you are innocent. That has never been in doubt but the fact that this anomaly occurred is suspicious and now that I’m looking at the two files it’s really clear to me. This isn’t a mistake. This was a deliberate act perpetrated over several weeks at least.’ Aster paused and looked as angry as Nick had seen in a long time.
‘Nicoletta, you’ve been framed.’