11
Lyssa took the train to Gloucester, telling herself that it was only because she’d done a lot of driving recently, and she really didn’t like it very much, and that it had nothing at all to do with her fear that she might just see the same nondescript car following her again.
But she knew she was lying to herself.
Ever since she’d heard about Justin Tillman’s fall, she had been unable to shake off the feeling that everything was connected somehow.
And no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, a little voice in the back of her head kept insisting that something dangerous was happening to her. Or around her. Or both.
The taxi driver knew the way to Jonas Bannister’s company, which was in the middle of the city in a rather grand-looking Cotswold-stone building.
Since she’d been half expecting that his offices would be situated on the outskirts in some sort of anonymous industrial complex, she was pleasantly surprised when she arrived, and hoped that being in a new city and in such interesting surroundings would help her shake off her bout of the jitters.
Up in his office, Ian Gorman was informed that Mrs Moore had arrived for her appointment, thanked the receptionist politely and left his desk.
He’d asked to be notified the moment of her arrival, and now he was careful to take the back stairs, so that there was no chance he might inadvertently cross paths with her.
Once downstairs, he walked to where his car was parked.
Inside it, two men were waiting, one behind the wheel whilst the other was sitting in the back.
Ian joined the man in the back as, without prompting, the driver pulled away and headed out of town.
There was no need for Ian to give him directions – he already knew they were heading to Oxford.
Jonas’ security chief glanced at his fellow passenger. ‘You have all that you need?’ he asked crisply.
‘Yes, boss.’
‘You know the brief?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘It should be a simple enough job,’ Ian said, more to himself than his companion. ‘There’s nothing really fancy involved. Just get in, do the business and get out again and make sure that you’re not seen.’
‘No worries and I’ve got all that I need right here,’ the other man assured him, patting a small flat briefcase that was set across his lap. He was dressed in a business suit and looked rather young. There was nothing about him that would make any casual observer look twice.
Ian nodded and glanced at his watch. Right about now, the Moore woman should be entering Jonas’ office, and his employer was all set to keep her talking for as long as he could.
Which meant that they would have plenty of time.
Lyssa took the comfortable-looking seat opposite Jonas Bannister’s large desk and got out her notebook and recorder. She went through the usual routine of asking him if he minded being recorded, and after an initial hesitation, he said that he didn’t.
Although he was middle-aged and only Glen Bannister’s nephew, Lyssa thought that she could see a distinct family resemblance. But then, Lyssa had spent so much time recently looking at images of Glen and Monty – ‘the golden couple’ – that they had become almost imprinted on her mind.
‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to me, Mr Bannister. I appreciate you taking the time.’ She glanced around the office.
‘You must be very proud of what you do here. Green energy, trying to help save the planet and all that. Talking about long-dead people from a bygone era must seem rather unimportant.’
She was soft-soaping him a little, but it never hurt to put your subject at ease. Besides, she meant what she said; their poor planet needed all the help everyone could give it.
Jonas waved a hand in a dismissive gesture and gave her a brief smile. ‘Not at all. I know my father and grandparents were very proud of Glen and what he achieved. It seems the least I can do is to participate in any book that includes him and the musical legacy he left behind.’
‘Your father was Glen’s younger brother, am I right?
’ Lyssa asked. Although she already knew that he was, and had memorised all the relevant facts that she might need earlier this morning, she had often found that it helped put people at their ease if you appealed for their help right from the start.
It served to break down any psychological barriers that might be up and paved the way towards setting up a sense of mutual cooperation between them.
‘Yes, that’s right. My father was only twenty-one when Uncle Glen died,’ Jonas agreed.
‘Glen dying so unexpectedly as he did must have been a massive shock to his family. His mother and father especially?’
‘Oh yes, it was. Dad said he could remember Nan crying for days on end. It didn’t help that they had the press camped on their doorstep either.
He couldn’t go to work without someone snapping his picture.
Luckily it didn’t last all that long though.
After Uncle Glen’s funeral they eventually found someone else to pester. ’
Mindful of his security chief’s instructions to make the interview a long one, Jonas settled back in his chair, content to talk as much as the woman wanted. He’d just have to be careful not to let anything truly important slip, that was all.
‘Yes – even reading the newspaper articles from the distance of all these years, I could still get a sense of how frenzied it must all have been and felt. But the press seemed to reserve most of their vitriol for Amelia Montrose.’
‘Yes, I suppose they did,’ Jonas conceded.
‘She was probably too much of a good thing for them to pass up. Beautiful, wild, grieving, a lot of people were fascinated by her, Dad said. And you know human nature – it seems if you have even the least bit of success, everybody can’t wait to tear you down. I suppose she was a sitting duck.’
‘And the unpleasantness about your uncle’s Will couldn’t have helped,’ she slipped in gently. She’d known all along this would be a sore point, and she felt a little tense as she waited to see how he’d react to the implied criticism of his family.
But Jonas merely shrugged and spread his hands.
‘Yes – it all got rather bitter and legally technical. My father said that he could remember himself, Grandad, Nan and my uncle Malcolm all sitting in the front room with these men in suits, talking about courts and injunctions and fees and things. It must have been bewildering for everyone. They were just ordinary working-class people before Glen made it big, living in a housing estate, and going through the same routine every day. Eat, sleep, work, repeat and all that. Up until then, they’d never had any reason to have anything to do with weighty legal matters and handling the press and what have you. ’
‘No, I can imagine it must have been very hard for them. Who was it, do you know, who decided to challenge your uncle’s Will in the court?’
‘Oh, Grandad to begin with, but Nan agreed with him. Dad always said that it just didn’t seem right, you see, for Glen’s money to go away from his family – his own flesh and blood – to some woman he’d just been shacked up with for a few years.
Besides, they all needed it, you see, whereas Amelia Montrose was filthy rich already.
Her dad owned half a county or something, and she’d been brought up in this big stately home and spoke as if she had a plum in her mouth and drove a flash sports car and all that. Whereas they had nothing.’
His tone seemed mild enough, and didn’t appear to hold any sense of injustice, but then this man hadn’t been born when all this was happening, so there was no reason why it should have affected him overly much.
Or had the fury and the bitterness of the earlier generation been passed down?
‘By the time you were born and had grown up enough to understand about the things that had happened, it must have seemed to you to be all rather irrelevant, I imagine?’ she asked artlessly.
‘Not really,’ Jonas contradicted her, after a moment’s thought.
‘You have to remember that I’d grown up with the legend of it, if you see what I mean.
My grandparents lived to a good age and talked about it a lot, and my dad made no secret of what had gone on.
He remembered how gutted he was when Glen died, and often spoke of him,’ Jonas said sadly.
‘His big brother was a bit of an idol of his, I suppose.’
‘A bit of hero-worship going on?’
‘Yes – maybe. My dad was a handsome man in his own right, but there’s no doubt that Uncle Glen had been really striking, and what’s more, the one with all the talent.
He was the one who became famous and had all the young girls screaming at him on stage.
He made the money that allowed them all to get free of the slums and the humdrum existence of holding down dreary jobs; jobs that paid enough to cover the rent and buy food and clothes, but none of the little luxuries and extras that made life worth living. ’
‘No wonder your dad looked up to him.’
Jonas nodded. ‘Yes. He often talked, for instance, of the day when Glen bought Nan and Grandad the nice house in the suburbs. How chuffed they were to have an indoor loo, and not one out in the back passage next to the coal hole, which froze over in winter! He bought a car for my dad too, and one for Uncle Malcolm. I remember seeing a photo of my dad with this car – a Riley, I think it was. His first car – he looked as proud as a peacock, posing in front of it. As well he might – none of the kids he’d grown up with on the estate or gone to school with could afford a car.
They had to still get around on bikes or take the bus. ’
‘He sounds like a great big brother to have had. I don’t suppose you have any family photographs of all the brothers together?
’ she asked casually, wondering if Janet Connor might be able, after all this time, to pick out the man she’d seen arguing with Deborah Simmonds on the day of Monty’s funeral.