Errors of Judgment(37)

‘What about the wedding?’

‘The wedding? I don’t see how that’s affected. Dad mentioned something about footing the bill for the drink, but I always assumed your old man would be good for the rest. Isn’t that what happens? Father of the bride shells out?’

‘Things are done a bit differently these days, Toby, in case you hadn’t noticed. People usually pay a bit towards the cost of their own weddings. Frankly, I don’t know if my father can afford what we had in mind. The marquee, two hundred guests, outside catering. I thought you and I would be meeting some of the cost.’

Toby looked doubtful. ‘Might have to scale back a bit, in that case. We should have a word with your father. We’ll be seeing him next Friday at his champagne and hotpot party. My parents will be there, too.’

‘Oh God – I’d forgotten about the party. I’m not sure I feel like going now.’ When the Kitterings heard about Toby’s job, the emotional fallout would be awful. ‘Going to be a bit of a blow to your parents, their golden boy out of a job.’

Sarah caught the look of hurt bafflement on Toby’s face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘That wasn’t nice.’ She suddenly realised how conspicuously Toby’s job as an investment banker had figured in his appeal, in her plans for their future together. She had never, till this moment, deconstructed him, taken him apart piece by piece to work out who and what it was she loved. Recent events had begun to do it for her. Without his status, his work, he was like a different person. The whole situation required some careful thinking. She said gently, ‘I’m sure things will get better. The recession can’t last for ever.’

‘It’s got to get worse before it gets better.’ He put his hand over hers, his lost-puppy eyes searching her face. ‘But at least we’ve got one another. You make me feel like I can handle anything. Even poverty.’

‘What a sweet thing to say,’ murmured Sarah, thinking that had to be the ugliest, most frightening word she’d ever heard in her life.

It was well after nine when Leo got back to Chelsea. He parked the car not far from the house, switched off the engine, and sat for a few seconds watching clouds drifting across the moon through the bare branches of the tree in the square. The day had been long, the drive to Tilbury and back exhausting. What he needed now was a stiff drink and some supper. He glanced at the windows of his house and found himself wishing that they weren’t dark, the rooms empty of life, no one waiting for him. Strange. Until now he had always relished the peace of his contained world, welcomed the silence. He picked up his notes from the passenger seat. Well, at any rate, Oliver would be there tomorrow evening to liven it up with his prattle and toys. He got out and locked the car.

He was halfway across the road when a figure stepped out of the shadows and came towards him. He paused, startled. It wasn’t so long ago that a particularly unpleasant Ukrainian gangster had come to visit him here, and being accosted by someone lurking around the square was unnerving. Then he saw that it was a girl. Whoever she was and whatever she wanted, he thought wearily, he could do without it.

She stepped into the light of a street lamp, and he recognised her straight away. It was the girl who’d been in court during the Texmax hearing, and in the pub when he was having lunch with Anthony. She said nothing, just stood looking at him for several long seconds, and he had time to take in her features: the small, square face with its prettily defined cheekbones, the large blue eyes and the messy mane of honey-blonde hair. She had her hands deep in her pockets, her coat collar was turned up against the cold, and the tip of her nose was pink.

‘Hello,’ she said, still looking at him intently.

Leo nodded warily. ‘Hello.’

‘You’re Leo Davies.’

‘I am.’ He waited for a few seconds. ‘And you are?’

‘I’m Gabrielle,’ said the girl. She took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her breath was like smoke on the chilly night air. ‘I’m your daughter.’

For a split second Leo felt the bafflement of one who has just been told something patently absurd. But the automatic processes of thirty years of legal training kicked in, and against the evidence, he found himself weighing the possibility that what she had said was true. He had no way of knowing. Behind this flurry of rational mental activity he felt deeply shocked. He groped for something to say.

She helped him out. ‘Don’t you believe me?’ Her manner seemed composed, but her eyes, fastened on his, seemed to be brimming with some indefinable emotion – hope, perhaps even fear – that threatened to spill out and overwhelm her. A girl on the brink. Leo was used to knowing instinctively the right questions to ask, depending on the answer he sought, but in this non-courtroom situation, he wasn’t even sure what answer he wanted. ‘How do you know?’ was all he could find to say.