The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [73]
“How do you think I made this garden grow?”
Elizabeth wants to smile but can’t make her face move. Hugging her father, she clutches him a little too tightly. Bach untangles himself.
“You haven’t heard from him?”
“No.”
She averts her eyes, determined not to cry. “The garden is looking good.”
Bach knows that she’s changing the subject. “My trailing violas are being eaten. Your stepmother won’t let me use insecticide. Everything has to be organic. You should see what she makes me eat.”
“You’ll live longer.”
“It feels like it.”
He’s doing this for Elizabeth’s benefit; pretending to be henpecked and harried. It’s a little boy’s plea for reassurance. She won’t give him the satisfaction.
Alistair Bach acts like an everyman but belongs to the truly wealthy. He has a beach house in Florida, a chalet in St. Moritz and a hunting lodge near Aberdeen as well as the house in Hampstead. It’s a far cry from his childhood when he grew up in a two-up-two-down in Liverpool, the son of a boilermaker and a seamstress, one of eight children, Catholics. He joined Mersey Fidelity straight out of school and in spite of having no banking qualifications rose to become chairman. One of his first decisions was to move the bank’s headquarters from Merseyside to the City of London. Since then he’s only been back to Liverpool a handful of times. Some working-class people are proud of their humble roots. Bach is proud of the climb.
“I’ll defend Scousers,” he once told Elizabeth. “I’ll support their football teams and I’ll give money to their charities, but don’t ask me to live with them.”
Elizabeth turns to gaze at the house. She can see her old bedroom on the second floor, the window surrounded by ivy. This is where she grew up, surrounded by bankers, financiers and money people.
Bach pulls off his gloves, flexing his hands as though fighting arthritis.
“Come inside. Let’s have a cup of tea.”
They leave Rowan running around the garden, chasing an overweight Labrador called Sally, who is the latest in a long line of “Sallys”—each one related to the one before. The Bachs keep everything in the family.
Elizabeth’s stepmother is in the kitchen talking to a tradesman on the phone. Wearing gym leggings and a tracksuit top, Jacinta is thirty years younger than Elizabeth’s father, with well-cut white blonde hair and breasts that cost as much as a small car. She gives Elizabeth a little wave but nothing shows in her eyes. It’s different when she smiles at Bach, who she treats like a sex god. All praise to the properties of Viagra.
Bach begins opening cupboards and drawers looking for the teabags. “You really don’t have to bother, Daddy.”
“Nonsense. I could use a cup.”
He calls out to Jacinta. “Have you seen the teabags?”
She goes straight to the correct cupboard without interrupting her conversation. Then she smiles at him with such total and unprompted love that it’s like a fourth person has walked into the room.
Bach continues talking to Elizabeth. “What do the police say?”
“They think he’s run off.”
“Who’s handling the case?”
“A Detective Constable Carter.”
“A constable! Sounds as if they’re not taking this seriously. I’ll make a few calls. Get them to re-prioritize.”
That’s how her father talks. It can be like listening to a management seminar.
“Have you talked to Mitchell?”
“He says North was leaking information to a journalist.”
Bach blows out his cheeks. “I don’t believe it for a minute.”
Elizabeth runs her finger along the curve of the sink.
“He’s more worried about the bank than about North.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“I was escorted from the building.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
Elizabeth turns away. On the opposite side of the lawn, past the pond, over the sandstone wall that surrounds the gardens, she can see the treetops of Hampstead Heath, an ocean of greenery in a broken landscape of rooftops, chimney pots, TV aerials and satellite dishes.
“You should come and stay with us—just until North shows up,” says Bach.
Elizabeth turns and sneaks a glance through to the sunroom where Jacinta is still on the phone.