Confessions Page 11
She shook herself back to the sweet aroma of cocoa. Chantelle was holding out a mug of hot chocolate topped with a mountain of whipped cream and marshmallows.
‘Midweek treat,’ she said, licking a long talon which had changed shade since this morning.
‘Wow, thanks. It looks delicious.’
It clearly contained three weeks’ worth of calories, but Nat took it and shrugged; with her sudden taste for the local butcher’s pork pies, she was going to be enormous by the end of this secondment, but who bloody cared.
Chantelle watched her negotiate the fluffy candy and fail. Then she laughed and held out a teaspoon. ‘This might help.’
A sudden burst of sound from reception made her turn. ‘The old guys are having fun with Robbie,’ she explained. ‘They’ve worked out how to Google images of those busty film stars from the fifties. Ready for the next customer?’
‘Yes please.’
Wondering what the ‘old guys’ made of Savage Solicitors’ own busty film star, Nat watched her sashay to the door. A swell of laughter filtered through, then the words, ‘Rosalind Russell, now she was a stunner!’
The hum of conversation reminded her of the old days at Goldman Law. The fee earners had box rooms back then, but they’d gather for frequent chats between clients and cases. The current open-plan area seemed to have the opposite effect; other than whispering at the fee-earners’ bench, Nat had found an absence of laughter.
She snorted. It was probably why Goldman Law made reams of money and Savage Solicitors didn’t.
Nat stood at the sound of a rat-a-tat tap. The OAP was a man this time, looking dapper in a flat cap and cravat. He held out his hand. ‘Borys Gorski at your service.’
‘Hello. Please sit. Is it okay to call you Borys?’
Recognising his accent as Polish, she fleetingly wondered about her mum. What on earth did she do cooped up in the house all day?
Borys nodded and sat. ‘My son is a waster.’ That got her attention. ‘But I love him.’
‘Okay. How can Savage Solicitors help?’
‘Not a lot about his…’ He looked to the ceiling, apparently searching for the right word. ‘Idleness.’ He laughed easily. ‘I discover there is no cure for that.’ He took off his cap and flattened his thin white hair with an age-spotted hand. ‘But tell me, how can he owe double this week what he owed last week, and next week it will be double again, in three months he’ll be in debtor’s court? You get my drift.’
Nat didn’t really. ‘So, your son has money problems?’
‘He takes one loan and swaps. They are both still there. He’s a bloody fool.’ He spread his arms. ‘But I love him.’
‘Okay, let’s start at the beginning.’ Nat grabbed a biro. ‘Try to explain it one step at a time. So, what’s your son’s name?’
‘The waster is Michal,’ he started, then he launched into his animated story in Polish. Nat had dutifully learned the basics of the language as a child, but she was lost almost immediately.
She chewed the end of the pen, thought of her mum’s pale face, her refusal to leave the house, her loss of appetite… ‘Have you got twenty minutes to spare?’ she asked when Borys paused to take breath.
He stroked his neat moustache. ‘For you I have all the time. What do you wish?’
‘I have a translator who might be able to help with the lingo. She can be here in twenty minutes.’
He grinned. ‘Lingo, I understand. I will wait.’ He stood from the chair and made for the door. ‘I expect as pretty as you, though.’
Nat called Anna, but her excuses were immediate and inevitable: it was very kind of Nat to invite her, but she was in the middle of sorting whites for the washing machine; the cats needed feeding; the postman might call; she had a cold coming on.
‘This is business, Mum, not pleasure,’ Nat said steadily, trying to keep the exasperation from her voice. ‘I have to go now, but I’ll see you in twenty minutes. Thank you, Mum.’
Nat finished the call, sat back and thrummed her fingers on the desktop. Then a sharp stab of guilt hit her. So busy with the highs and lows of her own life, she’d forgotten to keep an eye on her mum, hadn’t she? The medics had warned them both about emotional changes and depression after a stroke, and not necessarily immediately. Oh God, she’d been a bad daughter; it was time to pay more attention.
Unable to settle, she stood at the window with mentally crossed fingers, hoping for a sighting of turquoise. But she needn’t have worried; her mum’s old Ford appeared in fifteen minutes; Anna Bach hated to be late for anything.
Nat rushed outside to greet her. ‘Thank you so much for coming, Mum.’ She kissed her cheek and stood back. Anna’s face was tense; it had been quite cruel dragging her from her comfort zone, but it was done now. ‘Come in and meet Borys; he seems a lovely man.’
The two Poles sat together in Gavin’s office and Nat watched, interested to see the interaction between her mother and a man. Anna had been a widow for fifteen years, and though she was now seventy-three, she didn’t look it; smaller than Nat, she was slim and neat, and her elfin-style haircut suited her petite face.
As she waited, Nat doodled: love hearts again. What was happening in Wes’s life? Had the boys been home? Did he still live with Sidney?
Had he seen the bloody Cling-on?
Didn’t he miss her at all?
Coming back to the Polish chatter, she smiled. The conversation didn’t appear to be strictly about business. Borys was stroking his moustache and her mum’s cheeks were pink. She didn’t want to spoil the fun, but time was ticking.
‘So?’ she asked, glancing from one to the other.
Borys held out a hand, inviting Anna to speak.
‘He says his son is a waster–’
‘Yup, got that.’
‘The son, he’s called Michal, got himself into financial trouble.’ Anna turned to Borys for confirmation. ‘He had several credit cards and a car loan. He lost his job and couldn’t afford to pay the monthly payments. Demand letters kept coming, and though he got different employment eventually, the debt got out of hand. Then he saw an advert about a debt management company.’
Aware of a tingling sensation at the back of her neck, Nat nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘They told Michal they would take on his loans and pay them off, then he would pay them at a much lower rate, one that was manageable.’ She looked at Nat and lifted her eyebrows. ‘But presumably for a much longer time. No one can make debts go away.’
‘That’s true. So…’
‘So Michal signed up for this “debt management plan”. For the last year he has been paying the agreed payments to the company, but somehow Borys has discovered that the car loan and the credit card debts are still current and earning interest, so instead of going down they’ve increased massively. It appears that he now has more arrears to pay off than when he started.’
Borys bowed and clapped. ‘Perfectly put as I wish. My son Michal doesn’t like opening letters. I go to fix his boiler and find a pile of post this big. His head is in the sand.’
Nat picked up her pen again. ‘And the name of this debt management company?’
Opening his smart jacket, Borys plucked out a stuffed wallet. He scattered scraps of paper, business cards, photographs and two fivers out on the desk.
‘Ha!’ he said eventually, finding the item he was looking for. He slipped the folded note towards Nat and she opened it. It was an advert from the free local newspaper.
She read it aloud: ‘Write off your debt! Complete protection from creditors! Low monthly payments! Stop interest and charges! Honest and free friendly advice.’
The familiar prickling was now stabbing her skin. ‘And all the other exclamation mark miracles, no doubt,’ she said dryly, reading on further. ‘Let’s see who the veritable saints are. Ah, here we go. DFL Debt Advisers.’ She nodded, unsurprised. Surely not a coincidence? DFL: those damned initials she’d seen before.
16
Favours
Perhaps she was barking up the wrong tree completely. She doubted it, though. The combination of the initials ‘DFL’ and ‘money’ could not be a coincidence. She groaned at the memory of last year’s Chinese walls. She didn’t want to dwell on the favours she’d done to keep the Goldman clan happy. The stack of secrets each of them had, which only she knew about, would come crashing down one day. She didn’t want to be around when it did, which was why she declined Jack’s frequent invitations to join the happy family for lunch or brunch or ‘supper’.
Nat snorted to herself. Suppose she had a psychotic moment and let out all the secrets over smoked trout and quail’s eggs? ‘Jack, you paid out a huge sum of money to protect Julian from a conviction of attempted murder, but he didn’t do it. Aisha did the dirty deed; it was she who ran over the debt “enforcer”. Catherine gave Aisha a false alibi because she felt guilty about lying; she’d told Julian you’d refused to help him out of his financial mess when you hadn’t. Which is why Julian had gone to a loan shark in the first place.’
She’d prefer to consign the whole episode to history, but unfortunately she couldn’t. Not the loan shark part at least; her mum’s new number one fan Borys Gorski had made it topical.
Anger rose from her toes to her cheeks. The bloody Levenshulme Mafia; she’d only been thinking about them yesterday when sweeping up cat litter. Pretty apt, really. Frank Foster and his sister Danielle were indeed shits. Nat had acted for their estate agency’s ‘needs’ over time. She’d done her best, of course, but had always felt grubby. Then last year she’d discovered Julian’s ‘problematic’ loan was made by DFL Financial Services Ltd, a company owned by Frank, Danielle and her son Lewis Foster. An old school pal of Julian’s, Lewis appeared to be a reputable, upmarket financial adviser with glossy offices in Wilmslow, but underneath he was a loan shark. Like his mum and uncle, he was a money-grabbing, heartless crook.
Going back to Smooth Radio, Nat sang ‘Freedom’ along with George Michael as she neared her destination. How satisfying would it feel to play even the smallest part in the Foster family’s downfall? It would never happen, though. Apart from Danielle’s amazing ability to manipulate and charm the pants off the hardest candidate, Goldman Law had been her solicitors for years. She was protected by that old chestnut of legal professional privilege. While Nat suspected there were plenty of communications between Danielle and Jack which were of an ‘iniquitous nature’, and thereby grounds to waive the confidentiality, they would be pretty damn hard to prove.
The main obstacle to any justice was flaming Jack Goldman himself. He, Danielle and Frank Foster had agreed the financial deal to keep Julian out of prison. Nat didn’t want to contemplate what legal and ethical crimes her old boss had committed. If everything went pear-shaped, he would be behind bars himself.
So, all in all, Nat had to stay shtum about anything remotely related to the Levenshulme Mafia. Gavin Savage of Savage Solicitors, though… Well, that was a whole new ball game. Trouble was that Gavin had much more important things on his mind.
Indicating left, Nat took the slip road for the motorway services. What the hell was she doing? The last time she’d tried a mini-mediation, it had most definitely gone pear-shaped. But then again, she’d been dealing with Jack and his son, two of the most stubborn and proud people she’d come across since… well, since her dad. It had all come good in the end, however, albeit with a whole street of Chinese walls.
She parked up the car and looked at her watch. Too early, so what now? To say she was nervous was an understatement. A flaming mediation. Not one between JP and Harrow, which might have done some good, but between JP and Issa. When Nat had suggested it as a possible way of resolution last Sunday, she hadn’t for a moment expected a call from Issa asking her to be the piggy in the middle.
‘I’ve had a long think, Nat,’ she’d said last night. ‘I think the mediation idea is a good one.’
‘So you’re going to tell your parents about the allegations?’
‘God no. Just one between me and JP. And I’d like you to be… well, the mediator, I suppose.’
Nat had been temporarily stuck for words. When she found them, she tried to explain that she was no expert, and as a friend of the family she was far from independent. Besides, she wasn’t sure what either of them hoped to gain from a mediation without Harrow’s participation.
But Issa had begged. ‘Please, Nat. JP needs to talk and I haven’t been able to listen. I could do it if you were there. Please, it’s worth a try, surely? If JP can let it all out, we might nip it in the bud before Harrow has to know.’
Now tapping the steering wheel, Nat sighed. ‘Nipping in the bud’ was, she suspected, a tad optimistic. And her stomach was churning with both hunger and nerves. She glanced at the M&S Local. Her mum had become super-efficient with online grocery shopping, reordering her ‘favourites’ without having a quick scoot for goodies or bargains. No wonder Nat had taken to Chantelle’s treats with such relish.
Should she be tempted? Even when they’d done the supermarket shop in a store, Anna put just one BOGOF item in the trolley on the basis of ‘need’. So Nat had to discreetly slip in the second, along with something sweet. Sure, her mum baked various Polish delicacies, but there was nothing like mass-made saturated fat products. She missed a sneaky Battenberg behind her mum’s back! There was also the pork pie phase; she was over it now; she needed a change.
Having overspent on Percy Pigs, teacakes, Kettle crisps and two-for-a-fiver tubs of Rocky Road (yup, marshmallow again), Nat slung the carrier in the boot and sighed. No more procrastinating; it was time to face the music. She understood why Issa had covered her ears and refused to ‘listen’ so far; she thought her confession touchingly honest and her willingness to do something about it brave. But she wasn’t at all sure about the meeting today; she was all for communication, but she had a horrible feeling it might do more harm than good.
She made her way to the café area, sat at a corner table and pulled out her mobile. Though the habit of holding her breath whenever she checked for messages was now ingrained, the anxiety had lessened. Another week had passed and Ruthie was steadily improving, thank God. As for Wes, she didn’t expect to hear from him any more. Polar opposite to her need to pelt her angst and anger out, he was from the ‘least said, soonest mended’ style of intercourse, and she had gone too far. But then so had he. They’d both breached the Queensberry Rules; she couldn’t see a way back.
Tapping her nails on the Formica, she glanced around. Issa had suggested here because it was generally empty midweek and she was right. Only one other couple were there, huddled over a plate of spicy wedges. Were they lovers? She and Wes had intended to share chips the night their affair began, but she’d chosen gravy and he curry sauce. Potato and potato. Perhaps their relationship had floundered even then.
At the sound of voices, she turned her head. A man resembling a middle-aged rocker appeared, holding Issa’s hand. Sporting long hair and wire-framed tinted glasses, he wasn’t what she had expected. Not a Jose clone after all. Externally, at least.
Trying to look confident, she stood on jelly legs and thrust out her hand. ‘Hello. I’m Natalie Bach. John Paul, I assume?’ After a pulse the man accepted it, but didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘Drinks before we begin anyone?’ she asked, suddenly realising her throat was sawdust-dry.
‘No thanks, we’re fine,’ Issa replied.
‘Right-oh.’ Bloody hell, there
was no option but to start. ‘Thank you both for coming. If you’d like to take a seat either side, and I’ll sit at this end…’
She took a deep breath when they’d settled. ‘You’ve both come here voluntarily, so that’s great. Maybe some ground rules?’ There were no directives for this situation; she’d have to make them up as she went. ‘Everything you say will be kept confidential, both by me and each other. This is an opportunity to say what has happened in the past, where you are now, and how you’d like things to be in the future. While my role here today is independent and I won’t be partial or take sides, strictly speaking I’m–’
‘I know. You were Jose’s partner. That’s fine.’
Nat paused for a moment. Interesting; not ‘girlfriend’, but Jose’s partner. She shook herself back to JP’s intent gaze.
‘Great, thanks, JP. There’s a possibility that either or both of you will get upset and that’s fine. If you need a break or time out, just say so. But no shouting or swearing, please. Try to stay calm. Okay? Now each of you has five minutes uninterrupted time…’
She continued through the spiel. Would she be more successful than the last time? Julian had taken seven long minutes to say his piece, and in fairness Jack hadn’t cut in, but when it was his turn to speak, Jack had immediately stood, pointing and aggressive. It hadn’t ended well.
‘So who would like to speak first?’ she now finished.
‘Issa, you go first,’ JP said. He had a rich Welsh voice, but the tremor was clear.
Issa looked down at her knees. ‘There isn’t a lot to say, JP. I want us to be happy with Carlos. I want this dreadful trauma to go away. I love you; I love Harrow.’
Nat nodded and waited for more, but there it was in a nutshell; Issa wanted the pain to disappear. ‘Your turn, JP.’