Bobby's Girl Read online

  Bobby’s Girl

  CATRIN COLLIER

  For my beautiful new American daughter-in-law Qita Iseley Watkins.

  Welcome to the family.

  Ross is a very lucky man.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CAPE COD STANDARD

  MONDAY, 2ND SEPT 1968

  In the early hours of Sunday morning a custom-built, imported, European automobile left the approach road to the Brosna Estate, crashed and burst into flames. At the time of going to press a spokesman at the local hospital refused to comment on the condition of the passengers or confirm the driver had been fatally injured.

  Eyewitnesses reported seeing the vehicle, with four people inside, being driven erratically before the incident. The vehicle is registered to Robert ‘Bobby’ Brosna, heir to the multimillion-dollar Brosna Empire. Rumours he was at the wheel remain unconfirmed.

  Hyannisport Cape Cod, May 1987

  The press cutting was yellowed by age and spotted with brown blotches. Robert Brosna closed the scrapbook and opened the desk drawer intending to replace it. A photograph frame lay face down in the bottom. He picked it up and turned it over. Two young men wearing white shorts and two young girls in bikinis stood on the deck of a custom-built wooden 1930s’ schooner. The name was painted on the side. The Day Dream.

  Images, real and tangible, flooded his mind carrying with them a rush of scents and sounds. He heard the cry of the gulls circling overhead, smelt the salt tang of the sea softened by the heady orange-based perfume both girls had worn. ‘We share everything – life’s cheaper that way.’

  He recalled the way heads had turned their way in the marina, to look at the girls. Both slim, long-legged and beautiful in the way only the young can be. Their bodies firm, smooth, displayed to male heart-stopping effect in tiny black and white geometric-designed scraps of cloth. Neither had needed their British accent to attract attention. Their swimsuits had been enough. Penny’s black circles on a white background, Kate’s white squares on a black background, so Carnaby Street – or so they’d assured him; bought on a shopping splurge funded by an unexpected windfall.

  And now – so passé. What had been stylish two decades ago belonged in a ragbag. He wished he could relegate his memories into a trunk of obscurity like discarded clothes.

  Penny’s auburn hair fell in a curtain to her elbows. The fringe that covered her forehead was thick, heavy, the eyes beneath it sparkling, tawny brown. One of the waiters at the restaurant where they’d both worked had described them as ‘come to bed eyes’. He’d been punched for saying it. Kate’s blonde hair was cropped in an urchin cut. Her eyes were the softest of light greys; Penny had called them ‘dreamer’s eyes’.

  He prised the back from the frame and removed the picture. The frame had hidden an inscription, scribbled carelessly in the right-hand corner in a heartbreakingly familiar hand.

  Bobby, Sandy and their girls, August 1968.

  He ran his fingers over the outlines of the four people in the group. Had this really been him? Had he ever been that good-looking?

  Nineteen lonely, pain-ridden years had failed to help him overcome the tragedy of the night that had ended that summer. The passage of time had done little to heal his physical injuries and nothing to soothe his emotional wounds. Four lives ruined and still the repercussions echoed, damning, damaging and destructive.

  He binned the frame, slid the photograph into the scrapbook, dropped it into the drawer and closed it. Leaning heavily on his stick he limped to his chair.

  It was angled to receive the warmth of the log fire that burnt in the hearth, or more accurately the warmth his Irish wolfhound Czar allowed him to receive. A whisky glass stood on the table at his elbow, his favourite guitar music played softly in the background; a file of Brosna Enterprises financial year-end accounts awaited his attention. And, when he was finished with business, a new thriller by an author he admired had been delivered that morning.

  His house was his universe. He’d lived out every moment of the last nineteen years that he hadn’t been forced to spend in hospital behind its mirrored glass windows. He could see out, no one could see in. The manufacturer’s assurance that not even the sophisticated camera lenses of the most persistent paparazzi could penetrate the glazing had proved correct. Either that or the threat of litigation had deterred photographers from trying.

  The house held memories. Happy ones he occasionally succeeded in recalling. He had learnt to take pleasure in solitary occupations: music, books, films, good food, wine. He indulged himself, furnished the house with the luxuries that came with wealth. He had everything a man could want. Except human warmth, companionship and …

  The past burnt again as hot and horrific as the fire that had scorched and scarred his body. The cruellest words in the English language – ‘if only’.

  ‘If only’ he could turn back the clock to the early evening of that September night. ‘If only’ they hadn’t quarrelled. ‘If only’ they hadn’t all climbed into the car. How different would their lives have been?

  He left his chair and paced to the window. There were no curtains. They would have been superfluous as no one could see in. Lights shone from the veranda of the main house. Above and behind them every lamp in every room of the mansion that faced the sea was switched on – except one. And that one emitted an eerie, cold, blue-tinged glow. He stared at the telephone.

  ‘How much longer can a hundred-and-four-year-old woman with pneumonia and kidney cancer hold out?’

  He realised he’d spoken aloud when Czar opened one eye and looked at him.

  ‘Sorry, boy.’ He stood next to the dog and scratched his ear gently with his stick. ‘I’m on edge.’

  The dog grunted, closed his eyes and rolled over to toast his other side before the fire.

  Robert glanced at the file that held the account statements. Charlotte Brosna’s hectoring voice lectured in his mind.

  ‘Duty before pleasure, boy – always.’

  The first Robert Brosna had made money. The second had partied most of it away before marrying Charlotte. She’d salvaged what she could to create Brosna Enterprises. One of the many things he’d learnt since he’d taken control from her was he couldn’t afford to relax his vigilance for an instant. Not if the Brosna Empire was to continue to thrive under his direction as it had done when she’d been at the helm.

  He returned to his chair, sipped his whisky, took a calculator from his pocket and opened the file. He hadn’t finished inputting t
he first figure when the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver before it rang a second time.

  One of his grandmother’s many Hispanic maids whispered down the line. ‘Miss Buttons asked me to call you, sir. Mrs Brosna is asking for you. The doctor says it’s very close and—’

  Robert cut her short. ‘Thank you.’ He ended the call then rang an internal number. ‘Tim, can you bring the car around right away?’

  ‘I’ll be with you in a few minutes, sir.’ Tim was the one who’d suggested the use of the ‘sir’ because it didn’t raise eyebrows on the rare occasions Robert ventured out in public.

  Robert took a white silk hood from his pocket and slipped it on. Apart from holes for his eyes and mouth, it covered his head and neck. He heard the car arrive when he was putting on his hat and jacket. Although the sun had set hours ago, out of habit he pulled his hat low on his forehead before picking up his walking stick and leaving the house. He locked the door and clambered into the back of the car. Tim drove to the main house in silence.

  ‘There’s no need to wait, Tim. I’ll ring when I want you.’

  ‘No trouble. I’ll be in the kitchen.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Robert went into the mansion. Leaning on the banister he climbed the stairs slowly and awkwardly. He tapped the door of his grandmother’s suite before entering. The enormous room that had served as Charlotte Brosna’s study and sitting room for over eighty years looked as though it had been cleared in preparation for a realtor’s valuation. He had never seen it as devoid of her personal possessions, not even when she’d been travelling to or from one of the other Brosna houses.

  The polished leather top of Charlotte’s eighteenth-century mahogany desk was bare. The table beneath the window had been swept clear of silver-framed photographs. There was no sign of Charlotte’s eighteenth-century French porcelain clock and ornaments. Considering their value, he trusted they’d been carefully packed away.

  Charlotte Brosna had made preparations for leaving life as meticulously as she’d prepared for every other journey she’d taken.

  The door to her bedroom was ajar. Robert looked inside. The main lights were switched off, the stained-glass sidelights shaded by silk scarves, which explained the muted glow. The doors to the second-floor veranda were open and the white muslin drapes moved delicately, twin pale translucent ghosts in the sea breeze.

  The nurse and doctor stood side by side at the foot of the bed. Charlotte’s housekeeper, Harriet Buttons, sat in a chair drawn close, but not too close to the bed. Harriet’s hand lay beside her employer’s on the lace bedspread but they did not touch and Robert realised, even now, the housekeeper lacked the courage to offer physical comfort to her employer.

  ‘Your grandson has arrived, Mrs Brosna.’ Harriet’s voice was thick, clotted with unshed tears.

  ‘Perhaps now you’ll finally allow me to give you a shot of morphine, Mrs Brosna.’ The doctor didn’t attempt to conceal his irritation.

  Charlotte opened one eye and glared at him. ‘You never could understand the word “no”, James. It’s a blessing at my age to feel something, even pain. Get out, all of you. I want to speak to my grandson.’ Her voice wavered but it was stronger than Robert had heard it for some time.

  The doctor and nurse left the room. Harriet followed and closed the door softly behind them.

  ‘The file. Bureau, top drawer. Get it. We’re alone, so take off that damned hood.’

  Robert unmasked and returned the hood to his pocket. He caught sight of himself in the mirror above the dresser and turned aside quickly. He needed no reminder that he was monstrously scarred, or that his lips, nose and ears were unnatural appendages to what was left of his face. His skin was thick, blotched and reddened by numerous transplants, some of which had ‘taken’ better than others. Only his eyes remained unblemished. Blue crystals in the shadowy gloom.

  He went to the bureau, glad of an excuse to move away from his grandmother. Charlotte had been old ever since he could remember. Her skin hung loose in folds around her neck like a ragged sail on a ship in a breaker’s yard. Her thin, bloodless lips were pulled back, exposing teeth that appeared too large for her mouth and her white hair hung loose, fanning out on the pillow behind her head. But her eyes still had the power to intimidate. Even now, visiting her deathbed, he was finding it difficult to imagine them permanently dimmed.

  He picked up the file and stared at the photograph pasted on the outside.

  ‘Surprised?’ she muttered when he returned to her bedside. ‘I paid your detective to duplicate his reports. It’s all there. The complete history of the heir to the Brosna Empire. Don’t try to contest my will …’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Not so quick. You don’t know what’s in it.’

  ‘I’ve never asked you for anything.’ He was bitter.

  ‘Your fine feelings didn’t stop you from taking what I offered.’

  ‘Damn you …’

  ‘My grandson,’ she mocked. ‘Who doesn’t flinch from cursing an old woman on her deathbed.’

  ‘I am what you made me.’

  She moved her arm as though she wanted to wave him away. But the effort sapped her remaining strength. Silence reigned in the room for five long minutes while she fought to remain conscious.

  ‘My will,’ she wheezed. ‘The lawyers assure me it’s litigation-proof. You’ll have two million dollars, your house and annuity for your lifetime and the use of all the Brosna assets, including the houses, cars, yachts and jet. But you cannot dispose of anything because the entire estate … all the companies, money and assets …’ Charlotte laboured to draw breath. ‘It goes to him.’ She pointed to the file. ‘Robert Brosna the Fifth. The lawyers will inform him after my funeral. If you want to tell him before …’ Her voice faded.

  ‘His name is Andrew John not Robert Brosna,’ Robert contradicted.

  ‘The photograph. He’s a Brosna …’

  ‘If you read my detective’s reports you’ll know Andrew wants to be a doctor. He could refuse the inheritance.’

  ‘He won’t. Business is in Brosna blood. It will out in him as it did in you.’ She closed her claw-like hand over his. ‘Robert Brosna the Fifth. My great-grandson. You’ll guide him, help him … Promise …’

  ‘I promise I’ll try to see him. Nothing more. There’s Penny—’

  ‘Stupid girl! How dare she refuse me! How dare she—’ Charlotte shuddered and cried out. Her fingernails, horn-like, yellow, dug painfully into his wrist.

  ‘Doctor!’ Robert shouted.

  Charlotte’s piercing screech deepened to a guttural rattle.

  ‘Doctor!’ Robert failed to free his arm from Charlotte’s grip. Scrabbling in his pocket for his hood with his other hand, he called to the doctor again.

  The door burst open. The doctor ran into the room followed by the nurse as Robert pulled his hood, one-handed, over his head.

  The nurse reached for Charlotte’s wrist to take her pulse. It took her a few moments to prise Charlotte’s dead hand from Robert’s arm. ‘It’s a reflex, sir. She wouldn’t have meant anything by it.’

  ‘I know.’ Free from his grandmother’s grasp Robert looked down at her. Her sightless eyes stared blindly up at him.

  ‘She’s gone,’ the nurse declared superfluously.

  The doctor checked his watch and noted the time.

  Robert leant against the wall for support. Charlotte Brosna had died as she’d lived. Thinking only of the Brosna business empire; treating her family and the people around her as puppets, whose only purpose was to serve and amuse.

  ‘Would you like me to call the undertaker, sir?’ Harriet asked Robert from the doorway.

  ‘Please, Harriet. Did Charlotte leave directives regarding her funeral arrangements?’

  ‘Her solicitor has her written instructions, sir.’

  ‘That’s Charlotte. She trusted no one to carry out her wishes and left nothing to chance.’

  ‘She was one of the old school. The last of a kind.’
The doctor picked up his bag. ‘We won’t see her like again.’

  Robert refrained from saying ‘I hope not’. After all, what had Charlotte done to him that was so terrible?

  Neither he nor his friends had been in a fit state to pick up the pieces after the crash in 1968. Charlotte had simply done what she always did in a time of crisis. Rearranged the jigsaw as she’d seen fit, and to her own advantage.

  None of them, especially him, had been in a condition to confront or challenge her. And, it could be argued that, despite his devastating injuries, he’d gained the most of the four.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tim was waiting for Robert in the hall. ‘The maids said it’s over.’

  ‘Yes.’ Robert continued to limp down the long staircase.

  Tim knew better than to offer insincere condolences. ‘Home?’

  ‘Please.’ Robert looked down and saw the file in his hand. He hadn’t realised he’d taken it.

  Tim went ahead and opened the car door. Robert climbed in and they drove the short distance to his house.

  ‘Do you want me to come in or would you rather be alone?’ Tim asked.

  ‘Alone. But thank you for asking.’ Robert left the car, opened his front door, and stepped inside. Czar left the Persian rug in front of the fire and came, tail wagging, to greet him.

  ‘Good boy.’ He took a treat from his jacket pocket and fed it to the dog before locking the door. His glass of whisky still stood, untouched, on the table next to his chair. He went to the drinks cabinet and moved a full bottle and ice bucket next to it. He set aside the accounts, sat down and studied the photograph on the outside of the file he’d taken from Charlotte’s bureau.

  Charlotte was right.

  ‘The photograph. He’s a Brosna.’

  There was no mistaking the black, tousled, curly hair, deep-blue eyes and well-built frame. They added up to rugged handsome good looks. Andrew John was a Brosna all right. But it remained to be seen whether or not he would become a Brosna in name. And if he did, how would Penny cope with the defection of her only child?

  He turned the page.

  Andrew Robert John, born 2nd May 1969.