In Vino Veritas Read online

  Jason realized now how much he had been relying on going to the others with the sturdy Gerry Davies already beside him as an ally. The older man had the gravitas and the integrity which would be important if he was to make the others share his aspirations for power. He said, voicing a perfectly genuine dilemma, ‘I shall have to consider where I go from here. I was rather relying on having you at my side to help persuade the others.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. But I don’t see that I’m going to change my mind. Unless, as I say, I knew everyone felt the same, or there were new situations to consider.’

  Jason Knight couldn’t see how there was going to be any significant change, unless he could initiate it himself. He would have to think of other methods.

  Sarah Vaughan had given herself a severe talking to, then got on with the job she knew and liked.

  There was surely no reason why she should allow Martin Beaumont and his sexual harassment to interfere with her life. Because harassment was all it was, surely. And because that was all it was, a mature woman like her could put it into its proper perspective. She was thirty-three, not seventeen. It wasn’t the first time a man had made a pass at her, and it wouldn’t be the last. Like all attractive women, she had long ago learned how to brush off advances she did not want to encourage.

  Why then had she been so upset on the night after Martin Beaumont had made his bid for her body in his car? Well, partly because it was exactly that: attempted rape. It wasn’t a pass in the way she had always had to deal with them, a clumsy attempt at a kiss which left the perpetrator more embarrassed than the recipient. Her boss had been claiming something like droit de seigneur. He had wanted her body and he had been pretty determined about it. Attempted rape was not an exaggeration.

  No doubt Martin would say that she was being absurdly dramatic if she challenged him about it, would say that her imagination had translated an innocent bit of flirting into something more sinister. The old male lies would spring readily to his lips, she was sure. Indeed, he would have little alternative but to take a line like that: anything else would be admitting his guilt and inviting her to take whatever steps she wanted in retribution.

  She realized something else as she woke from a troubled sleep on the morning after the incident. He might, indeed, deny it altogether. There were no witnesses, after all, and it was only her word against his. No doubt he would have more expensive lawyers at his command than she could ever employ. She had even heard of men bringing counter-suits for defamation of character, when the victim had had no witness to support her claims. Beaumont had an invalid wife, though no one seemed to know much about her; he would no doubt command the sympathy of a court, once some glib and experienced brief had put his case for him.

  There was no use cutting off her nose to spite her face, Sarah Vaughan told herself firmly. She had a job she liked and good prospects, because everyone seemed very pleased with the start she had made at Abbey Vineyards. She was well paid for her work. A tiny voice she did not want to acknowledge told Sarah that she might in the future be even better paid as a result of Beaumont’s clumsy assault. He would surely want to keep her quiet and compensate her for her discretion.

  At midnight on the night after her mauling in the Jaguar, she had been determined to storm in the next morning, to give in her notice, to make Martin Beaumont pay for what he had done. By morning, she was not so sure. She would go to work, see whether Beaumont wanted to be conciliatory, hear what he had to say for himself, and then decide on her tactics. She had surely nothing to lose by doing that.

  Sarah didn’t want to acknowledge it, but she felt acutely the lack of anyone she could confide in. She was between boyfriends – had been for about six months, if she was honest about it. So there was no one to mount the white charger and challenge Sir Jasper on her behalf – she was already seeing Beaumont in that rather absurd Victorian role. Her mother was seventy now and simply wouldn’t understand the issues: it wouldn’t be fair to burden her with them. She had never really been close to her younger sister, and even less so since marriage had taken her up to Aberdeen. Her close university friend was married with two young kids in a London suburb. She would be highly indignant on Sarah’s part, would be violently in favour of hitting the villain with everything they could muster. But that wasn’t quite what her injured friend wanted to hear.

  So Sarah Vaughan hugged her knowledge tight and told herself that as a modern woman she could certainly cope with this.

  Beaumont had come into the shop when she was helping behind the counter on the day after the incident. They did not acknowledge that they had even seen each other, but she knew that he had been eyeing her up, wondering what, if anything, she proposed to do. And she had taken note of his every movement, in case his body language might reveal what he was feeling. The whole thing was over in ninety seconds, without a word or a look exchanged.

  Sarah found that she was trembling a little after he left the shop. She also had a strange feeling she had never anticipated, a small, exhilarating feeling of power. She had always been rather in awe of Martin Beaumont, as owner and driving force behind Abbey Vineyards. Now he had revealed his weakness and she had some sort of hold over him. She felt a small but definite surge of power, which she might at some time in the future be able to exploit.

  There were several similar encounters in the days which followed, where they circled each other in the safe presence of others, like wary beasts in the wild. Five days after the incident, Martin acknowledged her with a smile and a nod. Seven days after it, he spoke to her, and she responded. It was no more than one of those meaningless greetings which help to grease the wheels of daily life, but it was a further stage in the restoration of a working relationship.

  It was another week later that Beaumont called her into his office to receive her monthly report on her promotional activities. She found that her heart was beating absurdly fast as she went across the courtyard to the big room where he operated. This was just the sort of response she should have long since left behind, she told herself firmly. The man wouldn’t attempt anything here, with his secretary in the outer office and numerous other people at hand. But he might be embarrassed, and if he were she would enjoy it.

  Martin Beaumont gave no sign of being embarrassed. He listened to her report, asking her pertinent questions about the problems she saw and what she intended to do about them. One or two of his comments were even quite critical. She responded as sturdily as she could, though she found herself quite nettled that he seemed so little affected by what had happened between them.

  Then, when she thought they were finished, he said quite suddenly, ‘Car running all right now, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  It was his smile which did it. Complacent, when the least he should have been was penitent and conciliatory. She found herself voicing the speech she had rehearsed a few times in the privacy of her flat but had thought she would never deliver. ‘I have decided to do nothing about what happened on that day. You may regard the incident as closed. I think you should consider yourself extremely fortunate, Martin, that I have resolved to take this no further.’

  He looked at her steadily for a moment, his face deliberately expressionless. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I don’t think you should take that line. I could make life very unpleasant for you, if I chose.’

  ‘I don’t for a moment think you could, my dear. And even if you felt inclined to pursue whatever absurd fantasy has beset you, you would of course be most unwise to do so. You have a promising career here, which is still in its early stages. I should hate to see you jeopardize it. In these uncertain times, being dismissed and denied any sort of reference would hardly help your future employment prospects.’

  Sarah could hardly believe it. He, and not she, was being the aggressor. All her carefully weighed judgements flew from her like frightened swallows. ‘A claim for sexual harassment
, or something much worse, would hardly enhance your own reputation, Mr Beaumont.’ She noticed that she had switched to the formal address and was pleased with that. It seemed to reinforce the threat she was offering to him.

  But the man did not look as if he felt threatened. Indeed, he said nothing for a moment, as if to allow the smile which flooded his features its full effect. He must have been handsome in his day, which to her mind must have been at least twenty years ago. But the features which had no doubt then been smooth and sharp were heavy now. The cheeks had the first fine red lines of veining and jowls were beginning to form on the neck above the collar. When eventually Beaumont spoke, his words were slow and deliberate, which added to their menace, ‘I think you would be well advised to drop that tone right away, my dear. It shows your ignorance of life.’

  ‘I’m not your “dear”. And I’m not ignorant. I’m very clear about what you were trying to do to me. I’m very clear about the resistance I offered. I’m very clear about my rights.’ But she was not clear that she would win any contest: the unpleasant spectre of an expensive lawyer ridiculing her protestations in court reared itself obstinately. It was a vision which undermined her attack.

  He took his time again, probably aware that the more calm he appeared, the more she would be disconcerted. ‘I spoke of your ignorance of life, Sarah. The world does not work in the way well-meaning people think it should work. You have a good job and I’m your employer. I shouldn’t like you to lose that job, but I have it in my power to terminate your employment. Fact of life, you see. The kind of situation that can never be acknowledged in the law.’

  ‘You conducted a sexual assault on me. Now you’re threatening me with dismissal when you’ve no complaints about my work.’

  ‘I think you should forget about this fiction of an assault you’ve dreamed up. And I haven’t threatened you with dismissal. I’ve just pointed out some of the facts of real life to you.’

  ‘You’re saying that I should forget all about what happened two weeks ago and carry on as if nothing had happened.’

  Once again the pause; once again that patronizing, infuriating smile. Didn’t the man recognize that any charm he might once have possessed had long since left him? ‘You should accept the situation, my dear – and I use that term because I am still fond of you, despite the attitude you have displayed this afternoon. The situation is that you are a young woman with a career to make and I am an employer, who at the moment is pleased with your work. I should hate that situation to change.’

  ‘This is incredible!’ She tried to force all the indignation she felt into the words, but she knew they were totally inadequate, in the face of his measured, confident attack. She couldn’t work out why the words as they dripped from him sounded so astoundingly logical.

  ‘I’m sorry you should find it so, my dear Sarah. I’m sure that given a little time for reflection, you will find it entirely credible. You would be well advised to review your position. Nothing has changed here, despite your preposterous allegations, which I shall charitably ignore. You are still a woman in her early thirties with an evolving career. I am still your employer and, because of that, in a position to strangle that career at birth. Or to give it a helping hand. Needless to say, I should prefer it to be the latter. The process would be considerably assisted if you could see your way to making certain . . . accommodations.’

  For a moment she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You’re asking me to sleep with you, even now?’

  He smiled behind the big desk, then held his arms wide and opened the palms. ‘I’m asking you to be open-minded, as one would expect every ambitious young executive to be. Your work, as I say, is generally satisfactory. You seem to have found in me a good and appreciative employer. All I’m saying is that work and the rest of life are related. I’m telling you gently that if, when the working day was over, you chose to make certain moves towards a more intimate friendship with your boss, they would be well received. Most women, I’m sure, would be pleased to hear that, pleased to know that such possibilities for career advancement existed.’

  This time it was she who paused, but not as a tactic, as Beaumont had used his silences. She was simply taken aback by his effrontery, rendered temporarily speechless by it. She shut her eyes, because she had to shut out that grinning face, that thinning but perfectly groomed hair, before she could begin to think. Eventually she stuttered, ‘You’re – you’re amazing!’

  ‘Thank you, my dear! Even though I fear you did not mean that to be entirely complimentary, I shall take it as such. I hope I have been able to open your eyes to the reality of the situation. To the facts of working life, as I said.’

  ‘I – I can’t believe that you have the – the insolence to—’

  He held up one of the large hands he had recently spread wide, projecting it palm forwards towards her. He looked for an absurd instant like a stern but benevolent traffic policeman. ‘Don’t say anything more at the moment, Sarah. I should hate you to say anything you might regret. I think you should go away and reflect on our little discussion before you say anything further.’

  Sarah felt that Beaumont’s secretary was looking at her curiously as she moved like a sleepwalker through the outer office. Moments later, she found herself not in her own office, as she had expected, but at the back of the shop, where Gerry Davies had shut the doors for the day and was preparing to be the last one to leave his empire.

  She wanted to be the controlled young executive, prepared either to keep what had happened entirely to herself or to ridicule it with a mature cynicism as she told it to the man who had become rather a father figure to her. But he could see immediately that something was wrong and he said, ‘Come and sit down for a minute. I’ll make a cup of tea while you decide whether you want to tell me about it.’

  But she did not sit down. Instead, the mature thirty-three-year-old executive found herself weeping uncontrollably, with her head against the older man’s chest.

  NINE

  Vanda North did not know what to make of the phone call, even an hour afterwards, when she had had time to think about it.

  ‘This is Jane Beaumont. You don’t really know me. We met once, ten years ago.’ The delivery was even. The tone sounded brittle, as though the sense might disintegrate if the sentences the woman had prepared were challenged.

  Vanda was scarcely calm herself. It was not usual to be contacted by the wife you had cheated on – certainly not in these measured tones and many years after the passion had died. She replied cautiously, ‘I remember meeting you. It was a long time ago, as you say. What can I do for you, Mrs Beaumont?’

  ‘I need to speak to you about a private matter. I cannot do it on the phone. I shall not make any trouble. By that I mean that I shall not make a scene or cause you embarrassment.’

  ‘Is this about your husband, Mrs Beaumont?’

  ‘It is. But I should prefer not to say any more on the phone.’

  ‘Perhaps I should say that it is many years since I had any close . . . association with him.’ Vanda was furious with herself because she had fumbled for the word. But she had never expected to be speaking in this situation.

  A short pause. ‘But you are a partner in his firm, are you not?’

  ‘A very junior partner, yes. It is a status I would rather relinquish, as a matter of fact. But he apparently does not wish me to do that.’

  Again a pause, longer this time. Was the woman weighing this, or simply trying to retain control of her emotions and her speech? There was an unexpected trace of irony in the tone as the voice eventually said, ‘Then we have things in common, as I suspected. I think it would be in our interests to talk. But not here, please. I do not wish Martin to be aware that I have contacted you.’

  Vanda thought for a moment about a neutral venue: it was usually easier to talk when neither of you felt the disadvantage of being on the other’s ground. But she could not think of anywhere where they could rely on being able to talk freely. And in any case
, why shouldn’t she have the advantage? It was Jane Beaumont who wanted this meeting. If it was going to be embarrassing, as the circumstances said it must surely be, Vanda might as well have the territorial advantage. She said calmly, ‘You can come here. Almost any time today or tomorrow would be possible for me.’

  ‘Today, then. This afternoon. Three o’clock.’

  ‘You’ll need the address. It’s—’

  ‘I know the address.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘It’s in the phone book, Ms North.’ There were traces of relaxation and amusement in the voice, now that she had what she wanted. ‘I shan’t need directions. I have a satnav in my car. Thank you for agreeing to meet me.’

  ‘That’s all right. May I ask—’ But the click at the other end of the line told her that Jane Beaumont had put down her phone.

  Gerry Davies was behaving irrationally and he knew it.

  He was fifty-seven now. He had been happily married for thirty-six years; he was the father of two boys who were making sensible careers of their own. Even as a young man, his life had been grounded in the hard reality of the Rhondda Valley and Welsh mining, his leisure enacted amidst the slag-heaps and muddy playing fields of Pontypridd and the like. He hadn’t gone off to university and torn up his roots, like some of the men he had grown up with. He was proud of his background, proud to assert the basis for life that it had given him. He had been disciplined in the realities of human existence for as long as he could remember.

  And yet. And yet he’d never had a daughter, and that was making him vulnerable in a way he had never expected. Sarah Vaughan had come to him for advice ever since she had arrived at Abbey Vineyards three years ago. She had been able enough, but young for her years. She had lacked the confidence to assert herself, even when she knew she was right. Sarah had been very happy to adopt Gerry Davies as a father figure, and he had been pleased and a little flattered by her dependence. It was only when she had flung herself on his chest with the news of Martin Beaumont’s sexual harassment that he realized how completely he had accepted that role. Accepted it almost eagerly, he acknowledged to himself ruefully.