Read Online False Charity by Veronica Heley - Free Book Online

there.’
    At that moment her phone rang. She picked it up, saying smoothly, ‘Abbot Agency, how may I help you?’
    A man’s voice, full of charm. With a laugh in it. ‘At long last! I was beginning to think you’d given us up for good and were staying in the Southern Hemisphere.’
    Piers, her first husband. ‘What do you want, Piers?’
    â€˜There’s a fine welcome. Can’t I just want to see you for old times’ sake?’
    â€˜I doubt it.’
    â€˜I’ll drop round later, all right?’ He put the phone down before she could tell him not to. Maggie was trying to look as if she were not dying of curiosity.
    Bea said, ‘My ex-husband. From the time before I married Hamilton.’
    Maggie was trying to work it out. ‘Max’s father?’
    â€˜Yes. Not that he’s been much of a father to … well, never mind. We’ve got work to do.’
    She watched Maggie leave, guessing she’d probably go straight to Oliver with the news that Mrs Abbot’s first husband had surfaced the day she got back from burying Hamilton. What next? Bea tried to open a drawer to find Hamilton’s address and telephone book because there were one or two people she knew who might have come across the fake charity. She broke a fingernail. Bother. Now she had to find a nail file.
    And ‘bother’ Piers, too. They’d married young; and it had been a disaster. After suffering four years of his tomcatting around, she’d thrown him out. He’d taken it as lightly as he took everything except his work, moving in with first one of his women and then another. Never staying long with anyone. Being a freelance portrait painter and wickedly attractive with it, he’d been able to do that.
    For five long years he’d avoided her, during which time she’d worked all hours at all sorts of jobs to keep herself and Max. Maintenance cheques had arrived now and then. Never enough and never often enough, but she supposed Piers had been doing his best. The divorce went through unopposed.
    Then one day he’d turned up on the doorstep asking for a bed for the night as if he’d never been away. Not that she’d let him in. Oh, no. Though it had taken all her willpower to resist his charm. Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she had let him in … but no. Tomcats don’t change their spots. Whatever.
    Max had been nine when Piers returned. It was too late for him to play at fatherhood. Bea had been on the point of marrying Hamilton, and her son adored the large, laughing man who was always there for them.
    After Hamilton adopted Max, the boy had declared he didn’t want to see Piers any more. That should have been that, but for some reason – guilt, perhaps? – Piers had kept in touch with Bea. Every so often he’d give her a ring and ask her out for a meal; sometimes he’d ask after his son, though he didn’t seem really interested in what she had to say. His career had taken off, the agency had thrived, they met without embarrassment.
    She hadn’t seen him for nearly a year. Tea at Fortnum and Mason’s. They’d just been told that Hamilton’s cancer had returned, and he’d refused further treatment in favour of going around the world, seeing everything he’d always wanted to see, doing everything he’d not had time for. Piers had been a good friend that day, said the right things, said she could always rely on him … though he hadn’t said for what, the bastard.
    Bea had to go and borrow a nail file from Maggie in the end. Then she got side-tracked as the front doorbell rang upstairs, and didn’t stop. Bea guessed it was Piers. Bother!
    â€˜Shall I …?’ asked Maggie, waving her arms in semaphore fashion.
    â€˜I’ll go,’ said Bea. Anything to stop him leaning on the bell. She opened the door. An orchid in a pot and a bottle of wine were thrust