The Real Katie Lavender Read Online Free PDF Page B

was, he realized, the ‘something’ that had been nagging at him. And it was something that Cecily had said yesterday afternoon about Neil. She had asked Stirling if he thought Neil was all right. He registered now that he hadn’t answered his mother’s question; he’d been distracted by his mobile going off – it had been Scarlet talking excitedly about something she and Charlie wanted to discuss with him.
    He had a pretty good idea of the sort of thing Scarlet and Charlie wanted to talk to him about, and the thought made him shake his head with wry acceptance. The pair of them were two of a kind; they were inherent dreamers. Some might say they made a dangerous combination, but what wasn’t in doubt was that they loved each other. Charlie might not have been Stirling’s first choice for his daughter, but if the boy made her happy, then that was good enough for him.
    Charles Rupert Benton-Norris, to give him his full name, was the youngest son of John and Caroline Benton-Norris. The Benton-Norrises were a family steeped in history; they could trace their lineage all the way back to the Plantagenets. Yet whilst they were property-rich, they were cash-poor, and the great pile they lived in was literally crumbling to dust around them. Gina always dreaded an invitation to Wilton Park; the place was as draughty as a barn and colder than a morgue. Stirling had once felt something brush against his foot at a dinner party, only to find a mouse nibbling at his shoelaces when he’d looked under the table. His startled reaction had provoked laughter from his hosts. There’d been no embarrassment on their part, not even an apology, just a joke about their idle pack of hounds not doing enough to keep the rodent population down.
    Taking the lift up to his office on the third floor of the building they shared with two other businesses – a firm of accountants and an insurance broker – Stirling’s thoughts returned to his brother and the question Cecily had asked yesterday afternoon about him.
    One thing he and Neil had always been able to count on was their mother’s knack for spotting a potential problem long before anyone else did. Stirling hoped in this instance that Cecily’s antenna for trouble was off-beam. The last thing he and Neil needed right now, as co-owners and joint managing directors of Nightingale Ridgeway Investments, was for one of them to lose focus. These were tough times. Businesses the length and breadth of the country were fighting for survival, and theirs was no exception. It had been bad enough last year but they’d started this year knowing that the outlook was bleaker still and that very likely next year wouldn’t be much better. Which, on a personal level, meant he and Neil hadn’t been able to pay themselves their usual dividend for the last eighteen months. It was basic maths, if targets weren’t met and profits were down, the dividend couldn’t be paid. They’d never known a time like it. Not as prolonged at any rate.
    The downturn in the market had hit just as they’d started negotiations to buy out another investment management company. They’d been considering the move for some while and had high hopes for the future, but the recession had put an end to their plans and they’d reluctantly withdrawn their interest. Rosco had been particularly disappointed, having seen himself as playing a pivotal role in the newly formed company. With a law degree and an MBA in business management, he was impressively book-smart and already an asset to the firm, but just occasionally he displayed a clumsy eagerness to move too fast. But that wasn’t surprising; Rosco was young and in a tearing hurry to get on. Stirling had been the same at that age. Even so, he believed his son needed reining in now and then; he needed to learn to temper his ambition with a little more life experience. Dynamism was all very well, and Rosco had plenty of that, but there was no substitute for an equal measure of