‘How about something stronger?’ suggested James.

  ‘But it’s barely lunchtime,’ she said, looking at her watch as if time might somehow have got away from her.

  ‘I’m not sure that matters today. What would you like, Max? We’ve got pretty much everything.’

  Max faltered, a decision of any kind being beyond what he could muster just then.

  ‘How about brandy? That’s good for shock and I’ve got a really nice Rémy Martin. Best they had in the shop.’

  Max nodded. He didn’t know whether he wanted a drink or not, but it seemed important to James that he had one.

  ‘I think I’ll join you,’ said James, reaching for a pair of cut-glass brandy glasses from a display cupboard. ‘Ellie?’

  ‘I’ll stick with tea, thanks,’ she said.

  Max wasn’t sure how the drink would help, but when the liquid hit his stomach and then his head, he could see how it might take the edge off whatever it was he was feeling.

  Caroline arrived with the boys shortly after. He had forgotten they were at football, even though they had discussed it earlier that morning and then again later when he had rung his wife to tell her what had happened. It was the last match of the season and the boys would normally have been full of it, but Caroline had obviously told them the news and now they were strangely quiet and subdued, understanding what had happened but not being quite sure what they were supposed to do or say. Theo put his arms around Max’s waist and squeezed him tight and Max stroked the top of his head.

  ‘I know, mate,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even. ‘It’s really sad.’

  He felt Theo nodding his head against his stomach. Alex held back, standing on the kitchen threshold so he could make a run for it if the room became too emotionally charged.

  ‘Are you okay, Dad?’ he asked, and Max felt proud that his son was emotionally intelligent enough to understand that this was a difficult moment for his usually steadfast dad. Had he even imagined how he would be feeling if Max had died, putting himself in his own dad’s shoes?

  ‘I am, thanks, Alex,’ he said. ‘But it’s a bit of a shock.’

  Alex nodded as if he totally understood this. Perhaps he did.

  Caroline took the children away to a different part of the house and even though Max wanted to talk to her, he was glad he no longer had to be strong for the boys. It seemed much easier just to stand and stare out at the garden.

  Nathan was the last to arrive and Max had to run through the events of the morning again with him. Each time he told the story, it sounded more natural to him, but he still couldn’t quite believe it had actually happened and wasn’t just the plot of something he’d seen on the television.

  ‘And he was just lying there?’ asked Nathan. ‘Poor Dad. Do you think he knew anything about it?’

  Max was sure he must have. From what he knew, an aneurysm was incredibly painful and not something you were likely to have been unaware of. But then, they didn’t know for certain that was the cause of death, and if Tony had been aware of the pain then surely he would have rung for an ambulance. Perhaps he had just slipped away in his sleep, the way everyone hoped to go.

  ‘Maybe not,’ he said, to assuage Nathan more than anything. ‘His eyes were shut so it could just have happened when he was asleep.’

  The idea floated in the air around them. This was what they all wanted to believe and hang on to: that their dad had died peacefully and had known nothing about it.

  ‘So I suppose we’ll have to sell the house and everything,’ mused Nathan.

  Max turned his head sharply towards his brother, sure of what he had just heard but also assuming he must be mistaken. ‘What?’

  ‘The house,’ Nathan clarified. ‘We’ll need to sell it.’

  ‘The man’s barely cold, Nath,’ snapped Max. ‘We haven’t even got a cause of death, let alone anything else, and you’re already talking about selling the house!’

  ‘I’m just trying to be practical,’ replied Nathan defensively. ‘There’s no point sitting on it. It’ll only start to deteriorate.’

  Max opened his mouth to object but then thought better of it and turned his back on Nathan instead. Getting into a row wouldn’t help anything.

  Nathan must have realised he had crossed a line and fell quiet, but Ellie, who had just reappeared with a tray of drinks for the children, had half-heard.

  ‘What was that, Nath?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Nathan, but Max cut across him.

  ‘Nathan thinks we should get the house on the market this afternoon. No time like the present, eh, Nath?’

  ‘Don’t be an arse, Max. I was just saying.’

  ‘God, Nathan,’ said Ellie. ‘How can you even think of that right now?’

  Nathan hung his head. At least he had the good grace to look a little ashamed, Max thought. And he supposed they would all approach this differently, would all find their own way of coping with . . . he still couldn’t quite take it in . . . with the death of their father.

  The day wore on with no one quite knowing what to do or say, but not wanting to be the first to leave. The kids occupied themselves elsewhere, occasionally slinking into the kitchen for something to eat or drink. Every so often the adults would hear the makings of a row building, but then the children would stamp it out for themselves. Olivia appeared more often than the others, wrapped herself around a parent, let out a brief howl and then left again.

  Then something occurred to Max and he sat bolt upright. ‘Shit! Has anyone told Mum?’

  He had long since ceased to connect his parents with one another and in all the upheaval, Valerie had completely slipped his mind.

  ‘I did,’ said Ellie. ‘I left her a message to ring me urgently and for once she rang back. She’s coming over.’

  Even though there had been no love lost between Valerie and Tony in recent times, she had still been married to him for thirty years and they had had three children together and four grandchildren. It was only natural that she would be upset – for what they had once shared at least, even if for no other reason. Max’s insides clenched at not having thought of her straight away, but there was no harm done. Ellie had everything under control.

  Valerie arrived at around five. The boys, unable to stand being cooped up any longer, had migrated into the garden where they had been marauding, but were now on the trampoline with Lucy. Olivia appeared to be directing events from the grass. Valerie went to speak to them first, no doubt hearing their shouts from the road. Max watched as she listened intently to what they had to say and then hugged them all in turn. She always had been good in a crisis.

  Then she came and tapped at the huge bifold doors that led from the kitchen on to the patio. James opened them to let her in, pushing the doors wide as if to show just how very big the space was, but at least having the tact not to mention it. Max knew that would have taken a substantial amount of willpower on James’s part, and he felt absurdly grateful to his brother-in-law.

  If Valerie had been upset by the demise of her former husband then she was hiding it well. Max saw no outward sign of any emotion at all, but as James opened the door and she came into the room, she headed straight for Ellie.

  ‘Oh, my darling girl,’ she said as Ellie threw herself at Valerie, sinking her head on to her shoulder and beginning to sob. Max watched as his mum ran a hand gently over Ellie’s hair, and something deep inside him wished that it was his head she was stroking. His need to be comforted was so strong that it was all he could do not to go and form a queue behind his sister.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Ellie spluttered. ‘It’s so awful. I can’t believe he’s really gone.’

  ‘No,’ said Valerie. ‘I thought he’d live forever.’

  Something about her tone suggested relief that this was not the case. As if she had read his thoughts, her eyes drifted across and met Max’s, held his gaze for a moment. Max felt she was trying to send him a message of some kind, but he was clueless as to what it might be. Probably nothing and anyway, Valerie must have stopped loving Tony or she wouldn’t have left, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising that she didn’t appear to be as devastated by his death as the rest of them.

  Around six o’clock, Caroline suggested they should maybe be heading home. She threw a silent look at Max and he nodded his agreement. There was nothing to be gained by hanging around any longer. It wouldn’t change anything.

  Ellie made a half-hearted attempt to get them to stay.

  ‘We can order in some food,’ she said. ‘Then no one needs to be bothered cooking.’ But it seemed that no one, other than the children, had much of an appetite. Max, having hit the brandy hard and early, had the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes and was happy to be led away by Caroline. He needed someone to take control. Caroline could always be relied on to do that.

  They were saying their goodbyes at the door when Caroline suddenly slapped a hand to her forehead.

  ‘The cat!’ she said. ‘Monty. We forgot about Monty. The poor little thing will be terribly confused.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s too late to go and find him now, but we’ll go over tomorrow and rescue him. Is that okay with you, Ellie?’

  Ellie nodded happily. The last thing she would want, Max suspected, would be Monty plucking at her soft furnishings with his razor-sharp claws. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to take the cat on either, but now wasn’t the time for that discussion.

  And so they all left in Caroline’s car, Max not being fit to drive, with promises to ring in the morning and hopes that everyone got a good night’s sleep. Max always told the boys whenever their lives felt bleak that things would look better in the morning, but this time he wasn’t sure that was true.

  17

  ‘Max? Could you come up here a minute? There’s something you need to see.’

  Caroline sat on her haunches and stared at the suitcase full of money she had just found under her father-in-law’s spare bed. She didn’t think she had ever seen so much cash in real life. She tried to estimate how much there was, but really, she had no idea. A lot was the best she could manage.

  The notes weren’t crisp and new like you sometimes got from the cashpoint in the high street. These were well used, curling at the edges and with the patina of dozens or maybe hundreds of fingerprints on them. She used cash like this every day, but in such vast quantities the money took on an unwholesome air, as if there was something not quite hygienic about it.

  But that was ridiculous, Caroline thought to herself. It was just money. She picked up a bundle, weighed it in her hand as if it were a bag of sugar. She ran a finger down the edge, flicking through the notes like a pack of cards, and then smelled it. When she was in America once, she had been struck by the very particular smell of the dollar bills, but these didn’t really smell of anything apart from being slightly musty.

  She could hear Max’s familiar footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked as he got closer to the bedroom. ‘You do know that Monty has just pegged it back downstairs. I’ve locked the cat flap so hopefully he won’t have— Oh, my God!’

  ‘Look at this,’ said Caroline, although there was clearly no need to point it out. The suitcase stuffed with money had captured Max’s full attention.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ He ran his hand in front of his mouth and then knelt down next to her. ‘Where was that?’

  ‘Under the bed,’ replied Caroline. ‘I was pulling stuff out to get at Monty and then, as the case was obviously full, I just opened it. I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have.’

  This thought had only just occurred to her. She had only looked in because she’d assumed it would be full of clothes. Cash was the very last thing she had been expecting to find, but now that she had, she wasn’t at all sure she should have been nosing about. The money felt private, secret – clandestine, even.

  ‘Well, thank God you did,’ said Max, dismissing her fears at once. ‘What if we’d just sent the house clearance people in?’

  Max seemed to recoil at what he had just said. Tony had only been gone for twenty-four hours and he had mentioned house clearance.

  ‘I’m sure we would have checked things like this before we did that,’ Caroline replied kindly. ‘And anyway, we’re a very long way from that just yet.’

  Max nodded.

  ‘How much do you think there is?’ she asked.

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ said Max, picking up a bundle and beginning to count, peeling the notes off and putting them in piles of five, counting out loud as he went. ‘Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred.’

  When he had ten piles, he scooped them together. ‘A thousand,’ he said.

  He stared at Caroline, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. His little bundle had scarcely made any difference to the piles in the case and yet he was already at a thousand pounds.

  ‘Bloody hell, Caro,’ he said.

  Caroline began to count as well and soon they had a little production line going, each counting in bundles of one hundred pounds, and then a thousand and then finally making piles of ten thousand pounds, which they secured with elastic bands. After a while, the significance of what she was actually doing left her. She was entirely focused on counting and piling.

  By the time they had got to the bottom of the suitcase, there were twenty-seven piles on the bedroom carpet and several notes left over. Caroline was struggling with the basic maths because the outcome for twenty-seven multiplied by ten thousand was so hard to get her head around that she couldn’t believe she could possibly be correct.

  ‘So that’s . . . two hundred and seventy thousand pounds,’ she said. ‘Is that right?’ She turned to look at Max, who looked as bewildered as she felt.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Plus . . .’ He counted up the remaining notes. ‘One hundred and sixty.’

  They sat there, stunned, neither quite knowing what to say, just staring at the twenty-seven little stacks of notes.

  Finally Caroline broke the spell. ‘But why is it here? Why did your dad have two hundred and seventy thousand, one hundred and sixty pounds in cash in a suitcase under his spare bed?’

  Max blew out his lips and shook his head.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said.

  18

  They sat there for quite some time. Caroline’s knees began to ache and she stood up stiffly and sat on the bed instead but they didn’t leave the room, as if the money might somehow magically disappear when it was out of sight.

  ‘I feel really vulnerable being here with this much cash on the floor,’ she said. ‘Does that sound silly? Is the front door locked?’

  Max gave her an affectionate grin. ‘It does sound a bit silly,’ he said. ‘But I do understand what you mean. Shall we put it back in the case?’

  Caroline nodded but made no effort to leave the bed, and so Max began to scoop up the piles and stack them neatly in the suitcase. When it was all in rows, the money took up less room than it had when it was just thrown in willy-nilly, but how it looked made no difference. It was still exactly the same amount of cash. Over a quarter of a million pounds. It sounded even more when she thought of it like that. A quarter of a million pounds, in cash, in a suitcase.

  ‘What should we do with it?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, we shouldn’t leave it here for a start,’ said Max. ‘I’m sure it’s perfectly safe. It must have been under there for a while already, but now I know it’s here I’ll never sleep.’

  ‘Do you think it’ll be any safer at our house?’ said Caroline.

  Max shrugged. ‘At least there are people around at ours,’ he said. ‘This place is a bit isolated with it having the garden all the way round, and it won’t be long before the word gets out that Dad isn’t here.’ His voice cracked a little but he pressed on. ‘Someone might break in and it could be days before anyone noticed.’

  ‘There’s the alarm,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Yes, but they are more of a deterrent than anything. A burglar could be in and out before anyone bothered to come and see what was going on, always assuming that anyone did.’

  ‘They’d do well to find it,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Unless they already knew it was here,’ replied Max.

  Caroline paused, taking in what he had just said. Who might know that? Did Tony owe it to someone? Would someone be waiting for him to return it? The thought was darker than she liked and had sinister overtones that she wasn’t used to.

  ‘Why do you think your dad had so much money in the house?’ she asked. She could think of a multitude of explanations, none of them good and all making it feel like the plot of a TV drama rather than their lives.

  Max shook his head. ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘Maybe we should take it to the bank and pay it in whilst we decide what to do,’ she suggested. ‘It would be safe there.’

  Max looked doubtful. ‘I’d rather know more about what it is before we do anything like that. And we can’t decide on our own. We need to ask Ellie and Nath too, see what they think.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ said Caroline quickly. She didn’t want Max to think she was contemplating keeping the lot without informing his siblings. ‘It’s just that it’s a lot of money and I’d feel safer if it was nice and securely behind lock and key.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine at ours,’ Max said. ‘Just until we’ve spoken to the others. We can stick it in the loft with all the other crap. I defy any burglar to start rooting through all that. And I’ll call a family conference. We’re going to have to meet up to talk about the funeral anyway. This can just be another agenda item.’

  ‘The others will have a fit when they hear,’ laughed Caroline. ‘Oh, hi Ellie, Nath. So, we were just trying to rescue Monty from your dad’s box room and we found a quarter of a million pounds under the bed.’

  ‘Ellie probably won’t even bat an eye. Her share is like loose change to them. I bet Nathan will be interested, though. Money seems to slip through his fingers like water. Did I tell you he was talking about selling this place yesterday? Prat.’