Masters & Lovers Box Set One

The Sin of the Parent

Richard

Michael appears at the door of the conference room, wandering into my office, musing over some document he holds. “Who was Edward Haswell?”

James and I exchange startled glances. “Edward Haswell?” I say. “He was my father. Why would you ask?”

“Because according to this….” He holds up the document…. “…. forty years or so back, Beth's Uncle Albert was in business with one Edward Haswell.”

I stand without the intervention of my brain, all but snatching the yellowed paper from his hand. “Let me see that.”

A smile plays around his mouth. “It’s news to you I take it?”

“Good God, yes. I’d no idea there was any link between Elizabeth’s family and mine.” I flip through the pages, speed-reading as I go. Francis and James are also both standing. Francis, in deference perhaps to her position as my PA, is trying not to seem too intrigued. James, with no such qualms, is simply leaning in, trying to look over my shoulder.

“It is the same Edward Haswell, I suppose?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply. “Just from what I can see here, this is a reference to my father’s company….” I flick back to the cover page which crackles with age. “What date….?” My mind spins…. “At this date, I was fifteen or sixteen at the time.” I pace the room, dredging for the memory. “I must have met him surely?” I’m muttering to myself, but everyone is listening.

“Really?” says James. “Can you remember him?”

I’m shaking my head, as though the movement will dislodge the memory. “No…. But I was effectively apprenticed to my father by then. He made sure I met all his business contacts. I must have met him.” Then to Michael, “Is there any more like this?”

He jerks his head back to the conference room. “Sure. There's a crate-load of it, in one of those wooden boxes Beth brought back. It all looks like business records.”

“May I see that? Would you mind?” asks James, gesturing at the document in my hand.

“Of course, yes…. No, better, Francis, can you make three…. No five…. copies of this and whatever else comes out of that crate that seems relevant. We’d better allow for the originals being ready to fall into dust…. How much is there of it, Michael?”

“As I said, a crate-load.”

“Francis?”

document from my fingers. “If there’s so much information, I’ll get one of the office girls to come

“Um….” Michael hesitates.

“Yes?”

to use staff for this, you

Triad learning that we have a spy in the camp; someone passing information to Klempner. I vacillate between the need to

be careful, but perhaps we

sucking in a

?

Elizabeth….

Charlotte, I stab at

answers

to my office. We have some interesting

“We?”

come. Now

from the copier, handing them around,

“Of course, Francis.”

before reading a copy

pushes spectacles to his nose, reading the file, flipping to the cover sheet first. “As you say, this more than forty years ago, but these

A very good question….

so fast….

time have doubtless long retired. I haven’t a clue if anything of that age is still around.” She chews at a fingernail. “If it is, it will be....” Then she pauses, “…. Would have been in the archives in the basement in

burned to the ground in the Christmas

would

We did rescue some records from the basement levels…. I'll see what

“Thank you. And Francis?”

“Yes, Richard?”

have anything pressing in my diary for

with Chancellor Wilmore

He's asking for money. Re-schedule it for another

City Women’s Historical Buildings and