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?”

“If there’s so much information, I’ll get one of the office girls

“Um….” Michael hesitates.

“Yes?”

staff for this, you choose carefully who

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

“We should be careful, but

sucking in

?

Elizabeth….

my eyes at Charlotte,

answers

to my

“We?”

come. Now please.

warm from the copier, handing them around, then glancing at me, the

“Of course, Francis.”

reading

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 are Albert’s own files. Would the equivalent documents from

A very good question….

so fast…. “I

have anyone in the company, other than you, that would have had their hands on this. The accountants and lawyers from that time have doubtless long retired. I haven’t a clue if anything of

were burned to the ground in

would

know. We did rescue some records from the basement

“Thank you. And Francis?”

“Yes, Richard?”

I have anything pressing in my

a telephone appointment with Chancellor Wilmore

He's asking for money. Re-schedule it

Women’s Historical Buildings and Preservation