Deep Blue Sea by Tasmina Perry Read Free Book Online

her reddened eyes. Well, they’ll just have to lump it, she thought wearily, standing and allowing her mother to lead her from the room.
    Ralph and Elizabeth Denver were standing in Somerfold’s wide entrance hall as she descended the staircase. Ralph moved towards her, his limp more prominent than she remembered, the lines on his face deep. Once such a vital man, Julian’s father had been one of the UK’s richest and most dynamic businessmen, until he had been partially paralysed by a stroke two years ago, forcing him to scale back his duties at the Denver Group and allow Julian to take over as CEO. Diana had not seen him for months. Under pressure from his wife Barbara, they now lived between their estate in Barbados and a villa in Provence. ‘You deserve a rest, Ralph,’ Barbara would say. ‘Julian can handle everything.’ Diana wondered if she remembered those words now.
    ‘How are you, my dear?’ asked Ralph, looking into Diana’s eyes. It was easy to forget, wrapped up in her own grief and confusion as she was, that Ralph was Julian’s father and had to be suffering deeply. And yet he had managed to attend the inquest . . .
    ‘Bearing up,’ she replied. She forced a smile across at Elizabeth, who nodded in acknowledgement.
    ‘That’s good to hear.’ Ralph squeezed her arm affectionately. Diana had always liked Julian’s father. He was powerful and, by reputation, ruthless in business – Diana supposed you didn’t get to build up and run the Denver Group without some steel in your soul – but he had always been polite and welcoming to her, which she could not say for everyone. Elizabeth, for one. Julian’s sister had always given the impression that she regarded Diana as an interloper and a gold-digger only interested in the family’s money.
    ‘It’s a difficult time for everyone,’ said Elizabeth, her expression still. The Denvers were not exactly old aristocratic money, but in three generations they had transformed themselves from successful soap-makers to a global conglomerate, and Elizabeth was every inch the rich heiress. Tall, elegant, clever, she was just as likely to be found giving her views to the Economist magazine as she was to be seen on the party pages of Tatler . She had grown up within the corridors of power and expected things to go her way; and they usually did. She was also very much an eldest child. She was a year older than Julian, and had almost a decade on Adam, the youngest Denver child, which Diana thought had always given her a quiet, controlling dominance in the family. Even Julian had been reluctant to take her on when she had a bee in her bonnet.
    ‘Shall we go through?’ said Sylvia, taking charge, leading them into the drawing room and calling for Mrs Bills to bring through the coffee and madeleines.
    ‘So how was it?’ prompted Diana anxiously. ‘The inquest, I mean?’
    ‘Busy,’ said Elizabeth.
    ‘Busy?’ She looked at her sister-in-law and wondered how she could be so cool and in control.
    ‘An awful lot of media interest, unfortunately,’ said Elizabeth, folding her arms across her body. ‘I’m going to have to get the communications team to work a little harder to contain it. It’s very . . . unhelpful.’
    Diana saw Ralph flash a look at his daughter, and Elizabeth shrugged.
    ‘Well it’s not helpful. Not good for the family, for the company. At least the police say the death is not suspicious. Which is the main thing.’
    ‘Not suspicious?’ said Diana with surprise. ‘What’s not suspicious about the death of a man who was talking about climbing Everest just a few hours before he killed himself? Don’t they think that’s worth considering?’
    ‘Diana, please, don’t do this to yourself,’ said Ralph gently. ‘I know it’s hard to understand, we’re all struggling with it, but it won’t do you any good to keep torturing yourself.’
    ‘But I can’t stop thinking about it,’ she said, sitting forward. ‘I just can’t