The Manor

by Keane Jessie

  But what was she going to do, now she knew what had been going on under her nose all these years?

  She had her shades on and the roof was down. The wind was streaking through her hair and sending it billowing back in a tousled blonde wave, messing up her careful hairdo. She didn’t care. Freddie Mercury was blasting out ‘Killer Queen’ on the sound system, the bass notes booming along the verges, scattering cows and startling sheep in the fields beyond.

  Mulling it all over and finding no answer, she was jolted back to reality as she saw something in her rear-view mirror. A silver-grey Porsche was coming up fast behind her. Damn, she knew that car. She put her foot down harder on the accelerator. The last thing she wanted was to chat to Harlan Stone. She’d never liked the fact that her dad worked for his dad. And now she knew the trade they were in, she realized that Harlan had to be involved too. Harlan was on the manor a lot now, getting into it all. He wouldn’t give a single shit that his high life was paid for in blood and misery.

  He was inching closer in the rear-view, matching Belle’s speed. He was flashing his lights. She could see him grinning back there, edging up closer and closer.

  Fucker, thought Belle.

  The Porsche was right on the BMW’s tail now, and then . . . no, he wouldn’t do it. Would he?

  He would.

  The Porsche thumped, jarringly, into the back of her car.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted Belle, jolting forward at the impact, the wind whipping her words away in an instant. ‘Harlan, you bastard!’

  Belle accelerated harder. But Harlan was there, right there on her tail.

  Crumpppp!!!!

  Again the Porsche hit the back of the BMW.

  ‘You, Harlan Stone, are an arsehole!’ yelled Belle. Dad would throw a fit if there was any damage, she knew. He’d bought her the BMW for her last birthday. But Charlie Stone would say, ah, the boy was only playing, where was the harm? It was only money, it was only a car, it was easily fixed.

  Yeah – with drugs money, right?

  Belle put her foot down harder and the speed dial crept up past seventy. Then she rounded a sharp bend and her heart leapt into her mouth. A tractor was pulling out from a field. She stamped on the brake and the BMW skidded to a halt. The Porsche, following right behind, slewed sideways and came to a standstill mere inches away.

  That silly bastard could have pulverized her.

  ‘Jesus!’ said Belle and slapped the wheel in fright and rage.

  Harlan was grinning across at her as if it was all one great big joke. The bearded tractor driver gave them both a long cold look, then went, unconcerned, on his way.

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ she snapped, full volume.

  Belle was unfastening her seat belt, throwing the door open and storming round to the back of the car, peering at the BMW’s rear end to check for damage. There was a deep scratch above the number plate, nothing else. But damn – he’d scared her half to death. When she’d come round that bend at full speed and seen the tractor blocking the road, she’d nearly pissed herself.

  ‘What’s the problem, Belle?’ Harlan was saying, getting out of the Porsche and coming to stand nearby.

  He was such a moron. Superior. Smug. Snidely laughing at everyone’s discomfort. She loathed him.

  ‘The problem?’ Belle scowled at him. ‘The problem is you, you dick.’

  ‘Hey! You don’t speak to me like that,’ said Harlan, the grin dropping from his face. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, squeezing hard.

  ‘Ow!’ Belle winced. ‘God, you are such a—’

  ‘A dick. You said.’ The grin was back. ‘You, however, are fucking tasty. You know that? Very tasty indeed. That dark blue suits you.’

  ‘Oh shut your face,’ said Belle. He was really hurting her. ‘Come on, stop fucking around, Harlan. Let go of me.’

  ‘Kiss me first,’ said Harlan.

  Belle shook her head. He’d been on about this for years. You’re lovely, Belle, you’re tasty, kiss me. And the groping, the patting. He made her flesh crawl.

  ‘Fuck off,’ said Belle, yanking herself free of him and staggering back a pace.

  ‘What you gonna do, tell your father? Well shall I tell you something, Belle?’

  Belle was hurrying back around the car, getting into the driver’s seat. ‘Whatever you got to say, I don’t want to hear it,’ she said, starting the car.

  ‘Yeah? Well hear this,’ he shouted over the sudden lion’s roar of the engine. ‘Your father would bring you to me tied up and naked, if that’s what he was told to do. He works for the Stones. He follows orders, like a good boy. Your arse belongs to us. Don’t you ever forget that. One day soon, Belle. One day soon.’

  91

  Nula was a nervous flyer. If the conditions were bad, she often refused to go up in the Jet Ranger with Charlie. She didn’t hate the helicopter quite so much if someone else, some nice steady pilot type, was flying it. But Charlie was crazy. He thought dipping the damned thing up and down and making her clutch at her seat was a great laugh.

  Newsflash: it wasn’t.

  Every time the craft shuddered, she felt her heart leap into her mouth. But now – thank God! – they were nearly home. She could see the yellow, brown and green fields streaking along beneath them. And she could see their lake in the distance, the sun glittering on its surface, and there up ahead was the big square welcoming shape of their house.

  A few more minutes and this will be over.

  Christ, she hated flying.

  Suddenly the engine stuttered. Nula felt herself flung forward against the restraining strap of her seat belt.

  ‘What the fuck?’ she gasped out.

  Charlie was staring ahead, concentrating. ‘Only a glitch, babe. It’s nothing,’ he said.

  Nula clung to her seat. Just get us back onto the ground safely, she thought.

  The engine stammered again; a bigger jolt this time. Nula let out a shriek. Her heart was hammering against her ribcage. She felt slick sweat start on her neck and arms.

  They were coming in, getting closer and closer. She could see the big H on the helipad now, see the sun sending up bright dazzling shimmers from the lake, throwing up a blinding shield of light. Then the aircraft canted to one side, throwing her against the harness again. It hurt.

  Then again.

  Nula screamed.

  She heard Charlie say: ‘What the fucking hell?’ as he wrestled with the controls.

  The thing was spinning now. Over and over, side to side, end over end. Her screams and Charlie’s shouts merged and blended with the roar of the faltering engine.

  We’re going to hit the lake, we’re going to hit the lake, thought Nula.

  Oh Christ, please help us . . .

  There was an ear-shattering bang, flames in the cabin followed by terrible pain – and then the whole thing began to plummet.

  92

  After Milly got back from her meeting with Nipper, she was plunged straight into talks with the events organizer over the food, the entertainment, everything. The place looked fabulous, there were TWENTY YEARS MARRIED banners strung up at the front of the house, CHARLIE AND NULA strung out across the back.

  Hurrying upstairs, her stomach knotted with tension, she heard the roar of the helicopter’s approach and then a stutter in the engine note – or had she imagined it? She went into the master bedroom and then over to the window. She could see the Jet Ranger, coming closer. As it passed over the orchard, it swooped to one side and started to spin. Feeling her guts clench, her eyes followed the craft as the spinning accelerated. Now it was whirling in dizzying circles, faster and faster, the nose dipping down, the whole thing shaking. The Jet Ranger was away from the orchard now, over the ornamental lake. Spinning like a top, out of control, and then . . .

  Oh Christ!

  Milly shrieked. There was a bang so loud that it shook the window frames and sent her staggering back a pace. Then the helicopter erupted into a ball of orange flame. It seemed to hang in the sky for a mo
ment – and then Charlie Stone’s pride and joy fell into the lake and hit the water, hard.

  93

  Afterwards, Milly had no recollection of leaving the bedroom or running down the stairs. Suddenly she was in the hall and her legs felt like jelly, her head like an overblown balloon about to burst. She was stumbling and shaking when she got down there, and Harlan was just coming in the front door and saying: ‘What the hell was that? Did you hear that? What the fuck?’

  ‘Get . . . phone . . .’ Milly took a breath and tried to get the words out. She couldn’t. Her heart was racketing in her chest and she kept seeing that fireball, the charred remains of the Jet Ranger dropping into the lake. She clutched a hand to her heart, tried to steady herself. ‘Get an ambulance. And the fire brigade,’ she managed to get out, her voice quivering. Her face was bleached of all colour. ‘Dad’s helicopter. It’s crashed.’

  There was only one electric buggy, and that was already down at the helipad. So after he’d called the ambulance and the police, Harlan ran, and so did Milly. They were joined by Terry Barton and Jill, then by Belle. Then Nipper showed up, and Ludo and Paul and Peter. They all went full-pelt over the lawns and down past the orchard and then to the lake.

  In the centre of it, smoking, hissing, metal popping as it cooled in the brackish water, crackling as the electrics shorted out, was the wreckage of the Jet Ranger. Inside, there were two blackened, twisted things. Formless. Not human. Not recognizable as such, anyway. Charlie and Nula.

  When Milly saw the things inside the ruined aircraft, she started to scream. Nipper and Ludo started forward, about to wade in, but Terry stopped them.

  ‘It ain’t safe,’ he said. ‘The thing might blow again.’

  Ludo and Nipper stumbled to a halt. Everyone took a pace back, away from the water.

  Harlan turned a furious face on his father’s right-hand man. Milly was shrieking her head off. ‘My parents are in there!’ Harlan roared.

  ‘There’s nothing to be done,’ said Terry. He looked pale, haggard. ‘We got to wait for the fire brigade.’

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ demanded Harlan. ‘Christ, Milly, will you shut up?’

  Milly was wailing in anguish, her eyes locked on the downed craft. Belle stepped forward and enfolded Milly in a hug. ‘Shush honey, shush,’ she said unsteadily, and Milly’s screams died to wrenching sobs.

  Harlan looked over at Terry. ‘You’re supposed to stop things like this happening.’

  It was Jill who spoke up in her husband’s defence. ‘How could he stop that?’ she demanded. ‘The damned thing crashed. How could Terry have stopped that?’

  Away in the distance, there came the blare of a siren. It was coming closer.

  ‘Help’s nearly here,’ said Belle to a shuddering Milly. But she looked again at the downed aircraft and thought that this situation was already beyond help.

  Charlie and Nula Stone were, without a doubt, dead.

  94

  Only a couple of months since they’d buried Beezer, and here they were again. But not burying, not this time. Cremating. ‘Poor fuckers were cremated anyway,’ said Ludo loudly, and Harlan told him to shut the fuck up and show some respect, but he was smiling – smiling – as he did so.

  At the local crem they all assembled and watched the red gold-braided curtains slowly draw apart, saw the coffins bearing the already burnt remains of Charlie and Nula Stone slide away into the waiting furnace. Then with horrible finality the curtains closing again. And that was it. Finished. They were gone.

  Belle glanced across and there was Harlan in his black designer suit, his arm around Milly, who was shaking with sobs, her face drowning in tears.

  Belle looked at her own father – Charlie’s best friend since childhood – standing there like a rock, grim-faced but not crying because he was old school, he was tough; Terry Barton hardly ever cried. Then her mind went back and she saw it all again – the helicopter whirling out of control and plummeting into the lake at Charlie’s house on what should have been such a great day for the Stones. It sent a chill right through her, every time she allowed her mind to replay it. She tried not to. But somehow she couldn’t seem to make it stop.

  Without Charlie Stone, without his huge appetite for life and all that it had to offer, there was a void in all their lives. The vicar had said how Terry had loved to sit with Charlie in Cooks’ Pie and Eel shop in the Cut next door to the Young Vic, watching as Charlie devoured four portions of pie and mash and then finding room for a trip to the boozer. They’d all tried to laugh at that. With Charlie, everything had been excess. Eating, drinking – everything. His lust for life was monumental. And money. He wanted stacks of money – and he wasn’t choosy, Belle now knew, about the way it was earned.

  Without Charlie Stone, her dad seemed bereft and troubled. Terry spent hours on the phone, and then there were whispered conversations in the kitchen between him and Mum, conversations that abruptly ceased when Belle came into earshot. Everything seemed tense and unreal. Because now of course Harlan was in control. His new young bloods were ever-so-gently shoving Terry and the older men aside, forcing them out of the business, off the manor.

  Since the crash and leading up to the double funeral, Belle had been watching Harlan. She thought that he seemed to have grown, somehow. Following the awful deaths of his adoptive parents, he seemed to blossom, to expand, to relax out into every corner of Charlie’s manor and make it his.

  Now she knew about the secret side of the business that the Stones and the Bartons were involved in, she wondered how she could have been so naive for so long. A furniture manufacturer’s, paying for superyachts, million-pound cars and helicopters? If she really thought about it, it was a stretch. But add in a drugs enterprise with the high addiction rate that crack cocaine delivered, and the whole thing started to make sense.

  Charlie had been a drugs baron.

  And so – she didn’t want to believe it, but she had to – her dad had been party to it all.

  When the ceremony was over and they were back at the big house, everyone swilling back drinks and eating sandwiches, Belle went over to Milly, who was huddled on the sofa, staring into space.

  ‘Can I get you anything, Mills?’ she asked her, sitting down beside her.

  Milly looked up as if surprised to find her there. She shook her head.

  ‘This is the worst day,’ said Belle. She squeezed Milly’s hand. ‘It’s awful. I know it is. But after today, things will be easier.’

  Milly nodded, saying nothing.

  ‘Mills . . .’ Belle hesitated. Milly was grief-stricken and she was going to add to it. Unless Milly already somehow guessed the truth . . . ?

  ‘You know when I was talking to you about going into the Clacton accounts office and asking for a job?’ began Belle.

  Milly looked at Belle. ‘Of course I do. You said you wouldn’t ask Terry or Dad directly because they’d only say what the hell did you want a job for, didn’t they already give you enough?’ She sniffed and dredged up the ghost of a smile from somewhere. ‘You were right, too.’

  ‘Well, I went there.’

  ‘You did?’ Milly’s attention sharpened. ‘What was it, a complete disaster?’

  ‘No, it was . . . it was bloody odd, Mills. It was a house in a row of houses, and there were people working in there, and . . .’ She paused. She didn’t want to say it. But she had to. ‘I think – no, I’m sure – that they were manufacturing drugs.’

  Now Milly was fully focused on Belle. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘No. I saw it. And I checked it out. They were making crack cocaine.’

  ‘Oh come on.’

  ‘I talked with Einstein. He told me. After all, what have we ever known about the business our dads are in? Precisely nothing. What have we ever seen from these factories? Nothing. What has anyone ever told us about all these wood and fabric “imports”? Nothing. We’ve been kept in ignorance. Fed bullshit.’

  Milly’s pallor was almost grey against her shapel
ess black funeral dress.

  ‘I spoke to Mum about it. She went apeshit that I’d been there. She knew about it. So does my dad. And your parents did too. And Harlan. They’ve probably been running the whole thing for years, under the cover of the furnishings business. Mills – I didn’t want to tell you this, but I had to,’ said Belle.

  ‘You really think my dad was dealing drugs?’

  Belle shook her head. ‘It’s more than that, Mills. Dealing? No. That’s the thin end of this. I think your dad was way above that sort of thing. What about Javier from Colombia, that bloke he’s been trying to cosy you up with? There are families out there who make a fortune from drugs and Javier is probably from one of those. He wasn’t doing anything with furnishings, that was all a blind. There are cartels, they’re hugely wealthy people. I think your dad was in tight with them. And he wanted to get in even tighter, which is where you came in. Keep Javier firmly onside and Charlie could get a fortune beyond his wildest dreams.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Milly, shocked.

  ‘Neither did I, at first. But now? I do.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Belle?’

  ‘Talk to my mum again. And my dad. See what they have to say.’

  Milly looked at her friend. ‘More bullshit?’

  ‘Probably.’ Belle’s eyes drifted over to Harlan, standing there chatting, laughing. Charlie and Nula were dead, and he looked like he was at a Christmas party, having fun. It was obscene.

  ‘You know,’ said Milly quietly, ‘my mum was a little bit crazy, but I tell you Belle, this is where crazy really starts. When they let Harlan into their lives? They let a demon in. A fucking monster.’