I step towards her, my fists balled and every sinew strained; such is the effort to curb my anger.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” I bark. “Not after what you’ve done.”
Her gaze drops to the floor and she swallows hard. No denial, no defence. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“You’re sorry?”
Her feeble apology is the spark to the gunpowder. I take six steps towards her, and without consciously giving instructions, my arm swings through the air in her direction. While I have no control over my action, there is no part of me that would consciously strike a woman; a fact born out as my fist connects with the plasterboard wall, three feet to the left of Rosa’s face. Pain crackles across my hand.
I fall to my knees.
With ragged breath, I look up at Rosa and spit the final remnants of rage. “With every ounce of my being, I hate you for what you’ve done to me.”
A stunned silence falls across the room, broken only by the sound of heavy boots across the vinyl floor. Clement stands over me.
“You alright?” he asks.
I shake my head. I have never felt less right in my life.
He helps me to my feet and then turns his attention to Rosa. “If you don’t want us chatting to your old girl, get in here and close the door.”
She does as instructed without complaint.
“Sit down,” Clement orders, pointing to the chair he occupied a few seconds earlier.
Rosa takes a seat next to her mother and Clement picks up the chair I kicked across the room, placing it a few feet from Rosa’s.
“You and me are gonna have a little chat,” he says, his tone firm but calm.
Rosa nods as she grasps her mother’s hand. Now my anger has subsided, a growing sense of shame blossoms. Whatever Rosa has done, her mother is a frail invalid and didn’t deserve to witness my outburst. I stand in the corner and deal with my shame, content to let Clement ask the questions.
“I’m guessing you’re supposed to be at work about now?” he confirms. “How did you know we were here?”
“William’s phone,” she murmurs. “I put a tracking app on it.”
“You did what?” I blurt.
“Bill. Let me handle this,” Clement orders. “You’re gonna lose your shit again.”
I stare daggers at Rosa but don’t argue.
“And I reckon we already know the answer, but have you been feeding Gabby info about Bill?”
She looks up at Clement, puzzled.
“Have you been feeding Gabby info about William?” he asks again, correcting my name.
No reply other than a faint nod.
“Alright. Now we’ve established that, you wanna tell me why?”
Silence.
The need to grab Rosa and shake the answer from her is almost overwhelming. It is just as well Clement has taken over the questioning as I don’t think I’d be able to control myself. I bite my lip and slowly count backwards from ten to calm myself down.
“Come on girl,” Clement prompts. “It ain’t a tricky question. Why have you been feeding info to Bill’s sister?”
Frustration mounts and I restart my count.
“She’s…,” Rosa eventually whispers
Seconds pass but the rest of her answer isn’t forthcoming.
“She’s what?” Clement asks. “Speak up, girl.”
“She’s not William’s sister. She’s my sister.”
32.
I can’t speak, and I can barely see through the tears welling in my eyes. Clement looks up at me; possibly to check I haven’t fainted. He nods before returning his attention to Rosa.
“What? Gabby ain’t his sister?”
“Gabby…Gabrielle…is his sister,” Rosa stammers. “But she’s not the woman who’s been blackmailing him. That’s my sister, Amy.”
“Eh? I don’t get it.”
“Amy was pretending to be Gabby.”
Clement sits back in his chair and scratches his head. Rosa turns to me, her eyes pleading for a release of some kind.
“I’m so sorry, William. I never wanted any of this.”
I swallow hard and blink to clear the tears. Beyond confused, my addled brain can only muster three words.
“Not my sister?”
“No, she’s not.
“But…the passport, and the birth certificate…and the photo?”
“The passport was fake — good enough to fool most people but still a fake. The birth certificate and photo were real, but neither belonged to the person who showed them to you.”
The quest for answers trumps confusion and I find a reply.
“How did you get them then?”
“I…we found that silver box when we were clearing Mum’s flat back in the Summer.”
“The box…with my father’s letter?”
“Yes.”
That explains how they got hold of it, but not how the box found its way from Hansworth Hall to Hounslow.
“Why was it in your mother’s flat?”
Rosa turns to the frail woman and mouths an apology.
“Mum used to be your father’s carer, right up until he died. She took the box because…,” she stops and swallows hard. “Because she was desperate for money. She didn’t know it was worthless until a few weeks after she took it.”
Suddenly the photo of Miss Douglas outside Hansworth Hall makes sense, as does her motivation for stealing from my father.
“That box and the contents were meant for me,” I growl in reply. “And your mother could have kept the damn box for all I would have cared. What was inside mattered, and she should have understood the significance.”
Rosa takes another glance at her mother. A faint nod is returned.
“You’ve tried speaking to my mother, and you know she has limited speech, right?”
“Your point?”
“She explained to me what happened, as best she could.”
“Go on.”
“She did try to give you the letter back, about a month after your father’s funeral, but apparently you’d left Hansworth Hall and were somewhere in Africa, I think. Knowing what the letter said, Mum didn’t want to give it to anyone else so she just buried it in a drawer and pretended it never existed.”
I stare at Miss Douglas and shake my head. She did far more than steal a worthless trinket box — she stole my sister from me, and the life we may have had together.
“I know it’s no consolation,” Rosa continues. “But she could have sold that letter to the papers for a lot of money, what with your father’s confession. She didn’t though, because she’s a decent, honest woman who made a bad decision. She was desperate, William, but not so desperate she was prepared to destroy your father’s reputation, or yours for that matter.”
A valid, but now inconsequential point seeing as my name is already adorning the front page of a national newspaper.
Clement, having caught up with the conversation, poses a question of his own.
“So who’s idea was it to blackmail Bill then?”
“Amy’s.”
“What sort of twisted mind comes up with a plot like that?” I abruptly interject. “For God’s sake, Rosa. You stood by and let me think I’d had sex with my own sister.”
“I honestly didn’t know she was going to do that, otherwise I’d never have agreed to Amy’s plan.”
“But you did know she was going to blackmail me, didn’t you? In fact, it’s the only reason you started working for me, isn’t it?”
She nods.
“How did you even engineer that?”
“Amy threatened your previous PA and forced her to resign.”
“She threatened Joyce? How?”
“She befriended Joyce’s grandson on Facebook. They chatted for a while and then she convinced him to send her…compromising photos. Amy told Joyce she’d share those photos with the lad’s college tutors if she didn’t resign and recommend I replace her.”
“Devious bitch,” Clement
remarks.
“I didn’t know any of this until afterwards,” Rosa adds. “I swear.”
She gets up from her chair and steps towards me.
“This is my fault, William. I was only supposed to be in your office for a week or two, just to make sure you didn’t contact the police. The original plan was to sell you the box in return for enough money to put Mum in a decent care home, but during that first week I found the lease for Hansworth Hall and stupidly mentioned it to Amy. She said you deserved to be punished and we should take the house.”
“Punished? For what exactly?”
“My sister isn’t a well woman, William. She’s had a tough life and has…issues, some of which she blames on you.”
“Me? What the hell have I ever done to her?”
“You made us homeless.”
“Eh? What are you talking about? I did no such thing.”
“Perhaps not directly, but a few days after your father died, we were given a weeks' notice to leave the staff annexe at Hansworth Hall. That photo in my mother’s purse was taken the day before we left — the day before we were made homeless.”
“I…that was nothing to do with me. I didn’t even know you were living there.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“No. I left everything to my father’s solicitor.”
“You were never curious who looked after your father when he was ill?” she snaps, her apologetic tone no more. “Who cooked for him, helped him to bed, administered his medication, cleaned up after he soiled himself?”
Rosa turns and points at her mother. “There’s the woman who did all that, and then you cast us out on the street with no thanks and nowhere to go.”
Somewhere in our conversation, the shame and the anger have seamlessly switched between us.
“Then why didn’t you just ask me for help? Surely you know me well enough now to know I would have done something?”
Her anger eases and her head drops. “I do now.”
In truth, we could spend the entire morning batting blame back and forth. However, I’m too emotionally exhausted to punish myself any further. As far as I’m concerned, this is now a matter for the police and I have a genie I need to force back into its bottle.
Ignoring Rosa, I step across the room and sit back down in front of Miss Douglas. It’s clear from her moist eyes and ghostly complexion she knew nothing of her daughter’s plot.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you, Miss Douglas, and I’m sorry you had to hear all this. I’ll ensure you receive the same level of care you gave my father — you have my word on that.”
I take her hand a give it a gentle squeeze. “We’ll leave you in peace now.”
I get up and tell Rosa I want a word outside. As if taking her final walk on death row, she nods and shuffles after me, with Clement bringing up the rear. The drama may be over for her mother, but for Rosa it’s only just beginning.
Once we’re back in the corridor, I pull the door shut.
“No more lies, Rosa. Where’s your sister now?”
Her eyes dart left and right, as if she’s avoiding either my gaze or my question. I’m not sure which but I suspect both.
“Rosa, look at me.”
She slowly turns her head to me.
“Despite what you’ve done to me, I’m going to help your mother, but only if you come clean and Gabb…Amy faces justice. Now, where is she?”
“She had a meeting with the newspaper at ten, to collect her payment.”
I glance at my watch. Nine thirty-five.
“You need to put the brakes on that sharpish,” Clement suggests.
“Keep an eye on her please, Clement. Don’t let her leave — I’ll be five minutes.”
He nods and I hurry back to the reception where I waste no time calling my solicitor, Rupert.
“Thank God,” he blurts after the third ring. “I’ve left four messages this morning.”
“Sorry, Rupert, but I’ve been inundated with messages so I left my phone on silent. Anyway, I’m guessing you’ve seen the article?”
“I’m afraid I have.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes. I don’t have to explain it.”
“Um, okay, but I think we need to talk about how we’re going to deal with it. The police will undoubtedly want to talk to you.”
“Don’t worry, Rupert. I’m keen to talk to the police because the woman is lying — she’s not my sister.”
“And you can prove that?” he asks with almost a hint of disbelief in his voice.
“Of course I can.”
“Sorry, William. It’s just that most national newspapers wouldn’t print a story like that without concrete evidence.”
“Up until ten minutes ago, I believed it myself so I know only too well how good she is at lying. But her real name is Amy Jones and you need to contact the newspaper now because she’s due for a meeting in twenty minutes.”
“And say what?”
“How the hell should I know? You’re the solicitor so slap them with an injunction or something.”
“Right, of course.”
“And make sure they don’t give her a penny. They’re going to need it because I’m going to sue them till they squeak.”
“I’ll get straight onto it. Do you want me to issue a statement on your behalf, refuting her claim?”
“Yes, I damn well do.”
I end the call and sit down for a moment. With no other distractions, the enormity of the last fifteen minutes swallows me up. There is no fitting analogy to describe the sense of relief as shame, guilt, and fear slowly ebb away. One emotion remains resolute though — desire for justice. It’s a shame I won’t be there when Amy Jones tries to collect her payment, and as much as I’d like to wallow in my antagonist’s disappointment, there are more pressing issues that require my attention. Decisions must now be made.
I inform an obviously annoyed Anna we’ll be leaving shortly and return to the corridor where Clement and Rosa are leant against the wall outside Miss Douglas’s room.
“Right. I have some questions I’d like answering.”
“I’ll do my best,” she replies in a low voice.
“Firstly, why the hell did your sister get the newspaper to print that garbage on their front page? I thought she had her eye on the bigger prize.”
“She did, until yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“You found Mum’s flat. Amy knew you’d been there, and I guess she thought it wasn’t worth the risk, waiting until Friday.”
Precisely as Clement theorised.
“How did she know we’d been to your mother’s flat?”
“Um, the tracking app,” she replies sheepishly.
“What’s a tracking app,” Clement asks.
“It’s exactly that,” I reply. “Wherever my phone goes, I can be tracked.”
“You mean we sat there freezing our knackers off and they knew we were there?” he groans.
“Apparently so,” I confirm.
I make a mental note to remove the app and move to my next question.
“And the woman in Sandown pretending to be Susan Davies?”
“Oh,” she sighs, visibly deflating. “You knew?”
“Yes, but not why you sent us on a wild goose chase to the Isle of Wight in the first place. Who was that woman?”
“Our aunt, on our father’s side,” she reluctantly confesses. “She had a debt to Amy, and went along with it to repay that debt. To be honest, it wasn’t that hard convincing her — she knew the history after we were turfed out of Hansworth Hall.”
No wonder fake Susan gave us such a frosty reception. But in the grand scheme of things, sending us on a pointless trip to the Isle of Wight sits pretty low on their list of deceptions.
“I thought it was a stupid move,” she adds. “But once you decided to track down Susan Davies, Amy knew you’d discover she was dead, and you might start digging around trying to
find other family members. There was too much at stake, so Amy decided to lead you up a blind alley instead.”
“She did that alright,” Clement mumbles.
“And why is you mother using the surname Douglas?” I ask.
“It’s her maiden name. After our father…died…she wanted rid of his name.”
Questions answered, a reflective silence descends; punctuated only by my own thoughts. The truth has finally prevailed, and what a truth it is. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, perhaps I could find a begrudging admiration for the lengths the sisters went to. As is often the case though, greed was their downfall. Maybe if they’d just tried to extort money for the contents of the trinket box, I might have succumbed, but Rosa will now pay the price for Amy’s greed.
“I’ll give you credit for flawless planning,” I concede. “But now it’s over, I need to decide what we’re going to do with you.”
Apparently Clement has his own suggestion. “Hand her over to the Old Bill and we’ll make it to Fitzgerald’s by opening time.”
I quickly conclude both parts of his plan are eminently sensible.
“Agreed.”
“Wait,” Rosa interjects.
“Don’t waste your breath. I’m not going to change my mind?”
“I know, and I’m not going to try. I deserve whatever punishment is coming my way, but can I ask you one question first?”
“Go on.”
“Did you mean what you said in there, about helping Mum?”
“Whatever you and your sister have done, I owe your mother for looking after my father and in lieu of the way she left Hansworth Hall.”
“Thank you,” she replies with a weak smile. “And in return, I have something that’s rightfully yours.”
She opens her handbag and removes a white envelope.
“This was also in your father’s box,” she adds, handing the envelope to me.
Wary of more sordid revelations, I tentatively open it and extract a single sheet of familiar velum writing paper.
“There was a second page of the letter,” Rosa explains. “Which Amy chose not to show you.”
“Why?”
“Read it and you’ll see why.”
I unfold the letter to find another four paragraphs of my father’s scrawled handwriting; written eighteen years ago…
The child, your sister, was christened Gabrielle Davies, and would be around twelve years of age by now. To the best of my knowledge, she still lives with Susan and her husband, Kenneth, at Brooke Cottage in a small village called Cranleigh, near Guildford.
Wrong'un (Clement Book 2) Page 26