A smartly dressed man with cocoa-coloured skin and short hair was standing in the doorway.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said and extended a hand. ‘Detective Carlton. You must be Sasha Sinclair. I recognise you from one of my wife’s magazines.’
Her shoulders sank with relief and she clasped a hand to her chest. ‘A detective,’ she said, breathing out. ‘You scared the life out of me. Are you with Miles?’
‘No. A boat has just brought me from George Town. Perhaps we should go downstairs and wait for him?’
‘Good idea. I think he’s in danger.’
‘Danger?’
Sasha wasn’t sure she should tell the police anything until she had spoken to Miles. Then again, what if Michael Marshall was with them? What if he was planning some sort of revenge?
‘Yes, I think there’s a man on this island who might not be who he claims to be.’
She turned around to retrieve her BlackBerry. She didn’t realise that Detective Carlton had come up behind her until she felt an arm around her throat, choking her. She struggled, but he was too strong, his arm pressing into her windpipe. For a split second, the pieces started falling into place. But then it was too late, because a moment later, she had lost consciousness.
77
Miles decided to cut the sailing trip short. Thick grey storm clouds were gathering quickly and both Miles and Grace had spent enough summers in the Exumas to know that when bad weather came, it could be bleak and torrential. As they tied up the boat and walked up to the house, the tall coconut palms had begun swaying from side to side and the once cloudless sky had become dark and brooding.
‘I hope Sasha has managed to get here,’ said Alex, looking towards the house. Where before it had looked idyllic and welcoming, now the dark windows made the place seem cold and unsettling.
Miles tutted. ‘I still can’t understand why she refused to come out from London with you two.’
‘I should think the prospect of an eight-hour flight sitting next to Grace probably put her off,’ said Alex quietly as Grace walked into the house out of earshot. ‘After all that business with her and your dad.’
‘I see your point,’ said Miles as they followed his sister in. It was obvious that no one was in the house; there were no lights or signs of life.
‘Where’s bloody Benny?’ snapped Miles. ‘I need a drink.’
‘The bar’s only over there, Miles,’ said Alex, nodding to the corner of the living room. ‘I think you can manage to unscrew a bottle by yourself.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Grace, obviously trying to head off a confrontation. She handed them all glasses, then sat down on a high-backed cream sofa.
‘Look, Miles, I know Sasha’s not arrived, but she might not even get here tonight. So I think we should start talking about what we came here to discuss.’
Miles glanced out of the windows at the dark, rolling sea. There was no way a boat would bring Sasha over from the White Sands resort unless it had left already. He shrugged.
‘Fair enough.’
He was just sitting down when his mobile started ringing, a faint, shrill rasp in the distance.
‘Bollocks. Where did I leave my phone?’
‘Sounds like upstairs,’ said Alex. ‘Why don’t you leave it? We need to get started.’
‘Might be the police,’ said Miles, running up to his room and pulling his phone from a pocket of the jacket hanging behind the door.
‘Mr Ashford?’
‘Yes.’
‘DeShaun Riley. I’m doing forensics on the island.’
Miles had met the man earlier. He had taken the Mini Moke out to the west beach that afternoon to see how he was getting on.
‘Can you meet me by the boathouse? As soon as you can. There’s something I need to show you.’
Miles frowned, feeling a flicker of distress. The boathouse? What the fuck was he doing there? Hadn’t Detective Carlton said that the only scene-of-crime work was being done around the site where the body had been found? God, I knew it was a mistake to let Michael go back to George Town.
He grabbed a windcheater from his wardrobe and ran downstairs, where Alex and Grace were still sitting expectantly on the sofa.
‘I have to go out,’ he said, heading for the door.
‘Miles, we’re here to bloody talk!’ said Alex.
‘I won’t be long.’
Outside, the temperature seemed to have fallen by ten degrees and the first drops of rain were beginning to fall, spotting Miles’ expensive suede leather deck shoes. The quickest way to the boathouse was to weave through the mangrove at the back of the house. It was darkening as he walked through the forest, the wind beginning to rush through the treetops. I won’t go down for this, he told himself. I did nothing wrong.
As he approached the west beach, the vegetation thinned out and he could see glimpses of sand through the trees. A man was standing in the shelter of the rickety boathouse, but it was not DeShaun Riley.
‘Michael?’ said Miles with a puzzled expression. ‘What are you doing back? Where’s Riley?’
Michael waited until Miles had joined him him before he spoke. ‘I sent him away. I didn’t want anyone to overhear this.’
‘Overhear what?’
Michael’s expression was serious. ‘Miles, you have to tell me what happened that night.’
‘Why? What did the police say?’ said Miles, pulling his collar up against the cold.
‘Forget what the police do or don’t know. I am your lawyer, and if we’re going to fix this, I need to know the truth.’
Miles nodded; Michael was right, he supposed. So far, he had been selective with the information he’d told the lawyer, but then what really had happened? Over the last two decades he had rewritten history in his own mind. He remembered the key events: the spat with the boat boy when he’d caught him and Alex together. Finding out that the body on the beach had disappeared. The stolen Boston Whaler that had never reappeared. But everything in between had faded away, forced into some dark corner by his own reflex to protect himself.
‘Tell me, Miles,’ said Michael.
Miles felt a flicker of irritation at the expression on his lawyer’s face: hard and disapproving. That’s a bit rich, he thought, considering he paid Michael handsomely for his moral ambiguity. Still, he needed to tell him, even if it was only to cover every angle. He pulled a Camel Light packet from his shorts pocket, cupping his hand around the tip as he lit a cigarette.
‘I came to the island after our A levels with a bunch of friends,’ he began, breathing out a plume of smoke. ‘It was our last night and we got incredibly pissed. I’d been drinking absinthe, taking coke. I was a bit of a mess as I remember. Anyway, Alex and I went to the dunes for a smoke. We kissed. Just schoolboy stuff, messing around, but we’d been seen by this boat boy, who began taunting me. We had a fight. He ran away.’
He glanced at Marshall for a reaction, but the lawyer’s face was hidden in shadow. It was overcast now and Miles began to worry they might be caught in the storm.
‘After that, I went for a walk around the island. Maybe an hour later, I saw this boat boy again. He was drunk too, which I pointed out was reason enough to get him fired, the cocky little prick. So he starts having a go at me again. Called me a fag over and over. And then he tells me that he’s just fucked Sasha back in his quarters, because I wasn’t enough of a man to satisfy her.’
His mouth pressed into a sour line. He could still hear the boat boy’s whiny American voice now, taunting him. You fucking faggot. His words had been like acid and Miles had hated it, because deep down he had known it was true, and it was the one thing about himself that he could not accept.
‘So you were angry?’ asked Marshall.
‘It made me mad,’ he snapped. ‘Of course it did! Sasha was bugging the shit out of me, but how dare that boat boy have sex with my girlfriend?’
‘So you killed him?’
‘No! At least,’ he said, s
haking his head, ‘I didn’t think so. We fought, a bit of a tussle, but he had a beer bottle in his hand. Somehow I got hold of it and swung it . . .’
His voice tailed off. He screwed his eyes tightly and he could almost see the boat boy’s body crumple to the sand. In his rage, Miles had kicked him, and he remembered the feeling of sinking terror as he watched the body rolling down the dune on to the beach. He had been so scared. So scared. His first instinct was to go and tell his father, but Robert Ashford was such an unpredictable man, he couldn’t take the chance. It was the first time in his life he had felt absolutely alone, and even today, the thought of it made him shiver.
‘So I left him there. Hoped someone else would find the body. It was bad luck that it was my friends.’
‘But why didn’t they help him or report it?’
‘We all agreed it was best to let one of the staff find the body. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Alex and Grace went to see Nelson – the old caretaker – and when they came back, the body had gone. My father convinced me the boy had simply been drunk, feared getting the sack, so had stolen one of our Boston Whalers.’
‘And did you believe that?’
‘Why wouldn’t I? There was no body there.’
Michael moved out of the shadows, his face grave. ‘But you suspected Robert had made the body disappear?’
‘Yes – no! – I don’t know,’ said Miles, running his fingers through his hair. ‘I certainly wanted to believe he had got up and walked away. But if that was the case, whose body is DeShaun Riley inspecting?’
‘He isn’t inspecting anyone,’ said Michael in a low voice. ‘There is no body.’
Miles looked up at him sharply.‘What? What do you mean? Have you done a deal with them?’
Michael shrugged. ‘In a way, yes. But not in the way you mean.’
Miles found his mouth had gone dry. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying he didn’t die, Miles. The boat boy . . . it was me.’
Miles shook his head in astonishment. Was this a joke? But he knew from the hard look on Michael’s face that he was deadly serious.
‘You . . . you’re the . . . ? Don’t screw me around, Michael!’ he shouted in confusion and fear. Michael’s face was like stone; hard, unyielding. And there was something in the lawyer’s eyes he didn’t like, something he’d never seen before. Triumph, or fury? He began to back away, but Michael brought his hand up. He was holding a gun.
‘What is this, Michael?’ shouted Miles. ‘Who are you?’
Before he had finished forming the words, Michael stepped forward and whipped the pistol sideways, catching Miles on the temple and sending him crashing to the floor.
‘I am revenge, Miles,’ he said, his voice quiet and controlled. ‘I am your conscience finally catching up with you. I am the last thing you will ever see.’ He raised his hand again, levelling the gun.
‘No, please!’ said Miles quickly. His head was swimming from the blow, but he had to think. This couldn’t be the end, he had to find a way out.
‘Tell me,’ he pleaded, playing for time. ‘I have to know.’
Michael didn’t lower the pistol.
‘It wasn’t your father who got rid of the body. It was Nelson. Except I was alive. He saw you and your friends coming back to the house, scared and jittery, and went out to investigate. He found me just before daybreak, took me back to his house. Nelson knew your father well and knew he would have taken your mistake out on me, possibly had me arrested. “Mr Ashford’s a bad man,” was what he said to me. “A very bad man.” So when you’d left the island and your father’s guests had arrived, Nelson got me off the island to a doctor.’
Miles knew the only way out was to try and reason with him. ‘So you were OK,’ he said. ‘It all turned out OK.’
He could see Michael’s hand trembling with simmering fury.
‘OK?’ spat his lawyer. ‘OK? You tried to kill me, Ashford, you put me in hospital, my brains scrambled. You almost ruined my life.’
‘Clearly not,’ hissed Miles. ‘You have a good life now, because of me, not in spite of me.’
Michael’s voice was level and hard. ‘Two months. That’s how long I was in hospital. I had a broken nose, ribs, jaw. Thanks to my head injuries, I lost my short-term memory. I woke up screaming. It goes without saying, I lost my place at Harvard. Not that I could take it up anyway – far too dangerous.’
‘What?’ said Miles.
‘Even as an eighteen-year-old hick, I knew how powerful the Ashfords were. I knew how you might come looking for me. To check I was really dead, and if I wasn’t, to silence me.’
‘That’s just insane . . .’ said Miles, trailing off. He didn’t want to provoke a madman.
‘What were you going to say, Miles? That’s insane? Paranoid? You think I’m crazy? You’re talking to the wrong man. I’ve spent five years doing just that for you, haven’t I? Digging up dirt, smearing people, having people “dissuaded” from doing things. Do you really think your father was any less ruthless?’
‘If you were so keen on staying hidden, why did you come back to find me?’ asked Miles slowly. He had shifted his position to look back down the path behind him, wondering if he could make a run for it. He had to distract Michael, keep him talking.
‘Because you had to pay for what you did!’ said Michael, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘So I changed my name, went to state uni, law school, joined Weinstein Fink on Wall Street, a small outfit. Tough, alley-cat lawyers. The truth was, I’d almost forgotten about you, Miles, until one day I heard Ash Corp. was looking for a business affairs manager. Dick Donovan, your father’s right-hand man, had put a discreet word out around all the hard-nosed, streetwise firms like Weinstein Fink that Miles Ashford wanted a fixer, and suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’
‘So you came to meet me,’ said Miles, remembering their first meeting in an anonymous hotel room in midtown. What had Donovan, his father’s business adviser, told him? ‘Come and meet an impressive young lawyer I’ve found. He’s sharp, ruthless. Just what we’re looking for . . .’
‘I just wanted to see what you had become. It was a risk, of course,’ said Michael with a hard, brittle laugh.‘But I knew I looked different, my fixed nose, the long studenty hair had gone. My new glasses. I have to wear these because of you, Miles. You ruptured my right cornea in that “bit of a tussle”, as you put it. A man like you, I’m not surprised you’ve found a way of justifying it to yourself, but it was a vicious, cowardly attack. “Frenzied”, that’s what the doctors said.’
Miles took a second to study Michael. He had never been able to recall the exact contours and features of the boat boy’s face. Even examining Michael’s face now, he could barely remember it. But then, he’d only seen him twice, in the dark, twenty years ago. Why would he recognise him?
‘But if you hated me so much, why did you take the job?’
Michael snorted. ‘As soon as I saw you again, I knew what sort of man you had become. Weak, arrogant, in need of other people to cover up your mistakes, just like you did that night on the island. I wanted to stop you, Miles – and get my just reward for what you did. And because of the power and influence you gave me, I now have five million dollars sitting in a bank account in the Cayman Islands, all slowly siphoned off from Ash Corp.’
Miles creased his brow. ‘Take the money and just fuck off then. You’ve made your point.’
‘Oh, this isn’t over, Miles,’ said Michael.‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Michael’s eyes were like dark, angry hollows. Miles forced himself to remain calm.
‘Put the gun down, Michael. Do you really think you can just shoot me and get away with it?’
The lawyer smirked. ‘I know how to get away with anything, Miles, you know that. I’m the master of the disappearing act; I’ve done it over and over again for you. But this time it’s going to be messy. This time I’m going to leave a bloody trail leading righ
t to your precious friends. Alex, Sasha and Grace will take the blame.’
‘They don’t deserve that, Michael.’
His brows arched in surprise. ‘Don’t they? They were happy enough to leave me to die on the beach. Happy enough to put it out of their minds as if it simply didn’t matter. Happy to go on with their lives hoping I had just been a bad dream.’
‘They thought you were dead,’ he said defensively.
Michael leapt forward, grabbing Miles’ hair and jamming the cold barrel of the gun into his eye.
‘Oh, I am dead, Miles,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve been dead for twenty years. And now you’re going to join me in hell.’
Kiss Heaven Goodbye Page 62