A Bad, Bad Thing

by Elena Forbes

  ‘Wait,’ she said, heart beating fast. She bent over, palms on her thighs, gasping. She was going to be sick. She was never going to make it to the road at this rate. Maybe it would be better to hide. Everything was spinning. Harry’s hand was on her arm, steadying her. The sickness passed after a few moments and she slowly stood up and looked at him. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?’

  ‘They’re going to kill you.’

  ‘Why?’ It still didn’t make sense.

  ‘You know too much, or at least they think so. Stuart doesn’t like leaving loose ends. I have to say, I didn’t bargain on that. I thought they just meant to scare you. Whatever you think of me, I’m not a murderer.’ She picked up the urgency in his voice, surprised that after everything he had some sort of a conscience.

  ‘What about Mickey Fraser?’ she asked, as they started moving again, half walking, half jogging. It was the best she could do. ‘Were you involved in what happened to him?’

  ‘The PI, you mean? No. He came to Newbury and asked for me. I tried to make him go away, but he started shooting his mouth off about all sorts of wild stuff. He then confronted Stuart, which was a very stupid thing to do. He said he had proof of something. He said something about a dead journalist called Kevin, who used to work for the Racing Post and some notebooks. I had no idea who he was, but it certainly meant something to Stuart. It was like somebody had lit a fire under him. I still didn’t realize they intended to kill Mickey, then I read about his murder in the papers. I recognized his photo. He’d come to the yard only a few days before. Then you mentioned him and showed me his photo.’

  ‘Someone overheard Wade threatening to kill your father ten years ago. They saw one of Wade’s men pointing a gun at his face.’

  ‘You mean Jane? How the hell do you know that?’

  She glanced up at him. Even in the half-light she could see the shock on his face, but there was no time to explain.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘They didn’t kill her, if that’s what you think. I never told them I saw her there at the window. I knew what they’d do to her. I went around to the cottage later, to talk to her, but she’d gone. I swear I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘So it was you who broke in?’

  ‘Yes. I couldn’t find the key. I was worried. I wanted to make sure she was OK.’

  ‘What about your father? Did they kill him?’

  ‘He took his own life. He discovered what I was mixed up in. It would have ruined him if anyone had found out. They’d never have believed he wasn’t involved. He did it to save me.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?

  ‘I found him, in his study. There were two notes, one for my mother, which I gave to the police, and one addressed to me, which I never showed anyone. I still have it. It’s the most godawful, shaming thing I’ve ever read. He was trying to protect me, put all the blame on himself. After that, Wade wouldn’t leave me alone. The BHA dropped the investigation, but he had me in his pocket.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’

  ‘I’m in too deep. I don’t fancy a spell in jail, so I’m going to disappear abroad for a while. I’ll call it a sabbatical. It’s all planned. I’ll leave things in Melissa’s capable hands.’

  ‘Wade’s not going to let you go.’

  ‘I told you, I know too much. Once I’m gone, once he realizes I’m not going to do any damage to him. He’ll soon forget about me. He’s got fingers in lots of pies. I’m not his only stooge.’

  As he spoke, they heard somebody calling Harry’s name from the direction of the yard.

  ‘I told them I went to check on a horse that’s got colic,’ he whispered. ‘They can’t get into the tack room without the key, so you’ve still got a bit of time before they realize you’ve gone. If you go up that bank there, then over the top, you’ll see the house at the bottom. Melissa should be home by now. Call the police from there.’

  ‘What about you? You should come with me.’ She could barely see his face but he seemed surprisingly calm.

  ‘I can’t. He might do something stupid, like set fire to the stables. Let me handle this. As I said, when they find out you’re not there, they’re not going to hurt me. I know too much. I’ll go back now and try and hold them off. I’ll pretend I’ve lost the key.’

  He was being stupid, but there was no time to argue. Also, even if his conscience had made him stop short of murder, he had been mixed up in it all for years. It was his lookout. She scrambled up the steep, muddy bank as best she could and crossed the soggy grass to one of the gallops. She climbed through the railings and followed the soft track for a good hundred metres, hoping to hide her footprints. Then she ducked under the railings on the other side, crouched down low and ran as fast as she was able along the ridge at the top. More shouts came from the direction of the yard. She hoped when they found out she had escaped they would assume she was making her way to one of the main roads, either at the back or the front of the estate. She cut off left, heading over the brow of the hill, as Harry had suggested. The farmhouse was just visible down below in the valley, half-hidden behind some trees. Lights sparkled at the windows and she could just make out Melissa’s car parked on the drive, in front. She heard more shouts in the distance. Then she heard the sound of gunshots. Two in quick succession, then a third. It sounded like a pistol. She kept going, slipping, almost falling, down the bank, then tripping and smashing her way through the bracken at the bottom and into the small copse. She was making a lot of noise. Anyone on top of the hill would know exactly where she was, but she didn’t care. Gasping for breath, she climbed over the fence that separated the wood from the garden and sprinted the final stretch up the drive to the front door.

  She rang the bell and banged the knocker as hard as she could several times, but nobody came. A light was on in the kitchen window, at the side of the house. The curtains were only partly drawn. A sleepy-looking young girl sat on the sofa, in front of the television, the brindled whippet curled up on the cushion next to her. She must be the babysitter, Eve thought. She hadn’t seen her before. She hammered on the glass, but the girl didn’t appear to hear. Eve picked up a stone from the path and hurled it as hard as she could at the centre pane of the window. The glass smashed and the stone fell at the girl’s feet. She looked up.

  ‘Open the door. Now,’ Eve shouted.

  Still staring at Eve, mouth open, the girl didn’t move.

  ‘Let me in. We need to call the police.’

  The girl stood up, pulled off a set of ear-buds and said something Eve couldn’t hear.

  ‘Let me in,’ Eve shouted again. ‘Help me. I need to call the police.’

  The voices were getting closer, somewhere high up on the ridge above, maybe on the road leading to the main gate. If they looked down, they would have a clear view of the house below, and possibly a clear shot at her too, although hopefully she was out of range. She was about to try and smash open the window with a garden chair when Melissa walked into the room. She still had her coat on and looked as though she had just returned from an evening out.

  Eve hammered again on the window and Melissa looked around alarmed.

  ‘It’s me, Eve,’ Eve shouted. ‘Open the door.’

  Melissa ran across the room and unlocked one of the French windows. Eve pushed past her into the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s the phone?’

  ‘My God, Eve. What are you doing here? Was that you making all that noise just now?’

  ‘Call the police.’

  ‘There’s blood all over your face. What on earth’s happened? Has someone attacked you?’

  ‘Harry’s in danger, and so am I. I think they just shot him.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Just call the police,’ she shouted.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Just after two thirty in the afternoon, the following day, Eve drove through the barrier and down the hill through the woods to the little marina on the Beaulieu River. She had trie
d to call Gavin several times but his phone kept diverting straight to voicemail. She wondered if Melissa had been able to get hold of him to tell him what had happened the previous night. Melissa’s voice still filled her ears in a disjointed loop.

  ‘I can’t get hold of Gavin. He’s on that stupid boat of his. You think he’d come back here, to be with me? He doesn’t care about any of us. This is all your fault. Now Harry’s been shot because of you. Why did you have to come here, stirring up trouble? None of this would have happened without you.’

  Eve had spent part of the previous night being interviewed in the little police station in Marlborough, after which she had been driven by a member of Fagan’s team back to London for further interviews earlier that morning. Dan had taken Hassan to see Fagan and he had given a statement about what he had seen at Mickey’s flat. Harry had been shot twice and badly wounded. He had been taken by ambulance to Swindon hospital, with Sally Michaels at his side. One of the bullets had nicked his lung and he had been rushed into surgery, but he had since regained consciousness and was expected to pull through. Stuart and Damon Wade had been caught, trying to escape, and had been arrested and charged with a variety of offences, along with two of their men. Hopefully, Hassan would be able to identify one, or both of them and that forensic evidence would place them at the scene of Mickey’s murder. The third man had run off somewhere on foot, but was finally captured later, trying to hitch a lift on the road to Swindon.

  At the bottom of the steep hill, the dark trees gave way to a wide, open area of brown, brackish marshland, feathered with little inlets of muddy water. She parked her car next to the yacht-broker’s cabin, which appeared to have already closed for the day, and walked through the boatyard. It was packed with about fifty boats of varying shapes and sizes, the hulls lifted high off the ground on sturdy wooden props. A radio blared from one of the boats, accompanied by the sound of drilling and hammering, but other than that there was little sign of life. The harbour master’s hut looked over the water. She stopped and asked for directions and the man behind the desk pointed through the window towards the neat lines of boats beyond, giving her precise instructions. Outside, the air was heavy with the smell of brine. The river curled into the distance, milky and still under the huge grey sky. Physically, it looked little different to how she remembered it from twenty years before, except that the sun had been shining, the air hot and dry and the landscape bright with colour. She crossed the bridge and walked down the narrow gangplank onto the main pontoon, which ran parallel with the marshland. A flock of gulls were feeding on the muddy banks, exposed by the low tide, and their intermittent cries pierced the silence. Five narrow pontoons stretched out at right angles from the main walkway, like the branches of a tree, each festooned with neat lines of white yachts, with hardly an empty berth. Most of the boats were dark, locked up and in hibernation for the winter.

  Even without the harbour master’s directions, she couldn’t miss Gavin’s boat. Again she heard Melissa’s shrill, bitter voice:

  ‘You know what it’s called don’t you? It’s The Eve. I should have guessed the minute I first saw you. You’ve ruined all our lives.’

  The yacht sat low in the water, about thirty-feet long, gleaming white, with navy trim. Her name was written in large black italics on the stern. It must have been a rebuke to Melissa every time she saw it. No wonder she didn’t enjoy sailing. Music drifted from inside, Mozart, she thought, and could just make out Gavin through the window, leaning against a pile of cushions, reading some sort of document. He must have heard her as he looked up and came out on deck.

  ‘Oh, Eve,’ he said, helping her aboard. ‘I wasn’t expecting you. Are you OK?’

  She nodded.

  He studied her face anxiously. ‘Melissa called me. I was going to come, but she said you’d gone back to London with the police. I didn’t realize those men had hurt you, as well as Harry.’

  ‘It’s nothing. Just bruising, that’s all.’

  A gust of wind blew her hair into her eyes and for a moment she was blinded. He brushed it gently away with his fingers, still gazing at her.

  ‘I’m so sorry you ever got drawn into all of this.’ It was as though he felt he and the Michaels family were to blame for everything.

  She followed him inside through the small door, stepping carefully down the ladder into the warmth of the small cabin. It was fitted out in glossy cherry-coloured wood and cream leather upholstery, with a slatted, wooden floor. He took her coat and hung it up in a small cupboard at the back.

  ‘You know, I never thought you’d come,’ he said, turning off the music and hastily clearing away the remains of his lunch. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, or coffee, or something?’ he asked, quickly washing them up in the galley. ‘I’ve got nothing else, apart from some wine, I’m afraid. As I said, I didn’t think you’d come.’

  ‘I’m fine. I’ve had enough caffeine in the last twelve hours to last me a week. How’s your mother?’

  ‘Luckily, just a bit of bruising, that’s all.’

  She sat down on one of the long, cream benches and he joined her after a minute.

  ‘Will you tell me what happened? I’d like to hear it from you.’

  She felt suddenly awkward and looked away, folding her arms tightly across her chest as she gazed out of the window towards the woods in the distance. She had told Andy Fagan everything. Why was it so difficult to talk to Gavin?

  ‘Look, if you don’t want to, it’s fine.’

  ‘No. I’d like to.’ Taking a deep breath, she started with what had happened in the street outside her flat, then in the tack room at Westerby, Harry, the gunshot, Melissa … As she listened to herself talk, it suddenly seemed a terrible, confusing blur. She didn’t know if she was making sense or not, but it struck her suddenly how close she had again come to dying. When she finished, there was silence for a moment, then he put his arms around her and pulled her to him. From nowhere, tears filled her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling away and wiping her face hurriedly with her fingers. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I’m very tired. I’m in no fit state …’

  ‘Eve, it’s me. It doesn’t matter. I’m just so happy you’re here. You can rest. I’ll look after you.’

  She shook her head. The weight of his emotions and expectations were too much. She felt suddenly claustrophobic and stood up again. ‘I’ve got to go, I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you’ve only just got here. What’s the matter? You feel unwell? I can call a doctor.’

  ‘No. I just can’t stay.’

  ‘Please, Eve. Will you just sit down for a minute and tell me what’s wrong.’

  She stared out of the window again, trying to make sense of how she felt, then turned back to face him. She didn’t know what to say or where to start. None of it would make any difference, nor would it make him happy.

  ‘Eve, please. I’ll do anything I can … Anything for you …’ He was looking at her, as though not sure what to do, then reached for her hand and pulled her down next to him again on the bench. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he said, trying to catch her eye. ‘And I sense you don’t want to hear this. But I have to tell you. I love you. I always have. I’ve never stopped. Not for one single minute. I felt that way from the moment I first saw you.’ He took a series of deep breaths. ‘You know, I used to go outside into the back garden on the pretext of having a cigarette, even though I didn’t really smoke, and I’d stand gazing up at your window, just wishing I’d catch a glimpse of you or that you’d open the curtains and look out at me. I just wanted to see you, to feel close to you, to be with you. I don’t feel any different now.’

  She saw the sadness in his eyes and pressed her fingers to his lips. There was nothing that she could say that would make it any better.

  He took her hand again, holding it tightly. ‘You don’t understand the effect you have on people, on me, I mean.’

  ‘Please don’t say any more.’

  ‘I have to. You
know, I’ve always believed in myself, ever since I was really small. I’ve always set myself goals. I knew if only I put my mind to it and worked incredibly hard, I’d do well at school, get into a good university, then the Bar, and then, later on, win a seat in Parliament. I’ve never felt inferior to anybody and I’ve always thought that everything was possible, if I wanted it enough. I’ve never doubted anything, ever, until you appeared in my life. I mean both twenty years ago and now. I feel suddenly lost all over again. Why did you come today?’

  She pulled away, took a deep breath. ‘Because I owe you an explanation.’

  ‘You mean about why you ran off and left me before? It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. That’s all that’s important.’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing’s changed. I couldn’t marry you when you asked me and I can’t be with you now.’

  ‘I don’t understand. To be honest, I’ve never understood.’

  She held his gaze, struggling to form the words. She had never spoken them before and it felt suddenly frightening. Once out, there would be no return. She stood up and moved away from him, looking out at the water, wanting to put some distance between them.

  ‘Eve? What’s wrong?’

  She turned back to face him. ‘My name’s not Eve.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My real name’s Pagan.’

  ‘Pagan?’

  ‘It’s the name of a character in a stupid bestseller my mother was reading when she was pregnant with me. She lived in a world of fantasy most of the time. It’s one of the many ways she tried to escape everything.’

  ‘You never talked about your mother.’

  ‘She’s dead. I’ve been Eve for over twenty years, now. Pagan … she seems like another person.’

  ‘You didn’t like your name?’

  ‘It’s not that, although I hated my name. I used to get teased about it at school.’ She took a deep breath. It was almost painful to speak. ‘I was twelve. Something happened to me. I was put in the witness protection scheme and given a new identity, a new life. I’ve never told anybody before.’