by Tom Bale
‘No. Dan, will you calm down?’
Robbie tried to climb to his feet but he never got further than Dan’s fist. It connected neatly with his chin and Robbie fell back again, this time rolling and then falling from the bed with a loud thud.
‘Stay away from him, do you hear me? You give him anything ever again and I’ll kill you.’
‘Don’t get so—’
‘And stay away from me. We’re finished.’
Robbie let out a laugh: half scorn, half regret. ‘You’ve gotta be joking. You can’t walk out on this.’
‘Watch me.’
‘But what about the money?’
‘There won’t be any money. Don’t you get it? You think everything’s going to slip smoothly into place, but it won’t. There’s always something you haven’t allowed for, Robbie. There’s always a catch.’
‘Not every time. You’re just looking at it from a loser’s perspective. And I’m not a loser like you.’
****
It was Robbie who had the last word. Dan stormed out, slamming the door so hard that the whole building seemed to shudder. Robbie groaned. This wasn’t how he’d imagined their meeting would end; not even close.
Still, he felt curiously light-headed, aware of an inexplicable desire to giggle and then throw things, like a demented toddler. So what if there was a catch? He wasn’t stupid. He’d find a way round it.
A sharp rap on the bedroom door. Jed was standing there, bemused, taking in the mess of papers, the fallen laptop, the sight of Robbie gingerly patting his face.
‘You’re not bleeding.’
Robbie grunted. ‘Second time in a week he’s done that.’
‘Yeah? If that’s how your friends show their respect, I don’t wanna be around when your enemies come calling.’
‘Who says I’ve got enemies?’
Jed’s mocking laugh was dry as sawdust. ‘That pal of mine? He can collect the car first thing tomorrow.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Got the rest of what’s owed?’
Robbie nodded, ignoring Jed’s knowing look. Once he was alone again, he began to gather up the papers, trying to restore some order both physically and in his head. But his attention kept wandering, distracted by Dan’s fit of temper. And this news about Martin.
Robbie was one of the few people who’d predicted from the start that Cate was making a mistake. He’d even wondered on occasion if she had persevered with the relationship to spite him – or to prove him wrong, at least.
But he hadn’t been wrong. Martin was a tosser.
It occurred to Robbie that he should call his sister to offer his condolences. Then he decided to wait a day or two. He had too much on his plate at the moment.
Martin’s death was unfortunate, but it had nothing to do with him.
CHAPTER 84
Cate’s first action after Dan left was to run a bath. It was a tried and tested method to counteract emotional stress.
She didn’t regret what had happened this afternoon: the sex, in truth, had been a wonderful respite. But Dan’s betrayal had cut her deeply, even allowing for Robbie’s justification that she was better off not knowing. He shouldn’t have lied to her.
That conviction wavered shortly after she climbed from the bath to find a couple of missed calls from her mother, along with a crude text: R u too busy shagging him to give me the gossip?!!
A reference to the date that never was. Cate swore softly. She’d have to respond, but she couldn’t tell her mother about Martin. Not today. Not on top of everything else.
And that made her a hypocrite, didn’t it? For she too was lying and deceiving at every turn.
She drifted over to the bedroom window, and was briefly tempted to pack a suitcase and drive far away. Then she took a deep breath and made the call.
****
‘How was it? Did he pay for the grub? Did you end up in bed togeth—?’
‘Mum, stop there. I didn’t see him.’
‘Don’t say you chickened out?’
‘No. He had to postpone. Some sort of problem with one of his kids.’
‘Hmm.’ Either she didn’t believe Cate, or she didn’t believe the story Cate had been given.
‘It’s no big deal. Maybe in a week or two.’
‘Haven’t you fixed another date?’
‘No. I told you all along it was only casual. You shouldn’t have got so worked up about it.’
‘Are you all right? You sound upset.’
‘I’m fine. Look, I’ve got to go. I think there’s somebody at the door.’
‘Who?’
‘Just a neighbour.’ Another lie. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
Cate ended the call, her heart thudding. She had seen a familiar car draw up outside. She retreated from the window, hurriedly pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt, Dan’s revelations all too fresh in her mind.
From now on, every contact I have with the police will be like walking a tightrope ...
****
From the way he thumped on the door, refusing to answer wasn’t an option. Cate walked slowly downstairs, willing herself to appear calm.
She opened the door, nodded curtly at his warrant card. She knew perfectly well who he was. This was simply to remind her of the power he wielded.
‘What can I do for you, DC Avery?’
‘A bit more friendly advice heading your way. DS Thomsett tells me you already know about your ex?’
Cate saw she was supposed to be intimidated by his manner, but she had been through too much already today; the result was a sudden fearlessness.
‘Yes. I heard about it this morning.’
‘Well, the lovely Guy, he who makes the ladies go weak at the knees, thinks it’s just coincidence. Poor old Martin, poor old Hank, boo hoo. Two unlucky fellers in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Avery jerked his thumb towards his chest. ‘Whereas me, I take a different line. To my mind, you’re up to your neck in something. I reckon you know far more than you’re letting on, and I can’t for the life of me see why my sergeant has bought into your act.’
‘Because it’s not an act,’ Cate said, still surfing a bizarre wave of confidence. ‘And DS Thomsett is an immeasurably better police officer than you’ll ever be.’
‘Aw, sounds like true love,’ Avery drawled. ‘But it won’t get you off the hook. As a lawyer ...’ he sneered, his lips pressing together as if longing to spit ‘... you’ll know the consequences of lying to the police. So think carefully about the hole you’re digging, and decide whether it’s gonna be your grave.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Course not, love. This is a prudent warning. Soon as I can sort it, I’m having you in for questioning. If need be I’ll go over Thomsett’s head. And if it turns out the DS was protecting you ...’ He whistled, feigning regret. ‘Well, that’s him for the chop ’n all.’
‘And you’ll step into his job?’ Cate suggested.
Avery shrugged. ‘We’ll see, won’t we? I’m going to enjoy wiping that smirk off your face, madam. Because you might not have killed Hank O’Brien yourself. But you damn well know who did, don’t you?’
Cate said nothing. They stared at each other for an interminable length of time. Cate noted the detective’s growing frustration, and added to it with a demure smile.
‘This is a fishing expedition. If you suspect me of something, go and find the evidence, then come back and arrest me. Until then, please stay out of my life.’
She shut the door in his face, then made fists with her hands and clamped them against her cheeks to hold in the scream of anger and relief and sheer amazement that she had performed so well.
****
The arrival of a second visitor brought Stemper’s surveillance to an end. This time there was no doubting that the man was a police officer, and Caitlin looked decidedly unhappy to see him.
Stemper watched them converse for a minute and decided he had seen enough. He was achieving little and risking a lot.
He returned to the guest house. Quills was checking in a party of tourists: German or Danish, perhaps. Stemper saw the proprietor’s face transform as he walked past; a hope rekindled. His gaze took in Stemper’s new raincoat, which he’d folded over his arm, and then the suit. These weren’t the clothes he’d gone out in yesterday morning.
‘I thought you’d abandoned me,’ Quills said, with a mirthless chuckle.
‘An all-night meeting,’ Stemper said. ‘I’m exhausted now. Perhaps we can talk later?’
From Quills, barely concealed delight. He was desperate to say more, but the tourists were demanding his attention. Stemper thanked them silently and slipped away.
CHAPTER 85
The Blakes passed a slow, dull evening. While Patricia read a Max Hastings book on Churchill, Gordon spent a couple of hours online, hunting for connections between Templeton and the law firm that employed Caitlin Scott. Finally he concluded it was nothing more than happenstance, though it emphasised the problem they had: with so many unknowns it became impossible to evaluate the threats and decide which must be faced and which could be dismissed.
Two bright notes. First, as they sat down to a light supper, Jen-Ling phoned, now sufficiently recovered to speak to them herself. It was Gordon who took the call: Patricia could fake the sympathy, but not the patience.
He was pleasantly surprised at how fluently she spoke English – rather more coherent than Jerry himself, in some respects. She was humble and polite, thanking the Blakes for their help. Gordon quickly established a rapport and was able to enquire about the progress of the police investigation.
The response was encouraging. Everyone seemed satisfied that Jerry had died at his own hand. Jen-Ling had confirmed that he’d been a difficult man to live with, a man who could all too feasibly have concealed his exotic sexual proclivities from his family and friends.
Then their daughter called, apologetic that it was so long since the last visit. She suggested joining them for dinner during the week, but Gordon had to put her off.
‘Can we make it the week after? Things are rather hectic with us at the moment.’
Lisa scoffed. ‘Goodness, Dad. When are you going to slow down a bit?’
‘When your mother lets me,’ Gordon said, quietly. Neither of them had laughed.
****
He came off the phone to find Patricia working herself into another frenzy.
‘I’ve reviewed it all once again, and I’m convinced it’s a deliberate plot to usurp us. But Hank, to his credit, must have refused to go along with it—’
‘Or demanded too high a price.’
‘Well, yes. Either way, they killed him and stole the documentation. What if they’re already beyond our reach? They could be on their way to Templeton as we speak.’
‘They won’t leave the country. Far too dangerous.’ Gordon sat beside her, placing a hand on her knee. ‘What did we say earlier? Let’s not go shooting off on these flights of morbid fantasy.’
‘Normally I’d agree with you. But we’ve never faced something like this.’ Patricia’s hand grasped his, and she turned towards him, tears glinting in her eyes. ‘I can’t bear it. The uncertainty, the pain of losing what we’ve held so dear to our hearts for so long.’
****
Gordon did his utmost to console her, but she was right. The work of a lifetime hung in the balance.
One of the young MPs befriended by Patricia in the early 1980s had later held a number of portfolios, including that of Minister for Overseas Development. By that stage the Blakes were providing PR and consultancy services across a range of departments, and they had accepted an invitation to accompany the minister on a fact-finding mission to some godforsaken country in the Horn of Africa.
Gordon would be the first to admit that they’d arrived with the standard preconceptions about the continent, not to mention a healthy contempt for the practice of pouring foreign aid into badly run Third World administrations. Just a few years earlier Patricia had been openly derisive of the high-profile mission launched by a group of pop stars to relieve the suffering in Ethiopia. A lot of leftie heart-on-sleeve posturing.
But the experience of Africa in the raw did something to them: to Patricia, certainly. It changed her in some fundamental way, those long convoys by Land Rover to dusty, drought-ravaged villages, touring absurdly inadequate schools where children clustered rapturously around these strange, sombre visitors; attending makeshift classes that fizzed with joyful laughter. They had frequently been moved to tears by the laughter.
Then the desperation of the refugee camps, and the almost unfathomable sight of men and women and children who literally possessed nothing, and yet still went on living, still smiled, still loved and cared and hoped enough to survive. It had awakened in Patricia a desire to nurture that had barely surfaced when her own child had needed it most.
Since then they had been active where they could, revisiting several times, donating money particularly in the areas of primary health and in education. Patricia was passionate in her support of projects that focused on educating and empowering girls, and when Templeton’s undeserved success first inspired the Blakes to gain recompense, it was these projects that had motivated them to act.
Fifty million pounds. That had been their target. Hank O’Brien had fought bitterly for half, but since the whole scheme was conceived by the Blakes, they had negotiated him down to fifteen. From their share, once Jerry had been paid and various other expenses settled, the Blakes had estimated there would be around thirty-three million remaining, of which two-thirds – twenty-two million – were to be allocated to their favoured projects.
Now, if the scheme could somehow be resuscitated, virtually the entire fifty million would be theirs. Gordon had suggested going halves but Patricia was insisting on thirty-five for their philanthropic efforts, leaving fifteen to add to their personal wealth, which currently stood at just under three million, including the Surrey home and their villa in Tuscany.
Plenty of money by most people’s standards. At times this past week, Gordon had wondered why they didn’t just turn away, forget the African dream and make do with what they had.
But then he thought of his restless mid-life craving for a yacht, and the tumbling value of some of their key investments, and the idea of spending maybe twenty or thirty years in retirement with an inexorably falling income. Bye-bye villa, bye-bye exotic holidays and sumptuous meals and earth-shattering sex with his pneumatic playmates in Kingston-upon-Thames ...
Patricia was right. There was too much to lose. And if they had to gamble everything now on a last desperate throw of the dice, then so be it.
****
Stemper slept for nearly six hours. He bathed, dressed and slipped out while Quills was holding forth in the dining room. Perhaps one of the tourists had caught his eye.
He found a restaurant near the Theatre Royal that was still open to new customers at eleven p.m. He fuelled up, allowed himself a couple of glasses of wine, and was back at the guest house at just before one.
The building was quiet, save for a faint peal of laughter from a bedroom on the second floor. The door to the private apartment had been left unlocked, as per Stemper’s instructions.
Quills was still awake, eyes bright, face flushed. Heavily inebriated, by the look of him. Excellent.
‘Are you sleepy?’ Stemper crouched by the bed. ‘It works better if you’re sleepy.’
‘Too excited to sleep.’
‘I take it you made some new friends tonight. Were you drinking with them?’
‘One or two.’ Quills giggled. ‘I wish you’d been there.’ Beneath the old-fashioned eiderdown his body was gently writhing, his arm stretched across his belly, lying there, awaiting the signal to move.
‘Do it,’ Stemper said. ‘It’ll help you relax.’
‘I am relaxed.’ The movement began, rhythmic, fast.
‘Slow down.’
‘It feels wonderful. But I wish you’d—’
‘Not tonight. Tonight you have to do as I say. Close your eyes. Remember how it was last time. How you listened to my voice and felt yourself sinking. A gloriously heavy weight, Bernard, sinking into the dark. And as you go, I want you to picture the treat I’ll give you on my last night here.’
‘When ...?’ Quills’s voice was thick, drowsy.
‘Soon. Tomorrow, or Tuesday. We’ll have a drink together. What is it you like best? What’s your tipple?’
‘Cham ... champagne.’
‘Champagne it is. In fact, you choose the bottle. Have it ready on ice, and think about what you’re going to do that night, the pleasure you’ll feel as you lie back and sink into the warmth, the heavy warmth and the peace, the stillness. The pleasure. Think about it all, think about me, and then I want you to sleep deeply.’
A long, soft groan accompanied a series of spasms beneath the covers, and then Quills lay still, wearing a dreamy smile. For several minutes nothing was said; neither man moved at all.
One of Stemper’s knees popped as he straightened up, but the proprietor did not stir. It had not escaped Stemper’s notice that he could so easily have picked up a pillow and pressed it down on the poor man’s face.
But where was the challenge in that?
CHAPTER 86
Dan had found the perfect business. It was an almost exact replica of the cafe in Saltdean, but located on a hillside in the Cuckmere valley, with fine views of Friston Forest and even a glimpse of sparkling blue sea. Dan was racing to get it ready for opening time, but no one else had turned up to help.
And Cate was outside, on the terrace. Dan kept beckoning to her but she ignored his pleas, staring at him with a sad regretful smile, and somehow he understood that she dare not come in because she was afraid of breaking his heart.
He woke with a desperate sense of longing, and a realisation that his subconscious was a good deal more perceptive than his conscious mind.