“That I attend the funeral. That I make sure Freddie is informed of the time and the place, even if that meant going above your head, Mrs Kitchener. My attending the funeral was part of the instructions, to make sure Freddie actually showed up. And if he did, then I was to follow Ruben’s other instructions to the letter, too.” He gulps when Alexia zeroes in on him. “It won’t come as a surprise that he asked for everything he had left in the world to be signed over to Miss Carter, but also that I deliver her a package, which must be opened in private. He was insistent about that.” He taps his briefcase, letting us know said package is contained within and he’s unlikely to open the case unless conditions are met.
Alexia turns and removes her sunglasses, showing me her eyes, how battle-weary and depleted she really is.
“I’m sorry, Alexia. For everything. If I had never come into his life…”
“…then he would never have known love, my dear. Do not be sorry. Just don’t be a stranger.” She presses a card into my hand, then stands to leave. “Call in a few weeks, Freya. Once I’m well again. Goodbye.”
She turns and leaves. I see as she reaches the door there’s a chauffeur waiting for her, ready to take her wherever she wants to go.
I turn to the solicitor who motions we leave. “That pub I mentioned… has private rooms.”
“May I see your card, please?”
He nods and hands it over without complaint. Everything seems to be in order. None of this is some joke or fraud, I hope.
“Lead the way, Mr Falstead.”
Last night I checked online that his firm actually exists, but it never hurts to show a little mistrust.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Life’s Paperwork
The pub has a Tudor façade and once we get inside, it’s all cask ales and tankards. I fear I’m going to be sorry I ever agreed to accompany this tiny but shrewd bald man. However, as promised, he gets a nod from someone behind the bar and leads me into one of the pub’s private snug rooms. No doubt famous people prefer dining in private, or perhaps this is where politicians talk tactics after-hours.
I don’t even have to tell him what drink I’d like, because within minutes, a glass of white wine is presented to me by a barman who seems to know my preference without asking. I’m still in shock, even as Jerome wipes the foam from his moustache after taking a large gulp of bitter from his pint-sized glass tankard. Ruben must have told this man what I drink, or else Jerome is one of those people who reads auras and knows my alcohol god is white wine, specifically sauvignon blanc, which this tastes very much like. I mean… money didn’t even cross palms. Jerome must have a tab here.
“Right, then. Let’s get on with it.” He begins shuffling paper and divesting his briefcase of its contents.
We sit opposite one another, him on a chair and me on the bench-seat side of the seating. I think he needs a boost from the taller chairs.
There’s a jiffy bag at the bottom of his briefcase which he pulls out last and slides across the table. He pats the top of the small package once it’s in my vicinity. “Open this after I’ve gone, won’t you? As per his request. Okay?”
“I think so.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Miss Carter. You’re not signing your life away.”
I look down at the package. “I knew him, loved him… but not for long… I’m a little stunned by all this.”
“It’s normal to feel shocked and surprised, but it’s best to get this nasty business done and dusted as soon as possible.”
“Nasty business?” I almost chuckle, taking up my wineglass. Finally, some succour.
“Going through dreaded paperwork,” he explains, “signing all the bits and pieces. Blah blah blah.”
I realise what he’s referring to as I watch him stack up piles of paper. There are lots of post-it notes marking where I probably need to sign.
“Now, I know you’re a sensible young woman and might want to read through all of this. However, I could also give you a quick run-through of what it is that Ruben left behind. If you’d like to make things quicker?”
I hardly care about the assets Ruben left behind, but I guess he may as well tell me…
“Yes, Mr Falstead. Go ahead.”
“There’s a substantial life insurance policy, plus various other insurance policies your fiancé took out…”
Just the mention of the word fiancé makes me draw breath. Ruben told this guy he was engaged?
“He made investments. He owned several vehicles and as well as the house in London, he had properties in Paris and in the Cotswolds.”
I’m astounded, yet again.
“There’s the champagne cellar in France… and his art collection, some of that is in storage, including the Pollock. He has shares in two or three football clubs, I can’t remember exactly, and his offshores accounts… Well, I couldn’t possibly put an exact price on all of this, but you’re coming into at least £100million.”
My hands fly to my mouth.
What the hell?
I’d known he was rich… but we never lived it up while we were together. He didn’t buy me diamond-encrusted watches. He didn’t take me to penthouse suites. He wore ordinary clothes, had messy hair and yeah, had a taste for art, but he didn’t bathe in camel’s milk or wear anything worth more than £500 at the most.
“You must have got it wrong.”
“No, I don’t think so. If anything, I’m cautiously underestimating so I don’t give you false hope.”
My eyes peel wide open. This guy’s clients must include Jeff Bezos… maybe even God. Now I’m wondering if this old pub we’re in serves punters including Mick Jagger and David Beckham.
I look up at the ceiling and discover it’s covered wall-to-wall with old beermats from decades past. Ruben would’ve drunk here, for sure, and that knowledge makes me feel closer to him. I can’t help but think I don’t want this money, but who else would? His brother’s dead, his mother’s no doubt covered by Fred’s will, and he didn’t have anyone else in his life who didn’t have bags of money—only me.
I reach into my handbag and pull out the linen shopping bag I always carry around with me, just in case I go grocery shopping for something.
“Could I take all this home and meet you in a couple of days? I don’t want to take on any of this without being in my right mind.” I see his face turn grey, as though this was one task he’d hoped to have out of the way today.
He throws back the last of his pint and does that man thing of wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “Ruben was very adamant you’d sign all this as soon as possible, in the event…”
“Ruben isn’t here,” I tell him, “plus, the package might contain something informative. I’d rather be in my right mind. This is all a sudden, great shock. I’m sure you understand where I’m coming from. Plus, all this needs countersigning, I see. I know you’ll get one of your clerks to do that, but I’d rather be in the room for that, too.”
He closes his briefcase and stands. “Please call me as soon as possible and I’ll visit you at your hotel.”
Jeez… he even knows I’m staying in a hotel?
“Okay, Mr Falstead.”
“Jerome, please. Always Jerome. And by the way, we do have all of this on file, but it wouldn’t be wise to lose a single slip of paperwork. Are we clear?”
“Crystal. Thanks… Jerome.”
“My pleasure.”
Even after he’s gone, I’m left feeling he’s not really out of the room.
He’s either been watching me, or has people on my tail. I quickly stuff the stack of papers into my linen tote and slam back the last of my wine.
I need to get back to my hotel, pronto.
There’s something I’m missing here.
I’m praying it’s something I shall find in the sealed package I’ve yet to open.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Instructions
I arrive in my hotel room and slam the door, put on the do not distu
rb sign and snap tight the extra locks, too. I was going to pay for my stay out of the dirty money that’s been collecting interest in my bank account—the money Fred paid me off with all those years ago.
Paid me off…
I have a feeling there was more to me and Ruben crossing paths than coincidence.
Was it fate that we met? Or something more?
Were we always doomed, right from the beginning?
Whatever the case, I need to know. I think this package Ruben left me contains the truth, or at least I hope it does.
I unbutton my coat and shake my arms out of it, leaving it wherever it drops on the floor—I don’t care.
I throw myself onto the bed, discarding the tote bag full of papers for me to sign.
It’s the jiffy bag I’m interested in.
Maybe I should have a drink ready, but there’s no time. My fiancé is dead, his killer is at large and I don’t feel safe in this city, not when I am set to inherit so much money.
Like ripping off a plaster, I tear open the envelope, hoping to god I haven’t ripped anything important in my hurry to get this over with. I know it’s not just papers inside because I can feel smaller parts, so I tip the whole thing upside down and out pours the contents of Ruben’s last message to me.
There’s an envelope, sealed, with my name written in his handwriting.
Tears blur my vision but not enough that my eye doesn’t catch sight of what else he intended me to have…
There’s a UK passport, which when I open it, reveals my picture, but with a different name. He got me a fake passport?
There are airfare tickets to Vancouver and documents attached, including a visa and some other bits and bobs like insurance. Then there’s a wallet filled with bank cards, all of which name me as Rebecca Jayne Foster, the same as the fake passport. The name doesn’t suit me, but I guess he might have stolen someone else’s identity to be able to get me this.
Finally, the letter.
Nothing for it.
I slide my thumb under the seal and get it open quickly, unfolding his pages. Tears sting my eyes when I recognise his perfect yet shoddy handwriting; it’s the scrawl of a doctor or professor, someone brilliant but impatient who executes harsh scratches against the paper instead of neat, legible loops.
I take a deep breath and shake my head, then I begin to read:
Dear Freya,
Baby, beauty, my love, princess, angel… all the names I should have been whispering in your ears these past couple of years. I’m sorry I didn’t get chance to stretch the limits of your tolerance for affectations, or maybe I did… Who knows when you’ll be reading this, but a large part of me recognises that it’ll be sooner rather than later.
Since the night we met, I’ve loved you. With every moment since, my mind has only ever been consumed by thoughts of you, I promise. If my body let you down, for that I am sorry, but there are rules in my father’s world and marrying the woman he chose for me would’ve ensured the future of his empire. My ex, if you could call her that, is the daughter of one of Dad’s business partners. Fiona and I were set up after I returned home from Paris. In the wake of what happened to Gia, then what with Laurent’s death, I felt dead inside. I wasn’t even thinking when I was with her. I never loved her. I didn’t think it was possible for me to love anyone in actual fact. Not after what I’d been through.
Until you. And I realised what love is. Seems corny? I know. But in those few days after our first meeting, I found myself walking around London in a daze, trying to get you out of my head and sadly failing. I smiled for the first time in years and, I even dared to hope.
You and I became friends, but beneath that there was always much more, at least on my part, believe me. It’s just that I couldn’t take that next step. I was afraid. Not for myself, but for you.
When I say that my father is a bastard, I am not exaggerating. He’s done unspeakable things to people; he’s killed and maimed and broken up families and even sired a son outside of wedlock… Freddie Lancaster, who was born after me but before Laurent. The boy’s mother Julia Lancaster chose to name the kid Freddie as a gesture of respect to his alleged godfather—my dad. My father’s friend, Bob Lancaster didn’t know Frederick Kitchener had been having an affair with his own wife for years and that my father chose to marry Alexia instead because she looked the part and was a sucker for a bad man who needed fixing.
I could say the worst thing my father ever did was destroy my mother’s sense of self and wreck her life with greed, lies and betrayal, but it’s not.
The worst thing he ever did was ignore Laurent. He never cared for my brother. He shut him out. It was my father and me, then my mother and Laurent, whose only role model besides me was an abused woman who tried to hold him too close. Laurent drank heavily, took too many drugs, caught too many things from too many women, but it was because my father ignored him. Laurent was a sweet, kind boy. I remember. I was there.
I convinced my father I was just like him, but I wasn’t. Mum knew I wasn’t. She knew that, but she never said. We were trapped in this terrible unspoken pact where I pretended to be someone I wasn’t, just to keep Dad happy. I think you can relate to this, Freya—switching off your emotions the same as I did to protect yourself—and if I ever lied to you, I am sorry, and I really have no excuse, but trust that if I did lie then the reason was probably I was protecting you—and also that my upbringing schooled me in the art of lying, which came so easy to me sometimes, it became my normal. I hope you can forgive me, or maybe understand where I was coming from.
Football was a massive part of my life. It swept me away. Rescued me. I don’t think Dad ever truly believed I’d fully escape. He saw it as a pipedream. However, it happened and I did leave, for a time.
During my absence my father’s focus switched to Freddie, the only other son who might be bad, his only other chance to secure the future of his kingdom. Freddie, who is rotten, to the core, the same as his biological father. Fred saw something familiar in Freddie and drew on that, schooling him, honing him, much easier than he ever did me. I had little ways of rebelling, football being one of them, but I started to have girlfriends instead of screws and Dad never liked that. I know the only reason Freddie married Debbie was so that he could have children and regain my father’s favour after Laurent’s death. I turned up at their wedding to warn her about what she’d married into but never got the chance. Instead, I met you, and suddenly all that sordid drama of theirs seemed inconsequential, until I realised that in the future it might affect you, too.
I firmly believe we were destined to be together. To be everything to one another, and to enlighten each other, too. You enlightened me on many things. You gave me hope that somehow, I might find some piece of evidence to pin on my father… Sadly, that wasn’t meant to be.
People like him do not ever stop, do not ever get caught, do not ever pay for their crimes or ever admit there was a crime in the first place.
That’s why I had to get rid of him.
I had to.
And now, here we are.
I’m gone, too.
Who the fuck dug that grave for me?
I don’t know.
I don’t care.
The only thing I care about is you.
A world without Fred Kitchener is a better world, even if that means I forfeit my life, too.
My last wish is for you to take all of this and leave, start a new life and live. Don’t seek answers, Freya, they won’t come. Only destruction will be your future if you don’t do as I ask and leave. You must. For me.
Answers won’t come, only death. I know these people and I know, they would rather go down fighting than ever admit to any transgression. This is who they are.
For me, start a new life. Be whoever you want to be, or even better, be yourself finally.
Just be free.
I love you.
I always did.
I did this for you.
For a better life.
Your,
Ruben
xxx
My heart collapses and it hurts… it hurts so bad, it’s like there’s a giant anvil pressing down on me so hard, I can’t even breathe. The weight… it’s too much.
I curl up into a ball, just trying to breathe.
Just breathe.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A Bastard
The next day, I wake from more nightmares wearing one of his shirts and still clutching his letter, which I’ve read a hundred times now—maybe more.
There are still loose ends, things that don’t add up and people who need to know they won’t get away with this. Sod Ruben asking me to start a new life.
I won’t live without him. How could he take risks without me? How dare he presume to tell me how to live my life? Where to go. Etcetera.
He thinks he saved me, but from what?
From Fred? I could’ve eaten him for breakfast if I’d wanted to.
I wrestle with the sheets and grab my phone. A few clicks on the internet and I have the address of his business premises.
I’m going to pay Freddie a little visit and I don’t care what happens to me, so long as he tells me the truth about who killed my fiancé.
I stuff everything Mr Falstead gave me yesterday into the room safe and dash for the bathroom. Time for the warpaint.
After a few hours on the road, I find myself in Surrey. The hotel organised a hire car for me and here I am, at Freddie’s house, which is the address his business is registered at. His alleged occupation is accountancy, but I think we know that’s a crock of shit.
I leave the car on the road and lock it, walk up to his gate and press the buzzer.
“Yeah? Who is it?” bellows Debbie.
“Is Freddie there? It’s Freya, your cousin.”
“Fuck—”
I hear muffled noises, then Freddie comes on the intercom. “Come on in.”
He sounds a little happier about all this than he should. I am, after all, the fiancé of the man he just had killed. I’m the last of the Kitcheners really, an honorary spokesperson, the last one alive who might speak up and call out this bastard.
Kismet Page 30