Kismet

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I walk up the gravel driveway slowly, taking my time in my heeled boots. The snow has mostly melted away on the ground, but all the trees and roofs around here still bear proof it’s winter.

  The house is huge, more than an accountant could afford. Or if he is legit, I’m convinced he’s fiddled the books… knows how to play the game. The property is set back from the road, surrounded by brick walls and big gates, security cameras and a long, sloping pasture out back. The light brick doesn’t hide what’s behind these walls, not from my perspective, perhaps not from anyone’s. There are several dodgy classic cars parked on the huge driveway and a few big 4x4s no doubt owned by his gangsters.

  I arrive at the hefty front doors and Freddie’s waiting with the door open, wearing a kid on his hip, a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of jogging trousers, barefoot. Nice touch. Trying to prove he is human, after all. I walk into the huge entrance hall and I’m hit by a wall of heat. Winter doesn’t seem to exist here, maybe because Freddie doesn’t have any cause to worry about his gas bill.

  “Can we get you a drink?” he asks, and I shake my head.

  “I just want five minutes with you. Alone, if possible.”

  “Alan!!” he calls, and some meathead turns up, looking me up and down.

  “Arms up please,” says Alan, before patting me down, then checking my handbag.

  No weapons on me… just my mind.

  “Take this one to Debbie for me, will ya?” asks the villain, handing over his child to Meathead Number One. I’m sure I’ll encounter more as the day goes on.

  I’m led through a maze of corridors until we reach the back of the house where there’s a room full of glass enjoying views across the countryside, as far as the eye can see.

  Have I got this totally wrong? Here’s Freddie, family man with his family house, and there I was labouring under the illusion for two years that I could only ever admire Ruben from afar. Here’s Freddie living his life, but Ruben had a small house in London and no direction in the world whatsoever. Not to mention he was messing around with Fiona when he could have been with me.

  “Do you wanna drink?” he asks.

  His palatial, glass-dominated man cave has oodles of empty floorspace, his only furniture a metal desk, then just a tiny corner with kids’ toys laid out on a rug, plus a huge suspended fireplace in the centre of the room. No bookcases. No certificates or awards. Just a huge desk and light and space and intimidation.

  Clever.

  He stands at the window, looking out across the pasture and seeing only white, perhaps distracted by the odd smudge of brown, I imagine.

  “I’m okay, thanks,” I say, in response to his question of five minutes ago, before I became absorbed by the surroundings.

  “What do you want, Freya? Are you here to upset Debbie?”

  Unlike Debbie, Freddie speaks posh, but only now and again. A full-on cockney accent breaks out when he slips into a comfortable mindset. The fact he’s gone back to speaking posh tells me that I’ve suddenly made him uncomfortable. Maybe he does have something to hide.

  “There’s something that’s been bothering me. Do you remember Laurent’s party? At the Claremont.”

  “How could I forget?” he snorts.

  “Why did you choose that night to tell Laurent the truth? Why not sooner?”

  He turns to face me, hands in his pockets, completely unfazed. “I was jealous.”

  Now we’re getting to the crux.

  “What of?”

  “I don’t know, maybe we should go back in time and ask my younger self. I was a teenager, for crying out loud.”

  I don’t react, I keep staring straight ahead, until finally he continues…

  “Fine, he got straight A’s… he got the prettier girls… I was gonna be an accountant, a government one mind you, but he was gonna be an architect to the stars. Fred was so proud and threw Laurent a party. But me? He didn’t give a shit.”

  Ah, so there was no love lost between those two.

  “If Fred was so hated, it’s a wonder he didn’t get killed sooner…”

  “You’re right. Now as I said, I don’t know who killed my half-brother. I liked Ruben if you must know. Great midfielder, one of the best. Could’ve been better if he hadn’t been stuffing so much coke up his nose.” He even sniffs loudly, as if to emphasize the point.

  “Yeah? And whose fault was that?”

  He turns to look at me suddenly, arms folded. “Their own. Do you see me jacked up all the time? Do you see me drunk? Fucking random women. No. Same father, just that I’ve got some control. Neither of them had any. You see only what you want, girl. You didn’t know the real Ruben, I did.”

  He thinks because he stayed off drugs that he’s the stronger, and yet here he is, not long out of university and already living in a £10million house and growing more arrogant by the second. I mean, he can’t be older than twenty-three. Jeez. I don’t get it. Plus, Freddie here didn’t have to grow up in the same house as Fred; he probably didn’t have a mother who was so downtrodden by an abusive thug, she was ill with it. Freddie’s mother probably knew the nicer side of Fred, whereas Alexia always got the brunt of his malice.

  I step a little closer, but keep my distance. I don’t want to become infected by the stench of his hypocrisy.

  “So, why did that bastard kill his own son, eh? What did Laurent do to deserve it? Why don’t you tell me? It’s just us now. I have no recording equipment. I just want to know so that I can move on and leave all this behind, so that I know there was a good reason for Ruben to die, all right?”

  He breathes heavily, exasperated and already tired of me. He looks at the floor and mumbles, “It was… complicated.”

  “They’re both dead now, so what does it matter?” I persist.

  Freddie, with his striking red mane, still doesn’t do it for me. He’s got that pallid, waxy complexion Fred had, plus his eyes are dead, like the lights are on but there’s nobody home.

  He gestures we move to his desk and takes a seat in the big fancy chair with numerous levers. I’m motioned towards a plain conference chair with four legs, one of those things that can be stacked. Nothing special.

  Once we’re seated, he reaches into his desk and pulls out a pack of fags, lights up and offers me one, but I decline. He might not be doing drugs or multiple women a night, but the fags and the cheeseburgers upholding that paunch might still get him.

  “What did Ruben tell you about Gia?” he asks, and I notice something snide about the way he says her name.

  “That she was killed in the Bataclan terrorist attack.” Oh… fuck. Here we go.

  Freddie nods like one of those nodding dogs on a car dashboard. “I see. That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “She wasn’t killed by terrorists.” Freddie smiles because he thinks he knows more than me. “She was killed in broad daylight. Dad ordered it.”

  I have no idea how to react. I’d suspected this of course, since realising she wasn’t killed by terrorists, but to hear it from him in person has suddenly made it all real. I decide to allow myself to cry, tears leaving me of their own free will. Ruben must have been devastated. It never occurred to me before… but it must have annihilated him. Perhaps my tears will convince Freddie I’m as ignorant as the next man when it comes to the Kitchener code of conduct.

  “You’re lying.”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “Why, then? What had she done?”

  He leans forward, eyes wide with morbid interest for my tears. “I don’t know. Maybe she’d domesticated Ruben and Dad thought that a punishable offence.” He laughs like it’s the funniest notion he ever heard.

  I shake my head furiously. “You’re sick, Freddie.” I don’t even have a rag to wipe my eyes with and my shirt is one of the posh ones Ruben bought me so I don’t want to ruin it by wiping my face on the sleeves.

  “You don’t have the first idea about what Fred was really like, do you?” Freddie stubs out his cigarette and actual
ly looks uglier when he grins. “He was a monster, Freya. A total and utter monster. Nobody could account for Gia’s death. There was no explaining it. If Ruben told you it was the Bataclan, then it was because he’d figured it all out and didn’t want to tell you the truth—that his father had put a target on his girlfriend’s back before and might do again, with you. You see? Ruben knew you’d be next.”

  I’ve barely eaten in days, but what there is inside me comes frothing up and out of my mouth, right onto Freddie’s lovely polished floor. I could have done with a tissue ten minutes ago, but suddenly there’s one being thrust at me, in fact he has a whole box and instructs, “Clean that mess up.”

  Once I’ve mopped up a bit, Freddie lights up again, perhaps to cover up the stench of vomit. Then he continues…

  “The whole thing where me and Fred fell out over Laurent’s death was a pretence to keep Ruben intrigued. I’ve been in line to the throne since I was fucking twelve years old, the day Ruben signed his first big contract and fucked off to Narnia. If you want to feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for me,” he mock-groans, “groomed so young, brought into the family business against my will, schooled in the art of playing people off against one another. It wasn’t even an education. It was fun.”

  I swallow hard, knowing full well I walked right into the heart of the lion’s den today. Oh, shit.

  “Ruben’s first real girlfriend was Gia. They lived together and everything. A real ten out of ten, I could see why he liked her. We even have footage of them fucking, you know. I could dig it out if you want. Did he use the same moves on you, I wonder? If I remember right, he really liked tonguing her ass.” I look down into my lap because I’m too scared to talk, even though I despise every word coming out of his mouth. “He was tying her up most nights, I think. I wonder if she liked that… a part of me thinks not. You see, Gia was seeing her ex-boyfriend on the side, but maybe Ruben was too wrapped up in himself to notice. The problem we had, was that Ruben had confided in her. We’d bugged his house and everything, it was amazing,” Freddie gushes, and I’m reminded of one of those psychological thrillers you watch on TV, except these types of sickos really do exist in the world—people who revel in others’ misery. “He couldn’t have known Gia wasn’t really into him… he was telling her all his troubles. He even told her about his gangster dad and this nagging feeling he had about a boy Fred was constantly paying visits to and lavishing money on. It wouldn’t normally have bothered us that someone had gone blabbing about our business, but when Ruben visited a jewellery store and picked out a ring, it suddenly didn’t look good for Gia. She didn’t seem the type to turn down a proposal, and we were right, she accepted.” I feel winded, like everything I ever shared with Ruben was fake—every word he ever spoke was a lie. “This was Dad’s quandary, right… Ruben called and said he was bringing his fiancée home. After so many years of estrangement, now he was coming home. He couldn’t have known Fred had been keeping tabs on him, all that time. All my brother was bothered about was showing his fiancée off, the past seemed not to matter anymore. But what if Gia met Alexia and got chatting and it all slipped out over tea and biscuits about the kid Fred had been secretly spending time with for years? How would we even know what they were saying to one another? The two of them spoke French and my father wouldn’t even know the cat was out of the bag. He’d have no time to explain because Alexia would try to commit suicide again and Fred couldn’t have that. He may have been an utter mad bastard, but that woman was his world. I understand that now. Don’t know what I’d do without my Debbie. The lengths he went to in order to keep his secrets… It helped that she was unfaithful, I suppose… but really, killing Gia was just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “So, you did kill Laurent?” I throw it into the ring quickly, hoping he’ll react to my attack.

  “I told you, no. We didn’t have to. He was one of those tortured geniuses. Did it all on his own. Took too much. End of. I can understand why Ruben never came to terms with that, but that’s what happened. Laurent was an addict, a weak one.”

  He looks so smarmy right now, rolling his cigarette between his fingers, relishing every damn moment he has me here, squirming as he unveils all these disgusting half-truths.

  “The only person to ever really confound my father was you, you know. We wondered where my brother disappeared every Friday night. Knew he went into Soho, knew he came out, just didn’t know where he spent those hours he got lost. Then we realised, it’d been you, all that time.”

  “So, what are you saying? Fred wanted rid of me, once he knew about me and Ruben?”

  “Like I said, Fred was more intrigued by you. Especially because, well… you know.” He has a glimmer of satisfaction in his eye and I want to gouge that freggin eye out.

  “No, I don’t know.” I’m trying desperately not to shake right now—not show him that he has me rattled.

  “Did you never wonder why he sent you that cheque? Fred wanted to eradicate any chance of it getting out about why the party escalated into mayhem. The people in his inner circle could be trusted not to go anywhere near Alexia with his secret, but there were others that night who observed the drama. Under interrogation, Laurent mentioned he’d confessed to a cop about the reason for the fight. Luckily, that cop was already one of ours and he knew you’d been listening in on their conversation. That’s why Dad sent you that cheque a few days later. He knew if you cashed it, then you were someone who knew to keep their mouth shut about what you may or may not have overheard—more importantly, you’d tell your staff to forget all about the matter if you had a few quid in your back pocket for the trouble. If you could be useful to my dad, you see, he wouldn’t kill you. And you did prove useful, there was no comeback at all and it never became a story. It all blew over.”

  What I wouldn’t give for a drink or a hole to bury myself in right now.

  “My dad never forgot a face, though. When it came to light about you and Ruben, he wondered if the pair of you met by coincidence or if there was something weird there, he wasn’t sure. Couldn’t work you out. Even now, you seem so grief-stricken and in pain, but that could all be a lie. Couldn’t it? You might be just like Gia. Maybe you just want to know that you can walk off with my brother’s money and face no comeback?”

  Fred must have known I’d banked the cheque—that I was someone willing to take money to keep quiet, even from people like him. Yeah, I took it, but I made a vow to myself never to spend it until I knew what it was for. Now I know, I’ll be sending that cheque to the first women’s charity I come across.

  Employees come and go so often in hotel work, but there was never so much as a word whispered about Fred being a gangster the night of Laurent’s party. It must have only been in recent years that word got around about Fred’s enterprise—and I’m betting that has something to do with Ruben’s team spreading the word.

  When Ruben first took me to meet his parents and I semi-recognised his dad, it was because of Laurent’s party at the Claremont. Fred must have sensed I was someone dark, someone who took bribes… someone who once lived in the shadows, just like him. Well, if that’s what Freddie wants me to be today, fine.

  “That’s precisely what I’m here for, to make sure I can leave and none of this will follow me.” I stare at him straight, asking him for this simple favour. Just let me go. Trust that I’m a lot like you and let me go live my life as if Ruben’s money was all I was after in the first place—because Ruben was right, the only way to deal with these people is to be like them, or make them believe you are. My love wasn’t wrong; in fact, he was right about so many things. I see it all now. I see everything clearly.

  Freddie lights up another cigarette and seems to enjoy it more than before. “You may leave, but you must never contact your family again, nor Alexia, nor me. Those are the terms. I don’t ever want to hear your name again.”

  Freddie smiles and reveals there’s no room for sympathy, not in his line of work. I reckon if there’s anything about Freddie
that rings true, it’s that he knows how to manipulate people’s weaknesses, just like he will mine if I let him. Still, I have to try one, last attempt…

  “So, what happened to Laurent, really? Tell me, just so I know. What am I gonna do? Tell the police. You have them bought and paid for. I just want to know, so that I know. Call me curious. Why not tell me? I can’t harm you, can I? I know it wasn’t all that simple. Don’t ask me how I know, but I just know. And then if you tell me, I’ll leave like you suggested, never to return. I’ll disappear. You’ll never hear about Freya Carter, ever again.”

  Freddie looks at me with a steady eye, then puts out his cigarette even though there’s still half left. I get it. He wants me to see that living to excess doesn’t cause him any guilt whatsoever.

  “Laurent was trouble. I’d get him stuff to last a week and he’d want more the next day. He drank too much, smoked too much, snorted and injected and fucked too much. He was the weak one.” Freddie bites his lip, giving away his coiled anguish. “I wasn’t there when he popped his clogs, nobody was. His roommate found him the next morning lying in a bath, fully dressed, no water, just a needle hanging out of his arm. He hadn’t even pushed it all in. There was still loads left in the tube. He’d intended to overdose by a country mile, obviously. Heart just stopped.” He clicks his fingers. “Literally, just stopped. To save Alexia the pain of knowing it was suicide, Fred paid people off to rule it an accidental overdose. He didn’t want her to know her kid had took his own life. He didn’t want to be blamed. He didn’t want Ruben to think they’d all let Laurent down. He did have some humanity, you know. It’s just a shame he showed none of that humanity to me, only to his real family.”

  His voice has changed and he sounds wounded. I don’t think he expected me to show up today, so unafraid and open. My ambush means he hasn’t had time to prepare himself against the need to confess. Everybody has that same need, or else we’d go mad, like Laurent—forced to carry secrets he wasn’t strong enough to keep.