Hostage to Fortune

by Carolyn McCrae

  “No. Why would they?”

  “No reason, I suppose.” Anne changed tack. “And since you found out haven’t you Googled him? Tried to learn everything you could about him?”

  “Why would I? He’s nothing to do with me. Anyway, I spent most of the time trying to keep out of sight and quite consciously doing what I want to do with my life, not what anyone else thinks I should do because of some man who fucked my mother once.”

  “There’s no need to get so upset, Jenna. I’m just here to try to help you.”

  “I’m not upset. I’m simply annoyed at all the attention. I don’t want it. Anyway, you said you needed my help. That’s why I let you in. Which is it? I help you or you help me?”

  “Right, you’re right, actually we can both help each other.”

  “Explain. Please.”

  “Does the name Guy Cliffe mean anything to you?”

  “Guy Cliffe? No. Should it?”

  “Would you let me look at your phone for a moment?”

  “There’s millions of messages on it. I haven’t looked at them. People are so horrid I haven’t bothered.”

  “Have you deleted them?”

  “I’ve just ignored them. Here.”

  Anne took the phone from Jenna and accessed the messages and her social media pages. She said nothing as she leafed through screen after screen of trolling nonsense. She stopped at one screen and handed it over to Jenna. “Did you take this? Is it a selfie?”

  Jenna looked at the photograph taken of her the day before, as she sat in the library reading.

  “No. I didn’t take that. Who did? Who put it up?”

  “It’s one of those anonymous things, someone who calls themselves @blyff using hash tag #billionaire saying ‘so pretty, see you again soon’.”

  “But someone saw me, obviously recognised me, took a photo and put it up on the internet. What else will they have done?” Jenna was concerned for the first time since she had let Anne Hill into her room.

  “I suspect he was simply trying to tell you he knew where to find you.”

  “He?”

  “I suspect I know who this @blyff is. He is a young man who goes by the name of Guy Cliffe. Now will you answer my question, does the name mean anything to you?”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  “Then will you listen while I tell you a story?”

  Jenna nodded. “Just don’t begin with ‘once upon a time’.”

  Anne had been told that she could tell Jenna no more than was necessary to gain her trust, so it was a limited version of the truth that Anne embarked on.

  “Stratford Eden, Warwick’s father, your grand-father, was a self-made man. He made his money in a variety of ways, all legal I hasten to add, in property and hotels then in packaging and then in the money markets. He was a good-looking man, here…” Anne handed over her phone with the image of Stratford.

  “Tall, dark and handsome?” Jenna suggested.

  Anne nodded her agreement before continuing. “Stratford had two sons, Barford the elder and Warwick.”

  “Odd names.”

  “I don’t know how well up you are on the names of the towns and villages of Warwickshire but that is where all that family’s names are drawn from.”

  “I don’t know Warwickshire at all. I can’t think I’ve ever been there. Anyway, how come Warwick inherited his father’s billions if he was the younger son? What happened to Barford?”

  “There’s not a great deal I can tell you officially.”

  “Officially?”

  “Officially he died in 1990. He drowned in a surfing accident in Cornwall.”

  “Unofficially?”

  “Unofficially, and it doesn’t matter now anyway because he has just recently died, he was given a false identity.”

  “I won’t ask why.”

  “I can tell you a little. He put himself in a very dangerous position and was very nearly killed because he had informed on some of his traveller friends—”

  “Barford was a traveller? Like Wave, I mean like my mum? I’ve always called her Wave, she hated being called Mum or Mummy or anything like that.”

  “Yes and, I have to tell you, for a few months Barford was your mother’s boyfriend.”

  “But she slept with his brother?”

  “It happens.”

  “That’s awful!”

  “She also slept with a number of other men and boys that we know of. Though none around the time of your conception.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about my mother’s private life.”

  “There is quite a file on Wave Freece in the dark recesses of Police Records. She was in a group of travellers who often found themselves in trouble with the law one way or another.”

  “And Barford informed on them? No doubt giving the authorities all sorts of juicy details about who was screwing whom.”

  Anne nodded. “Not only that. He gave the police a great deal and when it became clear he was a target he was given a new identity.”

  “Which was?”

  “Brian Cliffe.”

  “I’m just guessing here, but would this Brian Cliffe be Guy Cliffe’s dad?”

  Again Anne nodded. “Guy Cliffe is your cousin. Brian, who used to be Barford, was your uncle.”

  “Now I am guessing again. This Guy chappie has discovered who his father really was and, now his dad is dead, he reckons he should have the money.”

  “I think that sums the situation up pretty well.”

  “So? He can have it. I don’t want it. What would I do with billions and yachts and houses all over the place? He can have the lot if he just leaves me a million or two to live on! That was a joke by the way.”

  “It isn’t really a joking matter, Jenna. We have reason to believe that Guy has been somewhat proactive in all this.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Warwick Eden did not die of natural causes.”

  “No, I know, he was assassinated. It was all over the news. That other chap killed him, I can’t remember his name. Wasn’t it something Irish?”

  “Ryan O’Donnell.”

  “That’s it. He killed Eden. Didn’t he?”

  Anne shook her head. “Whatever you read or heard in the news is what we wanted the news to say. The truth is Ryan was also murdered.”

  “Really?”

  “Guy has no intention of waiting a day longer than he has to for what he believes to be his. So far he believes there is nothing to link him in to those murders—”

  “Guy killed them? The one who took that picture of me in the library yesterday? He’s a murderer?” Jenna was beginning to realise where Anne’s story was leading.

  Anne nodded. “So far he believes he is almost there. Ryan is, publicly anyway, Warwick’s murderer. Officially there is nothing to tie Guy in to either death.”

  “Officially?”

  “Unofficially we have a great deal of evidence but nothing, so far, that would satisfy the Crown Prosecution Service. We are still searching for an important witness, a woman who can link everyone together.”

  “Looking for her?”

  “She went missing a few weeks ago, around the time of the murder.”

  “Is she dead too?”

  “We sincerely hope not.”

  “So this Guy is out on the streets, stalking me… Oh shit!”

  “Precisely. We believe he knows exactly where you are and is working out a way, not to put too fine a point on it, working out a way to get rid of you too, but he would only do it in a way that would not incriminate him. A number of people will know he is responsible but he is very clever, planning his moves very carefully.”

  “You’re frightening me now.”

  “I’m sorry, but that is what I intend to do. I do think you have very good r
eason to be afraid.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You can help me by coming with me now. We have a safe house a few hours from here down the coast. If we leave now we can be there by lunchtime, Spanish lunchtime anyway.”

  “I have never wanted any of this, you know,” Jenna said sadly as she packed her few belongings into her bag. “I was happy bumbling along, doing my job, finishing my degree, just living my life the way I wanted it and then Billy had to stick his dirty great oar in it.”

  “Billy certainly didn’t help. But then I don’t suppose he realised he was putting you in the sights of a psychopathic serial killer.”

  Chapter 28: Guy Reviews His Plans

  The day after Warwick’s funeral Guy leant against a garden wall watching as Billy Watkins talked to the cluster of media people. He was close enough to hear Billy’s shouted answers, though he had to imagine the questions being more quietly asked.

  “Yes, of course Jenna’s mother backs her claim. She’s that man’s daughter. It’s hers by right.”

  “It’s not about the money. It’s about what her father owes her.”

  “My wife was just sixteen and three months when she had Jenna. Can’t you count on your fingers?”

  “I have no idea, how could I?”

  “Three? Four? I can’t remember.”

  “You’d better not print anything you can’t prove.”

  Guy got in his car and drove away before any of the press pack noticed his interest but, since he could not concentrate on his driving as he tried to work out his next move, he parked as soon as he had turned a corner.

  Most of the aspects of his plan had worked out exactly as he had hoped.

  In the months he had spent on board Beausale he had learned Warwick Eden’s habits so it had been easy to make sure he had been very drunk when he took him ashore that Thursday night.

  As he had steered the tender towards the harbour wall he had enjoyed telling Warwick Eden that his brother had not drowned in a surfing accident, but had lived, had married and had had a son. He had especially enjoyed telling Warwick that he was that son, repeatedly calling him ‘Uncle’ and making sure he understood exactly what was going to happen to him.

  Warwick had been in no position to put up much of a fight as he had been led up the steps to the Embankment and a few hundred yards to the green where boats were stored. ‘You gonna kill me?’ he had asked when Guy had sat him down, leaning against an upturned dinghy. ‘Oh yes,’ Guy had answered, ‘but not until I am absolutely certain you know why.’

  For ten minutes Guy talked to Warwick, telling about how he had suffered from having no money all his life, and how that was going to change.

  Had anyone seen them they would have thought they were just two drunks, leaning against the upturned dinghy as they put the world to rights.

  But there had been no one to see Guy put the gun to his uncle’s head and there had been no one to see him manoeuvring the small boat over the body and walking back to the Embankment alone.

  Through the rest of that night and much of the following morning he had listened for the police sirens that would indicate the body had been found, but everything remained quiet.

  But then the woman in yellow had made a nuisance of herself. When she had told him she knew who he was he had had to take her out of circulation but he had not necessarily wanted to kill her too. She was not part of his carefully devised plan so he locked her in a guest cabin. He had needed time to work out what her fate should be.

  There had been no room for the old woman in yellow in his plan but there had been a place for Ryan O’Donnell.

  Guy had always known that some innocent person would take the blame for his crime.

  He had, in his initial imaginings, thought that that person should be Arjun but when he realised that that might lead police back to him he had decided on the unknown hand he would hire to take Peabody Three from Poole to the rendezvous with Beausale. But when he discovered, during a late night drinking session with the stewards, that Ryan O’Donnell’s father was called John and had been a New Age traveller, jailed for a crime he didn’t commit, it seemed that destiny had determined who that innocent person should be.

  He could not believe that it was a coincidence that Ryan was crew on that particular yacht. He had been certain that Ryan must know of the links between the Eden family and his. He had persuaded himself that Ryan intended to do Eden harm, so framing him for the murder was, Guy had thought, exquisite poetic justice.

  He had never forgotten his father telling him about John O’Donnell, the traveller who had seduced Wave.

  Guy looked out of the back window of the car at the corner of the street where Billy Watkins was undoubtedly still holding forth to the press and thought about his relationship with Arjun. Arjun had been weak, too easily charmed, too ready to give up everything. Guy despised him.

  He tried to remember when he had last had a proper, honest, relationship. And he thought about Jenna. He had seen the photographs in the papers that morning and had imagined what she would be like naked, next to him, in bed. When he met her, which he knew he would do, they would have a lot in common and it would be easy for him to seduce her, just as her father had seduced Wave. She might be more of a challenge to him than Arjun had been. Arjun was weak and unreasonably possessive. His thoughts turned back to that conversation when he had lied to Arjun about the man and the woman he had put on board Peabody Three.

  “Why?” Arjun had asked. “You said we’d be alone.”

  “The woman recognised me,” he had explained. “I had to bring her or she would talk.”

  “Talk? What about?”

  “I’ve stolen some money.”

  “Stolen? But I have enough for both of us. You know that.”

  “I need some of my own.”

  “Is this what this is all about? You getting your own money?”

  “Yes, it is. So we can be together, as equals.”

  Guy had put his arm around Arjun’s shoulders and had led him to their cabin. If that was what he had had to do he would do it.

  “I’m so glad we’re together again,” Guy had whispered an hour later, as they lay together. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Too long.”

  “What can I do with the boy?” Guy had asked disingenuously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He knows I stole stuff.”

  “We can’t take him with us.”

  “We can take one, him or the woman, but we can’t take both.”

  “What do you mean?” Arjun had finally asked.

  “We have to get rid of him.”

  “What do you mean get rid of him?”

  “We have to kill him and get rid of the body.”

  Arjun had been shocked. “What? You can’t mean that! You can’t! I know we’ve done some things we’re not particularly proud of, but murder! No! You can’t mean it.”

  “We have to. There’s no choice. If we let him go and he talks I’ll go to jail. For years. I stole a very great deal of money from a very famous man and the boy knows what I’ve done. It’s him or me.”

  “You mean to throw him overboard?”

  “No, I have a better idea.”

  Guy had known Arjun would be too afraid to ask him why they did it in the way they did.

  Guy had taken the knife from the galley and went to hand it to Arjun who resisted at first.

  “Here, take it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “He’s not conscious. I’ve knocked him out. He won’t know anything about it.”

  Guy took Arjun’s hand and held it firmly around the knife as he plunged the blade into Ryan’s neck.”

  “What have you done?” Arjun had screamed.

  “What have we done?” Guy had replied. “We have, together, not just me, we hav
e got rid of a threat to our happiness.

  “I did not do that!”

  “We did,” Guy repeated. “We did it together. We are bound now, aren’t we?”

  With both their hands still around the knife he had pushed the blade slowly and deliberately into Ryan’s neck again as he bent Arjun’s head back with the force of his kiss.

  That night he had left Arjun on Peabody Three as he had loaded the tender with Ryan’s body, returned him to Dartmouth, and hidden him under a dinghy, just beyond the police tapes cordoning off where Warwick Eden’s body had been discovered two days before.

  “Goodbye Ryan,” he had said as he placed the knife and the envelope in the dead man’s hand. “Good riddance loser. Loser son of loser father.”

  Guy’s thoughts were brought back to the present as several men and women walked past his car, close enough to touch. Those who weren’t speaking rapidly into their phones were laughing.

  He spoke out loud knowing they could not hear him but somehow wishing they could. “And you lot, you’re all losers. You think you’ve got the story, don’t you? But you have no idea about me. No idea at all.”

  He laughed as the gaggle of paparazzi and reporters disappeared from his sight but was suddenly silent as he thought back to the fourth person who had transferred to Peabody Three that night just three weeks before.

  The woman, Diane Hammill, who had recognised him and could not be let free had said nothing as she was hustled down the rope ladder onto Peabody’s deck and was pushed into the small guest cabin.

  It had taken Guy a while to realise that both would have to die but his plan had worked. Arjun would kill the woman who had simply got in his way, and then he would have the satisfaction of watching Arjun die.

  He had had to pretend to care for Arjun for far longer than he had wanted to.

  His lover had had all the advantages of a wealthy family and had thrown them away. Guy could not forgive that. Their relationship had never been an equal one, despite Arjun’s being, technically, his employer. Guy had always been the stronger of the two, mentally and physically, and he felt nothing but contempt for the man.

  He had thought that there was no one left to stand between him and his inheritance.