Shadows to Ashes

by Tori de Clare

  She was counting sit-ups, panting with every crunch of her stomach muscles. ‘Losers switch off. Winners are always alert.’

  ‘You sound like your dad.’

  She counted up to fifty, then rested. Reggie was lost in basketball again.

  ‘Reggie?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘If I know Vincent, he’ll hand over these papers in person. You know he never sleeps at night? He might even want to see me tonight and he’s acting really weird at the moment.’

  ‘So what’s new?’ he said.

  Charlie got up, stretched. She’d mulled over Vincent’s last words to her, about her mum and his, but couldn’t muster the energy to care. What did it change? She was dead. Jimmy was dead. Everyone had to die sometime. Still, if it meant that Vincent didn’t want his inheritance anymore, then good. She couldn’t understand why Vincent was overreacting though.

  ‘I’m a bit wary of the takeover. Not sure what he has in mind, but Vincent always has something in mind.’

  ‘I could come with you? We daren’t let him see me though.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She walked over to him, cocked a leg over his legs and sat astride him, face to face, blocking his view of the TV. ‘I think after this, that’s me and Vincent done. For ever.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  She glanced at her watch and he sneaked a look over her shoulder. ‘I need another favour.’ She waited for his attention. ‘Annabel’s been at the hospital for three hours now. I need to know what’s happening with my nephew.’

  ‘She’ll give birth to it, that’s what’s happening.’

  ‘Him,’ she corrected. ‘I’d go myself, but if Vincent finds out I’ve been anywhere near the hospital, he’ll pull the plug on the deal. I daren’t risk it, even though he’ll be busy right now.’

  Reggie shrugged. ‘Sorted then. Don’t go.’

  She said, ‘But no one said you couldn’t go near the Hamiltons.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘I have to know what’s happening,’ she insisted. ‘I need to be free to take Vincent’s call, but you could go down there, find out what you can.’

  ‘No one wants a big, tall ex-con loitering round a hospital at night.’

  ‘So be discreet. Joel will be there. At some point he’ll leave. The Hamiltons might be there too. Keep an eye on things, report back. If you knew how many all-night stake-outs Vincent’s sent me –’

  ‘Whatever. If it matters that much, I’ll go.’

  She leant in and kissed him. ‘I’m going to make it up to you later.’

  ‘Too right you are,’ he smiled.

  ‘Stay around until you know something.’ Charlie slid off Reggie’s lap so he could get up. He ducked to one side and looked at the TV. She kicked his shin. ‘I meant now.’

  ***

  ‘We should go to the hospital, Henry.’

  Henry suddenly became aware that he was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping tea. A teapot was in front of him, steam snaking from the spout. He could vaguely remember making it. He’d been a thousand miles away. Camilla was near the sink holding a spray bleach in one hand, kitchen roll in the other. She’d spent the last – well, he didn’t know how long – scrubbing surfaces, wiping the sink, mopping the floor. He realised that now.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked her. The kitchen was beyond spotless.

  She looked down, at the spray bleach and the kitchen roll as if she really didn’t know. She seemed to come to herself now. She dumped the spray on the nearest surface and headed for the bin.

  She’d asked a question. The journey back to her had been delayed, but he finally said, ‘They’ll ring when they have news. Why don’t you sit and have a drink?’

  ‘I can’t sit. You don’t understand.’

  Finding a response felt too arduous. He felt so tired, so empty and so absent.

  She walked over to him and grudgingly dropped down opposite and began to study him properly. He poured her a cup of tea to avoid her gaze.

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘Hmm?’ A quicker reply this time; though it felt like being pulled from sleep. He looked at her, surprised at how she looked. Or was it that he barely recognised her because they’d grown so far apart?

  ‘Tell me about Amber Bridges,’ she said, and Henry felt puzzled. Then his head translated that name to a different name which filled him with darkness and dread. He severed the eye contact and focussed on his cup.

  ‘We’ve been over this.’

  His tone told her to leave it. She didn’t and he couldn’t have blamed her really.

  ‘I’m not satisfied with what you’ve told me.’ Her tone was irritatingly reasonable, so he couldn’t hold it against her or square up. A fight would have been easier than this. ‘Call it instinct,’ she said gently, probing for the truth, ‘but I know you’re holding something back.’

  Henry’s eyebrows rose, and then they fell. He honestly didn’t know what to say. Why this now? Hadn’t that woman caused him enough misery already?

  She went on, ‘Henry, if there’s something I ought to be dealing with, I have to know what it is. I have to know the truth. I accept I haven’t handled things very well this past couple of years, but it hasn’t led to any peace at all. I’m plagued by insecurity, which isn’t me at all. I feel as though I’m crumbling inside. Talk to me, please.’

  He softened. How could he not? He took her hand and she allowed it. Maybe opening the lid, just a little, might ease the pressure from inside. He drew a weary breath. ‘Her name isn’t Amber Bridges.’ A pause, to gauge her response. ‘She’s the daughter of an old enemy of mine.’ He withdrew his hand from hers and closed his eyes. This was going to be harder than he’d thought.

  She didn’t yell or get upset. He couldn’t help but think again that it’d be easier if she did. It would shift the focus.

  ‘Why haven’t you been honest with me about this?’

  ‘Because my first instinct is always to protect you and not to burden you with things you can do nothing about.’

  He was expecting her to blow any minute. She didn’t move a muscle. ‘Go on.’

  This was probably a bad idea, but he was too tired to dodge her, to be devious. ‘When I met her, I didn’t know who she was, I swear. I used to go to school with her dad. I never liked him, but he became a client of mine and I’d see him at the office. We weren’t friends. I never asked about his family because I didn’t want to become involved with him socially.’

  ‘Who was her dad?’

  He opened his eyes and looked at her now. It was surprisingly difficult to persuade his mouth to utter the words. ‘Jimmy Solomon.’

  She obviously knew the name. Her mouth dropped open before she spoke. ‘The man who went to prison all those years ago?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Henry took hold of his empty cup with both hands and rotated it round and round. ‘He died in there, you know. Was murdered by another inmate.’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t your fault –’

  ‘Tell his children that. It left them with no parents.’

  ‘Children?’ she interrupted . ‘How many?’

  He hesitated for seconds. His deliberation brought feelings of confusion, but he found that he couldn’t expose Joel. No time to analyse why not. ‘Two,’ he said, studying the teapot while he turned the cup. ‘Two children. Jimmy talked to them about me, about our family, from prison. He wanted revenge and they assumed the job of destroying us. You’ve seen the mess we’re in and you’ve sensed the danger. Now you know why. I’m sorry, Camilla. So sorry.’

  Camilla was winded. The shock had opened her mouth again and stolen all her words. She stood up, walked over to the sink and began to run water. She splashed some onto her face and shut off the tap and dried her hands with sharp, agitated movements.

  ‘So you’ve known that the family’s been in danger and you’ve withheld information from me and done nothing whatsoever to protect us?’ Her tone was rising.

  ‘No. That’s entirely wrong. I�
��ve exhausted myself doing everything I can,’ he said, and dropped his head. ‘They’ve blackmailed me, the pair of them. Jimmy’s son, Vincent, and his sister, Charlie. That’s her name.’

  Camilla looked too furious to speak. Her teeth were bared. She spat, ‘Blackmailed you how, Henry? Let’s have it.’

  ‘Photographs,’ he said, raising his tone, taking her on. ‘Photographs of me with her, which they’d both engineered. Looked like we were having a relationship, but the fact is they were setting me up. Truth is, she hates me passionately. Needless to say, nothing was going on.’

  ‘But you wanted it to, didn’t you? And you were gullible enough to put yourself in the position of being photographed with that witch. The fact is you were attracted to her, admit it.’

  His voice dropped away. ‘Yes, yes. And yes. You’re right. About all of it. It’s hard to believe I was sucked in, but there it is. I’m a pathetic excuse for a man and sometimes . . . I think you’d be better off without me. All of you.’ Emotion strangled his tone now. ‘It’s hard to see the point of my life really.’ His lips quivered.

  ‘Oh please. Spare me the self-pity.’

  Silence fell between them. Camilla glared at Henry as if she was trying to reduce him to cinders through the heat of her stare.

  ‘There’s more,’ Henry said, with an air of resignation.

  ‘There always is.’

  His fight had gone. Camilla straightened her back by the sink, bracing herself for impact. ‘Vincent Solomon sent Lorie to work here. He did that so she could get close to our family, so that he could learn things about us and steal private details of our lives. He slunk in the shadows and she fed back information. For years she did this. She manipulated us and sold our lives to him. He knows everything there is to know.’

  She stood, stiff and still. ‘Where are they now, these Solomons? Why aren’t the police protecting us? How have Jimmy’s children got away with what they’ve been doing for so long?’

  ‘Because they operate in the dark through other people. The truth’s been slow to surface. The police are doing what they can, but their hands are tied by lack of evidence.’

  Camilla was red in the face. He’d already said too much, he could see that. He’d given the bones of the truth without any flesh and she was becoming hysterical. She was pacing the floor, not in control of herself again. He couldn’t unburden himself, even if he needed to. He’d never tell her about Joel, about Vincent’s bid for Naomi because of Dan, about the kidnapping and the ransom money and the reason Naomi left. He’d never tell her about Charlie and her desperation for a child, about his fears for Annabel that kept him awake at night while Charlie prowled in shadows too, with Annabel oblivious, as she had to be.

  ‘I was right all along, about the threat! I could feel it. It’s almost driven me insane. Haven’t I been saying that we needed to skip the country, Henry? And you wouldn’t!’

  ‘And leave our girls behind? They’ve made their feelings clear. When Naomi was taken in Johannesburg, that was Jimmy’s doing. He found me, don’t you see? He knew which company I worked for and it was all too easy. So he was issuing a warning, letting me know he’d never rest until he’d nailed me. Of course I didn’t find that out until recently. Running isn’t the answer, right? We need to stand firm, together. We need to be here for Annabel, especially with the baby coming.’

  ‘I can’t think about this now. It’s all too much.’ Her hands were trembling.

  ‘You did ask.’

  She ignored that point and said instead, ‘We need to get to the hospital.’

  ‘We have to leave them to it. It isn’t our place to get involved, not unless we’re invited. She has Joel now.’

  ‘You’ve never trusted Joel,’ she threw at him. Nothing was bringing her comfort.

  ‘Well, I was being over-protective,’ Henry said, pouring another cup of tea for something to do, something to look at other than Camilla. ‘You can understand why I was paranoid. I’m sure he’s a very decent lad. He loves Annabel.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune.’ Camilla wrung her hands. She didn’t know what to do with them. ‘I’m going to the hospital, Henry, with or without you. I’ll sit in the waiting room or I’ll hang around in the car. Anything other than being pent up in these four walls with no news and all this anxiety.’

  Finally, Henry pushed his chair back and stood up. He wasn’t going to battle with her a moment longer and he wouldn’t let her go alone. ‘OK then, let’s go.’

  49

  When the bathroom light went on, it was like surfacing from a dream, not just any old dream, but the type where there’s such an intensity of pleasure, mixed with disbelief that something monumental and wonderful is happening, that a battle commences to resist the rise to consciousness when it calls. It felt like that, except that this was no dream.

  Vincent’s eyes took time to adjust from the blackness. Naomi was running water in the bathroom and Vincent found that he had no vocabulary for this particular moment in his life. There’d never been another like it. His mind was blissfully and uncharacteristically thoughtless and at peace.

  He couldn’t guess how much time had passed. It was as though his brain had been cloaked by some spell and the normal function of time-awareness had been paused. It could be midnight, could be two in the morning for all he knew. He wondered how this would change things now.

  She returned from the bathroom in a white towelling robe.

  ‘Vincent, we need to talk.’

  He sat up in case the walls and ceiling crushed him. They were closing in fast. It wasn’t Naomi standing there, but Lorie. His body kick-started, all functions, all at once.

  ‘How was it for you?’ she said. ‘I know how much you like it when I remind you of her. I did a good job, didn’t I?’

  The blood was draining from his head now. He needed to get up, fight, but with a ghost watching him, he was disarmed. ‘Where’s Naomi?’ he said, battling to take control, beginning with his tongue. ‘What have you done with her?’

  Lorie pushed her hair behind her back and tipped her face to one side. ‘You actually care about her, don’t you? It’s very touching really.’

  ‘What have you done with her, you bitch?’

  ‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it!’ She walked to the door. Walked – dead Lorie! He couldn’t fathom how she was alive right in front of him in his house, pacing round the bed, how she’d fooled him like this, the conniving, evil cow. Just couldn’t take it in and make it fit with what had happened, what he’d seen. The past was rushing around his head now and he was searching for clues. She locked the door and put the keys in her pocket. ‘You answer my questions first and then I’ll see about answering yours.’

  ‘Why are you alive?’ He found he was breathless.

  ‘Well, it isn’t a crime.’

  He felt sick, the type of sickness that takes hold before your brain packs up. It was normally the sight of blood that had this effect. He closed his eyes to shut her out.

  ‘When I came back to England, you deserted me completely. Then that night, I called and called you,’ she said. ‘But you never came.’

  ‘Naomi had been abducted. I had a job to do, a ransom to pay. By the time I got to your mother’s you were being carried out of the house on a stretcher . . . You’re telling me you set that up?’

  ‘No. No setup, Vincent. It was real. That wasn’t me, it was my mother.’ Her expression had changed now and she was struggling to supress her anger. ‘She tried to kill herself and I needed you there. I had no one else. I was desperate for support and for answers and after what you’d done to me over years and years, you owed me that much.’

  Vincent opened his eyes, turned, tested his feet on the floor, checked that he had enough strength to stand. Naomi’s necklace was lying broken beside his trousers. He picked it up. Then he lifted his trousers and pulled them on and slid the necklace inside his pocket.

  Lorie continued. ‘But you didn’t come and I was in the amb
ulance waiting and I saw you and I knew you hadn’t seen me. Your eyes were fixed on that stretcher and your mind was set on getting away from the blood as soon as you could. So I said to Kerry Marshall who was there that night, why not see if we can fool the invincible Vincent Solomon, convince him that it was me under that bloody sheet and not my mother. So I wrote a suicide note because I knew that if you thought that I was dead, then you’d relax. And you did, didn’t you. And that was the beginning of the end for you.’

  ‘You’ve been working with the police? I’m surprised they didn’t lock you up.’

  ‘I’ve been invaluable to them. It’s amazing what they’ll throw back in the water when they’re getting a bigger fish. That’s why you told me about Kerry and Nathan isn’t it? You wanted to give me a reason to hate the police, to never trust them. Well, I went to them, but everything’s hush-hush, and I really shouldn’t be here. They moved me and my mum into a safe house.’

  ‘A safe house,’ he muttered, like a parrot. It was laughable, almost. Vincent stood and found that his legs were stable. A mixture of chemicals were charging through his veins, helping him to feel more capable and strong. He went for Lorie without a plan and she backed into the wall.

  Lorie said, ‘Must have been perfect for you when you thought I was dead. Because I know too much, don’t I, Vincent. I know everything, and I’ve been manipulating Naomi for weeks now, getting in touch with her when you weren’t around and she didn’t know it was me.’

  ‘What have you done with her?’ he yelled, seizing Lorie by the throat, his hand squeezing tight.

  Next thing he knew, she’d crashed into his balls. Just drawn her knee up and connected hard. Vincent staggered backwards, holding himself where it hurt.

  ‘You answer my questions first,’ she panted, clutching her neck.

  Vincent didn’t speak. Too busy nursing his sore bits and chastising himself for being an idiot. For not using his head.

  ‘Tell me why. I want to know why!’

  ‘Why what?’ he spluttered. ‘None of it matters anymore.’

  ‘It matters to me.’