Deep Blue Sea

by Tasmina Perry

  ‘It would catapult Canopus up the M and A table, that’s for sure. They’re quite a small outfit at the moment. A deal like this would push them into the elite bracket, and more business of that size and quality would undoubtedly come their way.’

  It was all falling into place.

  ‘What’s this about, Rachel?’ said Patty, her brows creasing with intrigue.

  ‘I think Greg came to the party with Julian’s killer.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘He came with someone who didn’t leave the party.’

  Patty put down her water bottle. ‘Rachel, Julian committed suicide . . .’

  ‘He was killed,’ she said, shaking her head slowly. ‘As was his friend Madison Kopek. It was all about Rheladrex. Rheladrex couldn’t be pulled off the market because it would jeopardise the deal, and Greg wasn’t going to let that happen.’

  ‘Rachel, please. Listen to yourself. Greg Willets was as distraught as anyone when Julian died.’

  She had already noticed the car keys on the blond wood countertop, recognising the Ferrari fob even from this distance. A cog in her brain began to turn.

  ‘Patty, who told you the Denver Chemicals sale price was around thirty to forty billion?’

  She didn’t hear the woman’s reply. Her head seemed to vibrate, her vision started to swim. Vaguely she registered that she had been hit, with force, on the back of the skull, and then she fell to the floor.

  63

  Elizabeth Denver had been riding at Hanley Park when she had received Adam’s call and had grudgingly agreed to meet them for lunch in a pub halfway between the family seat and Somerfold.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ she snapped, ordering a glass of tap water from the bar and coming to sit next to Diana and Adam by the roaring fire. She was still in her jodhpurs and a slim-fitting tweed jacket and did not look as if she would be staying long.

  ‘Did Greg Willets have any reason to want Jules dead?’ said Diana without preamble.

  Elizabeth put down her glass without it even touching her lips.

  ‘Simple answer, Elizabeth,’ said Diana with more steel than she had ever felt. ‘Yes or no.’

  Her sister-in-law looked completely taken aback. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Just tell me,’ Diana repeated.

  Elizabeth tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and fell quiet. Diana wasn’t sure if she was thinking or had been stunned into silence.

  ‘We think it has a connection with Rheladrex,’ said Adam, speaking up.

  ‘Rheladrex?’

  Elizabeth was a smart woman, and Diana could tell just by looking at her that she had realised the implications.

  ‘Greg’s company Canopus was going to handle the sale of Denver Chemicals. I suspect we all know about Julian’s report into Rheladrex, his concerns about it. A Chinese firm had been identified for Denver and it was Rheladrex that they were most interested in. A sale price of forty billion had been mentioned. It was a big deal for the parent company to lose. A big deal for Greg to lose,’ added Elizabeth.

  ‘Is it still going ahead?’ asked Adam, fixing his full gaze on his sister.

  Elizabeth lifted up a hand. ‘Hang on. Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here. Julian’s gone. Rheladrex stays on the market, although we will fully co-operate with any regulatory board when matters come to a head. That’s if we still own the company.’

  ‘You still want the deal to go through?’ asked Diana in horror.

  ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped. ‘My job is to make money for the company.’

  ‘At what expense?’

  Elizabeth looked incandescent. ‘No one knows anything concrete about Rheladrex. Not yet. The buyers are doing their own due diligence and nothing has been thrown up there. It’s not the evil drug you think it is, Diana. And the success of Denver depends on it.’

  ‘Have you been dealing with Greg on this, then?’ asked Adam.

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Elizabeth.

  Diana and Adam looked at each other.

  ‘Greg had a motive to kill Julian, Liz.’

  ‘We all had a motive,’ said Elizabeth, looking around the table. ‘It doesn’t mean that any of us did it.’

  ‘There’s something you should know, something odd,’ said Diana, and she began to tell her about Greg’s guest Eva not leaving the party.

  Elizabeth didn’t say anything after she had finished speaking.

  ‘We should talk to Greg,’ said Adam eventually.

  ‘As if he’s going to admit anything,’ scoffed Elizabeth with her usual superior expression.

  ‘Phone him,’ pressed Diana.

  Adam picked up his mobile and made a call, but there was no reply.

  ‘He’s probably out fucking Patty Reynolds,’ said Elizabeth under her breath.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Diana, unable to believe what she had just heard.

  Elizabeth looked up. ‘Well Michael’s gone to Africa, hasn’t he? And whilst the cat’s away . . .’

  ‘Patty and Greg?’ replied Diana after the implication of what her sister-in-law had revealed fully registered.

  ‘Come on, you’ve heard the rumours,’ said Elizabeth dismissively.

  ‘No I have not,’ she gasped. ‘Their marriage is the strongest out of anyone we know.’

  Elizabeth snorted with contempt. ‘Look at Patty, look at Michael and ask yourself why she isn’t going to fool around with someone a decade younger.’

  ‘But they love one another. Michael is a great guy . . .’

  She felt a wave of fear and was desperate for reassurance. Her first and only thought was to speak to Patty. Picking up her phone, her fingers like putty, she called her friend and was surprised when the older woman answered.

  ‘Patty, it’s me.’ She had no idea what to say next.

  ‘Is everything okay, Di?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, composing herself. ‘I’m just trying to track down Rachel. She said she was coming to see you this morning.’

  ‘No, she hasn’t arrived. Michael phoned me from the airport to say she might drop by, but she’s not come. I hope everything is all right.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ Diana replied, feeling cold.

  Patty began to make small-talk but Diana just wanted to end the call.

  When she put down her phone she noticed that Elizabeth looked serious.

  ‘What’s wrong, Liz?’ she asked instinctively.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Liz, tell me, what are you thinking?’

  ‘You know Patty helped Greg bankroll Canopus to get it started,’ said Elizabeth finally. ‘She has a vested interest in making that company work.’

  Dread filled Diana’s throat.

  ‘Try calling Rachel again,’ said Adam quickly.

  She tried, but there was still no reply. Rachel’s message to say that she was on her way to Hampshire had been sent almost three hours ago. Surely she must be there by now?

  ‘I want to go to Patty’s house,’ said Diana with a desperate need to do something other than sit in the pub.

  Adam nodded.

  ‘But Jules killed himself,’ said Elizabeth, shaking her head. Diana felt a wave of solidarity with the woman. Her sister-in-law was not her favourite person, but right now she looked as confused and crushed as she herself felt.

  Adam glanced at his watch. ‘Hop in the car. It shouldn’t take us more than an hour and a half if I put my foot down.’

  ‘An hour and a half?’ said Elizabeth, taking control. ‘We’re ten minutes’ drive from Dad’s and the helicopter’s there.’

  ‘We’d better get moving then,’ said Diana, beating them both out of the pub.

  64

 
She thought she had been out cold for only a few minutes, but really she had no idea how long it had been. Rachel blinked hard, seeing the world at first in a soft, blurred focus; then, as her vision sharpened, she could make out Patty and Greg arguing a few feet away from her.

  She closed her eyes once more, trying to listen to what they were saying. At first it was hard to concentrate. She was aware that she was lying on the floor; her hands and feet had been bound and sticky black gaffer tape had been stuck over her mouth.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Patty’s voice was quivering with panic. ‘That was Diana on the phone asking where Rachel was. Believe it or not, she’s not completely stupid. Her bloody sister must have told her where she was going.’

  ‘Ask her,’ hissed Greg as Rachel felt her heart pump with fear.

  ‘Leave her whilst I think,’ snapped Patty.

  But Rachel could hear Greg striding towards her, felt him tapping her with his foot to wake her up.

  She stayed motionless, pretending to be unconscious.

  He lifted her up, propping her against the kitchen units. He pressed his fingers against her eyelids to pull them back, and she blinked hard in the light, so he knew she had come round.

  ‘What have you told Diana?’ he growled, pushing his face so close to hers that she could see the lines and blemishes on his skin. He ripped the tape off her mouth and waited for her reply.

  ‘I haven’t told her anything,’ croaked Rachel, her lips sore and stinging.

  ‘Don’t fucking lie to me,’ he roared. ‘She’s just called Patty.’

  Rachel gulped hard. ‘I said I might come and talk to her, but that’s it.’

  Greg shook his head. ‘You’re way off base with this, you know,’ he said, wiping a line of dribble from his mouth.

  ‘Which is why you smashed me over the head with a tennis racquet and tied me up,’ she said, noticing the glimmer of metal sports equipment where she had been standing with Patty.

  She coughed and her whole abdomen ached.

  ‘Don’t make this worse than it is already, Greg.’

  He looked at her, his dark eyes blazing. ‘You’re the one who made it something it doesn’t need to be,’ he said grimly. ‘Just like Madison Kopek.’

  ‘So you killed her too,’ she whispered, suddenly imagining Pamela Kopek surrounded by photos of her dead children.

  ‘She went poking her nose into places she shouldn’t,’ he sneered. ‘Must have been one hell of a good fuck to make Julian go chasing after Rheladrex.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘He told me. Told me he wanted to pull the drug and I thought he’d lost his mind.’

  She could feel her hands shaking behind her back. She knew her phone was in her back pocket, but she was sitting on it. Maybe if she could just reach it, she could do something, but she had to stall for time until she worked out what to do.

  ‘Julian was your friend,’ she said quietly. ‘All he tried to do was help you. If the Denver Chemicals deal had fallen through, there would have been others . . .’

  She thought she saw a flicker of regret but then his gaze hardened into a look of venom.

  ‘Do you know how this business works, Rachel? How much time and effort goes into brokering deals? Weeks, months, sometimes years. Wining, dining, licking their arses. You can imagine how hard it was finding those Chinese buyers who were willing to pay such a premium. And do you know how much I would have got if it all came to nothing? Nothing. I worked my balls off to get where I am today. I came from nothing and I crawled back from nothing. I was fucked by Lehman’s, everything I had gone, vaporised, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Patty, putting a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged her off angrily.

  ‘Who was the blonde with you at the party, Greg? Where did you find her? How did she do it?’

  ‘Eva? Though I doubt that’s her real name. Striking girl, Kosovan. Saw some terrible things in the war, or so I’m told. It made her very hard, ruthless. That was ballsy, even for me, coming to a dinner party with a contract killer.’

  ‘She hid in the house, didn’t she?’ whispered Rachel.

  ‘No idea where. Didn’t ask for the details; I just paid her fee. I assume she hid, waited and chose her moment.’

  ‘And how did she leave?’ She didn’t particularly expect him to answer but Greg was in full flow now.

  ‘It was another waiting game. Wait till the police come, the forensics team, wait until there’s activity in the house and she could stroll out without anyone really noticing. All in a day’s work, apparently.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ screamed Patty.

  ‘What have you got to do with all this, Patty?’ growled Rachel. She was afraid, scared what would happen next. She knew that these two were cornered enough to do something rash.

  Patty walked away, out of her line of vision.

  ‘That smart mind of yours wondering what to do next?’ said Rachel defiantly. ‘I thought you’d have both had the brains to sort all this out another way. Did you really need this deal that much, Greg? Enough to kill Julian and Madison?’

  His eyes darted away from her. ‘I needed those fees,’ he said desperately. ‘The company was about to go under. Five major deals have fallen through this year. I couldn’t afford another one.’ He seemed lost in his own world. ‘Can you imagine a CEO blowing the whistle on his own company?’ he said scornfully. ‘Who does that? Willingly confesses that Rheladrex was fatally flawed? Just because some stupid little trailer-park trash was bleating about her dead brother.’

  ‘You got Ross beaten up too, didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t know how much he knew, so I paid two Jamaican scumbags a thousand bucks to scare him off. I regret that. Probably a little excessive, but I hear he’ll live.’

  ‘The only thing you regret is that it drew more attention to Julian’s suicide,’ she replied with a grimace. ‘In fact that’s it,’ she said, remembering the meeting with Greg in that fashionable City restaurant. ‘That’s why you told me about his mystery blonde in the first place. You wanted me to find Madison because you knew how it would look. Julian had a girlfriend and she was dead. You wanted us to think he killed himself because he was so cut up about it.’

  ‘You’re right.’ His smile was faint but there was no disguising the look of quiet triumph. ‘I guess I’m not quite the idiot you believe me to be.’

  Patty had walked back into the room. She looked more composed than she had a minute earlier and had changed into jeans and a top.

  ‘You should take her on the boat,’ she said brusquely.

  ‘Why?’ he queried.

  ‘Come on, just move her.’

  Patty grabbed Rachel’s T-shirt and pulled her up. The woman was strong and she stumbled to her feet. Patty slapped tape on her mouth again, then cut the rope around her ankles so that she could walk and pushed her forward.

  ‘Call Eva,’ she instructed. ‘Tell her where we are. Get her to advise us what we should do.’

  Rachel shuddered. She tried to call out, but the tape was too tight.

  The grounds of the house were not overlooked. Greg dragged her across the grass and down to the water’s edge, where a boat with a shiny walnut hull was moored. Suddenly all Rachel could think about was those plaques in Postman’s Park. All those people trying to do the right thing. All those people killed trying to save someone else. It had turned out to be Julian’s fate, and now she shivered with the thought that she too was going to join the ranks of the dead.

  Well she wasn’t going to let it happen, she thought defiantly. She slipped one bound hand into her back pocket. She could just feel the phone with her fingertips.

  ‘Jump on,’ ordered Patty.

  Rachel was determined not to cry, but she was quaking in fear.
She lifted one leg over the side of the boat, then the other. Her eyes scanned the vessel and she spotted a knife – the sort that sailors carried for cutting rope. She knew that if she could just get hold of it she had a chance. She knew she was stronger, taller and fitter than either Greg or Patty, and she wondered if she had a chance of overpowering them, because she knew that as soon as Eva got here it would all be over.

  She fell back on the deck deliberately in close proximity to the knife.

  ‘Get up,’ said Greg, jumping on to the boat and hauling her to her feet. She had the knife between two fingers but she dropped it and it clattered to the deck. Greg turned and saw it, the silver blade glinting in the sun.

  ‘Naughty girl,’ he whispered, his lips so close to her ear that they touched her skin. ‘Don’t go getting any clever ideas now.’

  There was a small cabin below deck and he pushed her down three stairs so that she landed on the floor with a thump. She had fallen on her face. Her cheek throbbed violently, and as Greg locked the door behind her, she cried out in pain. For a moment she lay motionless, her eyes squeezed closed. She thought of Thailand and the lapping jade waters. She thought of Liam and all the happy times they’d had on their boat. She thought about the fruit punch they served in her favourite bar, and how tasty the curries were at the beach shack next to their office. And as she realised that she would probably never experience any of those things again, a tear trickled down her cheek, landing on the deck in a small, clear watery circle.

  Don’t give up, she willed herself. Snapping her eyes open, she pulled herself to her feet and looked around for anything that could cut the rope free from her wrists. Sweat was beading down her neck and her breathing was shallow. There was nothing. No knife, no scissors, no sharp edges on anything. She remembered how she had once interviewed a man who did magic tricks. She had got him drunk and he had confessed that the way he got out of handcuffs was to dislocate his own thumb. She was tough enough to do that, she thought, exhaling sharply.

  Suddenly she heard something – a gentle whoop-whoop coming closer and closer. The boat started swaying angrily on the water and she realised that a helicopter was coming in to land on Patty’s estate. Adrenalin fired around her body as the noise, a growling flutter of blades and wind, grew louder.