Party Games

by Carnegie, Jo

  ‘John. It’s me. Again.’ She stared at the wall, desperately thinking what to say.

  ‘I’m so sorry for the way I’ve acted. I wish you’d come home and we could work it out.’ A lump rose up in her voice. ‘Things have been ruined and it’s all my fault.

  ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think, and you’re right. I have been pushing you away. I’ve deliberately sabotaged our marriage. Our wonderful, beautiful, amazing marriage. I think, deep down, I’ve always been scared I wasn’t good enough. I think, deep down …’ God, why couldn’t she just say it? ‘I was scared you’d leave me like my mum did. I guess I thought I might as well get in there first and make you go.’

  Catherine choked out a laugh. ‘See what a pathetic fuck-up you married? I know it’s too late for us, John, but I want you to know I take full responsibility for what I’ve done. If you came back …’ She stumbled over her words. ‘I know I would never take you for granted again.

  ‘I’ve got something else to tell you. I’m pregnant. I know I should tell you face to face but, well, I guess this is how we’re communicating these days.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve decided I’m keeping the baby. It’s not a trick to try and keep you. I’ll understand if there’s no chance for us.’

  Tears ran silently down her cheeks, pooling in cold streaks around her neck. ‘I should go now. Leave you to digest the bombshell.’ She felt her heart break in two. ‘Wherever you are, I hope you’re happy.’

  Her phone went off a few minutes later. Catherine lifted her head from where she’d been sobbing on the table.

  ‘John?’

  It was a familiar Welsh accent instead. ‘It’s me. Gwyn.’

  ‘Oh.’ The disappointment was crushing. ‘Gwyn, hi.’

  ‘You sound terrible, is now a bad time?’

  ‘Heavy cold.’ Catherine wiped her eyes. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well.’ He paused. ‘Don’t want to set the cat amongst the pigeons the night before your big day, but I’ve found out who owns Pear Tree Holdings.’

  Catherine sat up. ‘Who?’

  What Gwyn told her next made Catherine forget everything else, at least for the time being.

  Ten more minutes later she was in her car, heading for Beau Rainford’s.

  Chapter 85

  There had been two places sacred to Fleur growing up. One was Cooper’s Croft and the other was in the little copse, high up on the outskirts of the farm. She and her sister had spent entire summer holidays there, stretched out, eating apples from the garden, or homemade cookies if they were lucky. It was their own private kingdom, in which real time had no meaning. It was only when her mother hoisted the red blanket up on the washing line that Fleur and her sister knew it was time to go home for tea.

  It had been years since she’d been there, but the little corrugated iron shack was still there, as were the sisters’ initials carved into a tree. After discovering her dad and Beau’s treachery, it had been the first place she had thought of.

  She lay on the grass, curled on her side. A swathe of stars was sprinkled across the sky. In another lifetime, she would have thought how pretty it was. She had no idea how long she’d been here, only that it was very late and that no one would have fed the animals. If her dad had any wits left about him, he would have called Ben in to do it.

  She was still only wearing shorts and a vest, but she couldn’t feel the cold. She couldn’t feel anything. Shock and anger had given way to numbness. It was all starting to make sense now. Beau’s interest in the farm, the loaded comments Spencer had made about ‘laying the groundwork’, that she’d assumed was him referring to another business deal. They’d been laughing at her the whole time: Beau’s textbook seduction of the hick country girl. Fleur wanted to tear herself apart. When she thought about the things she’d let Beau do to her, how he’d made her feel.

  Deep down, she knew she couldn’t blame her dad. In his own misguided way he’d thought he was doing the right thing. He was ill. Did it really matter that they were losing the farm? It was going to be sold off anyway. What mattered was that Beau had wormed his way into their lives and struck when they were at their most vulnerable.

  The same questions kept tormenting her. How could one human being do that to another? He’d pretended they had a connection, bonding with her over their dead mothers. How could someone be so beautiful on the outside, and be so ruthless and calculating inside? How could she have fallen for it?

  ‘I loved you,’ she whispered.

  Catherine pulled up outside Ridings and sat behind the steering wheel, wondering what to do. There was a pile of manifesto leaflets on the back seat. She got a pen out of her bag. She started to compose a note, taking her time. It might be the most important thing she’d ever write in her life.

  Vanessa sat on the plastic seat in the waiting room at A & E. She was still in her five-thousand-pound ball-gown. Even the old drunk across from her had woken up to stare. News reports were playing endlessly on the hospital TV screens.

  Thank God, it was looking as if the other injured onlookers had escaped with cuts and bruises. Conrad was in custody. The police wanted to talk to Vanessa, as did her mother and Marty and her lawyer, but she didn’t want to see anyone. All she wanted to know was if Dylan was going to be OK.

  A doctor approached. ‘Mrs Powell?’

  She jumped up. ‘Is he going to be all right?’

  Everyone around craned their ears. ‘Please,’ the doctor said quietly. ‘Come with me.’

  Chapter 86

  The downstairs hall light was on as Catherine pulled up in front of the Hollies. She sat and composed herself for a moment, before unbuckling her seat belt and getting out.

  She rang the doorbell and a figure appeared through the stained glass. Felix pulled the door open, looking surprised to see her. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you so late. Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course. I’m still up, anyway.’ He led Catherine through. ‘Can I get you a nightcap? I was just having a whisky myself.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ She sat down in the armchair. ‘Is Ginny here?’

  ‘No, she’s at her sister’s.’ He frowned at her. ‘You look awfully serious. Is it John? I did hear you two were having some trouble.’

  ‘Felix, I’m not here about John,’ she said quietly.

  He sat down in the chair opposite her. ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘I found out something tonight that is going to have huge implications for this town and everyone in it.’

  He looked concerned. ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it.’

  ‘Dear girl, you’re starting to worry me! Has something happened at the office?’

  ‘I know you’re the one behind Pear Tree Holdings.’

  Felix’s silver eyebrows shot up. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I’ve received credible information tonight that you own Pear Tree Holdings, and have done so for a number of years.’ Catherine looked him squarely in the eye. ‘You’ve been in cahoots with Sid Sykes all along.’

  ‘That’s preposterous!’

  ‘I wish it was. I also know that you fixed the county council verdict and paid off several of the key councillors. Ye Olde Worlde was always going to get the go-ahead, whatever we did to try and stop it.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ he said angrily. ‘Why would I do that? I’m the one who’s against the bloody thing!’

  There was a loud hammering on the front door. ‘What the …’ He got up. ‘Who the hell’s that?’

  He left her alone in the room. She looked down at her hands; this time they were perfectly still. A moment later there was the sound of an altercation in the hallway and she heard Felix exclaim. Beau appeared in the study doorway, blond hair dishevelled. ‘I just got your note,’ he told her.

  Felix pushed past his brother and went over to the window. ‘I don’t know what you two are trying to cook up agains
t me,’ he snapped. ‘But it’s not going to work.’

  Catherine felt oddly detached, as if the whole thing was happening to someone else. ‘I’m afraid it is. I’ve got all the evidence: how you’ve already put an offer in for a three-million-pound house in Belgravia, and another for a pile in Yorkshire. You’re planning to sell up and leave, aren’t you? You never had any intention of sticking around once the planning permission got through.’

  A vein started to pulse in his throat.

  Beau gave a low whistle. ‘My God, Felix, you’ve got more balls than I thought. It takes some nerve to try and pull off a stunt like this.’

  ‘What the hell would you know about nerve?’ Felix spat at him. ‘You’ve had everything handed to you on a bloody plate!’

  ‘You were in control of everything,’ Catherine said quietly. ‘By being at the forefront, you ensured no one would suspect you.’

  The once-twinkly eyes were flat and hard, like pebbles on a beach. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s been like all these years? Do you? A small-town solicitor, bogged down in the mundane pettiness of other people’s lives?’ His voice rose. ‘Having to put up with the likes of Aubrey Taunton-Brown when I should be in parliament, alongside my contemporaries? I was destined to make decisions, not follow them!’

  ‘You’ve got some God complex,’ Beau told him.

  ‘Shut up!’ Felix snapped. He rounded on Catherine. ‘And you! Breezing in here like you owned the place. Beeversham should have been my seat years ago.’ He jabbed his chest. ‘Mine. I’ve dedicated my life to my party, and all they’ve done is use me.’ He put on a horrible whiny voice. ‘“Oh, Felix will do it, he’s a good old chap. You can dump anything on old Felix.”’

  ‘Why did you help me?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I didn’t have much bloody choice in the matter, did I? Not that I thought you had a hope of winning.’

  ‘So the plan was to buy yourself a nice new life?’ Beau asked. ‘Slip out of here with no one any the wiser?’

  ‘No one else was going to give it to me! And then she came along and I was nominated as her chief babysitter.’ The look he gave Catherine made her blood run cold. ‘Poking your nose in where it wasn’t wanted.’

  ‘And where did Ginny fit into all this?’ Beau enquired coldly. ‘Were you going to tell her, or just up and leave?’

  Felix stared him out. ‘Of course not, I was going to get a divorce.’

  ‘Aren’t you the big man,’ Beau said softly. ‘Actually, leaving Ginny is the one good thing you could ever do for her. You’ve made her life miserable enough through the years.’

  ‘Why do you care so much about my wife? Do you have designs on her now?’

  Beau’s jaw tightened. ‘Ginny is like a mother to me. And you can talk about putting it about, you disgusting hypocrite. At least I take care of my responsibilities.’

  ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that! Show me some respect!’

  ‘You have to earn respect,’ Beau shot back. ‘Clearly something you’re incapable of achieving.’

  Every ounce of warmth had gone from Felix’s face. Catherine was mesmerized. There was nothing left of the person she had known.

  ‘Christ,’ Beau said casually. ‘If you needed the money that badly, I would have given it to you.’

  It hit the spot, just as intended. Felix came for Beau, roaring. Catherine only just got out of the way in time.

  The age gap was too great. Beau was too quick and too strong. Grabbing Felix’s wrists, he got him down on the floor in a headlock.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ Felix screamed. ‘How dare you!’

  ‘You’re a sad, fucked-up bully, who’s terrorized his wife and kids for years.’ Beau pushed his brother’s face into the carpet, subduing him. ‘For God’s sake, man, have some dignity. It’s over.’

  All the fight went out of the older man and he crumpled on to the floor. ‘I was meant to be more than this,’ he moaned.

  It was a pitiful sight to witness. Beau released him and got up.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked Catherine.

  ‘I’m going public with the story. First thing tomorrow.’

  Felix moaned again. ‘You can’t.’

  She glanced at the pathetic heap on the floor. It was hard to believe she’d ever looked up to him.

  ‘People need to know the truth,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You do know it will cost you the election?’ Beau told her. ‘Tory chairman turns out to be major player in Ye Olde Worlde. It will ruin your chances of winning.’

  ‘I know.’ Taking one final look at Felix, she walked out.

  Chapter 87

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not an exaggeration to call Felix a sociopath. He’s always had a major chip on his shoulder.’

  Catherine and Beau were at her kitchen table, a bottle of red wine between them. They had stayed long enough to watch Felix hastily pack a suitcase and disappear into the night. It was hard to feel any sympathy for him.

  ‘From the few things Ginny’s said over the years, he’s very like his own dad,’ Beau continued. ‘Apparently Trevor Chamberlain was a model citizen on the outside, but a real bully at home. He thought he was too good for Beeversham and clearly passed that on to Felix. The fact that he ended up back here after university and never left must have pissed him off deeply. He already harboured a deep resentment against my mother for leaving, but the truth was, that bastard Trevor Chamberlain abused her nearly every day of her life. Unfortunately, history went on to repeat itself.’

  Catherine was shocked. ‘Felix beat Ginny up?’

  Beau’s expression was stony. ‘I think it was mainly verbal, not that that makes it any better. How fat Ginny was, how useless and unglamorous she was compared to everyone else’s wives.’

  Catherine couldn’t bear to think about what Ginny had been through. ‘Poor, poor Ginny.’ What a savage irony: that she had been campaigning against domestic violence, and it had been happening right under her nose.

  ‘I tried to get her to leave him so many times.’ Beau sighed. ‘In the end he’d alienated her from everyone: me, their old friends, her sister. His own children can’t stand him. Will, their son, had a massive fight with Felix a few years back and swore he’d never set foot in the family home again.’

  ‘But how could Felix keep it secret? Why did no one suspect anything?’

  ‘He was very good at keeping his public and private faces separate. A few people may have guessed what was going on over the years, but they probably didn’t want to interfere. Ginny would never have said anything herself. Felix had ground her down.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ Catherine said. ‘Ginny hasn’t been herself for a while, but I thought …’ She stopped. ‘I thought she was ill.’

  ‘Things have been worse lately,’ Beau admitted. ‘I thought it was just because he was resentful of you running in the by-election, but now we know he had other stuff on his mind.’

  ‘I feel terrible I’ve made things worse.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. Felix is a very jealous, bitter man. He’s obsessed with money and power because he’s never really had it. Truth is, he was probably never good enough to be a big politician. He had the delusions of grandeur, but no conviction.’

  ‘I thought you were the one behind Ye Olde Worlde,’ she confessed. ‘Felix hoodwinked us all.’

  Beau shrugged. ‘I could have let people know what my brother was like, but Ginny always begged me not to. This place is her life. So I kept my mouth shut.’

  ‘You’re very close to Ginny.’

  ‘I adore her,’ he said simply. ‘I was a lonely, grieving kid after my mum died. My father had gone back to America, and Ginny was the only one who was there for me. As much as she could be, anyway. Felix always hated me. You heard how I was the one who “got lucky”.’ He smiled thinly. ‘If I’d ever been asked to choose between money and family, I know what my answer would have been.’
r />   ‘Is that why you moved back here?’

  ‘It was a big reason. I knew things were getting worse. I thought I could keep an eye on Felix and be there for Ginny. And in a funny way, this town is home to me. Or it was, anyway.’

  ‘Will Ginny come back?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet, she’s safe at her sister’s.’ He sighed again. ‘The irony is, things had got so bad, I’d convinced her to see a divorce lawyer. That’s where I’ve been this week. I guess she hasn’t got a choice now.’

  Catherine didn’t press for more details about Felix’s philandering. Her brain couldn’t cope with any more revelations.

  ‘What about you?’ Beau asked. ‘What are you going to do without your campaign manager?’

  ‘I doubt I’ll have much of a campaign to run.’

  ‘Well, you know you’ve got my vote if it helps.’ He gave her a disarming grin.

  ‘Thanks for tonight,’ she said shakily. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

  He shook his head. ‘I just feel sorry for Ginny.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better shoot. I’ve got a lot of work to get through.’

  ‘At this hour? Must be important.’

  ‘It is.’ He paused. ‘I’ve just signed a deal for a big piece of land round here.’

  ‘You’re not going to build another theme park, are you?’

  ‘Ha, no. But it could be pretty risky, especially in the current climate.’

  ‘Sounds intriguing.’

  He sized her up through his cool blue eyes. ‘Maybe.’

  A mobile ringtone went off. ‘Excuse me,’ he told her, pulling an iPhone out of his back pocket.

  ‘Hello? Hi, Robert. Yeah, sorry, I’ve been a bit tied up.’ He frowned. ‘No. Why?’

  Beneath the tan, his face drained of colour. ‘Don’t move,’ he ordered. ‘I’m coming over.’

  Chapter 88

  Dawn broke over the London rooftops but Vanessa barely noticed. She’d been by Dylan’s side all night. When she’d seen him lying motionless in the road outside the Royal Albert Hall, she’d feared the worst. At one point the doctors had said it was critical, but miraculously he’d started to improve. He’d been drifting in and out of consciousness ever since.