And still, she’d waited - planning for the day she’d meet her father and show him why he ought to love her. Why she was better than the others.
———
“This is what you’re doing to do,” she told Justin, the afternoon he came home and had his hysterics on the couch. “You’re going to go to bed and get some sleep. And tomorrow, you and I are going to go to Bankside together and get those files. Then we can decide what to do with them - whether or not we take them to the police.”
He didn’t answer, so she poured him a glass of the Sonoma Chardonnay - a glass she should have been drinking - and stroked the sweaty tufts of his hair as he drained it to the dregs. Then she poured him another.
They stayed like that on the couch, the television on in the background, until 8pm, when he eventually did what he was told and went to bed, leaving her alone in the lounge to think.
She knew by then what she needed to do - and more than that, how she needed to do it, how the events of the following day would need to unfold.
It was perfect, really. Serendipitous.
———
She barely slept that night. There was too much to prepare.
She woke him at 5am, an hour before his usual alarm call, and they drove to Southwark across the empty streets of the city in pensive silence. From time to time, she placed a hand over his on the steering wheel for moral support.
It was almost 6 when they arrived at Marchant Holdings. The building was as deserted as the road outside had been, save for the security guards on the door who nodded hello to Justin as they passed.
They’ll remember seeing him, she thought. Seeing both of us.
But the idea didn’t trouble her. A day from now, whatever they remembered would be immaterial. They wouldn’t be telling a soul what they’d seen.
They took the lift to the 13th floor, where the finance team were based, and crossed the open-plan workspace of the lower minions to Justin’s office. She ushered him inside; closed the door behind them.
“Where are the files?” she asked him.
“They’re on the computer,” he told her, indicating the off-white IBM that dominated his desk. “I’ll need to print them out, but it’ll take a while.”
“I’ll make you a coffee,” she said, as he booted up the machine.
In the small shared kitchen, she found a jar of instant granules and a mug; heaped a generous spoonful of the former into the latter, and poured hot water from the kettle on top. She added milk from the fridge and two lumps of sugar - white and refined, the kind he devoured in defiance of the damage to his teeth, justifying it as fuel for his ludicrous jogs around the park. Finally, she pulled from her purse a small freezer-bag of crushed flunitrazepam, unsealed it and shook the powder into the coffee, stirring it until it disintegrated.
She carried the mug back to his office and placed it gently on the desk beside him.
“Thank you,” he said gratefully. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He blew on the coffee to cool it, and then downed half of it in three eager gulps.
“Is it printing?” she asked, killing time until the pills kicked in.
“Not yet,” he answered. “I need to…”
He hesitated, mid-sentence; pawed at his collar like a cartoon adulterer in a confessional booth.
“Is it hot in here?” he said to her.
There was something comical about the speed of change in his expression; the way his pupils unfocused and his lips parted, as if he were about to drool onto his shirt.
“Are you alright, darling?” she asked him.
He spread his palms down on the desk and lowered his head to them. And then he was unconscious - or at any rate, unconscious enough.
She opened her purse again; took out her gloves and slipped them on, and after that a second item - a long leather belt, one of his. It was black calfskin, soft and pliable; she thought it might have been one of the ones she’d given to him as a Christmas present.
She walked to the door and tied the belt in a loop around the coat hook there - then walked back to the desk, to pick up Justin.
He was still skinny, a literal lightweight, and she found she could manoeuvre him with ease. With one of his arms around her shoulders and one of hers around his waist, she walked him to the coat hook; reached for the dangling end of the belt, and tied that, as tightly as she could manage, around his neck.
Then she stepped around him, took his legs by the ankles and pulled, until he was half-sitting and half-lying on the floor, the calfskin belt digging into the flesh of his throat.
He choked.
It took longer than she’d hoped. When it was done, she took the mug from the desk, carried it back to the kitchen and rinsed it in the sink with soap and hot water.
There, the tap running, she reviewed the mental checklist she’d made as Justin was dying:
Switch off the computer. They could figure out what to do with the files later; she was sure there was a way they could be modified, even if they couldn’t be erased altogether. Perhaps even modified to make it seem like Justin was his one with a hand in the till.
Wipe the surfaces - the ones she could recall touching, anyway. She doubted the police would understand Justin’s unfortunate demise as anything more than a suicide, but there was no sense tempting fate.
Then call her father.
Call her father, introduce herself, and tell him what she’d done for him.
Chapter 29
Notting Hill
1996
“You told the police he did it,” El said, looking from Hannah to Marchant. “You said he killed your husband.”
“I did,” Hannah agreed.
“On my instructions, I might add,” Marchant said. “I was nowhere near Bankside the day poor Justin had his accident - I wasn’t even in London, from memory. I had a cast-iron alibi, so there was no-one better to use as a scape-goat and a whipping-boy, if it meant drawing suspicion away from Hannah.”
And it cost you nothing, El thought. It cost you nothing, but it meant you’d always have her around when you needed her, and have her on side. That she’d do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it, and she’d never ask questions - just let herself be used, the way you’d use a weapon. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut and pretend to give a shit about her.
“I couldn’t believe it, when Rose turned up on my door,” said Hannah. “Given her reputation, I thought at first she might have come to offer condolences - a little comfort to the grieving wife. You know, girl to girl?”
“You wish,” spat Karen, through what El suspected were broken teeth.
“Don’t pretend you know anything about me or my life,” Rose said, more calmly.
“As if it were a secret!” Hannah laughed. “I’m sorry to break it to you, darling, but everyone knew about you and Seb. He wasn’t exactly discreet. Even Justin knew, and I had to tell him about Elton John. Anyway, as I say - imagine my surprise, when you turned up like that.”
“Not to say mine, when she called me to let me know,” said Marchant. “Or when I realised who you were, Olivia. You’ve hardly changed, you know.”
El glanced out of the corner of her eye at Rose, looking - not for the first time - for some physical quality in common with Marchant, some curve of the lips or twist of the head that would suggest a familial connection. But there was nothing - no similarity at all.
But he and Hannah... they were two peas in a pod.
“You’ve been playing us?” she said - to Hannah, or Marchant, or both. “Stringing us along?”
“What choice did you leave us?” said Marchant. “We couldn’t very well let you and your cabal of caped crusaders ruin me, could we?”
“If you ask me,” said Karen, “he enjoyed it. Got off on thinking he was getting one over on us. Ain’t that right, Jimmy?”
Hannah was across the room before El realised she’d moved. A cracking sound bit the air as her fist connected with Karen’s jaw.
El winced in sympathy - but wondered, too, why Karen wasn’t fighting back, wasn’t resisting.
“Bastard cuffed her,” Ruby said, reading El’s mind again.
“Rather fitting, after her turn with Seymour Henderson,” said Marchant. “But I feel I should clarify that that wasn’t my reason for letting your little heist run its course. Although,” he added to El with a wink that made her stomach turn, “my campaign certainly benefitted from your advice. I’m still very much hoping the good people of Silvertown make the right choice when they go to the ballot box.”
Why bother with it, then? El thought. Why not just shut us down from the beginning? Or take us out altogether, if you were that worried? It’s not like we’d have seen it coming.
Then, suddenly, she knew.
The footage, she thought. You wanted the footage – Lomax’s confession.
Because you didn’t know what was on it, did you? Hannah didn’t tell you, because she couldn’t. She knew it existed, that there were hours and hours of videotape – Rose would have told her about it. But she wouldn’t have shown her. She cared too much about protecting everyone else’s secrets. And she wouldn’t have thought Hannah needed convincing you were guilty.
Which means you probably still don’t know what’s there - what Lomax said about you, how much of your dirty laundry he aired.
And that’s why you want it back. Why you need it back.
“You’re here for the tapes,” she said quietly. “The tapes Rose made of Lomax.”
“We are, yes,” Marchant said. His grip on the handle of the gun tightened. “But sadly my other daughter is being terribly uncooperative. Aren’t you, Olivia?”
“My name isn’t Olivia,” said Rose. “Olivia was your daughter. I’m not.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” said Marchant, beginning to lose patience. “Just give me the bloody tapes. Neither of us wants me to have to hurt Sophie, do we? She is my granddaughter, after all.”
Sophie? El thought. He’s got Sophie?
“You ain’t laying a hand on that girl,” growled Ruby.
“I’ve had two men in Sussex for the last two days, standing sentry outside the house she’s been staying at,” said Marchant matter-of-factly. “They sleep in shifts. If I call either one of them on their mobile phones, at any time, and give them the appropriate instruction, they’ll shoot her in the head. And her aunt, too - Camilla, is it?”
A strangled sound, something like a wail, escaped from Rose. But she didn’t cry - didn’t plead or fall to her knees, begging.
Because she knows there’s no point, El realised. She’s seen up close what he’s capable of when someone gets in his way. Even his own children.
“Give me the tapes,” Marchant repeated. “The tapes, and all the copies, and Sophie will be fine. Better than fine, with all that sea air she’s been breathing.”
He pressed a finger to the trigger of the gun; pointed it in Rose’s direction.
“Now, Livvy,” he said. “Do it now, please.”
“Big man you are,” Karen said, her words beginning to slur through a jaw that looked like it might be dislocated. “A little kid, a defenceless little kid, and you can’t even do her yourself. You have to get some other bloke to do the job for you, like you did with Kat.”
“I assure you,” Marchant said, adjusting his position so that the gun was facing Karen rather than Rose, “I had nothing to do with what happened to Miss Morgan. I rather liked her - I’d been looking forward to seeing where the evening might take us.”
“Bash her own head in, did she?” said Ruby.
“I wouldn’t say that, no,” said Hannah. “And I won’t say she made me do it. But she certainly didn’t make things easy for herself.”
———
They’d been driving for half an hour. She was itching to move faster, to go harder on the BMW’s accelerator. But she was in character, still. And cautious, docile Hannah D’Amboise would never dream of speeding.
Kat was a talker, she was discovering. There’d always been others around them at Ledbury Road, the drone of other people’s chatter ever-present in the background, and one consequence - from Hannah’s perspective, an entirely happy consequence - was the lack of one-on-one interaction with any of the women.
Her concentration was, mercifully, drifting as she drove, but she’d gathered from the parts of Kat’s wittering she hadn’t successfully tuned out that she was being dragged, against her will, down someone else’s memory lane - that Kat had chosen this moment to reminisce about some of the darker chapters in her biography.
How she came to be a streetwalker in the arsehole of North Wales, for example.
It was to do with her father, by the sound of it - and wasn’t it always?
Her father, and someone else.
“It all comes back to Marchant,” Kat said, and Hannah’s attention was pulled immediately back to the conversation, monologic as it was. “Just like bloody everything. He ruined my Da, see.”
As she talked, Hannah realised that it wasn’t the first time she’d heard the story; that her father had told her some of it himself months earlier, when he’d learned who Kat was and how Rose planned to involve her in the scheme she was plotting.
Of course, his telling had been somewhat different, with more emphasis placed on what Kat called The Protoype - but what her father had ultimately patented as TCR3, an acronym she hadn’t asked him to explain - than on the saga of Mr Morgan and his wayward daughters.
But it was still, fundamentally, the same story.
“Offended your sensibilities, have I?” asked Kat, when Hannah failed to speak in what was apparently her turn.
“Not at all,” she said. “I’m just so sorry you had to go through that.”
“It is what it is. But I do have to wonder what sort of life I might’ve had, if it weren’t for Marchant. Marchant and that fucking turbocharger, whatever it was.”
“The TCR3?”
She’d realised her mistake almost the second she’d made it. But by then, of course, it was too late.
Kat twisted in her seat, orienting her body towards Hannah’s.
“How do you know that?” she said sharply. “How do you know what it was called?”
She considered lying; fabricating a reason, a legitimate-sounding one, for knowing about the Morgans, about the TCR3 and what had become of it after it was stolen. But it would be a fool’s errand, she realised; whatever story she told could be readily contradicted by Rose or one or the others, its threads very easily unpicked.
No; lying wasn’t an option.
But there was other ways to handle situations like this. She’d done it before; she could do it again.
Gently, she released her foot from the accelerator and shifted the steering wheel left; the car began to slow, to veer to the side of the road.
She slid her left hand down into the side pocket of the driving seat; to the heavy steering wheel lock she knew she’d find there, calculating how easily the windows would break, if she struck them. How much force it would take to get them to shatter.
“Listen...” she began, and when Kat angled her head to look at her, she pressed down on the brake, swung her left arm over her body in a wide arc and brought the curved end of the wheel lock down on Kat’s skull.
———
“You fucking bitch,” said Karen. “You murdering fucking bitch.”
She pushed herself half-upright on the sofa, her body bent at the waist and wrists cuffed behind her back, and charged forward, butting her head into Hannah’s stomach and knocking her to the ground.
Two things happened then, in the chaos that followed:
Marchant, his grip still tight on the gun, stepped forward towards the two women - his aim trained on Karen as she and Hannah fought and rolled.
And Ruby, whose back had been pinned to the counter, reached behind her into the cutlery drawer, drew out one of Rose’s carbon-steel cooking knives and, her eyes never leaving Marchant, closed the distance bet
ween them in three long steps – then, keeping both of her hands on the dark wood handle, drove all 6 inches of the blade into his neck.
From The Bracknell Star & Echo, November 1996
James Marchant: The One That Got Away?
He was a titan of the international business world, and one of the UK’s most successful sons. Then came the murder charges. Now he’s on the run.
Six months ago James Marchant, billionaire former boss of Marchant Holdings, seemed to have the world at his feet.
Happily married and rich beyond the dreams of almost all of us, he was even planning a second career - this time in politics, by contesting the seat until recently held by disgraced ex-MP Seymour Henderson in London’s Silvertown district.
Until, that is, he vanished.
Many theories have circulated since about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance following the launch of his election campaign in May of this year - some plausible and some preposterous.
Police have since confirmed that Marchant was being investigated, at the time of his vanishing, for his possible role in the £20m embezzlement scandal that has since engulfed Marchant Holdings. They have confirmed moreover that a number of Swiss bank accounts held by Marchant, their value in the tens of millions of pounds, were emptied on the same day he went missing.
Confidential sources close to that investigation have also told the Star & Echo that a second case is being built against Marchant by police, this time for murder - and have refused to deny that incriminating videotape evidence from one of Marchant’s close associates, rumoured to have fallen into the Met’s hands over the summer, would play a central role in any subsequent charges brought against him.
Continued on page 3
Epilogue
The Debt Page 32