by C J Carver
I moved back into the sitting area and rewound the recording. I wanted to see it again. Susie watched it with me. We didn’t say anything. When I saw the police enter this time round, something about the cop who’d photographed the reception folder caught my attention. Was it his body language? The way he held himself? Something about him was familiar but I couldn’t work it out.
The Saint, on the other hand, I could identify with a blink of my eye. Same height, same breadth of shoulders and thick white hair. I wondered when it had changed colour. He was, according to the internet, sixty years old. He would have been forty-eight when this video had been taken, twenty-three years older than Rob, and aside from a few lines here and there, he’d aged pretty well.
For the second time, I watched my brother running after a middle-aged woman. He was running properly, no half-measures, the gun held easily in his right hand. He meant business. I wondered if he’d caught her. He wasn’t far behind, and although she’d put on a fair turn of speed, obviously terrified, I doubted she’d outrun him.
When the screen turned fuzzy, I leaned forward and picked up the plastic case the DVD had been in. Re-read the note.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHY YOUR BROTHER DISAPPEARED, WATCH THIS.
I looked back at the TV screen. The CCTV footage offered more questions than answers as far as I was concerned, but there was still something niggling at me. I rewound the clip a little. Peered closely at the screen.
‘What is it?’ Susie asked.
‘It’s a logo.’ I pointed at part of a grey blur on the front of the desk.
Susie bent closer for a better look. ‘So it is.’
I enlarged it, and although it lost focus I was fairly sure it depicted a skyline. ‘I’ll take it to work,’ I said. ‘Get Ronja to have a look. If anyone can find out what it is, it’ll be her.’
‘I’ll take a copy to work. Do the same.’
I leaned back, pressing my fingers against my forehead. Anxiety gnawed at me. Who had slipped into our house and left the disc here?
‘Who’s got keys?’ I asked Susie.
She fetched her phone, checked her notes. She nibbled her lip. ‘Um…’ She put down her phone. Stared at the fuzzy grey screen on her laptop.
‘Suze?’ I prompted.
‘The thing is…’ She got to her feet and moved towards the kitchen area. ‘I need a beer. Would you like one?’
I followed her. Watched her go to the fridge and pull out two bottles of beer, pop the tops. She passed one over and I took it, but put it on the worktop without drinking. When she glanced at me, I raised my eyebrows at her. She looked away. She said, ‘The only people who have keys are you and me.’
‘What?’
‘I got everyone to return them.’
‘Mum and Dad don’t have a set?’
‘No. Nobody does.’
I opened and closed my mouth. I felt broadsided. ‘What if we have a problem, like the boiler blows up?’
‘Then they ring one of us and we tell them where the spare is.’
The spare was in a watertight little tube buried to the left of our clematis. I’d used it several times.
‘Nick,’ she sighed. ‘I know you’ve all spent your lives in and out of one another’s houses, but I haven’t had the same upbringing. And when I came downstairs once, dressed in nothing but a T-shirt and knickers to find your father fixing the tap outside the kitchen window, I just about had heart failure. I didn’t know it was him at first glance, it was just a man, a stranger. Scared the shit out of me. This is our house, Nick. Your space, and mine. I don’t want anyone to walk in at any time. I want to be in my home in the firm and safe knowledge that the only time I hear the key in the lock is when you come home.’
‘I understand your point, but shouldn’t you have said something?’ My voice rose in indignation. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Defiance crossed her face. ‘Because I knew you’d respond like this.’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ I protested. ‘I would have been fine if you’d asked me. It’s just…’ It was hiding what she’d done that had shaken me, but I didn’t want to say that and cause a massive row. I took a breath. ‘How did they take it?’
‘They were fine.’ She shrugged. ‘They understood completely.’
Silence.
‘I’m sorry.’ She fiddled with her wedding ring. ‘I should have said something but I never got the courage.’
‘Am I that much of a tyrant?’ I asked disbelievingly.
She gave a wan smile. ‘No. Quite the opposite. It’s just that you’re… you love your family. I didn’t want you to think I was shutting them out in any way.’
Which she had, literally, and I couldn’t help seeing the humour in what she said. I put out an arm and she walked into my embrace. ‘It’s okay,’ I told her. I kissed the top of her head. ‘But next time, please promise to tell me if something bugs you.’
‘Promise.’
Row diverted, I reached out and grabbed my beer, took a slug. ‘Who do you think dropped the DVD in here?’
‘If it wasn’t you and me, it would have to be someone who knew where our spare was. When did you last use it?’
I tried to think. ‘Before Christmas, I think. I accidentally left my keys in the office after our Christmas drinks. You?’
She shook her head. She’d never used them. No need. Unlike me – a bit shambolic from time to time – she had control of her life, and control of her keys. A bit of a stickler, my Suze, but thank God she didn’t expect me to be like her because that would make life extremely tedious.
‘I can’t think someone would watch the house for weeks on end waiting for one of us to dig up a spare,’ I said, but she wasn’t listening. She was moving around the sitting area, checking the windows.
‘What if one of my family kept a key?’ I suggested tentatively.
‘The exact number was returned.’
‘What if someone had cut an extra copy?’
She paused. She said, ‘I suppose they could have.’
‘I’ll check with them all tomorrow. And I’ll get an alarm installed tomorrow too. As well as get the locks changed.’
‘That would be great.’ She gave me a smile but it didn’t reach her eyes. She was anxious, I could see, and I couldn’t blame her. I was anxious too. I wanted to know who had come into our home and left that disc on our coffee table. Whoever had done it could have put it through our letterbox, but instead they’d chosen to violate our space with a brazen gesture that said, I can do anything I like, including walking inside your home while your wife is in the shower.
Chapter 20
First thing the next morning, I rang an old pre-school friend who I still sailed with, Sebastian Potter.
‘I need an alarm,’ I told him. ‘Like yesterday. We had a break-in last night.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘And no saying “I told you so”.’
‘Would I do that?’ He sounded innocent but I could hear the chuckle in his voice. He’d tried to sell me an alarm two years earlier and I’d asked what on earth for. Bosham was one of the safest places in the UK. Not anymore as far as I was concerned.
‘I’m not at work yet,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to come over now? See what I can do?’
‘Seb, you’re a gentleman.’
‘Your round next time, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
I left Seb installing a wireless kit with internal and external siren, part arming for night mode, and a panic button by the front door. I texted Susie to let her know and got a kiss back, then I went and knocked on my neighbour’s door, asked her if she’d seen anyone entering our cottage.
‘Sorry, love.’ She closed the collar of her fleece against the chill breeze. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘It’s not as much a problem as a puzzle. Yesterday, someone left something for us inside the cottage, and we’re not sure who it was, that’s all.’
‘I only saw your father.’
‘Rea
lly?’
‘That’s who I assumed it was.’ She looked anxious. ‘It was him, wasn’t it?’
‘Hang on a mo.’ I quickly dialled Dad, asked the question. ‘No,’ I told my neighbour. ‘It wasn’t him. Can you remember what the man looked like?’
‘Oh dear…’ She screwed up her face while she thought. ‘He was an older man. Which is why I thought it was your father.’
She couldn’t recall anything further. Not what he was wearing, whether he drove a car or not. Believing he was Dad, her observational faculties had obviously switched off.
Thanking her, I walked to the car, hopped in and dropped the CCTV footage to Ronja to see if she could work out the logo, then I went around the family to see if anyone had a key of ours, or a copy of one. First stop, Clara and John, who said no. They could completely understand Susie’s viewpoint.
‘It’s your home,’ Clara said.
‘But I have keys to your place.’
‘That’s different. We have kids.’
Neither Finn nor Honey had any keys of ours, nor my sister Kate or her husband Simon. Nor the paper shop, which used to hold a set beneath the counter for me. Which left my parents.
I found Dad in the shed, surrounded by cabinetmaker’s chisels, mallets, plans and tenon joints. He’d finished making a kitchen table for a friend and was now absorbed with making a spice rack. ‘Your mother wants a new one,’ he told me. ‘The old one’s a bit of a mess now.’
When Rob “died”, I remember Dad retreating to his shed. He always did that when stressed or needed time out from the grandkids or life in general. It was his escape, and back then, his lifesaver because Mum took Rob’s death really hard. Not surprising I know, because no mother should lose a child – it’s a wicked thing – but Mum seemed to make no effort to help herself and after six months, Dad was exhausted from trying to look after her. A rush of anger spiked in my gut. Didn’t Rob know what hell he’d put us through?
I asked Dad about keys and he put down his pull-saw. ‘Susie came ages ago wanting them back,’ he told me. ‘We had three sets, can you believe it? She took them all and I can’t say I blame her. I felt really bad about giving her a fright that day. I’d sent a text telling her I’d be there to fix the tap but she hadn’t read it. No excuse, mind you. I should have rung and spoken to her, made sure she knew I was coming over, especially after… you know.’
Her attack.
‘It’s okay, Dad.’
I nipped in to see Mum, who was taking in one of Honey’s dresses. Mum had pins in her mouth and pink frothy material in her hands and she was pale and unhealthy looking, as though she hadn’t seen the sun in years. She put down the dress and pins, greeting me with a hello and a hug. ‘Any news, darling?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I can’t imagine where he is.’ She was shaking her head. ‘What he’s doing. Where he’s been all this time. I can’t sleep, let alone eat with worrying.’
We talked a bit about Rob, how angry we felt at his deception, how Clara and I were doing after our experience with the Saint – pretty good, considering, us Ashdowns are nothing if not robust – and then I turned the subject to keys.
‘Susie took them all,’ she said. Her words were flat and, unlike the rest of the family, she didn’t add anything about understanding Susie’s point of view.
‘All?’ I said.
‘Three sets. Do you know how much they cost?’ Mum looked indignant.
‘But you can see her point. It’s our place. Our space.’
She made a harrumphing sound. ‘I don’t see why she should act differently to the rest of the family. Set herself apart.’
I felt a stab of annoyance.
‘She was attacked, remember?’
‘As if we could forget it,’ Mum snapped.
Jesus, just what I didn’t want; Mum having a go at Susie. She’d never really got along with Susie and although Susie tried hard, Mum refused to be befriended, behaving like a typical mother-in-law who believed her son could do no wrong but the daughter-in-law was the devil incarnate.
‘We’ve keys to everyone’s houses, you know,’ Mum went on. ‘We were at Kate’s last week, letting the carpenter in. Their windows are leaking like sieves. And we didn’t have to bother Clara when Simon left his keys at work and Honey had accidentally taken their spare to her boyfriend’s. He could simply nip in and grab a set. God alone knows how you’ll cope when you have children.’
She allowed a silence to develop which I didn’t dare broach. Anything I said would either be taken the wrong way or Susie would get shot down in flames for not yet having produced a grandchild for my parents to dote on.
‘Neither of you are getting any younger,’ Mum said, shaking her head. Which was true, and if I paused to think about it, concerned me as much as it did Mum now Susie had turned thirty-six and I was fast approaching forty.
‘You do want children, don’t you, darling?’
Her voice was gentle and a little gust of misery blew through me. If I was perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure that Susie wanted kids anymore. When we first met she’d been really keen but now I knew how ambitious she was, I found it hard to see her embracing motherhood, even if I did turn into a full-time house husband.
Susie hadn’t said so outright, but by prevaricating the way she had over the past couple of years – Just let me get this promotion… what’s the rush? Let’s enjoy being just us a little longer – I suddenly realised I might not become a father.
Something must have shown in my face because Mum put her sewing down and rose to her feet.
‘Darling…’
I couldn’t bear her sympathy.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said stiffly. ‘Sorry, Mum. I’ll see you later.’
Chapter 21
Still feeling emotionally wobbly, I walked down the corridor. I’d have to talk to Susie, I realised. Ask her outright about having children, because if we were going to start a family, we’d have to start soon. Like now. But something inside me already knew her answer and the little gust of misery abruptly turned into a full-blown monsoon.
I was so absorbed in my thoughts, I was already through the front door when I realised I’d forgotten to check the hall table for keys. I backtracked to the large bowl that always sat on top but didn’t see any that looked like ours. I opened the top drawer. More keys jumbled among books of stamps, sunglasses and pens. Next drawer down, bingo. They even had a tag attached with my name on them.
My mind buzzed. Had Rob come here and borrowed the keys? He’d know where they were. Or had he told someone else where to find them? My stomach gave a little flip. Had it been my brother who’d left us the CCTV tape? And why had Mum blatantly lied to me saying Susie had every set of keys? Giving an internal sigh, I guessed her motivation: keep a set so when she saved the day, stopping the toilet from flooding or the roof from falling in, we’d be pathetically, apologetically grateful.
Gently I picked them up, put them in my pocket and headed to the office.
When I got there, Ronja greeted me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘How are you doing, Nick?’
I was about to give my stock answer of fine, thanks, when my legs almost gave way. I don’t know whether it was the concern on her face or whether it was because she wasn’t family so I didn’t have to present a strong front, but I suddenly felt incredibly tired.
‘Hey,’ she murmured and pulled out a chair for me. ‘That bad, huh?’
I managed a rather weak smile as I sank into the chair. ‘It’s not been great.’
She made me a coffee and brought it over. ‘Tell me.’
It was a relief to unload to someone I trusted. Unlike with the family, I didn’t have to edit things as much and most of it (aside from Susie’s job) came tumbling out. Rob and the people who wanted to find him, from DI Gilder to the Saint (but I never said his name) and onto Etienne and some unknown Spaniards who wanted their money.
‘And then this CCTV video,’ Ronja said. ‘Left in your home.
Scary. Have you changed the locks?’
‘Yup. First thing this morning. We’re also putting in an alarm.’ I indicated her computer screen. ‘What did you find?’
She turned the screen so we could both see. She’d played with the image, sharpening and expanding it, and I’d been right. It was a partial logo of what appeared to be the first part of a fuzzy M. Ronja clicked onto Google and the entire image appeared. A crisp skyline with an M beneath blurred into the word Mayfair. She tapped some more until a website appeared. The Mayfair Group. London Property Investment & Development Specialists.
‘I’ll leave you, yes?’
‘Thanks heaps, Ronja.’
‘Any time.’
I had a browse through their website. Learned it was founded by Anthony Abbott and Roger Marshall in the nineties, and that they’d helped private and institutional clients complete residential and commercial property deals collectively valued at many hundreds of millions of pounds.
My skin prickled.
The photograph of Anthony Abbott showed a man in his early thirties in a sharp suit, prematurely white hair, broad shoulders. He was nothing if not a chip off the old block. He could have been a young George Abbott. Aka the Saint.
I grabbed the mouse and did some googling to confirm that Anthony Abbott was indeed the Saint’s son. I then accessed Google Earth to check out Mayfair’s head offices, which were, surprise surprise, in the heart of Mayfair.
When I had the right street, I switched the image to street view and had a look around. It didn’t take long until I’d pegged the right building because most of them were around a hundred years old, Grade II listed buildings with architectural sculpture and putti on the façades, with big solid oak doors – but the Mayfair Group was housed in a modern construction – a ten-storey block of steel and chrome with automatic doors to the street. Overlooking St. James’s Park, it was a stone’s throw from The Ritz Carlton and Piccadilly Circus. Prime real estate. I mean really prime, like some of the most expensive on the planet.