Deadly Business

Seventeen

Liam was waiting in the lobby downstairs. He looked at me as I stepped out of the lift and I nodded.

‘All of it?’ he asked.

‘The works; she’s a pragmatist. She had this irrational hatred of Oz and Susie,’ I told him. ‘Hopefully she’s worked it out of her system now.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ he agreed. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think she’d agree to sell out, even though the Buddy guy’s offer was fair. To be even more honest, I don’t understand why he made it. He’s a US investor, this is Britain.’

Liam hadn’t been there when Miles had spoken with his pal; he and Tom had still been on the Hampden Park Stadium tour. (Tom wasn’t impressed, he confessed afterwards, having done the Camp Nou equivalent in Barcelona.) ‘There’s more to it,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you about it later.’

We’d done a lot of planning, Miles and I, in a very short time. The first part of our scheme for dealing with Natalie and Duncan had gone as well as I’d dared hope. The second part lay ahead, and it was going to be made a hell of a lot easier by the luxury of having my brother-in-law’s plane at our disposal.

He’s been married to my sister for about fifteen years now. We’ve been close, he and I, for all that time, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him as up for anything as he was that day. He’s a guy who’s made it big in his career; because of that, inevitably he’d become used to doing everything at arms’ length. The search of the Las Vegas marriage records, for example: he’d told somebody to do it, and it had gotten done. Being involved in the aftermath, hands-on, had turned him into a kid at a lock-in in a sweetshop.

He, Liam and I joined Tom in the car, where he’d just eliminated the last Zombie Gunship on his iPad, and headed for Edinburgh Airport. On the way, I called the office and told Wylie to put the short-notice board meeting that we’d arranged on hold. I turned in the hire car, then we took a short taxi ride to the general aviation terminal, where the plane and its crew were waiting. It occurred to me as I got on board that the last time I’d been on a private aircraft the journey hadn’t ended where it was supposed to, but I pushed that thought to the back of my mind and trusted in the singularity of lightning strikes.

Miles’s pride and joy was the newest Beechcraft passenger jet, the aviation equivalent of a Roller. It isn’t very big, but it can do Los Angeles to Scotland in one jump with a couple of thousand miles left in the tank, so the journey we were about to take was a short hop in its terms. I slept for most of it. The last couple of days had taken more out of me than I’d realised, and I’d nodded off before we reached cruise height.

When Liam roused me, we were a hundred miles short of Nice, our destination airport, and it was six forty-five, Central European Time. Immediately, I thought of Susie, who’d been on the same flight path, and who would never waken again.

We were hoping that Duncan had caught the Easyjet Edinburgh-Nice flight; that would have landed mid-afternoon, according to the timetable, and he’d have arrived in Monaco ahead of us. A guess, but well-founded; he had no other option.

I thought we might have been held in immigration for a while, but Miles has been there so often for the Cannes Film Festival that they treated him like a local, and we were waved through. The car that I’d booked was waiting for us on the rank. I could have called Audrey and asked Conrad to come for us, but I didn’t want to let even them in on the surprise that was coming. It was going to be too good to spoil for anyone … most of all Duncan.

It’s no distance at all from Nice to Monaco, autoroute all the way until you descend into the principality … but not all the way into it in our case, for the family home that Susie and Oz had shared looked down on to the famous harbour and the Formula One Grand Prix street circuit. It was just short of eight o’clock when our chauffeur pulled up at the gate.

As always, it was closed. Normally visitors announced themselves into a video camera, but there was a keypad beneath for those who knew the entry code, as Tom and I did. I let him punch it in, and the gate slid aside.

There was nobody in sight as the four of us walked up to the front door. It’s on the landward side of the property, and it doesn’t have a keypad, and not even a doorbell, since by the time visitors get that far, the household knows they’re coming. There’s a door knocker, though, an ornamental thing that’s never used. Tom gave it three loud raps, and then we waited. Liam and Miles were standing to one side, so they wouldn’t be seen through the spyhole, should it be Duncan who came to see who was making the noise.

But it wasn’t. Nobody answered, not until Tom had knocked again, harder the second time around. When it did open, Audrey stood behind it, chubby, friendly, bright-eyed little Audrey … only she looked none of those things. She seemed to have shrunk, her cheeks were gaunt and there was fear in her eyes. They told me as clearly as words that something dreadful had happened.

‘Primavera,’ she exclaimed, then stopped as she saw the two guys. ‘Who are …’ she began.

‘Miles and Liam,’ I replied. ‘We bring tidings of great joy … but … what the hell’s up? And where is that bastard Culshaw?’

‘The kitchen,’ she whispered, as if she had to force the words out.

‘This way,’ I said, heading for it. The three guys made to follow me, but Audrey grabbed Tom.

‘No, not you, son. You stay here with me.’

‘Audrey!’ he protested. He could have freed himself from her grasp, easily, but I shook my head.

‘No, Tom. If Audrey says you stay with her, you stay.’

The kitchen door was ajar when we reached it. At first I thought the floor had been relaid. Susie had never liked the Roman-style white tiles, trimmed with brown, and had been threatening for years to do something about them, but red, Susie, no, not red, much too garish.

At first I thought … then I stepped through the door, felt the stickiness beneath my feet, moved past the island work surface in the middle of the room and saw, behind it, Duncan Culshaw, lying on his back, mouth wide open, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, his face a waxy off-white, looking as dead as anyone I’d ever seen. He was wearing nothing but a pair of Speedo budgie-smugglers. It wouldn’t take a detailed autopsy to determine what had killed him. There was a great gaping wound on the inside of his right thigh, and both of his legs were covered in his blood.

Conrad stood beyond him; he was holding wee Jonathan in his arms. The kid’s face was pressed hard against his chest, and his body heaved with silent sobs.

‘Gimme him,’ I demanded, walking around the other side of the work unit, to avoid the great crimson pool. Conrad handed him over, without a word.

‘Why did you do it?’ I asked him. ‘Did he threaten the children? Or did he just push you too far?’

‘Let’s just say I’d had enough of him,’ he replied.

‘It wasn’t Conrad,’ wee Jonathan mumbled into my belly. ‘It was me, Auntie Primavera, it was me.’ The sobs began again, with full sound effects.

Why did I have no trouble believing him? You might wonder that, but the answer’s quite simple. If Conrad Kent had decided to kill Duncan, he’d have done it in a very quiet place with no witnesses, no mess and no fuss.

‘How?’ I didn’t say the word, I mouthed it.

‘Duncan got back three hours ago,’ Conrad began. ‘He told Audrey and me, in front of the two kids, that we were fired, then he went for a swim. He had a few beers by the poolside, then he came into the kitchen. Audrey was here; she’d started to make dinner for the children. Duncan said something to her along the lines of, “Are you trying out for a job as a chef?” Little Jonathan was standing beside her. He started to protest, but Culshaw said to him, “Shut up, you, and learn some fucking respect. I’m your daddy now!” The little chap picked up the knife that Audrey had been using to cut the veg, and lashed out at him. He didn’t think about it, he just did it. He’d have grabbed anything, a carrot, a courgette, a handful of spaghetti, whatever was nearest. It happened to be the knife, and it happened to be as sharp as a razor, as all good chef’s knives are. I was in the children’s day room with Janet when the screaming started. And there was a lot of it, from Audrey, from little Jonathan, and most of all from Culshaw. As soon as I got here, I knew he didn’t have a prayer. You can see that for yourself, Primavera.’

I nodded agreement; the wound was very high on the inner thigh and the whole femoral arterial structure seemed to have been severed. A tourniquet wouldn’t have done much good.

‘He bled out in a couple of minutes,’ Conrad concluded.

‘When?’

‘Less than a quarter of an hour ago.’

‘Where’s Janet now?’ I asked.

‘Where I left her, I hope. I asked Audrey to stay with her.’

I assumed she’d taken Tom there too. ‘Have you done anything?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not yet. There hasn’t been time. I suppose we should call the police.’

‘And have this little boy stigmatised for the rest of his life?’ I retorted. ‘He might be below the age of criminal responsibility, but I don’t care. I’m not having him mauled by the media.’ Wee Jonathan made a snuffling sound, which I took to be agreement. ‘He’s just lost his mother. What’s happened here stays here, just like Vegas. You’re the fixer, Conrad; so fix it.’

‘Primavera.’ Liam spoke from the doorway. ‘Miles can’t be involved in this.’

‘The hell I can’t,’ my brother-in-law protested.

‘No,’ I said, firmly. ‘He’s right. It’s best all round for you to leave. You’ve got too much to lose. Whatever we do to clean this up it’s going to be stupid, and it’s going to be illegal. Our Dawn would kill both of us if I let you get involved then we got caught.’

‘Nonetheless,’ he insisted, ‘I have to do something to help.’

‘Then take the kids, Tom as well, and get them out of here on your posh new plane. Take Susie’s car, leave it in a car park at the airport and once you’ve got where you’re going, text me the bay number and I’ll have it collected.’

‘Okay,’ he agreed, ‘but where? I’d head for California, but the kids would need visas.’

‘Then go back to Scotland. Take them to Mac Blackstone. Better him than my dad, since he’s only Tom’s grandfather, and the two Js have nothing to do with him, and don’t know him. I promised Tom he’d see his granddads this week, and Mac hasn’t seen the other two in a long time. Then you go home; I’ll let you know later how this all pans out.’

‘I’ll do that,’ he agreed. ‘But hold on a minute. What about the chauffeur who brought us here? Won’t he talk?’

‘Miles,’ I sighed. ‘This is the south of France. As far as black car companies are concerned, we were invisible.’

‘In that case, it sounds like a plan,’ he conceded. ‘But what about the little guy?’ He nodded in the general direction of my bundle, who had quietened down. ‘Isn’t he going to need looking after?’

‘There’s nobody better to do that than Janet and Tom.’

Miles came with me as I took wee Jonathan to join his siblings. The other two were quiet, knowing that some serious shit had hit the fan but not quite what. ‘There’s been an accident,’ I began, ‘and Duncan’s dead.’ Janet and Tom were both impassive. At least they didn’t whoop with glee.

Then I told them the rest as Conrad had explained it. ‘We need you all to go away with Miles, to Grandpa Mac in Anstruther. The rest of us have things to do here, then Liam and I will join you. But one thing,’ I stressed. ‘You don’t talk to anyone else about what happened here. Wee Jonathan needs to try to forget about it and you have to help him.’

They both nodded. Another year of childhood’s gone in a single day, I thought, and it almost broke my heart.

‘What about Mum’s funeral?’ Janet asked, solemnly.

I looked back at her. ‘Where would you like it to be? Here or in Scotland? It’s your decision, yours and wee Jonathan’s.’

She considered the question for a while, then replied, ‘Scotland. It’s where she was from.’ Her brother nodded agreement.

‘Then so it shall be,’ I promised.

‘Won’t someone come looking for Duncan?’ Audrey whispered as I left.

‘The Nevada State police might,’ I replied, ‘and possibly Strathclyde. Shame he was never here. I doubt if anyone else will, though.’

Miles and the three children were gone in less than half an hour. Meanwhile, when I got back to the kitchen, the blood was almost all gone. Liam and Conrad had stripped off their clothes, all of them, to avoid contamination, hosed the bulk of it into a drain in the floor, and were cleaning the remnants with what smelled like industrial-strength bleach.

Duncan was still there, but he was wrapped in what looked to me like a sail.

It was. ‘I have a boat,’ Conrad said. ‘I keep it in the marina at Fontvieille. Sometimes I do a bit of night fishing, and tonight’s going to be one of those nights. Once it gets fully dark, I’ll load him,’ he jerked a thumb at the body, ‘into the car and take him down.’

‘We will,’ Liam murmured.

‘No, just me.’

‘All due respect, Conrad, but there are bound to be cameras down there. You might be fit, but looking at what I can see right now tells me that carrying that thing on board, you ain’t going to be able to make it look like it’s nothing more than a sail.’

‘But it won’t look any more right with two of us carrying it.’

Liam grinned, and flexed his musculature for a second. ‘There won’t be two of us carrying it.’

‘When you two naked men have finished your pose-down contest,’ I barked at them, ‘get used to the idea that there will be a woman on board.’ Liam opened his mouth but I shut it for him. ‘You guys are not risking everything on your own,’ I decreed. ‘No arguments.’

And that’s how it was. We were able to park a few metres away from Conrad’s mooring. Liam lifted the sail and its contents out of the trunk and hefted it on board as if it weighed ten kilos or so. On deck the three of us unrolled it so that the body fell into the footwell out of sight of everything, even the sharpest-eyed owl, and we fixed the sail to the mast, as if it had been taken away for maintenance, and returned renewed. Obviously there were no bloodstains on it, since Duncan didn’t have any left.

We left the small port under the engine, but once we were clear, Conrad went on to wind power. It was a nice night for a sail, less humid on the Med than it had been on land. We headed away from shore until the lowest of the lights of Menton started to disappear below the horizon, when our skipper deemed we had gone far enough.

Duncan Culshaw didn’t have a coffin, or even a shroud, just the boat’s massive anchor and a few other heavy weights that we had found on board. Liam had never met the man alive, so he said a couple of words as we tipped him over the side. ‘So long, mate.’

He’ll be well into the aquatic food chain by now.

Conrad and I shared a bottle of red on the way back. Liam stuck to fizzy water; not even a nautical burial could shake his resolve.

Conrad was on his second glass when he glanced towards the horizon. ‘It’s funny how life works out, isn’t it?’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Bloody hilarious,’ I snorted.

‘No, seriously,’ he insisted. ‘I had a plan for dealing with Culshaw and that was it, what we’ve just done, only my version was that I was going to persuade him to come night fishing for real, go as far out as we went, then tip him over the side. He couldn’t swim a stroke; never left the shallow end of the pool. I was going to give it ten minutes then make a distress call to the marine patrol. They’d have found him floating somewhere, and a neat line would have been drawn under him.’

‘Couldn’t we still do that?’ Liam asked.

He shook his head. ‘Hardly. We’d have a tough job explaining why three of us couldn’t have managed to save him. Also, the cops would wonder why he didn’t come to the surface. But we couldn’t have that happen, could we, not with that fucking great hole in his leg.’

As he spoke, my mind went back a few days, to the evening when we’d found out about Susie and Duncan being married. ‘Friday, in my house,’ I said to him, ‘that tune you started whistling, when we were having a drink and talking about it; I know what it was now. It was “Sailing”, wasn’t it?’

He grinned, but said nothing.

As we neared port, and the lights grew brighter and Conrad had to concentrate on steering, I leaned against Liam. ‘What happens next?’ he asked.

‘You mean apart from me fucking your brains out when we get home?’

‘Yeah,’ he murmured. ‘I was thinking a little beyond that.’

‘As far as the company’s concerned, that will be sold; Buddy Beaujean’s the likely buyer. He says he wants to expand his involvement in Britain and Europe. Obviously I have to talk to the kids about it, but I’ll try to persuade them that they need to make lives for themselves and that it would only be an encumbrance to them.’

‘That makes sense,’ he agreed. ‘Now go further still.’

I knew what he meant, and I had an answer ready, one that had been forming since Susie’s death, and maybe even before. ‘Janet and wee Jonathan have no one,’ I said. ‘No blood relatives other than Mac Blackstone, who’s an old man, and Oz’s sister Ellen, who’s a great woman but who hated their mother, and couldn’t hide it from them forever. They’re orphans, Liam. Worse, they’re rich orphans, and at least one of them is bound to be traumatised by what happened tonight. So what do you think happens next?’

‘You’ll adopt them,’ he murmured.

‘Absolutely. It’s only right that they’re brought up with their half-brother.’ I paused. ‘And that would be a hell of a lot for a lifelong bachelor to take on, more than I could ever ask.’

‘Will you live here?’

‘Hell no! With the memories of tonight, and Oz haunting the bloody place? No, it gets sold, and the two Js move to St Martí. They’ll be fine with that. They like it there. I’ll try and persuade Conrad and Audrey to come with us. If I can, we’ll buy them a house near mine.’

He nodded. ‘Sounds good,’ he agreed. ‘So why are you freezing me out?’

‘I’m not,’ I protested. ‘I just assumed …’

He kissed me. ‘Assume nothing about me, lover,’ he whispered, ‘other than the best.’

‘In that case,’ I sighed, with a smile, ‘let’s just try it on for a while and see if it fits.’