Endgame, page 21
‘You’re losing your home? Couldn’t she at least have given you longer than four weeks?’
‘It was to be expected, ma’am. I had hoped to have a little longer to find another situation, but Chima and I will manage.’
‘I’m so sorry. Dan didn’t mind your daughter living with you?’
‘Oh no. In fact, it was his idea. He suggested Chima joined me while she revised for her mock exams. Mr Jeavons said he’d do anything he could to help her career, including pulling some strings to get her into university when the time was right.’
Really? ‘You believed him?’
‘Oh yes,’ said George. ‘Mr Jeavons was a man of his word if nothing else.’
Hmm … ‘May I ask, what’s your opinion of Tobey Durbridge?’
A cold flash sparked in his eyes. ‘I’m sure he’ll make a competent Prime Minister.’
I smiled. ‘That’s not what I asked.’
George nodded ruefully. ‘Mr Durbridge and Mr Jeavons were very alike. Birds of a feather.’
True, but still not what I asked.
‘Did you like him?’
‘Liking either of them was never in my job description.’
‘You’re a master at not answering the question,’ I stated with a wry smile.
George nodded, his mouth quirking at one corner. ‘Very well. No, I don’t particularly like Mr Durbridge. He’s too hungry for success for its own sake. You know the way a robber will steal from banks because that’s where the money is? Well, Mr Durbridge was hungry to become a politician not to serve the public, but because that’s where power lies if you’re not born into it. Mr Durbridge wants power and he can’t escape the feeling that he constantly has something to prove, and in my opinion that’s a lethal combination. He was fully prepared to use Mr Jeavons to get to the top, but, once there, Mr Durbridge wanted to swap horses and suddenly run a clean race. Mr Jeavons wasn’t going to have that. He wasn’t going to allow Mr Durbridge to just turn his back on him like that. There! Is that honest enough for you?’
I nodded, adding, ‘Tobey and Dan appeared quite chatty at the dinner party.’
‘Yes, they did indeed put on a very good show,’ said George.
Hmm …
‘Was working for Dan what you expected?’
‘It was … an eye-opener,’ said George carefully.
I bet it was. ‘You never … sought a change of scene?’
‘Mr Jeavons paid me very well,’ George replied. ‘Thanks to him, my daughter went to a very good boarding school and will be going to a top university in Zafrika with her full tuition already paid for, provided she gets the required grades.’
‘Good for her.’ I tried to serve him a smile. It was not returned.
George shrugged. ‘Anyway, I should get back to work. Is there anything else you require?’
‘There is one last thing, George,’ I began. ‘I understand there’s some kind of recording taken on the night of Dan’s dinner party. Is that true?’
‘Yes, ma’am. There are motion-activated cameras in all the rooms in this apartment except the bathrooms, and of course not in my living quarters,’ George explained, adding, ‘Mr Durbridge took the flash drive containing the evening’s CCTV recordings. He also made sure to delete the backup copy from the cloud.’
My stomach took on the weight of a bowling ball. I looked around, but could see nothing attached to the ceiling or the cornices. ‘Where’s the hidden camera in this room?’
George pointed to the half-bookcase against the wall adjacent to the door. On it sat a number of ornaments: a couple of paperweights, a sculpture of a dancer that looked like the genuine antique article and a modern art piece that was dull gold and polished black spheres and sculpted angles.
‘The gold one is the camera,’ said George.
Shit! ‘Did you watch the recording?’ I asked.
George’s eyes danced away from mine for a moment before he deliberately looked me in the eye and spoke. ‘Yes, ma’am. Before the police arrived, Mr Durbridge and I both watched the footage of that night for around the time of Mr Jeavons’ demise.’
‘What did you see?’ My breathing was getting faster.
George’s gaze didn’t falter as he kept his expression carefully neutral. ‘A section was missing. The image jumped from Mr Jeavons looking up as his door opened to him slumped over his desk with you standing behind him, the letter opener in your hand, just before you stabbed him in the back.’ The butler announced this like he was giving a weather report.
Shit!
Silence.
My thoughts were spinning coins on a table, which I could do nothing with until they noisily settled and were still. As well as the murder weapon, Tobey had a recording of me with it in my hand.
Jon was right: I was going to be framed for Dan’s murder, and the worst thing of all was I had no one and nothing to blame but myself.
‘George, for what it’s worth, I didn’t kill Dan. I was stupid enough to take the knife out of his back because I thought he was playing some asinine prank. When I realized he was really dead, I replaced it and wiped the handle so I wouldn’t have anything more to do with it.’ My face began to burn. ‘Not my finest hour. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said George non-committally.
I shook my head. Even now I couldn’t believe I’d done that. When they used that cliché in films or TV dramas, I used to laugh at how ridiculous it was. As if anyone would be brainless enough to really touch or pick up an obvious murder weapon like that.
I wasn’t laughing any more.
The thing was, when I walked into Dan’s study that night, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing was real. I thought it was another of Dan’s mind games. One of his nasty little tricks to gain the upper hand. It was just the kind of insidious bullshit he’d get up to and it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time.
After pretending to leave the dinner party for the evening, and telling George that I’d see myself out, I loudly closed the front door, then hurried down the hallway away from the dining room to wait in the bathroom opposite Dan’s study, praying that no one would want to use it while I was in there. I reckoned that I should be safe as there were two other bathrooms closer to the dining room than the one I occupied.
Thirty minutes. That’s how long it took for Dan to finally be alone. With the door slightly ajar, I heard a number of people enter and leave his room, but that’s all I heard. Every time I tried to leave the bathroom to see Dan, someone else would round the corner to demand his attention. Waiting, waiting, waiting had been a lesson in frustration, and instruction in the art of patience. And, when I finally entered the study, there was Dan, slumped over his desk with a knife sticking out between his shoulder blades, a pool of dark liquid beneath him.
‘Dan, you’re not funny,’ I hissed at him.
When there was no reply, I walked further into the room. And still Dan remained slumped over his desk.
‘Dan, I know this evening is about you bleeding me for more money. Well, I’m not giving you another penny – and I’m not giving you my restaurant either. So you can do your worst—’
And still he didn’t move.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Dan, could you look at me, please? What d’you hope to achieve with this stupid-assery? Am I supposed to run screaming from the room?’
I walked round his precious desk to confront him. He’d gone all out on this one, right down to the fake blood pool beneath him. He couldn’t know I was still in his apartment so this charade had to be for someone else’s benefit. Who? His brother? Bella? Patrix? I didn’t care. I’d had it with Dan and his juvenile idiocy. That’s when I grabbed the knife and pulled it from his back. Except the joke was on me. A drop of real blood dripped down from a real blade. Only then did I notice that Dan had more than one puncture wound in him. My attention went back to the knife in my hand.
And, in that moment, I knew I was in a shit-ton of trouble.
Panic is a strange thing. It grabs you and redwashes your thoughts. It plays tricks with time, speeding it up and slowing it down and turning it on its head, but all within a single moment. I thought I was acting rationally as I replaced the knife in Dan’s back, aiming at the exact same spot I took it from. Then I used my blouse to wipe the hilt. All I could think about was removing my fingerprints in case the police thought I’d killed him. It only occurred to me afterwards that, in creating an escape route for myself, I’d also provided one for Dan’s murderer if their fingerprints were also on the murder weapon. And, to be honest, I couldn’t even be sure I’d wiped off all my fingerprints as I was in such a state by then.
So stupid.
I regarded the room as it was now. ‘And there was no clue as to who really did kill Dan?’ I asked George.
‘No, ma’am. When Mr Durbridge and I watched the recording, there was just a jump in the footage as I said.’
‘How exactly could that happen?’ I frowned.
‘Mr Durbridge asked me the same question. The only thing I can think of is that someone, the killer, erased the minutes that revealed his or her identity, then set the recording to restart when they knew the coast would be clear. You see, the camera can be both motion or time activated.’
I thought for a moment. ‘How hard would it be to wipe the part of the recording that showed the murder and then restart it?’
George considered. ‘Mr Jeavons’ computer was on the desk in front of him when he was killed and the program to monitor each camera feed in the apartment was running, so …’
‘So anyone who knew about the cameras and was familiar with the program could’ve deleted the appropriate section of the footage?’ I finished for him.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘How hard would that be?’
‘Not hard at all, ma’am. You open the program, click on the appropriate room, scrub back to the approximate time of the incident and delete the relevant section of the recording. The app would then allow you to specify when recording should begin again. Plenty of time for the killer to make good his or her escape before then.’
‘Who knew Dan had a camera in this study?’
‘I believe Mr Durbridge did, Patrix Ellerman knew as Mr Jeavons’ ex-lawyer and friend, as did his brother, Tom, Eva Foxton, Jarvis of course, and maybe Bella Monroe if Mr Durbridge or Mr Jeavons told her.’
I raised an eyebrow, feeling deprived. ‘Basically, that’s everyone except Kellan Bruemann, Owen Dowd and me.’
‘It would appear so, yes, ma’am.’
‘And erasing the footage didn’t require a password?’
George shrugged. ‘No. Mr Jeavons’ computer required both facial and fingerprint recognition or a two-tier password to start up and he believed that was sufficient.’
‘If computer access required facial recognition or a fingerprint to start, how did you and Tobey get to review the recording? That must’ve been considerably after the event.’
‘Mr Jeavons set up his laptop’s security so that his face or fingerprints were only required after a complete computer shutdown. While it was up and running, and even in sleep mode, no such biometrics were required. Since he never took the laptop out of this apartment, he considered it perfectly safe here.’
‘I see. George, who d’you think murdered Dan?’
George shrugged. ‘It’s not my place to speculate, ma’am.’
‘There’s no clue as to whether or not the killer was a Nought or a Cross, a man or a woman?’
‘No, ma’am. After you left, the next person in the study was Mr Durbridge and that was over an hour later. He checked to see if Mr Jeavons had a pulse and, after viewing the recording, called the police.’
Hmm. The day after the dinner party, the police interviewed me as someone who was present and after that they hadn’t bothered me again. I figured I’d successfully managed to escape detection. I’d assumed I was safe. Big mistake. Tobey had proof on a recording that not only was I there, but that I’d handled the murder weapon. Proof he’d have no choice but to hand over to the police when they came knocking at his door. Why hadn’t he done anything with this yet?
‘Did the police remove the letter opener on the night of the murder?’
‘I believe Mr Durbridge might’ve taken the letter opener and swapped it for the ornamental knife on the desk instead. He carefully wrapped up the letter opener and took it with him.’
‘And you let him?’
‘It wasn’t my place to stop him,’ George replied. ‘He was most keen that no hint of suspicion should fall at your door.’
‘Dad, where did you put my …?’
A girl’s voice unexpectedly sounded behind us. I spun round. Standing in the doorway was a striking Nought girl with a cloud of wavy chestnut-brown hair, large, quizzical, dark amber eyes and full lips set in an oval face. She wore tropical sea-blue trousers and a dark blue T-shirt with a couple of tiny darker stains over her left breast. She must’ve spilled something and not realized. Her feet were bare. She was facing her dad and side-on to me.
‘Oh, you must be Chima,’ I said, smiling. ‘I’m Sephy Ealing. Your dad has been telling me about your plans to go to university. Congratulations.’
A quick glance at her dad, then Chima turned towards me and slowly nodded.
‘Hello. I’m sorry. I didn’t know Dad had company,’ she said.
‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Your dad was just telling me that you’re going to study medicine.’
Chima forced a smile. ‘It’s all Dad and I have ever dreamed of. I’m hoping to be a surgeon one day. I want to make him proud of me.’
‘I’m already proud of you, princess,’ said George.
Chima shared a smile with her dad and I was momentarily forgotten.
‘Well, good luck,’ I said warmly.
‘Thank you. Dad, can I borrow you when you’ve finished?’
‘Of course, angel. I’ll be right there.’ As Chima left the room, George turned to me, his smile fading. ‘If there’s nothing else, ma’am?’
‘I don’t suppose you have a spare copy of the recording for that evening, do you? One you might’ve kept surreptitiously? I’d love to see it for myself,’ I said, having one last try.
‘I’m afraid not, ma’am,’ said George.
He gave me a studied look that I had no trouble interpreting. He’d wanted to keep hold of the recording, but Tobey took over, not prepared to take any chances. As far as I was concerned, Tobey was Dan Jeavons in a bespoke suit and with better manners, but he was still just as toxic.
‘Thank you, George.’
‘Ma’am.’ And, with that, George left me alone in a room I’d never expected to see again.
forty-two. Troy
* * *
Libby and I stood statue-still. The squeaky groan of nails being pulled from old wood continued above us. A harsh creak, then a loud rasp and the clatter of wood being dropped carelessly to the ground. The clatter happened again, and then a third time, followed by the screech of rusty bolts being drawn back – metal scraping against metal.
Then silence.
If the harsh, grating noise of the door being unbarricaded was bad, the profound silence that followed it was far, far worse. It was like having my neck on the block and waiting for a guillotine blade to fall. Libby was squeezing every drop of blood out of my hand – but I wasn’t about to pull away. I was squeezing right back.
‘Troy—’
‘I’m here.’ My voice was equally soft. ‘Libby, if you get the chance, just run. Don’t wait for me. I’m not going anywhere with this ankle.’
Libby turned to me. She opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it. She nodded reluctantly. Good. She was seeing sense.
I nodded. With a crack and creak that echoed in my heart, the door above us began to open.
forty-three. Callie
* * *
Tobey and I looked up at the mock-Tudor detached house before us with its stylish blend of Zafrikan and Albion influences. This house couldn’t be more than ten years old, but it was working hard to seem centuries older. A black WMW was parked on the spacious paved driveway, wide enough to cater for at least three SUVs.
‘Shane isn’t going to be happy to see us, is he?’ I said.
‘Tough!’ Clearly Tobey wasn’t about to lose any sleep over that.
‘Let me handle this,’ I told him as we approached the front door.
I went to ring the bell, but Tobey grabbed my hand, my finger mere millimetres away. He shook his head, issuing a soft ‘Shush!’ He pointed to the front door and I now saw what had made him pause. The door was slightly ajar, only wide enough to be seen from close up, not the road. His expression sombre, Tobey turned to me, mouthing, ‘Wait here.’
As if.
He pushed at the door with the back of his hand. It took a second for my brain to click as to why. No fingerprints. He stepped into the hall; I was right behind him. He cast me an irritated look, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Tobey went into the first room on the right, a sitting room with pale yellow walls, a mid-grey carpet and two cream leather sofas placed in an L-shape. Against the far wall was the biggest flatscreen TV I’d seen outside a cinema. A quick look around, then back out into the hall. The next room on the right was a dining room. Cream-coloured walls, the same grey carpet and a large french-polished wooden table that seated ten people with ease. Shane Stoats was clearly doing all right for himself. Back into the hall and through to the kitchen. Tobey had only taken one step when he froze. I only just avoided walking into his back. Looking round him, I saw the body at once. A Nought guy lay on the floor, his unseeing eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. Dried blood decorated his lips like clown’s make-up. A large burgundy stain covered one shoulder of his sky-blue shirt. In the middle of his forehead was a bullet hole, a pool of blood beneath his head. Nauseous, I turned from the sight, eyes closed.
Do not throw up, Callie Rose. Don’t you dare!
I didn’t want another look and yet my eyes were drawn back to the body on the floor. All the photos and videos of dead bodies I’d seen over my career, yet nothing had prepared me for the sight of a real one. There was something so still, so final-page about death. I kept swallowing, determined not to throw up, though my stomach was heaving.
‘It was to be expected, ma’am. I had hoped to have a little longer to find another situation, but Chima and I will manage.’
‘I’m so sorry. Dan didn’t mind your daughter living with you?’
‘Oh no. In fact, it was his idea. He suggested Chima joined me while she revised for her mock exams. Mr Jeavons said he’d do anything he could to help her career, including pulling some strings to get her into university when the time was right.’
Really? ‘You believed him?’
‘Oh yes,’ said George. ‘Mr Jeavons was a man of his word if nothing else.’
Hmm … ‘May I ask, what’s your opinion of Tobey Durbridge?’
A cold flash sparked in his eyes. ‘I’m sure he’ll make a competent Prime Minister.’
I smiled. ‘That’s not what I asked.’
George nodded ruefully. ‘Mr Durbridge and Mr Jeavons were very alike. Birds of a feather.’
True, but still not what I asked.
‘Did you like him?’
‘Liking either of them was never in my job description.’
‘You’re a master at not answering the question,’ I stated with a wry smile.
George nodded, his mouth quirking at one corner. ‘Very well. No, I don’t particularly like Mr Durbridge. He’s too hungry for success for its own sake. You know the way a robber will steal from banks because that’s where the money is? Well, Mr Durbridge was hungry to become a politician not to serve the public, but because that’s where power lies if you’re not born into it. Mr Durbridge wants power and he can’t escape the feeling that he constantly has something to prove, and in my opinion that’s a lethal combination. He was fully prepared to use Mr Jeavons to get to the top, but, once there, Mr Durbridge wanted to swap horses and suddenly run a clean race. Mr Jeavons wasn’t going to have that. He wasn’t going to allow Mr Durbridge to just turn his back on him like that. There! Is that honest enough for you?’
I nodded, adding, ‘Tobey and Dan appeared quite chatty at the dinner party.’
‘Yes, they did indeed put on a very good show,’ said George.
Hmm …
‘Was working for Dan what you expected?’
‘It was … an eye-opener,’ said George carefully.
I bet it was. ‘You never … sought a change of scene?’
‘Mr Jeavons paid me very well,’ George replied. ‘Thanks to him, my daughter went to a very good boarding school and will be going to a top university in Zafrika with her full tuition already paid for, provided she gets the required grades.’
‘Good for her.’ I tried to serve him a smile. It was not returned.
George shrugged. ‘Anyway, I should get back to work. Is there anything else you require?’
‘There is one last thing, George,’ I began. ‘I understand there’s some kind of recording taken on the night of Dan’s dinner party. Is that true?’
‘Yes, ma’am. There are motion-activated cameras in all the rooms in this apartment except the bathrooms, and of course not in my living quarters,’ George explained, adding, ‘Mr Durbridge took the flash drive containing the evening’s CCTV recordings. He also made sure to delete the backup copy from the cloud.’
My stomach took on the weight of a bowling ball. I looked around, but could see nothing attached to the ceiling or the cornices. ‘Where’s the hidden camera in this room?’
George pointed to the half-bookcase against the wall adjacent to the door. On it sat a number of ornaments: a couple of paperweights, a sculpture of a dancer that looked like the genuine antique article and a modern art piece that was dull gold and polished black spheres and sculpted angles.
‘The gold one is the camera,’ said George.
Shit! ‘Did you watch the recording?’ I asked.
George’s eyes danced away from mine for a moment before he deliberately looked me in the eye and spoke. ‘Yes, ma’am. Before the police arrived, Mr Durbridge and I both watched the footage of that night for around the time of Mr Jeavons’ demise.’
‘What did you see?’ My breathing was getting faster.
George’s gaze didn’t falter as he kept his expression carefully neutral. ‘A section was missing. The image jumped from Mr Jeavons looking up as his door opened to him slumped over his desk with you standing behind him, the letter opener in your hand, just before you stabbed him in the back.’ The butler announced this like he was giving a weather report.
Shit!
Silence.
My thoughts were spinning coins on a table, which I could do nothing with until they noisily settled and were still. As well as the murder weapon, Tobey had a recording of me with it in my hand.
Jon was right: I was going to be framed for Dan’s murder, and the worst thing of all was I had no one and nothing to blame but myself.
‘George, for what it’s worth, I didn’t kill Dan. I was stupid enough to take the knife out of his back because I thought he was playing some asinine prank. When I realized he was really dead, I replaced it and wiped the handle so I wouldn’t have anything more to do with it.’ My face began to burn. ‘Not my finest hour. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said George non-committally.
I shook my head. Even now I couldn’t believe I’d done that. When they used that cliché in films or TV dramas, I used to laugh at how ridiculous it was. As if anyone would be brainless enough to really touch or pick up an obvious murder weapon like that.
I wasn’t laughing any more.
The thing was, when I walked into Dan’s study that night, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing was real. I thought it was another of Dan’s mind games. One of his nasty little tricks to gain the upper hand. It was just the kind of insidious bullshit he’d get up to and it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time.
After pretending to leave the dinner party for the evening, and telling George that I’d see myself out, I loudly closed the front door, then hurried down the hallway away from the dining room to wait in the bathroom opposite Dan’s study, praying that no one would want to use it while I was in there. I reckoned that I should be safe as there were two other bathrooms closer to the dining room than the one I occupied.
Thirty minutes. That’s how long it took for Dan to finally be alone. With the door slightly ajar, I heard a number of people enter and leave his room, but that’s all I heard. Every time I tried to leave the bathroom to see Dan, someone else would round the corner to demand his attention. Waiting, waiting, waiting had been a lesson in frustration, and instruction in the art of patience. And, when I finally entered the study, there was Dan, slumped over his desk with a knife sticking out between his shoulder blades, a pool of dark liquid beneath him.
‘Dan, you’re not funny,’ I hissed at him.
When there was no reply, I walked further into the room. And still Dan remained slumped over his desk.
‘Dan, I know this evening is about you bleeding me for more money. Well, I’m not giving you another penny – and I’m not giving you my restaurant either. So you can do your worst—’
And still he didn’t move.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Dan, could you look at me, please? What d’you hope to achieve with this stupid-assery? Am I supposed to run screaming from the room?’
I walked round his precious desk to confront him. He’d gone all out on this one, right down to the fake blood pool beneath him. He couldn’t know I was still in his apartment so this charade had to be for someone else’s benefit. Who? His brother? Bella? Patrix? I didn’t care. I’d had it with Dan and his juvenile idiocy. That’s when I grabbed the knife and pulled it from his back. Except the joke was on me. A drop of real blood dripped down from a real blade. Only then did I notice that Dan had more than one puncture wound in him. My attention went back to the knife in my hand.
And, in that moment, I knew I was in a shit-ton of trouble.
Panic is a strange thing. It grabs you and redwashes your thoughts. It plays tricks with time, speeding it up and slowing it down and turning it on its head, but all within a single moment. I thought I was acting rationally as I replaced the knife in Dan’s back, aiming at the exact same spot I took it from. Then I used my blouse to wipe the hilt. All I could think about was removing my fingerprints in case the police thought I’d killed him. It only occurred to me afterwards that, in creating an escape route for myself, I’d also provided one for Dan’s murderer if their fingerprints were also on the murder weapon. And, to be honest, I couldn’t even be sure I’d wiped off all my fingerprints as I was in such a state by then.
So stupid.
I regarded the room as it was now. ‘And there was no clue as to who really did kill Dan?’ I asked George.
‘No, ma’am. When Mr Durbridge and I watched the recording, there was just a jump in the footage as I said.’
‘How exactly could that happen?’ I frowned.
‘Mr Durbridge asked me the same question. The only thing I can think of is that someone, the killer, erased the minutes that revealed his or her identity, then set the recording to restart when they knew the coast would be clear. You see, the camera can be both motion or time activated.’
I thought for a moment. ‘How hard would it be to wipe the part of the recording that showed the murder and then restart it?’
George considered. ‘Mr Jeavons’ computer was on the desk in front of him when he was killed and the program to monitor each camera feed in the apartment was running, so …’
‘So anyone who knew about the cameras and was familiar with the program could’ve deleted the appropriate section of the footage?’ I finished for him.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘How hard would that be?’
‘Not hard at all, ma’am. You open the program, click on the appropriate room, scrub back to the approximate time of the incident and delete the relevant section of the recording. The app would then allow you to specify when recording should begin again. Plenty of time for the killer to make good his or her escape before then.’
‘Who knew Dan had a camera in this study?’
‘I believe Mr Durbridge did, Patrix Ellerman knew as Mr Jeavons’ ex-lawyer and friend, as did his brother, Tom, Eva Foxton, Jarvis of course, and maybe Bella Monroe if Mr Durbridge or Mr Jeavons told her.’
I raised an eyebrow, feeling deprived. ‘Basically, that’s everyone except Kellan Bruemann, Owen Dowd and me.’
‘It would appear so, yes, ma’am.’
‘And erasing the footage didn’t require a password?’
George shrugged. ‘No. Mr Jeavons’ computer required both facial and fingerprint recognition or a two-tier password to start up and he believed that was sufficient.’
‘If computer access required facial recognition or a fingerprint to start, how did you and Tobey get to review the recording? That must’ve been considerably after the event.’
‘Mr Jeavons set up his laptop’s security so that his face or fingerprints were only required after a complete computer shutdown. While it was up and running, and even in sleep mode, no such biometrics were required. Since he never took the laptop out of this apartment, he considered it perfectly safe here.’
‘I see. George, who d’you think murdered Dan?’
George shrugged. ‘It’s not my place to speculate, ma’am.’
‘There’s no clue as to whether or not the killer was a Nought or a Cross, a man or a woman?’
‘No, ma’am. After you left, the next person in the study was Mr Durbridge and that was over an hour later. He checked to see if Mr Jeavons had a pulse and, after viewing the recording, called the police.’
Hmm. The day after the dinner party, the police interviewed me as someone who was present and after that they hadn’t bothered me again. I figured I’d successfully managed to escape detection. I’d assumed I was safe. Big mistake. Tobey had proof on a recording that not only was I there, but that I’d handled the murder weapon. Proof he’d have no choice but to hand over to the police when they came knocking at his door. Why hadn’t he done anything with this yet?
‘Did the police remove the letter opener on the night of the murder?’
‘I believe Mr Durbridge might’ve taken the letter opener and swapped it for the ornamental knife on the desk instead. He carefully wrapped up the letter opener and took it with him.’
‘And you let him?’
‘It wasn’t my place to stop him,’ George replied. ‘He was most keen that no hint of suspicion should fall at your door.’
‘Dad, where did you put my …?’
A girl’s voice unexpectedly sounded behind us. I spun round. Standing in the doorway was a striking Nought girl with a cloud of wavy chestnut-brown hair, large, quizzical, dark amber eyes and full lips set in an oval face. She wore tropical sea-blue trousers and a dark blue T-shirt with a couple of tiny darker stains over her left breast. She must’ve spilled something and not realized. Her feet were bare. She was facing her dad and side-on to me.
‘Oh, you must be Chima,’ I said, smiling. ‘I’m Sephy Ealing. Your dad has been telling me about your plans to go to university. Congratulations.’
A quick glance at her dad, then Chima turned towards me and slowly nodded.
‘Hello. I’m sorry. I didn’t know Dad had company,’ she said.
‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Your dad was just telling me that you’re going to study medicine.’
Chima forced a smile. ‘It’s all Dad and I have ever dreamed of. I’m hoping to be a surgeon one day. I want to make him proud of me.’
‘I’m already proud of you, princess,’ said George.
Chima shared a smile with her dad and I was momentarily forgotten.
‘Well, good luck,’ I said warmly.
‘Thank you. Dad, can I borrow you when you’ve finished?’
‘Of course, angel. I’ll be right there.’ As Chima left the room, George turned to me, his smile fading. ‘If there’s nothing else, ma’am?’
‘I don’t suppose you have a spare copy of the recording for that evening, do you? One you might’ve kept surreptitiously? I’d love to see it for myself,’ I said, having one last try.
‘I’m afraid not, ma’am,’ said George.
He gave me a studied look that I had no trouble interpreting. He’d wanted to keep hold of the recording, but Tobey took over, not prepared to take any chances. As far as I was concerned, Tobey was Dan Jeavons in a bespoke suit and with better manners, but he was still just as toxic.
‘Thank you, George.’
‘Ma’am.’ And, with that, George left me alone in a room I’d never expected to see again.
forty-two. Troy
* * *
Libby and I stood statue-still. The squeaky groan of nails being pulled from old wood continued above us. A harsh creak, then a loud rasp and the clatter of wood being dropped carelessly to the ground. The clatter happened again, and then a third time, followed by the screech of rusty bolts being drawn back – metal scraping against metal.
Then silence.
If the harsh, grating noise of the door being unbarricaded was bad, the profound silence that followed it was far, far worse. It was like having my neck on the block and waiting for a guillotine blade to fall. Libby was squeezing every drop of blood out of my hand – but I wasn’t about to pull away. I was squeezing right back.
‘Troy—’
‘I’m here.’ My voice was equally soft. ‘Libby, if you get the chance, just run. Don’t wait for me. I’m not going anywhere with this ankle.’
Libby turned to me. She opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it. She nodded reluctantly. Good. She was seeing sense.
I nodded. With a crack and creak that echoed in my heart, the door above us began to open.
forty-three. Callie
* * *
Tobey and I looked up at the mock-Tudor detached house before us with its stylish blend of Zafrikan and Albion influences. This house couldn’t be more than ten years old, but it was working hard to seem centuries older. A black WMW was parked on the spacious paved driveway, wide enough to cater for at least three SUVs.
‘Shane isn’t going to be happy to see us, is he?’ I said.
‘Tough!’ Clearly Tobey wasn’t about to lose any sleep over that.
‘Let me handle this,’ I told him as we approached the front door.
I went to ring the bell, but Tobey grabbed my hand, my finger mere millimetres away. He shook his head, issuing a soft ‘Shush!’ He pointed to the front door and I now saw what had made him pause. The door was slightly ajar, only wide enough to be seen from close up, not the road. His expression sombre, Tobey turned to me, mouthing, ‘Wait here.’
As if.
He pushed at the door with the back of his hand. It took a second for my brain to click as to why. No fingerprints. He stepped into the hall; I was right behind him. He cast me an irritated look, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Tobey went into the first room on the right, a sitting room with pale yellow walls, a mid-grey carpet and two cream leather sofas placed in an L-shape. Against the far wall was the biggest flatscreen TV I’d seen outside a cinema. A quick look around, then back out into the hall. The next room on the right was a dining room. Cream-coloured walls, the same grey carpet and a large french-polished wooden table that seated ten people with ease. Shane Stoats was clearly doing all right for himself. Back into the hall and through to the kitchen. Tobey had only taken one step when he froze. I only just avoided walking into his back. Looking round him, I saw the body at once. A Nought guy lay on the floor, his unseeing eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. Dried blood decorated his lips like clown’s make-up. A large burgundy stain covered one shoulder of his sky-blue shirt. In the middle of his forehead was a bullet hole, a pool of blood beneath his head. Nauseous, I turned from the sight, eyes closed.
Do not throw up, Callie Rose. Don’t you dare!
I didn’t want another look and yet my eyes were drawn back to the body on the floor. All the photos and videos of dead bodies I’d seen over my career, yet nothing had prepared me for the sight of a real one. There was something so still, so final-page about death. I kept swallowing, determined not to throw up, though my stomach was heaving.
