Chapter Twenty-Six

‘About time.’

Rupert strode into the kitchen and pushed her out of the way.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, even though she knew exactly why he was there.

‘I want some answers, and I want what’s mine.’

He was so close she could smell the beer on his breath, saw the blood vessels in his eyes and felt the anger that always seemed to sizzle around him like an electric current. She stiffened her spine and forced a deep breath down.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was about to make a cup of tea. I’ll make you one too. Or maybe I should make you some black coffee. From the booze fumes you’re giving off, I gather you need to sober up.’

He grabbed her arm and his fingers closed around her wrist. ‘Don’t go all superior on me. You know exactly what I’m talking about.’ He pushed her until her back caught the edge of the table. He shoved harder until she was reclining on the table and he was almost on top of her.

‘What are you doing? Let go of me.’ This time her voice held a trace of panic, her breathing came out too fast and her heart beat so hard it hurt.

He smirked. ‘I know Geoff sold Raventhorn to that Petersen guy. There’s no point in denying it. I went to see Marion earlier. She told me that the woman who works for Petersen – Kirsty Marsh – was now staying at the Four Winds, so I drove there to talk to her. She confirmed it.’

He leaned further forward, got hold of her left wrist and pinned both her hands to the table by her sides. His legs encased hers like a cage, his breath touched her face like a cloud of warm, noxious mist.

‘Geoff said Raventhorn was mine, but he sold it. So now I want my money. If I can’t have this place, at least I can have the money from the sale.’

‘Money? I don’t have any money.’ She tried to laugh but only managed a squeak.

He leaned closer, and slammed her hands onto the table. ‘You’re lying. Geoff thought he could con me out of the money like he conned me out of this place. Well, he can’t. I bet he gave you most of it, didn’t he? He always liked you best – you and your slag of a mother.’

Rosalie swallowed hard. Rupert’s eyes were glazed, his face flushed beetroot, his breathing hard. He looked beyond listening, beyond reasoning, yet she had to try.

‘Listen, Rupert, you may not believe it but it’s the truth. He didn’t tell me he was selling up. I had no idea Petersen had bought Raventhorn until the day he arrived. I swear Geoff hasn’t given me any money. I can show you my bank statements if you want, and you’ll see there’s hardly anything in my account.’

‘Then I’ll look at Geoff’s bank statements. He must have the money somewhere.’

‘I don’t even know which bank or building society he put the proceeds of the sale into,’ she said.

He stared at her as if trying to determine if she was lying or not. She must have put in a good performance because he finally nodded.

‘Then I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we? So here’s what we’ll do. We’re going to get his bank details, and then we’ll think of a way of transferring the funds into my account.’

The man was deluded, he wasn’t thinking straight! There was no way he could do that, and even if there was, she would never help him steal Geoff’s money. She was however desperate to be freed from under his weight – desperate enough to promise anything.

‘All right. I’ll see what I can do. Will you let me go?’

She held her breath, uncomfortably aware of his body pressing against her, of the hot glint in his eyes, the white spittle at the corner of his mouth, and his raspy breathing. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to move, but at last he straightened up and she slid away from him.

‘Forget tea,’ he said, ‘I’ll have some of that whisky Geoff always keeps handy.’

‘Sure.’ She opened the cupboard to get the bottle of liquor down. She started to pour some into a tumbler but Rupert snatched the bottle away.

‘I don’t need a glass.’ He drank a few swallows straight from the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swayed against the kitchen worktop. ‘We’ll start in the library. I know he keeps his bank statements there.’ He gestured to the door with the bottle. ‘Let’s go.’

Once in the library, he started flicking through the piles of books and folders towering on Geoff’s desk and littering the floor while she pretended to search the shelves. He wouldn’t find any bank statements in the library because she had moved them after his last visit, but she intended to stall him for as long as possible. The man was delusional, and unhinged. How could he not understand that even if he got hold of Geoff’s bank details, he would not be able to transfer the funds into his own account without Geoff’s authorisation?

‘Damn!’ He slammed his hand on the desk. ‘I’m sick of this. Where can these bloody statements have disappeared to?’ He glanced around. ‘They were here last time I came.’ He glared at her. ‘Do you have any idea where they could be? And that diary I already asked you about? Are you sure you’ve never seen it? I told you what it looks like. It’s small, dark blue.’

She felt the blood drain from her face. Rupert had just described Tyler’s diary. But no. It was impossible! How could he know about it?

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ She hoped he hadn’t heard the hesitation in her voice.

He narrowed his eyes and walked towards her.

‘Yes, you do.’ He grabbed hold of her arms and shook her so hard a shard of pain shot through her injured shoulder and she let out a cry. ‘Answer me. Where are they?’

She pressed her lips together. He shook her again, harder. This time the pain was so intense her breath caught in her throat, lights sparked in front of her eyes and a wave of nausea made her heave.

‘Tell me, you stupid bitch,’ he growled.

Still she did not speak.

‘Then you leave me no choice.’ Rupert said. ‘I’ll call my friends. They’ll know how to make you talk.’ He pushed her away and searched through his jeans pocket for his phone. Looking at the screen, he scrolled down a list of numbers, pressed a key and put the phone to his ear.

This was her chance to escape – her chance to run to the kitchen, get her keys, and drive to the police station. But as she made a dash for the door her foot caught one of the books Rupert had thrown to the floor and she fell face forward. The last thing she saw was a flash of light as her head hit the corner of the desk. The last thing she felt was an explosion of pain in her skull. Then there was nothing.

Marc woke up with a start, his heart pounding, his body covered with sweat. Something was wrong. He glanced around his hotel room but didn’t see anything amiss, so he tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut. It was probably due to a bad dream brought about by his meetings with the coroner and the prospect of his father’s funeral later today.

The investigators’ report was clear and unequivocal. The accident had been due to poor weather conditions. No technical fault or human error was to blame. His father hadn’t been piloting the helicopter. Therefore the argument they’d had just before he took to the air had not caused the crash, and he could stop tormenting himself with guilt. His telling his father that he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep on working for him hadn’t upset him so much he had not concentrated on piloting the craft and crashed into the mountain.

After coming back to his hotel room, he’d stayed up late, drinking cognac, revisiting the past and thinking about what his mother had told him. His soul-searching had made him feel quite sick and disgusted with himself.

He had wronged his parents. Misjudged them. He’d always thought they were so wrapped up in each other and in his father’s business that there was no place for him in their life. In reality, he had been the stubborn and cold-hearted one. How often had he pleaded schoolwork, a rugby tournament or a school trip to avoid going home at weekends or cut short a half-term holiday? He had behaved like a spoilt brat, and had rebuffed any attempt they’d made to be closer, whilst placing his grandfather on a pedestal.

Cédric was right. He’d been hard on his parents. He’d been an ass. It was too late to mend his relationship with his father, but he could still work things out with his mother, or at least he could try.

Now he stared at the digital clock next to the bed indicating it was just after seven, and poured himself a glass of water. He lay back in bed again, threw the covers down, beat his pillows with a hard fist, closed his eyes. And sighed.

It was no good. That uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. Unable to go back to sleep, he got up, drew the curtains and stood in front of the window to watch dawn touch the sky with greys, blues and pale yellows as the sun rose slowly behind the tall buildings that lined Victoria Harbour.

He checked his watch. Hong Kong was seven hours ahead of England. It was just after midnight in Irlwick. Never mind. He just had to speak to Rosalie and check that she was all right. He keyed in Raventhorn’s number, and let the phone ring, but no one picked up and the answerphone clicked on. He tried again, then rang Rosalie’s mobile phone, only to reach her voicemail.

Where was she, and why hadn’t she phoned him since passing on Fitzpatrick’s message? His London secretary said Rosalie hadn’t called once, even after he’d left messages on the answerphone at Raventhorn and called Fergus at Love Taxis.

He tried the office at Love Taxis, but there was a message announcing that it was closed until seven the following morning. Could he ring Fergus at home? The old man wouldn’t thank him if he woke him up, especially if he’d just got into bed after putting in a late shift on the switchboard. Torn between his need to know that Rosalie was safe and well and the voice of reason that told him he was overreacting, he paced the floor until he felt he was going out of his mind.

Since sleep was out of the question, he slipped into his sports gear, grabbed a towel and made his way to the hotel gym.

An intensive workout only softened the edges of his anxiety. As soon as he was back in his room, showered and dressed in a crisp white shirt and black suit, fear slammed right back into him. He rang Raventhorn and Rosalie’s mobile again, but it was the middle of the night over there, so, of course, the answerphones clicked on. However if Rosalie was at home, she would pick up the phone, he was sure of it.

He still hadn’t managed to get through to Rosalie when it was time to leave for his father’s service. He had declined the limousine the funeral director had offered and asked the hotel to book a taxi to take him to Diamond Hill instead.

The funeral service lasted exactly fifteen minutes – standard procedure in Hong Kong, he’d been warned. Feeling empty, drained, and utterly alone, he signed all the relevant paperwork, then loosening the knot of his black tie and slipping his jacket off, he wandered through a nearby park for a while.

It was after lunch by the time the taxi took him back to the Four Seasons. He calculated that it would be six am in Scotland, which was early, but not unreasonably so. When he still got no answer from Rosalie, he dialled Fergus’s home number.

‘Aye. Who is it?’ Fergus sounded sleepy.

Marc apologised for waking him up, and explained that he was in Hong Kong and had been trying to contact Rosalie but couldn’t get through.

‘She must be asleep,’ Fergus replied. ‘The poor lass has worked flat out these past few days. With Duncan still in Edinburgh she’s had to cover two shifts. Pity your lady friend isn’t at Raventhorn any more,’ Fergus added, ‘she might have answered the phone.’

‘What lady friend?’ Marc asked, puzzled.

‘Kirsty something or other. She told my Marion a lot of rubbish about you and sparked quite a bit of trouble with that no-good cousin of Geoff’s – Rupert.’

Marc’s throat tightened. What was Kirsty doing at Raventhorn? He’d only instructed her to start the preliminary paperwork for the bus company. There was no need for her to travel to Irlwick just for that.

‘She claims you bought Raventhorn and are going to sell it,’ Fergus explained in a puzzled voice, ‘and that not content with putting Roz, Lorna and Geoff out of their home and auctioning all the furniture, you also plan to close Love Taxis down and put our Roz out of business as well.’ He coughed to clear his throat. ‘She said something else too.’

‘What was that?’ Marc asked, dread tightening his chest.

‘That you and her were as good as engaged and flying off to live in America together soon.’

Marc took a deep breath. ‘That’s rubbish.’ At least that last claim was rubbish. The rest was the truth.

‘I do hope so, lad,’ Fergus said in a serious voice, ‘because we’ve grown to like having you around here. Anyway, I can tell you’re worried about Roz, so I’ll go to Raventhorn as soon as I’ve had a cup of tea and I’ve cleared my drive. It’s been snowing hard all night and it might take me a wee while to get there.’

Fergus promised to call from Raventhorn as soon as he arrived. Marc gave him heartfelt thanks and put the phone down. His anxious wait resumed. It might be an hour or so before Fergus rang back. To keep busy, he ordered lunch, enquired about flights to Denmark from both Hong Kong and London, and dialled Kirsty’s mobile. He couldn’t care less about waking her up. She owed him an explanation. Unfortunately the call went straight to voicemail. He hung up with a frustrated sigh.

He didn’t have long to wait for Fergus to call back.

‘It’s odd,’ the old man said. ‘Rosalie’s cab is in the courtyard, but she’s not here. Perhaps she’s staying at Alice’s.’

‘Call Alice and ask her if she knows where Rosalie is. If she doesn’t, then call the police. I’ll come as soon as I can. And by the way, Kirsty was right on one point only. My father did buy Raventhorn. For everything else I need you to trust me. Now, please, call the police and report Rosalie missing.’

His nerves were so taut that his hand was shaking as he dialled Luc’s number. Rosalie was missing. She may be in danger. His only hope was that his friend would know what to do.