Henry wondered what fate Stephen had planned for the only remaining adult male, his grandson Mark. And indeed for Henry himself. He still didn’t know who had shot him. That was the biggest question that remained unanswered. He would have thought it more likely that Charlie would have wanted rid of him than Stephen. But he couldn’t imagine that either man was capable of handling a precision sniper rifle like the Dragunov SVU. Unless of course he had been the victim of a lucky shot. Or an unlucky one, for the shooter, depending on how you looked at it.
Henry stared hard at the lawyer. Stephen was more like him than any member of his own family, he reflected grimly. Henry knew exactly what made the younger man tick. For some time now he’d been observing the way the handsome Zimbabwean looked at Joyce before and after Charlie’s ‘death’. The prospect of Stephen taking his involvement with the family to another level had not worried him. Not then. But that was before the cataclysmic events of the last few days. Now it worried him. Or it would have done, if he thought his daughter would ever again be capable of having a relationship with anyone.
‘I’m here, Henry. I will always be here,’ repeated Stephen softly.
Henry remained silent. Hardcastle appeared to be building up to something; Henry was curious to find out what it was.
‘It’s been hard for me over the years, you know,’ Stephen remarked conversationally. ‘You’ve never let me into the fold, have you? Despite the fact I have done everything you ever required of me, given my all — to you, to the business, to the family. You were the family I always wanted. You were the father I always wanted — you must know that. I never had a father. My mother took me away from my father and brought me to England. The man she married here had no time for me. Oh, he sent me to Eton, he provided for me after my mother died, but he barely came near me. I thought with you I had found a father. But I was doomed to be forever the outsider, wasn’t I? You would never fully accept me. After all, how could you?’
Henry was goaded into speaking. ‘You’d better not be trying to say that I wouldn’t accept you because you’re black! Is that it, Stephen? Are you playing the race card, you damned fool?’
‘Still hurling abuse at me, eh, Henry? I just suck it up, don’t I?’ Stephen Hardcastle gave a hollow laugh. ‘No, not that, Henry. I don’t think you take much notice of colour, any more than you worry about caste or creed. Not if people are useful to you. For you, Henry, the world is divided into family and non-family. Throughout my many years of service I have always remained non-family, an outsider. And that hurt. You promised to make me a partner in the business, but year after year you invariably came up with a reason for putting it off. Charlie — weak, pathetic Charlie — was a partner right from the start. Then last year you made that spoiled brat of a grandson of yours a junior partner as soon as he joined the firm. Only then did you admit to me that, although you valued me, I would never be a partner. Not in your family business. And you had the nerve to try to fob me off with a rise in salary to make up for it! How could you, Henry?’
Henry narrowed his eyes.
‘Did you shoot me, Stephen?’ he asked abruptly.
‘No,’ replied Stephen quickly. ‘Why would I do that? Why would I want to hurt you?’
Henry didn’t know the answer to that. But he reckoned he had answers to some of the other questions that had been bothering him over the past few days:
‘You did all the rest of it, though. Staging Charlie’s death — he could never have pulled off that charade without help. You knew damn well he was still alive, shacked up with that little slut Monika.’
‘Monika?’ queried Stephen.
‘Yes, Monika. You must have known about that.’
‘No, actually, I didn’t know about Monika. Well, not specifically. I was aware there was someone Charlie wanted to start a new life with. And I thought he’d have the sense to leave the country and begin afresh with his new woman, never to be seen again. I had no idea he’d come back here, to Bristol.
‘Naturally, I did wonder, when Fred disappeared, whether it might be down to Charlie. I didn’t have a phone number or an email address for him — we’d agreed it would be best if there were to be no further contact between us. So all I could do was hope I was wrong. Like everyone else, I hoped that Fred would turn up safe and well and there would be a simple explanation. I never expected any of this to happen, Henry. How could I? Yes, I helped Charlie bugger off. He’d turned into such a pathetic excuse for a man, I thought we’d all be better off. Me, obviously, because you would have to turn to me, rely on me. And that’s exactly what happened. You may have made Mark a partner, but he’s just a kid. I was the only one competent to take Charlie’s place. I thought you’d be better off too. And Joyce. I didn’t know he was going to come back here, murder two of his children and damned near kill Joyce, for God’s sake! How was I to know he’d gone from being a bit unhinged to a full-blown raving bloody lunatic?’
‘What about his alleged arms deals with gangsters?’ asked Henry. ‘Charlie told Joyce that I was the one trading with criminals.’
‘Well, you know that’s a lie: you did no such thing. But we both know that weapons went missing — we checked the records together. If not Charlie, who else? No doubt it was Charlie’s gangster associates who were behind the shooting. The moment you put a stop to the trade he’d been doing with them, that’s when you became a target.’
What Stephen was saying made a kind of terrible sense. The more Henry thought about it, the more plausible it sounded. And besides, Stephen Hardcastle was taking a huge risk in confessing all of this to him.
‘What if I go to the police, tell them everything you have told me?’ Henry said. ‘What do you think would happen to you then?’
Stephen shrugged. ‘Not a lot. I’m not sure that I’ve committed any crime worth mentioning. I haven’t even handled the distribution of Charlie’s estate, because he has yet to be officially declared dead. As for helping him stage his own death... As a lawyer, I have to say it would be pretty hard to prove.’
‘Unless Charlie lives and gives a statement to that effect.’
‘He’s a proven liar, an addict and a double murderer. Who’s going to believe a word he says?’ Stephen shrugged again, then leaned towards the bed. ‘Henry, I still want to be at your side, running the company for you, until you are better, until you are on your feet again. And you know I will do it how you would want. I didn’t do anything that I thought would harm you, Henry, and I never would. It was Charlie who did all the damage. Even if Charlie lives, he will go to jail for a long time. Charlie’s gone. Your surviving grandson blames you for what happened to his younger brother and sister; he’s gone too. But I am still here. I am still here for you, Henry.’
Henry wanted to lash out at him. He didn’t dare. He didn’t dare lose Stephen too. Henry had called Mr Smith again just before the police had returned. As usual he had left a message on an automated answer service. As usual he had waited for the call back, from an encrypted phone, he’d always presumed, which usually came within ten or fifteen minutes. He was still waiting. Mr Smith would know by now all about Charlie, back from the dead, driving his wife and children, and the woman with whom he was having an affair, into the harbour. Henry’s son-in-law had murdered three people and very nearly a fourth. That was going to attract a considerable amount of public and media attention. Mr Smith did not like anything that attracted attention. And Mr Smith would be unlikely to be swayed by the plea that Charlie’s actions had nothing to do with Tanner-Max’s work for HMG. Henry feared he might really be alone now. Without even Mr Smith to turn to.