47
Joe Darke’s place was a big square executive-type house set in two acres of prime Chigwell real-estate. It had high walls and electronic gates, and an intercom to vet visitors.
‘You can come on up,’ said a high-pitched female voice when Rob climbed out of the car and pressed the button and said that Kit Miller was here to speak to Mr Joe Darke. There was a soft click, and the gates swung inwards.
Rob got back behind the driver’s seat, gave Kit a look and then drove on up the winding driveway flanked by purple rhododendrons. He stopped outside the front porch, which was porticoed, with faux Corinthian columns.
‘Some place,’ said Kit. ‘You met him before?’
‘No. I thought maybe you had.’
Kit shook his head. This was his uncle they’d come to visit, but Kit didn’t know him at all. He’d had another uncle once: Joe and Ruby’s eldest brother, Charlie; but Charlie was gone. He had cousins too. Joe and his wife Betsy had two kids, Nadine and Billy, about ten and eight years old. Ruby had told him Joe wasn’t in good health these days; apart from that, he knew nothing about these people. He didn’t particularly want to, either, but he was puzzled by the fact that Michael had been planning to visit Joe the night he died.
He had thought Michael kept him informed of his every move. As his right-hand man – just as Rob was now his – he expected to be put in the picture about any meetings or appointments, for the sake of security. But Michael hadn’t kept him informed. If he had, he might not be lying in the cold earth right now.
Rob rang the doorbell. A big-dog sort of bark started up in the hall, mingling with that same high-pitched female voice berating it.
‘Shut up, Prince. Shut up,’ the voice yelled, and then the door was opened and there was Betsy Darke, clinging on to the rhinestone-encrusted collar of a black-and-tan German shepherd who seemed intent on yanking her arm clean out of its socket; clearly, Prince wanted to eat whoever was standing on the step.
Both men thought that Betsy looked in pretty good shape, considering she was in her early fifties. Her blonde hair was cut in a bob and expertly streaked with strands of white, gold and subtle ivory, which flattered her mahogany tan. She was wearing a pink velour tracksuit and spangled trainers. Her hands, French-manicured to within an inch of their life, bristled with silver rings on every finger and both thumbs. There was the merest suggestion of crow’s feet around her pretty, avaricious blue eyes. She was a good-looking woman, but you could see from the first glance that she was a man-eating tart; her smile was too white, too big, her eyes too flirtatious.
‘Mrs Darke?’ asked Kit.
‘Oh, don’t you be so formal,’ said Betsy with a coquettish smile, fluttering her eyelashes at the pair of them like she wasn’t old enough to be both their mothers. ‘You’re Kit, Ruby’s boy? My God. Aren’t you the handsome one! We meet at last.’ Then her tone became one of iron command: ‘Prince, basket.’
Prince stopped lunging toward Rob and Kit, turned meek as a kitten and loped off across the hall.
‘You got him well trained,’ said Rob.
Yeah, and I hear you got your husband pretty well whipped too, thought Kit as they moved into the hall. Bet you had that poor bastard doctored a long time ago. He knew Ruby had no affection for Betsy, and he could see why: they were as unalike as it was possible for two women to be. Much as he despised her, he had to admit that Ruby had a quiet dignity about her; but Betsy was like her home – flashy and eager for attention.
‘Joe’s in the conservatory,’ said Betsy, leading the way, and they followed her jiggling arse across the cavernous hall and past where Prince lay, tongue lolling after all the excitement, in his basket.
They stepped out into the conservatory, which looked out through lush interior greenery onto even greener fields, with ponies grazing in a paddock, and a line of oaks some distance away; ah, the proceeds of all those dodgy deals clearly paid dividends.
Kit was shocked to see an elderly looking man, drawn and yellow-white in skin colour, wearing a dressing gown and pyjamas, with an oxygen mask over his face. Tubes led down to a red metal canister. Ruby had told him that Joe’s health wasn’t good, but he hadn’t expected this. His uncle was not yet sixty years old, yet he looked a hundred. The hands resting in his lap were like a mummy’s claws, the fingers on his right hand stained yellow from nicotine.
‘Joe, your visitors are here.’ Betsy gave them a look of sparkling, almost girlish enticement.
If she don’t try to touch up one or both of us before we’re out of here, I’m a bloody Dutchman, thought Kit.
Then Betsy turned a different look altogether on her husband. Impatient, irritable.
Joe Darke opened his eyes, pulled the oxygen mask away from his face. His voice was hoarse, his breathing laboured.
‘Kit Miller, uh? The boy who copped the whole effing gold mine.’ He smiled, revealing nicotine-stained teeth.
‘We’re sorry to trouble you when you’re ill,’ said Kit.
Betsy’s mouth twisted. ‘It’s emphysema, the doctors say. The bloody cigarettes – he never could leave the damned things alone. Been smoking since he was ten years old. It won’t get better.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Kit, seeing the flash of hurt in the sick man’s eyes at this cold summary of the situation.
‘You boys want some tea? Coffee?’ asked Betsy, and the flirtatious manner was back again – the smile, the eyes, she was really working it.
‘Yeah. Coffee, thanks,’ said Kit, to get rid of her for five minutes.
‘Same for me,’ said Rob.
Betsy departed, with a provocative wiggle.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ said Joe, making shaky motions with one hand.
Kit and Rob sat. It was hot in the conservatory, moisture beading on the glass. A purple bougainvillea was coming into flower in one corner, a huge grapevine was sending tangling fronds out over the roof in the other. There was a lemon tree, sporting a couple of tiny green fruit. It was like a fucking jungle, foliage pressing in on all sides. You half-expected to see a puma or monkeys loitering among the shrubbery, not a sick and frail man with skin the colour of old parchment.
‘What did you mean by that?’ asked Kit. ‘The gold mine thing?’
‘Well, it’s the truth, ain’t it?’ Joe took a long, wheezing pull at the mask, then laid it down on his lap. ‘You did get the gold mine. You got it all.’
It was true that Michael had left everything he owned to Kit. But to have him back again… ah God, he would happily hand it over, lose the whole lot. How the hell could money compensate for the loss of Michael?
‘What if I did?’ asked Kit, wondering where this was leading.
Joe shrugged. ‘Just saying,’ he said.
‘Michael was planning to pay you a visit the day after he died,’ Rob chipped in.
‘He was. Yes. And he never arrived. So I phoned the restaurant, and then I heard the news. Sad, sad news.’ Joe coughed, lifted the mask and inhaled oxygen again.
‘You know what he was coming to see you about?’ asked Kit. ‘Only, I was his number one. And I wasn’t aware that he planned to come out here, I wasn’t aware that you did any sort of business together. I believe your only connection is your sister and my mother, Ruby, who was sort of Michael’s old lady.’
‘That, young man, is correct,’ said Joe. ‘I asked Michael to come out, because I had some information for him that I didn’t want to tell him over the phone.’
Kit frowned. ‘What was this information?’
Joe inhaled another hit from the bottle. ‘I’d had word from his son.’