‘I don’t see it like that, at all, sis.’
‘No more would you, Freddie.’
‘Look don’t do it. Please. You’ll ruin everything.’
‘You sound like a schoolboy, Freddie. Everything is already ruined. Until the fire, yes, we were involved in a conspiracy to save our family business, but in terms of human life we were just letting nature take its course. I’m not only being altruistic here. Once murder is suspected, a police investigation goes onto another level. A bit of business skulduggery, even pretty high-level fraud, is one thing. Murder is entirely another.’
Freddie sat down with a bump on the edge of the bed.
‘I didn’t think of it like that,’ he said. ‘I mean, the fire was caused by George Grey. That’s not down to us in any way. And he could have just fallen into the canal.’
‘So, you know the details, then, do you?’
‘Some of them.’
‘Come with me, Freddie.’
‘I dunno, sis. I’ve always been a coward. I don’t think I’m up to dealing with the police. I thought everything was going to be straightforward.’
‘Which is pretty naive, Freddie.’
‘That’s me then, I suppose, a naive schoolboy.’
‘I’m sorry, Freddie, I didn’t mean to have a go at you. I don’t want either of us to get any further embroiled in this, that’s all. It’s gone way beyond what we agreed to. You must see that.’
‘Yes, I do. Of course, I do.’
Freddie looked unusually thoughtful. ‘You really don’t think we’re going to get away with it, do you?’ he said glumly. ‘Not any of it. Not now. Not with three deaths.’
‘No, and anyone who thinks we will is barking mad. Which of course, I have always suspected to be the case...’
Bella thought of her phone call the previous evening. She was speaking the truth. The man who had been so casually dismissive of those three deaths, the man who had sent Freddie, armed with his briefcase full of vital papers, to find her, was surely mad.
‘You’re right,’ said Freddie suddenly. ‘You have to be.’ He sounded totally deflated. ‘I guess I was kidding myself.’
‘I guess we were all kidding ourselves. Look, I’m still extremely fond of you, Freddie. Come with me, now. Before it’s too late for us both.’
‘I can’t, Bella. I just can’t.’
Bella studied her brother with care, weighing up the man behind the easy charm. The eyes that rarely met yours, the weak mouth. Just like the boy she had once known so well.
‘OK. Well, I intend to leave soon. If you are not going to come with me, what are you going to do? I think at this stage you must be either with me or against me, Freddie.’
‘I’m with you, of course I’m with you,’ said Freddie. ‘You’ve totally convinced me. The whole thing is a disaster. Like I said, I was kidding myself as usual. So I guess there’s only one thing I can do. I’ve got a hire car outside. I’ll head straight back to Heathrow and catch the first available flight back to where I’ve just come from.’
‘You may not have your allowance for much longer. If you stay here I’ll make sure you’re provided for. You can move in with me in London, for as long as you like. Until we’ve sorted something out, anyway.’
‘You may be in jail, we may both be in jail.’
‘Perhaps. But if we speak up now, perhaps not. Neither of us expected anything like this to happen, after all. And we certainly didn’t have anything to do with it.’
‘No, I’ll go back,’ said Freddie quickly. ‘I have my house in Australia, well, more of a shack, but right on the beach. I like the life well enough. And I did get a welcome home present.’ He reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a thick wad of fifty pound notes. ‘Fifty grand, a down payment apparently.’
‘Well, that’s about the only welcome you’re getting, I’m afraid,’ said Bella. ‘If you want to go, then go. All you’ve done is make a very fleeting visit back to the UK after learning of your father’s death. I will tell the police that. And if you go now, your involvement will surely appear to be so slight it’s quite likely nobody will come after you. Not to the other side of the world, anyway. And even if they do, I don’t see how anything can be proven against you.’
‘Which leaves you taking the rap, sis.’
‘Not me alone. And I intend to make quite sure of that. I’m going to tell the police everything. I don’t see that I have any choice. That any of us have any choice. I thought there was nothing I wouldn’t do for Fairbrother’s. But I didn’t even consider murder might be on the agenda. I mean, that’s for gangsters and secret service agents. Not people like us.’
‘Are you sure we really are talking murder here, though?’
‘Honestly, Freddie, “talking murder here”? What sort of language is that? Anyway, the answer is yes. I thought we’d clarified that. Or are you still just being naïve?’
‘No. OK, sis. I told you. I realise you are right. Quite right. I don’t know what I was thinking about.’
‘Nothing new there then.’
The words were potentially harsh, but Bella softened them with a gentle smile. And she reached with one hand to lightly touch her brother’s cheek.
‘I have missed you, Freddie,’ she said.
‘And you’re going to have to miss me again,’ Freddie responded. ‘I’m heading for the airport. But I have a room booked here, so first I’m going to use it to clean up and have a kip for a couple of hours.’
‘Goodbye again, then,’ said Bella.
Freddie glanced at the briefcase, which lay, still unopened, on the sofa. ‘I should take that,’ he said. ‘Return it.’
Bella shook her head. ‘No, I’ll make sure it gets to the right people. The new acting chairman of the bank, and our father’s solicitor. They may still be able to salvage something.’
‘OK, whatever you say.’ Freddie stepped forward then, and enveloped her in a hug. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that ever since you opened the door,’ he said, smiling at her.
‘Me too,’ said Bella, realising, rather to her surprise, that she meant it. After all, Freddie was still the brother she had once so adored.
She found she was fighting back tears. Over the years she had occasionally dreamed of a reunion with him. But this reunion, in circumstances so shocking and potentially dangerous that they would almost certainly destroy both the Fairbrother family and the Fairbrother family business, was the stuff of nightmares.
‘See you in another couple of decades, then,’ said Freddie.
He stepped back. He wasn’t smiling any more. He looked sad, and vulnerable. Frightened even.
Well that was understandable. Bella was frightened too. Both of what she had already done, and what she was about to do.
Freddie took the lift down to reception and headed straight out to his car. He intended to fetch his bag and then try for an early check-in. He really did need to get some sleep before he did anything else. That part of what he had told his sister was the truth. There was, however, very little truth in any of the rest of it.
First he had a phone call to make. And he needed to make it immediately, before he had time to think about it any further. Freddie had never been able to carry the burden of responsibility. Any sort of responsibility. Unlike most of the rest of his family, past and present, he was a follower, not a leader. But he was not prepared to follow his sister along the path she had now chosen. He’d come home to England to retrieve his birthright. And now that the opportunity to do so was in reach, he found that it meant more to him than he’d ever realised.
He walked to a secluded corner of the car park. The hotel’s grounds stretched before him. He wasn’t quite sure, but he thought he could just see the beginning of the Blackdown Hills in the distance, the hills where he had grown up. He and his sister had been so close then. And Bella was right, of course, neither of them had ever agreed to the sequence of events which had now engulfed them. But, in Freddie’s opinion, there could be no going back. He wanted the future that he now felt was so nearly his. And, as far as he was concerned, people may have died, but there was no proof at all of deliberate intent to kill. Murder was something he preferred not to even think about. And Freddie Fairbrother had always been extremely good at dismissing from his mind almost anything which might concern or offend him.