Chapter 22
Thursday April 25th 2013
He sat down on the cold stone bank, dangling his feet over the edge, leaning his head against the railings, his fingers grasping the metal bars, his knuckles whitening as he tried to control his breathing.
He had not been imagining things. The woman was Sarah.
There wasn’t the slightest doubt in his mind. He thought back to the woman he had seen on the boat 8 years ago, and admitted he could have been mistaken on that occasion. He didn’t think so, but it was possible. But not now.
25 yards is not a great distance and his eyesight was nigh on perfect. He had seen Sarah. And she had seen him. She had been looking right at him, he could see her eyes. There was no-one else anywhere near him. She hadn’t been waving at someone else. She had been looking at him and waving at him and saying goodbye to him.
Without hurrying, he walked down to the bridge to his left and crossed over to the other bank and then right until he came to Rozenstraat, the first street on the left. He looked back across the canal to the place where he had been standing in front of the hotel and saw that he would have been well-lit too. She would have seen him very clearly. He walked slowly down the street, not knowing where he was going or why and not even thinking about it. He felt very calm and controlled and he noticed every single shop and café along the street, noting the numbers and the colour of the doors and the illuminated signs and he wondered how Sarah had found him and why she was saying goodbye.
The ‘how’ wasn’t a problem. He had mentioned the Pulitzer toMorgan. Morgan knew where he was probably going to be staying in Amsterdam. So Morgan had told Sarah. That meant Morgan had been in touch with her, either last night or this morning, or this afternoon.
He stopped at a bar that was open, a few customers doing next week’s drinking in advance, and he ordered a double genever and switched on his phone and went on-line. He consulted various websites and saw the latest reports on the ‘Missing Heiress’ case but there was still no news, no mention of Sarah having being found or her husband reporting any contact with her.
He called Dave Middleton.
“Hey, how are you doing?”, Dave said.
“I’m all right, how are you?”
“Snowed under. Massive pile-up on the M62. Where are you?”
“Amsterdam, bit of business.”
“Nice. Have a Heineken for me.”
“Will do. Any news?”
“You mean Sarah? Yeah, of course you do. No, not a dicky…”
“I didn’t think so.”
“You do realise it’s one in the morning?”
“Sorry, I’ll let you get back to bed.”
“I wasn’t asleep. Cath’s pregnant. She’s chucking up her biryani as we speak.”
“Congratulations. To you, I mean… or to you both, rather…”
“Yeah, thanks. Maybe see you some time before the next millennium.”
“Sooner than you think, I might be moving back.”
“You’re kidding. Fuck me! Right then. Gotta go. See you.”
So Morgan had been in touch with Sarah but had not reported it.
Why?
It looked as though Sarah had disappeared voluntarily; she was free and unharmed and not under any duress… She had reassured her husband she was ok, presumably, but he was saying nothing. He’d done nothing to stop the police search or the media frenzy. It didn’t make sense.
And why was she saying goodbye to Paul like that? Was it some kind of ‘closure’ that she needed before getting on with her life… her life as Mrs Neil Morgan?
But Paul hadn’t been part of her life for 18 years… That didn’t make sense either.
Paul finished his drink and ordered another.
He wondered if Sarah’s goodbye wave and definitive ‘no’ head-shake would give him some kind of ‘closure’. God, he hated the word.
Perhaps, oddly enough, it might.
She had never replied to the letters he had written after she went to Switzerland.
A letter a week for months. And more from prison. And more after that.
He knew Greville and Rebecca would probably have destroyed all the letters he had sent to the Castle, but he had tried alternative means and methods.
He had gone to an internet café and done some research into schools in Switzerland and identified those with an international intake and with the reputation and prestige that would have appealed to Greville. He had written a letter addressed to Sarah to all of them. He had written the name and return address of a school friend of Sarah’s on the back of the envelope, just in case…
But no letters came back.
His mother and father had been distraught when Sarah was sent away, for his sake, he presumed, and he was sure they would have been glad to have received news of her. Although their telephone number had been changed around that time… They wouldn’t have hidden away any letters from Switzerland that arrived at the Cottage in his name, along with the few catalogues and comics and postcards from friends on holiday that constituted the little mail he got… Would they?
So Sarah was saying goodbye…
What the hell….
What did it change for him?
Nothing. She had been gone for years. And all that was left was the hole in his head.
The good news was that she was all right, and he swore out loud when he realised that hadn’t been his first thought. She wasn’t missing… she was alive and well and living in Amsterdam… for the moment.
A couple of people next to him looked at him oddly as he muttered to himself.
Sarah was fine. She was safe.
He drank a silent toast to her and lit another cigarette and wondered what he should do now.
Morgan hadn’t told the police she was safe and well, for the moment. Should he tell them?
Should he tell Dave? And remind him how obsessed he was?
Should he perhaps call Morgan, and tell him he’d seen his missing wife? And that she’d seen him?
Was there any way Morgan didn’t know already? Would she tell him? Why? Why not?
He tried to work out the possibilities and came up with nothing.
It was a mess. And the more he got involved with telling other people, the messier it got.
He decided he would say nothing, to anyone. Fuck it.
Everyone else could wait for fucking closure.
For him, it was all over.
Chapter 23
Friday April 26th 2013
He woke up the next morning with a numbing hangover and a sweat-soaked T-shirt and the rapidly fading memories of a bad night’s sleep flashing across his eye-lids as he was blinded by the light streaming into the room. He’d forgotten to draw the curtains before he’d crashed out.
He pieced together the fragmented images of his dreams … There had been a scene from a film playing in his head… ‘Don’t Look Now’, a Nicolas Roeg film with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland… In the film, they experienced strange sightings of a small child, in Venice, and kept seeing a red shape, disappearing round corners and across bridges, canals everywhere… they were pursuing an elusive red shadow, and images of a drowning kept cropping up… and the music was by Pino Donaggio… In Paul’s nocturnal, flickering film, the red was green and the canals were in Amsterdam, and the soundtrack was a Buzzcocks song re-arranged by Keith Jarrett.
A nightmare.
And then the doubts began.
Something clicked in his head and it was a familiar kind of click and he knew he should follow up on it, so without thinking he got up and opened up his laptop and went on line, sitting at the desk in his skivvies and craving a cup of coffee.
He typed ‘Neil Morgan’ and then send, and he filtered the results down to something approaching manageable by adding ‘flowers’ and he got some results.
He found the name of Morgan’s company.
It was called Floraville and it was based in Utrecht. For a small fee, he gained access to the compa
ny’s accounts, but he was not a forensic accountant and he was unable to make much sense of the information, merely noting that the figures involved seemed fairly substantial, with what he imagined were healthy profits. The company employed 70 people and there was a subsidiary called Freshness UK based in Hull, with 22 full-time employees.
Paul googled the company name and found a number of articles and quotes and endless business directories and services offering contact information and personal details. He found one article from a trade journal featuring an interview with the company director, in both Dutch and English.
A journalist was talking to Neil Morgan about new European legislation concerning the import and export of fresh produce. It was pretty boring stuff, but at the end, the subject turned to more personal matters. The journalist congratulated Morgan on his ‘almost perfect Dutch’ and asked him where and when he had learnt it. Morgan said modestly that English and Dutch were quite similar in many ways and that he had just picked it up over the years, adding that it was important to respect one’s customers and colleagues and to make an effort in such matters.
Paul tried to recall exactly what Morgan had said when he had asked him if he spoke ‘the lingo’. Morgan had not said he spoke Dutch, but had he actually denied it? Had he said no? Paul wasn’t sure, but he knew Morgan hadn’t said yes… why not?
There was nothing else of great interest and Paul shut down the computer and made a mental list of all the reasons he disliked and distrusted Neil Morgan.
He was a good-looking bastard with dimples and straight teeth.
He had a posh accent.
He had cold eyes.
He had been disparaging and unsympathetic about Sarah’s apparent use of the expression ‘give me some space’.
He had been fake and phoney at the press conference and Paul didn’t believe a word he said.
He had been over-touchy at some of Paul’s remarks.
He wore Greville’s shirts.
He had called Calderwood Hall ‘my property’.
Paul realised he was probably still drunk and that he was being unreasonable but he didn’t care. The list kept growing.
Morgan had ‘taken tea’ with Rebecca Hartley, and no doubt sucked up to her as part of his efforts to get into Sarah’s pants.
Even Linda Deighton had thought he was ‘a player’.
He had used Roget’s Thesaurus…
He had two phones. At least.
He called Sarah ‘darling’…
He had won Sarah Hartley’s heart.
The list ended there.
But Neil Morgan wasn’t fit to lick the shit off Sarah’s shoes.
Morgan didn’t have the stature or the wherewithal to match the class and the aura and the essence of the girl he had known… his princess…
But she wasn’t a princess any more, he thought, she was the Queen of Calderwood Hall now.
So did that make Morgan the King? King Neil?
The queen is dead, long live the King… King Neil of Calderwood Hall!
The phrase rang through his head, despite himself and he remembered why he was in Amsterdam.
For the Koninginnedag. For the induction of a new king.
But Queen Beatrix was not dead, she was only abdicating. Was Sarah abdicating in some way? Was that why she had disappeared? Was that why she had said goodbye?
But perhaps for Neil to become King, the Queen would have to disappear… for good… Perhaps for the new King to claim his rightful throne, the Queen would have to die!
For the first time, Paul was scared. Really scared.
But he didn’t know why. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. And he did still feel drunk and he seriously needed some coffee and a cigarette.
After a long shower and a copious breakfast, that he was somehow loathe to define as ‘fit for a king’, he was feeling vaguely normal again. Apart from a headache. He took a couple of aspirins, and he thought about his father’s headaches.
He could see his father’s face, screwed up in agony, and remembered the frenzy with which he had looked for his pills whenever an attack came on, sometimes yelling and screaming when he couldn’t find them, blaming his mother, blaming Paul…
But he had generally borne the pain in silence, withdrawing and retreating to the bedroom or the garden, and apart from an occasional smack or slap, the headaches didn’t seem to provoke any undue violence or savagery. Apart from on one occasion, when poor Sarah had been the victim of his wrath, and his mother of a more brutal assault.
Paul and Sarah had been playing in the garden. Sarah had been skipping, and then she had taken the rope and swung it around her head, faster and faster. She was close to the back door, and had not seen Paul’s father come out. The wooden skipping-rope handle had swung against his head, hard, and from the other side of the garden Paul had heard the thunk and turned to see his father bent double, clutching his head with both hands. He had stood up and yelled at Sarah: “You stupid little bitch, watch what you’re fuckin’ doin’!”.
Sarah had come running over to Paul, crying, and they had seen Paul’s mother come out of the kitchen and scold his father. They hadn’t heard the words but they had heard the tone, and there was a vicious exchange of rebukes and reprimands before his father had swung back his hand and slapped her across the face.
It was the only time he had seen his father hit his mother.
He knew his grandfather had had a reputation as a hard man, too; imposing a roughshod discipline on the estate workers, working them hard, applying punishments and reprisals as far as his authority allowed.
Paul wondered if there was something in the Boyd blood, something in their genetic wiring that could occasionally spark off flashes of unprovoked brutality.
He himself had never done much scrapping at school. Certainly nothing vicious or grievous. The fateful kick in the nuts he had dished out to Terry Booth had been his last act of aggression. Until the last time he had seen Terry, almost a year to the day after the moors adventure.
Chapter 24
London, November 2003
He was 22 years old and passing through London on his way from Brighton back to Paris. He’d had toothache and had gone to see a dentist in Clapham, where he was crashing with an old room-mate. As he waited, he had flicked through the magazines on the grimy table in the grubby waiting-room and chanced upon a society magazine with pictures of balls and parties and weddings and graduations. There was a photo of Sarah Hartley, receiving her degree in New York. And another picture of Sarah with Greville and Rebecca at a dance somewhere.
The dental work had been clumsy and painful and Paul was not feeling happy when he left the surgery and walked through the cold rain back to the flat where he was staying.
He was passing a pub when a young man came out of the door and it was Terry Booth. Terry didn’t see him and Paul kept on walking, hearing Terry’s footsteps behind him. He bent down to tie a shoe-lace and Terry walked past, his face down into the wind. Paul followed him. They crossed a street and Paul kept to the shadows, hugging the walls, but Terry wasn’t expecting trouble, not 200 miles from home. They passed a skip in the street and Paul leant in and grabbed a two-foot length of metal pipe, like a piece of scaffolding, and held it down against his leg as he walked on. Terry turned into a park and cut across the grass rather than take the path. It looked like he knew where he was going. Paul moved closer and they were just a couple of yards apart, in a dark area with a few oaks and beeches blocking out most of the light from the streetlights a hundred yards behind them.
“All right, Terry? How are you doing?” Paul said.
Terry turned round.
“Who’s that? Fuck me, Paul fuckin’ Boyd? What are you doin’ here?”
“I’m thinking about kicking the living shit out of you Terry, but I haven’t quite decided yet.”
“You what? Are you on drugs? Lay a finger on me and you’ll be back inside in no time, gettin’ fucked up the arse by junkie niggers and clap-ridde
n Pakis!”
He had a flick-knife in his hands.
“I’ve decided now though.”
He smashed the metal pipe down on Terry’s wrist and heard it crack and the knife fell onto the grass. Terry screamed. Paul swung the pipe again and smacked it into Terry’s knee. He fell back against a tree and started to whimper.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you, Boyd! You’d better believe it! I’ll find you and fuckin’ kill you!”
“You couldn’t find your own arse with two hands and a flashlight. You’ll never find me. I’ve changed my name. Paul Boyd doesn’t exist any more. The law can’t find me. You think you can do any better? And even if you can, do you really think you’re up for it?”
He swung the pipe again, hard, against Terry’s arm. He was slumped against the tree trunk now, cowering.
“Just a couple more little taps, Terry, then we’re done. About even, more or less.”
The pipe came down on Terry’s mouth and his teeth were smashed and Terry gargled blood and tried to spit.
“One more, just for luck”, and he banged the metal down on the bridge of Terry’s nose. The splintering noise was frightening and he felt sick as he saw Terry’s eyes roll back and close and his head flopped against the tree and he was out.
He looked down at him, not quite knowing what he was feeling. Disgust, shock, relief, remorse, fear of his own impulses... All of them and none of them. And he wasn’t finished.
He stripped Terry naked and used his shoelaces and his belt to tie his hands and strap him to the tree. It was raining heavily now. He wished it was a bit colder.
The King's Shilling Page 15
