by Holly Watt
Casey turned, made for the door, and she didn’t even know if she was lying.
71
It was still dark when Casey and Miranda reached the grand old forest where the poachers once hid, the shadowy ponies blinking blind in the headlights.
As they made their way down winding lanes, Casey was staring at satellite images of Tawton Court. It was huge. From her bird’s-eye view, she could see a swimming pool and a lake, a tennis court and green swathes of lawn. In the middle of formal gardens, a maze had been etched out of yew. Casey traced it with her finger. To the south of the Court lay the home farm, and what looked like stables. Beyond the farm, a long strip of grass had been carved out of the woodland.
‘Hestia Limited bought this house five years ago,’ Casey said. ‘Clio’s fortunes must go back further than the recent projects.’
They parked the car in a layby, a quarter of a mile from Tawton’s pillared gates. A pretty little gatehouse sat in darkness, the gates lying open.
‘Come on,’ whispered Casey.
A long drive wound its way towards the house, meandering through parkland. The grass was studded by ancient oaks, ghost sentries. To the east, the dawn was a grey splinter in the night, the house an inky bulk in the distance.
Quietly, they crept along the grass verge. Two hundred yards from the house, Casey stopped and peered upwards. The rows of stone-mullioned windows were dark. In front of the house, the drive opened up into a sweep of gravel punctuated by a tall marble sundial. Banks of rhododendrons circled the house, with a haha beyond. Casey and Miranda huddled among the plants.
‘Do you think we just knock at the front door?’ There was almost a laugh in Miranda’s whisper.
‘We don’t have time to wait,’ Casey muttered.
The sky was lightening now, the birds beginning to sing.
‘There could be any number of guards,’ whispered Miranda. ‘There could be . . .’
‘I know,’ said Casey. ‘But we have to. Stay here.’
‘No, Casey.’ Miranda’s whisper was urgent. ‘It’s deliberately putting yourself in danger.’
‘How else are we going to find out? How else do we get Dominic out?’
Casey stepped onto the gravel, the scrunch deafening in her ears. A step, a step, and another. She felt the fear ripple up her spine, and clutch around her skull. Now she was almost at the sundial, idle in the night. Daring the trap to spring. Wanting it, almost.
Come on. Come on.
Another step.
All at once, the floodlights blazed on, ripping the night into day. Casey was caught in the brilliance, a lamped rabbit.
The huge oak door swung open, and a figure stood there, the hall lit up behind her, a rifle in her hands.
‘Hello,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Hello, Casey Benedict.’
72
‘Run,’ someone had told her once. ‘Move faster than they expect. At twenty feet, you’re an easy target. At forty – dodging about, sprinting – you’re harder. Most people won’t land that shot.’
But this woman was holding the gun with an easy confidence, the barrel aiming straight at Casey.
‘I will shoot,’ the woman said, and Casey believed her.
The woman walked forward, down the wide steps. A few paces away from the sundial, she stopped.
‘Go into the house.’ An order. ‘Walk slowly.’
There was nothing else to do.
‘All right.’
Casey began to move towards the building. The woman watched her, the rifle moving smoothly with Casey.
As she passed the woman, Casey glanced across. That golden shimmer . . .
‘Keep going.’ A voice like ice.
Casey walked up the wide limestone steps, through the oak door, into the brightness of the hall.
‘On your left.’
The hall was baronial, a grand staircase sweeping away, and a vast carved fireplace dominating the space. A deer’s head stared blankly above. Two huge bloodhounds sprawled beneath. As Casey crossed the hall, one of them looked up, yawning and stretching.
At the threshold of the drawing room, Casey hesitated.
‘Do sit down,’ behind her, the woman said mockingly.
Casey sat down on a huge white sofa. Straightening her shoulders, she looked at the woman.
‘Good evening, Mrs Greystone.’
The woman smiled. ‘Welcome to Tawton Court.’
They contemplated each other for a moment. A fire burned in the hearth, sending shadows dancing round the room.
‘Phone,’ said Clio, and as Casey handed it over, ‘are you recording this?’
‘No,’ said Casey. Clio’s eyes raked her. She stood, picked up Casey’s satchel and slung it on the fire. Casey’s eyes followed it, and then hardened on Clio.
‘They know I am here,’ said Casey. ‘The Post knows.’
‘Maybe,’ Clio Greystone said thoughtfully. She folded herself into a white armchair.
Clio looked the same, and yet she was almost unrecognisable. The superficial glamour had been stripped away, along with the pretty dress, the studded boots, the Balenciaga bag. Clio wore a simple dark top and black cropped trousers. This woman enjoyed dropping the camouflage, Casey thought. She revelled in the act first, and then smirked in the mirror as she stripped off the layers.
The gun pointed squarely at Casey.
‘I know what you’ve done,’ said Casey.
‘I should have guessed,’ Clio almost smiled, ‘when I found myself reading an article about a tennis match, of all things. It was clever, that. Arachne and Aceso and Portunus. And I suppose you’ll find the rest, in the end.’
A nice little trophy, Casey thought, raging inside. She stayed silent.
‘But then you triggered an alarm as soon as you stepped on the drive,’ said Clio. ‘I imagine you expected something like that.’
Open gilded gates.
‘Maybe.’ Casey waited. ‘You need to let Dominic Burton-Smith go, Clio. My colleagues will call the police. Please.’
‘You have been busy.’ Clio ignored her. ‘Blackmailing William Cavendish. Running off to Dhaka. Searching that ship. You’ve been very persistent, Casey.’
A closed terrarium sat on the table beside Casey. Casey gazed at it now, at the cut glass, the moss, the delicate ferns. An elegantly perfect ecosystem, in its own discrete world.
‘It wasn’t blackmail,’ Casey said.
‘Maybe.’
‘So why did you do it all, Clio?’ Casey tried.
‘You really are,’ Clio sighed, ‘most inconvenient.’
Casey turned back towards Clio. The gun was a jolt in this flawless room, sharp-cut black and ugly. Shadows flickered across Clio’s face.
‘I’ll make you an offer,’ Clio said into the silence.
‘I’m not interested. When did you guess?’ Casey asked, not wanting to know the answer. ‘About me, back in Hampstead.’
‘You walked past the house twice,’ Clio said. ‘I thought I would see what you wanted.’
And then you led me right to him, thought Casey. Abandoned your husband without a backwards glance. A pawn sacrifice, all ready.
‘What do you want?’ said Casey.
‘I want to make you an offer,’ Clio said. ‘To forget all about me.’
Casey’s head jolted up. ‘But you can’t. There’s nothing I want from you. There’s nothing you can give me.’
‘Are you sure?’ Clio stretched, cat-like. ‘How about, say, this house? And a few million pounds? Everyone wants something.’
‘No,’ said Casey, and it was easy. ‘You can’t escape this, Clio. Even if you kill me, they’ll know what you did. And they will get you in the end.’
Casey thought about Miranda, hiding outside, flat to the ground in the dark.
‘You’ll never see your children again either,’ Casey went on, the oldest of threats, although she didn’t know if it would work.
‘My children left the country hours ago.’ The ice was back in Clio�
�s voice. Then she lightened again: ‘You must have expected that, Casey. And you won’t be able to stop me, if I decide to leave.’
A runway carved out of the forest, thought Casey. So close to the south coast of England. Clio had her escape route planned all along.
Clio was gazing up at the chandelier. ‘But you make deals, Casey. Or so I gather.’
Casey was watching Clio’s face, and knew she had expected the first offer to be rejected. There was a bottle of champagne beside Clio, cork popped, half a glass poured. Casey wondered if Clio had opened it as she waited for the enemy at the gate.
‘Sometimes,’ said Casey. ‘Not now. Not for something like this.’
‘Always, I think. Because even in that grim old house in Guildford, the Burton-Smiths still thought they would get their baby back, nice and safe. Go and live a happy little life in their pretty Surrey house. They really believed it, you know. They trusted you, Casey.’
Casey stared at Clio, across the beautiful room. Clio waited.
‘I believe that you’re a brutal sort of pragmatist, Casey.’
‘The Burton-Smiths are sources,’ Casey said automatically. ‘And the Post always protect its sources.’
‘That is a fig leaf,’ Clio mocked her. ‘And you know it.’
‘We have to protect our sources.’ Robotic.
‘If they’ll play your game to your rules, you’ll protect them? It’s no better than a protection racket, Casey. Secrets for silence. While you promise the world it’s the precise opposite.’
Casey was watching the flames. Out in the hall, one of the bloodhounds yawned in a long whine.
‘You buy stories,’ Clio sneered. ‘Just to bury them.’
‘Some maybe. Not us.’
Clio stood up, walked over to the fireplace. She peered at herself in the mirror, smiling at her own reflection.
‘That girl out in Bangladesh,’ said Clio. ‘On the ship. She died, Casey. Died for Emily and Dominic’s fantasy. But you’ll protect them all the same.’ Clio paused, fiddling with a tiny ornament. ‘You knew that already, didn’t you, Casey? That the girl died.’
Casey clenched her jaw. ‘Zohra. Her name was Zohra. And, yes, I knew that.’
‘You’ll cover it up.’ Clio separated out each word.
‘I’ll tell her story.’
They stared at each other in the mirror.
‘The parasite that kills its host,’ Clio said thoughtfully. ‘Such a grim thought. Wasn’t it Charles Darwin who said he couldn’t believe in religion because no god would design a parasitic wasp that ate its host from inside?’
‘And no god could have put Zohra on that ship.’
‘Something like that. We’re all part of it,’ Clio said, almost to herself. ‘You know that perfectly well, Casey. And at least, this system made a few people very happy. And they’re doing it for a child, not a cheap top.’
‘It ruined lives.’
‘So.’ Clio’s voice changed as she turned away from the mirror. ‘You always protect your sources.’ She paused. ‘And you always keep your promises, Casey?’
‘I try to.’
The sky was slowly brightening to grey outside. ‘Well,’ Clio went on, almost mocking. ‘In any case, maybe I can be a source?’
Clio was watching Casey’s face intently.
‘You must be mad,’ Casey said, without thinking. ‘You? No. Never.’
But even as she spoke, she felt the curiosity spark.
‘You don’t know what I’m offering yet.’
‘Tell me then.’
Clio almost smiled. ‘Not without your promise.’
Casey stared across the room, the headlines flickering.
‘No.’ Casey forced the word out.
Clio sighed.
‘I can’t.’ Casey was shaking her head, feeling the tug like a magnet.
‘Are you quite sure?’ Clio’s voice was low.
‘You’re not my source,’ said Casey more firmly. ‘I won’t protect you.’
‘Fine,’ Clio shrugged, as if she were bored. ‘Then I’ll tell my friend that we don’t need Dominic Burton-Smith any more.’
Picking up her phone, Clio was watching Casey for her reaction. Casey tried to keep her face steady.
Emily, shivering in the wind . . .
Promising each other again and again that this time it would be all right . . .
Casey kept her face expressionless.
‘You’d let him die?’ Clio said wonderingly. ‘Really, Casey? You’d protect his reputation, but not his life?’
‘What do you gain by killing him?’ said Casey.
‘Fine,’ Clio murmured. ‘Have it your way.’
She threw herself back into the armchair and reached for a laptop, typing in a long password. A hidden projector whirred into operation, beaming a huge image onto the wall. It was Dominic and Emily, Casey realised, side by side. They were in a kitchen. Tilney Cottage: Casey recognised the blue Aga.
‘The thing is,’ said Clio thoughtfully, ‘that it’s always a matter of perspective.’
She pushed a button, and Dominic began to move.
‘They came out of nowhere,’ he was saying, his voice oddly deep. ‘We had no idea what to do. They threatened us. We were completely terrified. They told us we would never see our baby ever again.’
Casey felt her stomach twist, her throat tighten.
There was a pause. ‘Emily?’ a voice asked.
Emily swallowed. ‘Dr Greystone told me that we would be helping women in Bangladesh. He’s a proper doctor. We had no idea . . . We didn’t know . . .’
Her voice trailed into tears, a delicate shape hiding her face against her husband. Emily’s shoulders shook.
‘Live by the sword,’ murmured Clio.
‘They blackmailed us,’ Dominic gritted his teeth on screen. ‘We had no choice. They were absolutely ruthless. They stole our passports, they impersonated us. It was blackmail, all of it. The reporters from the Post blackmailed us.’
Casey felt a surge of fear.
Clio stilled the picture with a click. ‘They go on for quite a long time in that vein,’ she said. ‘These are serious allegations, Casey. Against both you and Miranda Darcey.’
‘They’re acting under duress.’ Casey forced the words out. ‘You’ve kidnapped them, and of course they’re saying whatever you want them to say.’
Kidnap, blackmail; the invisible threat was all. The murder of the soul: just words.
‘Your problem is’ – Clio gestured at the screen – ‘that if you go to the police, they will have to stick to this truth to keep their baby. And they will, Casey. Dominic will happily destroy you to bring that child home.’
‘That’s not why . . .’ Casey’s voice faded away.
‘Not why you did it?’ Clio asked smoothly.
‘No one will believe anything the Burton-Smiths say under those conditions.’
‘Really?’
‘No. And Emily wouldn’t . . .’
‘Emily?’ Clio smiled. ‘Emily wouldn’t what?’
Clio clicked another button, her eyes never leaving Casey’s face. Casey felt her stomach turn.
The kitchen at Tilney Cottage disappeared, a new image flashed up on the wall. And Casey glanced up, and heard herself choke.
73
It was Casey herself, standing in a shabby hotel room. The plywood wardrobe, the scuffed magnolia walls, the mirror on the wall. The Easton Hotel. Clio pressed play, and the words echoed round the room.
You took our passports, you blackmailed us. You told us we would never see our baby.
I’m sorry. I really am. It was never meant to be . . .
You blackmailed us … It was blackmail.
I know.
I know. The words were spikes in Casey’s mind.
I know. I know. I know.
Trapped in the pixels, by her own truth. In her own words. Casey’s palms were wet, and she felt the shiver in her spine. It was as if there were hundreds of eyes in the r
oom all at once.
Blackmail. Up to fourteen years in prison. Fourteen.
‘I thought I’d send this to Jessica Miller at the Argus.’ Clio turned back to the screen. ‘Or just publish it on the internet.’
No escape. Followed everywhere, for ever.
Casey felt herself begin to shake.
‘You say it yourself, Casey.’
‘It’s edited,’ Casey managed.
‘Only slightly,’ Clio shrugged. ‘Not enough to help you.’
‘You can’t.’
‘I can.’
Casey felt the futility of it all sweeping over her like a wave. Nowhere to hide. Scrabbling against the sides, no foothold, no hope. This is how it must feel. The runaway train, unstoppable. The blaze of the searchlight, blinding.
For a split second, she thought of Emily, going to the bathroom to splash water on her face. She’d got the shot by then, could relax very slightly. Still wired up like a suicide bomber, but she had done it. Casey wondered if Emily had felt that moment of quiet triumph. Got it. Got you.
I liked you; I thought you liked me.
Emily, in her black top, carefully buttoned to the neck. One button, just a tiny bit different. Turning to face Casey, just as the camera required. Probably another camera in that leather bag, so casual on the bed. Another in the open wardrobe. As many angles as possible, every time, just in case. Emily must have sent the footage as soon as Casey walked out of the hotel. Almost impressive, that speed, that ruthlessness.
‘I think we’ve reached a stalemate,’ Clio said calmly. ‘Walk away, Casey.’
Casey was staring at the screen, back to Dominic and Emily frozen in their kitchen prison.
‘No,’ she said very quietly.
‘They say you should fight fire with fire,’ said Clio. ‘But I think I prefer mirrors. And you don’t like this one.’
Mirrors reflect the soul, she’d read once.
No. They only reflect the mask.
‘You’ve ruined my husband,’ Clio went on, ‘but no one wins if you don’t drop this right now.’
‘No,’ Casey said again. She thought of all those approaches, time and time again. The straw hat ripped away, the half-smile frozen.
