by Sue Fortin
‘Yes. What’s going on?’ Steph swung her legs out of bed and planted her feet on the floor, pulling her fleece jacket around her shoulders. ‘I’m wide awake. What’s up?’
‘I didn’t say anything before but I had a phone call from Harry Sinclair. He’s concerned to say the least that you’re getting too involved with Sonia Lomas and the death of his wife.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Steph pushed her hair from her face.
‘He had every right. It’s his business and you’re causing problems.’
‘If I’m causing problems it’s because they’re hiding things.’ Steph pushed her arms into her jacket. ‘Look, Mum, I’ve found out a few things about the Sinclairs.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I found out that Dominic Sinclair is dealing in drugs.’
‘What?’
‘I saw him and then I went and had a look for myself. He’s storing them in the boathouse. I don’t know what do to.’ For some reason she held back from telling Wendy about the recording.
‘Now, listen to me, Stephanie. You are not to tell the police. You are not to get involved in anything. I want you to pack your bags and go straight to Brighton, like I said yesterday.’
‘I can’t do that,’ said Steph, annoyed her mother was still trying to tell her what to do. ‘Did you hear what I said? There are class A drugs, a lot of them, on the Sinclair premises. Owen is a user. I saw that for myself. Both he and Dominic are involved. I can’t ignore that.’ She hesitated before she added, ‘And if they’re involved, then I wouldn’t be surprised if Harry is too.’ She hated herself for saying it but it seemed a logical thought process, even though it hurt her. It would mean she couldn’t have anything to do with Harry, not now – no matter how she felt about him, she wasn’t about to get involved with a drug dealer.
‘They are dangerous people,’ replied Wendy, with an insistency Steph hadn’t heard before. ‘Do not do anything to upset them. Leave there immediately.’
A feeling of dread walked its way up Steph’s arms, causing goose pimples to pucker her skin. Her stomach clenched and her heart threw in an extra beat as a tiny voice in the back of her mind started to push its way to the fore. She didn’t want to acknowledge it – she had tried to ignore it, to reason it away, but there was no shutting herself off from it now. She swallowed hard as she prepared herself to speak.
‘Mum,’ she said slowly. ‘Are you involved in any way with the Sinclairs? I mean, do you or did you work for them? Have they paid you to help them?’ She hadn’t been able to bring herself to say the actual words, but she knew her mum, if guilty, would know exactly what she meant.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What about Cameron from the pub? Harry attacked him. He said the charges were dropped because there wasn’t enough evidence. He said the investigating police officer wasn’t interested and played the whole incident down.’
There was a silence before Wendy spoke. ‘Are you suggesting what I think you are?’
‘Please, just answer the question.’ Steph was surprised by the tears which filled her eyes. ‘Were you on the Sinclair payroll? Are you still? Did you know what Dominic was up to? Is that what Elizabeth had found out? Is that what got her killed? Did they pay you not to investigate Elizabeth’s death?’ She gulped down a sob. Of all the things she thought her mother was, a bent police officer was not one of them, but the words of Rob, her mum’s old work colleague, came flooding back. Wendy had been asked to leave the force; she hadn’t retired.
‘I can’t believe you’ve just asked me that!’ Wendy almost shouted down the phone. ‘How dare you?’
‘Is it true?’ asked Steph, swiping away a stray tear.
‘I’m lost for words!’ exclaimed Wendy. ‘I’m stunned.’
‘You’re not denying it, are you? Mum … please?’
The line went dead.
Steph dropped back onto the bed and allowed the sob to escape untamed. She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. She felt betrayed. Wendy had been a shit mum, she had betrayed Steph on that level, and in all that time Steph had held on to the fact that her mum was a good police officer. She could justify her mother’s behaviour towards her on the basis that she was committed to her job, but now, to realise Wendy had been a corrupt police officer, she felt betrayed for a second time. Steph felt so unworthy. It was one thing Wendy not loving her because of her job, but it brought it to a whole new low that she didn’t love her because she loved her corrupt job more. Steph had never wished more in her life that her father was still here. Someone to comfort her, to put his arm around her and tell her it was all right, that he loved her and he would take away her pain.
The sound of her alarm going off brought Steph from her heartbreak. Her anguish was now turning to anger. If that was what Wendy was really like, then she didn’t care if she never saw her again. She scrolled through her contacts list and, reaching Wendy’s number, blocked it. That woman would never contact her again. If Steph never spoke to her again in her life, she wouldn’t care.
Chucking her phone on her bed, Steph dressed quickly. She needed to be at work in ten minutes and the sooner she got her shift over with, the sooner she could decide what to do. She needed some thinking space. If her mother was corrupt, it probably wasn’t a good idea to go to the local police. What if the police were still in the Sinclairs’ pockets? No, she’d have to go to a different police force, she supposed. Maybe she could ask Adam? She mulled this over as she brushed her hair. Adam had warned her to stay away from the Sinclairs, too. Was he the right one to go to? The Sinclairs might be able to influence a local paper. No, she decided, she’d have to go to a national paper with this. What she needed to do was to gather all her evidence together.
She stopped in mid-brush. What evidence? OK, she had seen Dominic’s drugs stash but if she alerted him too soon that she knew about it, he could easily move it. She’d have to take some photos, which would mean going back to the boathouse. That would solve the drug-dealing problem, but what about Elizabeth’s death? She had evidence from the SpyCloud that Owen would have a motive to kill her – after all, she’d been blackmailing him with the sex tape. Elizabeth had also recorded her fears that her life was in danger from Dominic, that she had discovered what he was up to. Well, it didn’t take a genius to work out that it was probably drug dealing, but it still wasn’t unequivocal proof.
Steph finished tying up her hair and straightened her uniform. She’d have to get a confession out of one of them. Did Harry know? Did he have anything to do with Elizabeth’s death? If he knew Elizabeth was having an affair with his brother, was that enough for him to want to kill her?
Whichever one it was, she was certain that they were all covering for each other. Sticking together. Dominic was the kingpin, Harry, she liked to think, was the reluctant one, and Owen the easily led one.
What she needed was some sort of confession. So that left either Dominic or Owen. She decided Owen was the weak link. If she was honest, Dominic scared her and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t talk, but Owen … she could use the sex tape maybe.
Unwittingly she realised she was now in the exact same position she imagined Elizabeth had been in, except unlike Elizabeth, who was driven by greed, Steph was driven by the truth and by justice for Elizabeth and peace for Sonia Lomas.
Conmere, Friday, 17 May, 2.05 p.m.
Steph had managed to keep well out of the way that morning, preparing the lodges on the far side of the resort.
She closed the door on the final lodge and made her way over to the small laundry room nearby to store away the cleaning products and deposit the used bed linen, which would later be collected by someone with the laundry cart. It saved the housekeeping staff having to lug cleaning products and bedding around the resort with them. She locked the door and, using the pushbike provided for staff, she cycled back to the main house.
‘All done?’ asked Heidi as Steph handed back the keys. ‘Looks like you timed it right for th
e weather.’ Heidi nodded towards the window, through which they saw that a black cloud had settled in the sky.
‘It was quite cold cycling back,’ admitted Steph. ‘I wished I’d brought my coat. Anyway, what do you want me to do now?’
Heidi checked her watch. ‘Why don’t you take your lunch break? This afternoon I want you on the pool house team. We want to give both wet and dry side a good clean today, ready for the weekend.’
‘OK. I’ll see you later,’ said Steph. She left the housekeeping office and decided rather than spend an hour in the staff kitchen having lunch, she’d sooner be by herself and avoid any possibility of Harry coming to look for her. She still hadn’t made up her mind what to do about the recordings Elizabeth hade made. Part of her wanted to speak to Harry so he could tell her how he wasn’t involved at all, but another part of her was more cautious, telling her she should play her cards close to her chest.
As she crossed the main hall, Pru Sinclair came out of her private living room. She was dressed in casual trousers, a T-shirt and fleece. ‘Oh, Steph, just the person,’ she said, smiling at her. ‘I need some help down at the lake. A couple of the rowing boats have gone adrift. I saw them this morning when I was out with the girls. I would have rowed out and got them in myself, but I couldn’t leave the dogs on their own. You wouldn’t mind coming out with me now to get them?’
‘Er, yeah, of course,’ said Steph, not sure it was a great idea.
Pru didn’t miss her hesitancy. ‘I would ask one of the boys but Dominic and Owen are both tied up over at the stables this morning, and Harry … well … let’s just say, Harry isn’t in the best of moods today.’
‘It’s fine, honestly,’ said Steph, wondering what exactly had put Harry in a bad mood. ‘I don’t mind at all.’ And she didn’t, now she thought about it – it would be a good opportunity to try to get some information out of Pru, but she knew she would have to be careful about it. ‘I’ll need to grab a coat,’ said Steph, moving towards the stairs.
‘Oh, I’m sure there’s one in the office you can borrow,’ said Pru. ‘Wait there.’ She returned almost straight away with a waxed cotton jacket. ‘It’s Harry’s. He won’t mind. And here are some boots – you look about the same size as me. Size five?’
Steph nodded, taking the jacket and eyeing up the boots. ‘I’ll be OK in my trainers.’
‘Wear the boots. We’ll have to wade out to the first rowing boat. Your shoes will get ruined.’
Steph took off her trainers, which Pru whisked up and put in a holdall she had hooked on her shoulder. ‘Good. Let’s go.’
Obediently Steph followed Pru out of the house, through the centre of the resort and along the now familiar path down towards the lake. Pru walked briskly, chatting to Steph about how she’d used to come down to the lake every day when she was younger and take an early morning dip.
‘I used to try to get Max to join me, but he never would,’ she said. ‘In the end I gave up asking him. He was never really an outdoorsy type of person. He was much more the engine room of the business side of Conmere.’
‘It sounds like a good partnership,’ said Steph. ‘A good balance.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Pru, with a small smile. ‘I do miss him, despite his being a bit cantankerous at times.’
They had reached the edge of the lake now and Steph could see the two rowing boats drifting in the middle. She couldn’t remember if there had been two or three boats out there when she was last down here and these looked further out than she recalled. It wouldn’t be that easy towing two boats behind their one. She followed Pru into the water and they waded out to a lone rowing boat tied up to a buoy.
‘Do you want me to row?’ asked Steph as Pru climbed in first, putting the holdall in the front of the boat.
‘I’ll row out; maybe you can row back,’ said Pru, holding out her hand to help Steph climb into the boat. ‘You save your strength for the return journey.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Conmere House, Friday, 17 May, 2.45 p.m.
Harry was in the office, going through the bookings for the forthcoming weekend. His mother had accused him of being in a bad mood earlier and, although he had denied it, he was well aware he was grumpy. He hadn’t been able to see Steph for the last couple of days and it was pissing him off. God, how had she got under his skin so deeply and so quickly?
He needed to take some paperwork in to his mother to sign and attempted to push his bad mood aside, although that was easier said than done.
He knocked on the door to his mother’s private living room and went in but the room was empty. There was a strange smell hanging in the air. Harry took a couple of sniffs. It was a burnt sort of smell but plasticky at the same time. He wondered if it was something electrical but as he looked round the room for an obvious source he noticed a candle on the sideboard with molten black drips down the shaft. He went over and felt the wick between his fingers; it was still warm. It looked as though his mother had been melting something. How odd. He looked over the surface of the sideboard and, noticing a black drip on the edge of the wood, he allowed his gaze to trace its way to the floor. He bent down and picked up a small semi-melted square of plastic and, holding it between his finger and thumb, tried to work out what it was. There was a waste-paper bin to the side and Harry reached over for it.
In the bottom he could see more melted pieces of plastic. He fished them out. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this had once been a memory card of some description. He turned over a piece in his hand and immediately recognised the small fraction of handwriting that remained. The fancy and elaborate capital letter E written in the gold-ink pen his wife had loved so much was as clear as the day she had written it.
A noise behind him made him look round. Dominic was standing in the room, his hands in his pockets as he watched his brother. Harry stood up and held out his hand with the remains of the memory card. ‘This was Elizabeth’s.’
‘Hmm. Yes. It was.’ Dominic walked over to the drinks tray and poured himself a whisky.
A hundred different thoughts crashed their way around Harry’s mind, bumping and bouncing off each other so fast, he couldn’t pin a single one down to examine closely.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and opened them; standing straighter, he pushed his shoulders back and glared at Dominic. ‘What the fuck is going on? Why were you burning it? What was on it?’
‘It doesn’t really matter now.’
‘It matters to me.’ Harry barely recognised his own voice, such was the snarl to his words.
Dominic downed his drink and placed the glass on the tray. ‘Elizabeth was trying to do a deal with Mum. She wrote a formal letter to the board requesting a meeting. She said she had information which, if released, would put the company and all the directors in difficult positions. Basically, she had dirt on all of us to cause a mini-scandal.’
‘How come I didn’t know about this?’
‘I don’t know why your own wife wouldn’t tell you, but I know Mum didn’t want anyone to find out. She decided she was going to handle this herself.’
Harry frowned at Dominic’s comments. He couldn’t describe the emotion hitting him in the gut right now. Disappointment? Betrayal? Indignation? His wife and his mother had been striking a deal and he knew nothing about it and yet Dominic did. Harry chucked the pieces of plastic into the fireplace. ‘Is this why you’ve been so jumpy all week? Because you were worried Steph was going to uncover the scandal?’ He emphasised the last word to underscore his disdain.
‘It’s so much more than a scandal. And for once I wasn’t just covering my own arse. But I tell you now, Steph needs to stop digging. Either you stop her or I will.’
‘You stay away from her,’ warned Harry, clenching and unclenching his fist. The anger was surging through him, mixed with fear for Steph. And then the thought he’d been trying to ignore, the one that had been lying dormant in the darkest recess of his mind, the one he denied airtime to, rose up like a tsun
ami and swamped him. He stared at his brother, seeing him for what he was.
‘What’s wrong, Harry? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ said Dominic, with more than a hint of nonchalance.
‘You. It was you.’ Harry’s pulse throbbed in his neck. He was shouting now. ‘You wanted Elizabeth out of the picture, didn’t you?’ He slammed his fist down onto the sideboard, making Dominic jump.
‘What the fuck are you on about?’ Dominic raised his own voice and met his brother eye to eye.
‘Elizabeth’s death – you had something to do with it, didn’t you?’ He grabbed his brother by the lapels and yanked him towards him until their faces were only inches apart.
Dominic struggled, trying to prise Harry’s hands from his jacket. ‘Get off me! You fucking idiot!’ he yelled. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Harry was aware of the door flying open and someone running into the office.
‘What the …?’
It was Owen. He tugged at Harry. Another pair of arms wrapped themselves around Harry’s shoulders and he was pulled backwards, releasing Dominic as he did so. It was then he realised Antonio had rushed in with Owen.
Harry was being hustled up against the wall, Antonio standing in front of him, his hands slightly raised, ready to make a grab for Harry if he moved again. Owen was pacifying Dominic, who was calling Harry a variety of names, none of them complimentary.
‘I’m all right,’ said Harry to Antonio. ‘Honestly, I’m fine.’
Antonio didn’t look convinced, but a nod from Dominic and he left the room.
‘Just what the hell is going on?’ asked Owen.
Dominic straightened his jacket. ‘You need to ask that idiot over there.’
Owen looked to Harry for an explanation.
Harry’s gaze fixed on his older brother. ‘Was it you?’
‘Don’t be such a prick,’ said Dominic, smoothing down his hair. ‘You don’t get it, do you? It wasn’t me. Yeah, I like this place. I earn a good living from it. It’s a family business, but Conmere is not my blood group. If you cut me, I wouldn’t bleed Conmere.’ Dominic flicked a look to Owen and then back to Harry. ‘None of us in this room would.’
