Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave it to him to find out, if he can.’

  Henry still harboured doubts about Guy, but he definitely liked the business. Guy, Ingrid, Gaz and I made a presentation to Henry’s partners later on that week that seemed to go well. Guy and I went back to Orchestra’s offices the following day to thrash out a deal.

  It took time. Essentially, we were arguing about what proportion of Ninetyminutes Orchestra’s ten million pounds would buy. After several hours we were still some way apart when Henry raised the question of Tony’s stake.

  ‘I’m not happy with how little of the company management will have after this round,’ he said. ‘Whatever price we agree, it’s going to be less than ten per cent. I don’t like that. Not enough incentive.’

  ‘I wouldn’t argue with that,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you should pay more?’

  ‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it,’ said Henry. ‘It’s Guy’s father. He must be diluted.’

  ‘That’s going to be difficult,’ said Guy.

  ‘How did he end up with so much of the company in the first place?’ asked Henry.

  ‘We were desperate,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, I don’t mind giving him some uplift on the value of his shares, but we need to figure out a way of getting you chaps a bigger stake.’

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll agree to that,’ said Guy.

  ‘I’ll make it easier for him,’ said Henry. ‘He’d better agree to it, or there will be no deal.’

  ‘We have our board meeting on Monday. We’ll discuss it then,’ said Guy.

  So Guy and I went away to plan our approach to Tony. Guy had told Henry it would be a difficult discussion. Neither he nor I had any idea just how difficult.

  23

  July 1992, Mull

  The airfield was nothing but a strip of mown grass with an unmanned caravan beside it, which contained a cash box for landing fees. But only a few yards away was a hotel with a Scandinavian-style conservatory giving an excellent view of my landing. None of us had any desire to fly any further that day, so we checked in. Half an hour later we were in the bar. A couple of hours after that we were all well on the way to getting plastered.

  You couldn’t blame us. Guy’s nerve had been seriously shaken and alcohol was his natural refuge. I had kept mine, but had a felt a surge of relief when we had finally landed. Mel had been terrified. Even Ingrid, who had seemed to stay cool, was knocking them back. For all of us at that age and in those circumstances drink was the natural response.

  None of us mentioned what had happened. Far from admitting his error, Guy indulged in alcoholic bravado. I let him. Deep down I knew that I had trusted Guy for too long and that as a result of that trust he had almost killed us. It was a truth that I was unwilling to face, or at least not yet. I was unsure whether the girls had realized exactly what had happened. I wasn’t about to tell them. I was quite happy to share in the excitement of being alive.

  The nearest we got to touching on the subject was when Mel put down her rum and Coke and said: ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘What about tomorrow?’ said Ingrid.

  ‘Sod tomorrow,’ said Guy.

  ‘Tomorrow I’m going to take the train home.’

  ‘Won’t work,’ said Guy. ‘We’re on an island.’

  ‘Good point. I’ll take a ferry and then a train.’

  Guy looked at her for a moment, as though considering argument. There was no point. ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Ingrid.

  ‘Davo?’ After all the bravado, Guy suddenly looked small, deflated. He needed my support.

  ‘We’ll make sure the girls get away OK and then I’ll come with you,’ I said. ‘But I think we should fly straight back to Elstree. Provided the weather’s OK.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Guy, relieved. He stood up and reached for our glasses. ‘My round.’

  We drank on into the evening, nourishing ourselves on crisps and peanuts. Ingrid’s eyes began to close. ‘I’m sleepy,’ she said, with a small smile on her face, and slipped over against Guy’s shoulder. He moved her upright. She slipped over again. He lifted her up. She waited a few seconds and then fell back. This time he let her head rest there.

  It was innocent drunken fun, but there was something about it that sparked a surge of irritation in me. The purpose of this trip had been for me to get closer to Ingrid. How was I supposed to do that when she was slumped against Guy? In fact, how was I supposed to do that when she was so drunk? A little tipsy was fine, but I didn’t want the start of a relationship to be a drunken bonk that she wouldn’t remember and couldn’t prevent.

  I felt Mel tense next to me. ‘Guy?’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where were you on Tuesday?’

  ‘Tuesday? I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘Because you said you’d come round to my place on Tuesday.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t remember that.’ Guy was the picture of innocence. Hammy, unconvincing innocence. You would never have known he was an actor.

  ‘So where were you?’

  ‘I was with Davo. Wasn’t I, Davo?’

  I remembered Tuesday. We had gone to a bar in Chelsea. Guy had picked up an American redhead. I had left early. Guy knew he could rely on me to cover for him in these situations.

  But not this time.

  ‘Only at the beginning of the evening. I left at half past eight.’

  Guy looked at me askance. ‘That’s not right. That can’t be right.’

  ‘I got home for the nine o’clock news. I can remember it.’

  Mel was watching this. She wasn’t dumb. She could see that there was a little wedge between me and Guy. She hammered at it.

  ‘So what did you do when David left you?’

  Guy shrugged. ‘Went home, I suppose. Watched the nine o’clock news myself.’

  Tears sprang into Mel’s eyes. ‘You were with a girl, weren’t you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Guy. ‘I wasn’t with a girl, Mel.’ He spoke slowly and steadily and looked her straight in the eye. I watched him. He was convincing. Totally convincing. I found myself wondering whether I had really seen him with the redhead that night. Maybe he was an actor after all.

  Mel hesitated, her certainty shaken for a moment. Then she renewed her attack. ‘I called you. You weren’t in. You were with a girl.’ She turned to me. ‘Wasn’t he, David?’

  I shrugged.

  Guy shot me a look of the ‘Cheers, mate’ variety. But he wasn’t too worried. He knew Mel knew. She must have known for a while. But she still stayed with him. He was toying with her.

  ‘And what about the Friday before?’

  ‘Let me see …’ said Guy.

  ‘Was it the same girl?’

  It had been a different girl. It was always a different girl. But I couldn’t tell Mel that.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Guy.

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid? Do you? Do you!’

  Mel stared at Guy. Ingrid was upright now, watching her.

  Guy was just a little too drunk. The corner of his mouth twitched up. Just a smidgeon. Just enough to send Mel over the edge.

  She slammed her glass down on the table. ‘You sit there laughing at me! Treat me like some stupid tart who’ll keep a bed warm for you when you can’t find anything better. Do you ever wonder how I feel? Do you know what it’s like to sit at home, waiting for you to come, never knowing whether you will or whether you’ll have picked up some schoolgirl at the local Burger King?’

  ‘Schoolgirl?’ said Guy, as though insulted that he had been accused of underage sex.

  ‘You’re just as bad as your father!’ said Mel. ‘Worse!’

  ‘I guess you’d know,’ said Guy, quietly. Dangerously.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’d know how I compared to my father.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘How can I say that?’ Guy said,
his anger finally rising. ‘You say you don’t like the way I treat you. I didn’t seduce your mother. You want respect, but how do you expect me to respect you after what you did with my father?’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ Mel said. ‘I’ve told you how much I regretted that.’

  Guy shrugged and reached for his glass.

  ‘And anyway, what about what you did in France? Your little secret deals? Your cover-ups.’

  Guy looked at her sharply, his glass an inch from his lips.

  ‘Don’t act all innocent, Guy. I know.’

  Guy didn’t look at all innocent. He looked shaken. And worried. He put his glass down without taking a drink.

  ‘Like I said. You’re worse than your father.’ There was a note of cruel triumph in Mel’s voice. She knew she had hit home.

  ‘Mel,’ said Ingrid, reaching a hand unsteadily towards her.

  ‘You keep out of this. I saw you falling all over him!’

  ‘We were only mucking around,’ said Ingrid.

  ‘You’ve had your eyes on him the whole time, you slut!’ Mel sneered.

  Ingrid withdrew her hand. She looked genuinely hurt.

  ‘That wasn’t fair,’ I said to Mel.

  ‘I don’t give a shit.’ She stood up. ‘I’m getting my stuff and I’m going to stay somewhere else tonight. And I’ll make my own way back to London tomorrow.’

  She stormed out of the bar and up the stairs to her room.

  We exchanged glances, stunned. Ingrid swayed unsteadily and looked as if she was going to cry. Guy grinned weakly. I got up to follow Mel.

  Guy and Mel were sharing a room. I found the door open and Mel zipping up her bag.

  ‘Where are you going to go?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Anywhere.’

  ‘But we’re in the middle of nowhere!’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ll walk all night if I have to. I just have to get away from those two.’

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing between Guy and Ingrid.’

  ‘You show me a woman that isn’t after Guy and I’ll show you a lesbian,’ muttered Mel.

  ‘That’s not true.’

  She stood upright, a tear trickling unrestrained down her cheek. ‘I was right about him though, wasn’t I? About last Friday?’

  Her eyes were burning, looking straight into mine. I couldn’t lie to her. I nodded.

  ‘And other times?’

  I shrugged. There was no need to nod.

  She grabbed her bag and pushed past me down the stairs. She was marching past the front desk when I called after her. ‘Hang on a minute, Mel.’

  She paused.

  ‘They’ll need your key.’

  She handed it to me. I asked the manager behind the desk whether there was a bed and breakfast nearby that Mel could go to. I told him she had had an argument with her boyfriend and her room at the hotel would still be paid for. He understood, reached for his telephone, and had a brief conversation with a Mrs Campbell. He directed me to a place half a mile down the road.

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ I said to Mel.

  I handed the key to the manager, picked up her bag and walked out with her into the dusk. Although it was late, it wasn’t dark yet at this latitude. The birds were noisily preparing for their brief sleep. There was no traffic on the road. On one side was the sea, with the Scottish mainland clearly visible over the sound, on the other a mountain. We trudged along in silence, silence apart from intermittent sniffs from Mel.

  She mumbled something.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I probably deserve it.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ I said.

  ‘After France. And his bloody father. I probably deserve it.’

  I put my arm around her and squeezed. She needed comfort. She deserved comfort. ‘Not because of that,’ I said. ‘Never because of that. That’s best forgotten.’

  ‘I try to push it out of my mind. And I can for a while. But only for a while.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. Remembering Dominique. Her body. Making love to her. The ridiculous euphoria afterwards. And then learning about her death. And the guilt. The guilt.

  That week had left its scars on all of us: Mel, me. And Guy.

  ‘Back there you said something about Guy,’ I said. ‘About his secret deals. His cover-ups.’

  ‘That was nothing.’

  ‘It must have been something,’ I said. ‘It seemed to worry the hell out of him.’

  ‘You’re right, it was something.’ We walked on as Mel gathered her thoughts. Then she spoke. ‘You know why the gardener ran away?’

  ‘Yeah. He’d killed Dominique. He didn’t want to hang around and get caught.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. He was paid to run away. By Hoyle and Guy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I overheard them talking. They were in the dining room and I was just outside.’

  ‘I remember,’ I said. ‘I found you there.’

  ‘Did you? I don’t remember that. But I do remember what they were saying.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They were talking about how they would pay the gardener five hundred thousand francs to disappear. Apparently Owen had spied on him having sex with Dominique, and the idea – Guy’s idea – was to tell the police this. Then once he had gone they would be bound to suspect him of killing her. Especially since the jewellery was missing.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Sure enough, that afternoon the gardener disappeared. And the police never found him.’

  ‘Until this year.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. Didn’t you know? Actually, I’m not surprised Guy didn’t tell you. They found him a few weeks ago in a dustbin in Marseilles.’

  ‘How tidy.’

  ‘So the gardener was the fall-guy to deflect suspicion from the real killer?’

  ‘To deflect suspicion from someone, certainly.’

  ‘What about the jewellery case that was found in his room?’

  ‘Must have been planted.’

  ‘By Hoyle?’

  ‘Presumably. Or maybe he arranged for somebody else to plant it.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  The road was empty. It was getting dark now, the gloom was pressing down on the water a few yards away from us. I thought through what Mel had just told me. It all hung together. I had heard Hoyle repeating the gardener’s name; it was quite possible that Mel could have overheard the rest. I remembered Ingrid’s comment as we were leaving Les Sarrasins: the disappearance was too convenient. According to Mel it was Guy’s idea and Hoyle fixed it. Very possible.

  ‘So they were trying to cover for Tony? Divert the police’s attention away from him and on to the gardener?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve assumed,’ said Mel. ‘Most of the time.’

  ‘Most of the time?’

  ‘Sometimes, just occasionally, at times like now, I wonder.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if Tony didn’t kill his wife. If Guy was trying to cover for someone else.’

  ‘Himself?’

  ‘As I said. Sometimes I wonder.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ I said. I could believe Tony had killed Dominique. But not Guy. Surely not Guy. ‘You’re just angry with him.’

  ‘I’m certainly that,’ said Mel.

  ‘You didn’t tell the police any of this?’

  ‘No. If Guy was covering for his father, I didn’t want to spoil it.’

  ‘What about Guy? Have you ever told him?’

  ‘He doesn’t know I know. Bastard.’

  We approached a row of cottages, one of which bore a discreet B&B sign. Mrs Campbell must have been briefed by the manager because she was very welcoming to Mel, even though it was so late. I left her at the door and wandered back to the hotel in the gathering dark, thinking about what Mel had said.

  Could Guy really have killed Dominique?


  I was confident that Mel was telling the truth about what she had overheard. But not about her conclusions. She was just being vindictive, surely. It was ridiculous to think that Guy had killed his stepmother. Wasn’t it?

  I thought about Guy. I had known him for many years. I counted him as a friend. He wasn’t a cold-hearted murderer.

  Or had I just fallen under his spell like Mel and so many other women before her? Like Torsten, for that matter. Like all his other friends.

  I thought about the flight that afternoon. About the blind determination with which he had flown the aeroplane up that glen, ignoring me, leading us on to a certain collision with the mountain.

  Did I really know Guy?

  Then I remembered something. The footprint outside Dominique’s window. Guy’s footprint. Unlike Mel, unlike the French police, probably unlike Patrick Hoyle, I knew it hadn’t been put there by Guy on his way to bed. So how the hell had it got there?

  The police had had a theory. That’s why they had arrested Guy. What if their theory was correct?

  I stopped and looked out over the sound. It was dark now. I could hear the wavelets lapping against the shore a few yards in front of me. A solitary car drove past, its headlights briefly illuminating the ruffled surface of the sea before plunging it into an even greater darkness. I could hear the engine for a full minute after it had passed me.

  I had fallen under Guy’s spell. I had known it was happening: more than that, I’d been happy to let it happen. I had had more fun in the last couple of months than any time since I started work. The drinking, the late nights, the chasing women. We were only young once, so we may as well enjoy it: that was Guy’s motto, and I was embracing it. His life seemed so much more colourful than mine. I coveted it.

  Or did I? I remembered the bus journey back from France when I had realized that the lives of people like Guy weren’t all they were cracked up to be. I had forgotten that lesson. Guy’s father was a bastard, I knew that. Was Guy turning into a bastard as well? He might ignore the way he was treating Mel, or claim that she deserved it, but that didn’t mean I should too. His acting career was going nowhere. His life was going nowhere. Did I really want to join him on that journey?