Pippa stared, wide-eyed. She tried to imagine what it must feel like to have grown up thinking you are the sole progeny of your parents, only to find out you’ve had a sibling all along.
‘Anyway, Cara became a model like her mam. But it’s a tough business, Pippa, you have to understand. She did some stupid things when she was a teenager. She was taken advantage of.’
‘What happened?’
‘Some sleazy photographer persuaded her to do a glamour photo shoot, told her he’d make her famous. The usual shite.’ Finn shook his head. ‘Cara believed him. But he never published the photos so she moved on. Then she got a break with Skylark and moved over here. She met Melissa at a fashion gig and she was so excited to have found a connection with me that she told her about us being brother and sister.’
Pippa forgot how to breathe.
‘Melissa knows?’
‘Aye. And when Melissa pretended to be her friend, Cara told her about the dodgy photos. She was worried they’d come back and bite her on the arse.’ His lip curled into a distasteful snarl. ‘Melissa must have thought all her Christmases had come at once. She’d been trying to persuade Aaron Janssen to go into business with her for ages when Rhys Bradford broke his leg, putting me in the driver’s seat. She tracked down the photos and told me if we wanted Cara’s past put to bed then I should let Skylark win the Gold Cup. Everyone knows Janssen is just using horseracing as a marketing strategy so Melissa fixing the Gold Cup for him to win allowed their business venture to go ahead.’
‘Melissa fixed the Gold Cup?’ Pippa cried. ‘No way, Finn. She’s not exactly my favourite person, sure, but not even she is capable of doing something so evil.’
‘You’d better believe it.’ He gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Melissa the Malicious. She’s too ambitious for her own good – for anybody’s good.’
‘And Aaron Janssen? I can’t believe he’d agree to any of this...’ Her voice faded away at Finn’s sceptical look. ‘Really?’
‘Racing’s nothing more than a marketing tool to him, like I said. I don’t know the exact agreement they came to. All I know is Melissa came to me – in fact you saw us.’
Pippa’s jaw dropped as the memory flooded back.
‘The night at the Turkish restaurant.’
Finn nodded.
‘Yes. She showed me the photos – they were something brutal, Pippa. Really bad.’ His face contorted in anguish. ‘It would have ruined Cara’s career just when it was picking up. Melissa told me she’d destroy the pictures if I let Skylark win the Gold Cup.’
‘But he didn’t win the Gold Cup!’
He shrugged and took a sip of his drink.
‘I did all I could. Virtuoso was going to win it doin’ handstands. When I looked around, the only other horse vaguely in contention was Skylark. I put him wrong at the fence, scuppered our chances. No one saw Zodiac coming. What more could I do?’
Pippa stared, unable to answer. She swallowed. Fear for her safety was now replaced with fear for Finn.
‘Wh-what happens now?’ she said. ‘You’re up against Skylark tomorrow in the National. Are you going to make Peace Offering lose too?’
Finn shook his head with vehemence.
‘No,’ he frowned. ‘I’m not doing it again. I did what Melissa asked. It’s not my fault Skylark didn’t win the Gold Cup. It’s not my fault Janssen won’t do this business deal with her now. The photos should have been destroyed already. Cara was just on the phone in a panic because apparently Melissa still has them. Cara thinks I should let Skylark win tomorrow.’
‘You can’t, Finn!’ Pippa cried.
‘I know, I know. That’s what I was saying to her. The National is anyone’s race. Feckin’ hell, there’s forty horses in it. Any of them could win. I’m not going to put my neck on the line again on the off-chance Janssen gets his name on the big screen.’
Pippa licked her lips. Finn was being so sincere. But he had been sincere in the past and look what had happened. Another terrifying thought occurred to her, making her throat contract.
‘What about Jack?’ she whispered. ‘Does he know?’
‘No. Jack is as straight as they come in racing.’
Her shoulders sagged as a sigh of relief washed through her.
‘You have to tell him.’
‘No!’ Finn replied in horror. ‘He’d have me hung, drawn and quartered if he even found out.’
‘But how are you going to get Melissa to destroy the photos? She’s blackmailing you, Finn! Jack would help, I know he would,’ she insisted.
Finn shook his head, a small smile on his face.
‘You are too trusting, Pippa, you know. I didn’t want to involve you in this, it’s an ugly business. Best leave Jack out of it if we possibly can.’
‘Leave Jack out of what exactly?’ an icy voice from the doorway spoke up.
Finn choked on his drink. Pippa spilt hers all over her lap as Jack appeared through the open door.
‘Oh, fuck,’ she murmured.
He walked into the room and looked at them expectantly. Finn and Pippa shrunk in their seats like naughty schoolchildren.
‘Well?’ A muscle jumped in Jack’s jaw and he tapped his fingers against his hips, making him seem even broader and more intimidating.
Pippa darted a look at Finn. He was sitting, dumbstruck in his chair, paralysed with fear. If they could keep Jack calm then he was sure to help, she reasoned with herself. Annoying him by keeping him in the dark would just make things worse.
‘Finn?’ she prompted gently. ‘Tell him.’
The Irishman continued to stare at their boss.
Pippa realised he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to. She glanced behind her at the door.
‘Where’s Melissa?’ she asked.
Jack looked irritated at the diversion.
‘Downstairs waiting for me to fetch you. We were supposed to be meeting for drinks, in case you’ve forgotten.’
‘I – I got side-tracked. Here, you’d better sit down while we explain things.’
‘Explain what?’ he scowled.
Pippa gave him a meaningful look and he grudgingly sat down. She took a deep breath. She wasn’t so sure now how he might take her accusing his girlfriend of blackmail and race-fixing.
‘Right – um. Where shall we start?’ She gave a nervous laugh and looked at Finn.
Now that Jack was sitting down and looking less imposing, Finn seemed to have regained some composure. He downed the rest of his whisky and soda in three giant gulps.
‘I fixed the Gold Cup,’ he announced. ‘I fell off Virtuoso on purpose.’
Pippa held her breath and watched Jack for his reaction.
The trainer became very still. He stared silently at his jockey. His eyes were black.
‘You fixed the Gold Cup?’ he repeated.
‘Yes.’ Finn exhaled as if a burden of consciousness had shifted off his shoulders with his confession.
‘You got the ride on the surest favourite in the biggest race of the season and you threw it away?’ Jack’s voice trembled with rage yet his posture remained still.
Finn nodded.
‘After all the hard work everyone put in, you threw it away for corruption?’ Jack’s voice rose like an imminent volcanic eruption.
‘He was being blackmailed though,’ Pippa said quickly.
Jack transferred his glare to her.
‘What for? By whom?’
She exchanged a nervous look with Finn.
‘By Melissa,’ she said in a quiet voice.
Jack’s eyes widened and he sucked in his breath.
‘Ridiculous. Absolutely fucking ridiculous! She owns Virtuoso, for God’s sake!’
‘Exactly,’ Finn said. ‘Which is how it was so easy for her.’
Jack stood up and shook a finger at Finn.
‘Be careful what you say, Finn. You are on very shaky ground right now.’
Finn shrugged.
‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ he sai
d. ‘I was being blackmailed by Melissa to lose on Virtuoso so that Skylark could win.’
Jack stepped backwards, as if he’d been struck and sat down with a thud.
Pippa remembered Melissa’s reaction to the Gold Cup result and how she’d misinterpreted it.
‘Remember how she was so upset, or distracted I think you said, after the Gold Cup?’ she said.
Jack frowned, but nodded.
‘It wasn’t because Virtuoso had fallen. It was because Skylark got beaten on the line by Zodiac.’ Her heart ached to see the confusion raging in Jack’s eyes.
‘But why?’
‘She’d done a deal with Aaron Janssen to combine their labels if she bought him some publicity.’
Jack blinked at her, trying to process the information then looked at Finn.
‘How did you get involved then? What was she – they blackmailing you with?’
Pippa turned to Finn. This part of the story was for him to tell.
‘...but now it turns out the photos are still at large,’ Finn finished his tale for the second time.
Jack, who had sat wordless throughout, continued to stare at him.
Pippa twisted her hands in her jumper. She so wanted to shield Jack from the hurt, yet at the same time she desperately wanted him to believe Finn. His silence became too unbearable.
‘You believe him, don’t you?’ she said.
Jack looked at her, an intense challenge sparking his eyes.
‘Only one way to find out.’ He dipped into his pocket and withdrew his phone. He keyed in a number and without taking his eyes off Pippa, waited while it rang.
‘Hi Melissa – yes, I know you’re still downstairs. Change of plan. Can you come up to Room 288? I’ll explain when you get here... Just come up, will you? Thank you. Okay, see you in a minute.’ He snapped his phone closed and looked at them both, like a courtroom judge awaiting the final witness to testify on their case.
Pippa gulped. She felt like an amateur swimmer who’d just survived one tidal wave, only to see another approaching. Above the deathly silence in which they sat awaiting Melissa’s arrival, she could hear Jack grinding his teeth. She hazarded a look. He was watching her in a curious yet distracted way. His outward composure was surprisingly calm, only the movement of his jaw betrayed his tension. She bit her lip, wanting to apologise to him. She knew she had nothing to be sorry for – hell, all she had done was come round to raid the minibar. But the need to protect Jack was almost overwhelming.
Ridiculous! She mocked herself that he should need her protection. He was the most strong-minded, strong-willed man she knew, who could withstand the hardest knocks yet for some reason...
‘Jack, are you in here?’ Melissa called from the doorway.
His eyes flickered away from Pippa and he spoke over his shoulder.
‘Yes. Come through, will you?’
Melissa, dressed in a blue and grey satin dress which wrapped itself seductively around her figure, stopped when she saw Pippa and Finn sitting with Jack.
‘What’s going on?’ she said suspiciously.
‘Just a small problem, which I’m hoping you might be able to clear up for me,’ Jack said airily. ‘Come sit down.’
Her eyes narrowed at Finn.
‘No. I’ll stand, thank you. We’ve got a dinner reservation to keep.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Jack replied. ‘What do you know about a set of glamour photos of Cara Connolly?’
Melissa’s chin lifted ever so slightly in defiance.
‘Who?’ she replied.
Jack shook his head and sighed.
Pippa noticed a trace of sadness filter through his posture.
‘You’re lying, Melissa,’ he said.
‘What? No, I’m not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘There, you’re doing it again. Every time you lie, you tilt your nose up. Yes, you do know.’
‘That’s just stupid, Jack,’ Melissa chortled. ‘What is going on? What lies have these two been feeding you?’
Pippa felt like a lab chimpanzee under Melissa’s scrutiny.
‘Agh, for feck’s sake! You fixed the Gold Cup so Aaron Janssen would go into business with ye. Admit it!’ Finn said, flicking a dismissive hand at her.
Melissa deigned an offended expression and took a backward step. She looked at Jack, her eyes wide.
‘Jack, you don’t believe that, do you? You don’t think I had anything to do with Virtuoso falling, do you?’
A grim smirk tugged at the corner of Jack’s mouth.
‘Nobody said anything about Virtuoso, Mel.’
She gaped.
For the briefest of seconds, Pippa felt sorry for her, standing there alone with the three of them accusing her of blackmail.
‘What I can’t get my head round is why you would go to such extremes,’ he continued. ‘You let your father down, you let Virtuoso down... you let me down.’
Pippa looked at him in anguish, feeling his hurt, his betrayal. Glancing back at Melissa, she found the woman glaring at her. Her laser-beam of spite turned on Jack.
‘Let you down? While you carry on with Little Miss Sunshine here? At least I can trust my business! It doesn’t cheat on me!’
‘What? I’ve never cheated on you!’ Jack retorted.
‘No? Maybe not sexually, you haven’t. But you are so wrapped up in those fucking horses and your fucking secretary, who can do no fucking wrong in your eyes – how do you think that makes me feel?’ Melissa shouted. ‘So don’t sit there on your high horse and tell me I’ve let you down! All I was doing was looking after my own –’
‘Yes, but with no feckin’ concern for anybody else!’ Finn interrupted her. ‘You can ruin Cara’s career with those photos! I don’t know if this has been one big bluff just so you can get what you want from Aaron Janssen, but are you such an evil bitch that you’d bring everybody else down with you when you fail?’
‘If Cara hadn’t been so stupid in the first place, I wouldn’t be able to do this at all! She made her bed, she’s got to lie –’
‘She was seventeen!’ Finn roared. ‘She was a child! She’s still a child! And you know it because you took full advantage of her innocence!’ Trembling, he leapt to his feet. Melissa backed away. ‘Now, where are those photographs? Give them to me!’
Jack got up and gently pushed Finn down again.
‘I don’t have them with me,’ Melissa replied stubbornly.
Jack sighed and rested his hands on his hips.
‘Where are they?’
Melissa sneered at him.
‘Why should I tell you anything? Call yourself a boyfriend? Partners defend each other; they don’t attack each other.’
‘Melissa,’ Jack said, his tone grave. ‘You know blackmail is a criminal offence.’
Melissa gave a jeering laugh and threw a look at Finn.
‘You wouldn’t take me to court. All that expense, plus the publicity. The photos would be in the press before the case went to trial.’
Finn glared at her. Pippa knew as well as he did that she was right.
‘Finn mightn’t,’ Jack said. ‘But I might. Race-fixing is also an offence. You disrupted my business by making one of my horses lose. You lost me a huge amount of money in the process.’
‘Oh, bullshit,’ she spat. ‘Firstly, the money in jump racing is piss-poor. Secondly, I don’t think you’d do something like that. You’re so intent on being the good boss...’ She laughed mirthlessly in Pippa’s direction. ‘You wouldn’t do that to Finn.’
Jack shook his head and took another step forward.
‘Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t want Finn to be exposed to publicity when both his and Cara’s careers would be in jeopardy.’ He paused and a smile creased his eyes. ‘However, there is one person who would be mighty interested to hear what I have to say. He trusts me implicitly. I think you can vouch for his loyalty, can’t you, since he’s your father?’
Melissa’s eyes widened and her lips part
ed in shock.
‘You wouldn’t,’ she whispered.
Jack nodded.
‘Yes, I would.’
Her spiteful eyes now filled with tears and she lifted a trembling hand to her chest.
‘You can’t,’ she breathed. ‘He’d disown me.’
Jack nodded in agreement, his expression of ironic resignation.
‘You bet he would. The Mardling millions would go elsewhere and you know as well as I do, he wouldn’t think twice about it once he was certain. Daughter or no daughter.’
‘He couldn’t. That’s my inheritance. And my house, my car...’
‘Your father doesn’t associate with crooks. He wouldn’t want to know you.’ He paused. ‘Where are the photos, Mel?’ he said gently.
A lonely tear slid down her cheek.
‘They’re in my briefcase. In our room.’
‘I think you should go get them so we can be done with this once and for all.’
Melissa nodded, hopelessness rounding her shoulders. She turned to exit the room.
‘Oh, and while you’re at it,’ Jack called after her. ‘Get your things packed. You’ll need to speak to Reception, see if they’ve got any spare rooms available.’
Pippa watched her pause by the door then carry on into the hallway without answering. She couldn’t help but feel pity for Melissa. What she had done was inexcusable, but the desperation on her face, in her words, her sad reliance on a material world (quite literally) – it was upsetting to witness. She looked at Jack to gauge how he was taking things.
His mouth was set in a grim line.
‘I guess that’s it then,’ he concluded.
He walked over to the whisky bottle Finn had left out earlier and poured himself a couple of neat fingers. He threw it down his throat with a grunt.
‘Just about,’ Finn muttered. ‘She’s still got those photos.’
‘She’ll be back,’ Jack assured her. ‘The Mardling millions mean more to her than blackmailing you and your sister.’
Five minutes later, sure enough, Melissa walked back into the room. She held up a big manila envelope and tossed it onto the table.
Keeping the Peace Page 33
