Little Pink Taxi

by Marie Laval

  She looked at Geoff again. ‘You said Tyler found me. How can you be so sure?’

  ‘A few months ago, I received an anonymous letter demanding a large sum of money in exchange for your mother’s past to be kept a secret. An old photo of your mother was attached.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Well, you’ve seen some of the photos. I don’t need to tell you any more.’

  Rosalie clenched her fists. ‘How do you know it was from him?’

  Geoff sighed. ‘I don’t. I assumed it was from him.’

  ‘Did you pay up?’

  He nodded. ‘I didn’t want your mother’s past life to be dragged up into the open and become the talk of Irlwick. I didn’t want you to be ashamed of her.’

  His hard blue stare stopped her from protesting. ‘I should have known paying up that first time wouldn’t be the end of the matter. A few weeks later, I got another letter, then another, and every time the amount of money the blackmailers asked for was higher.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the police? They could have stopped this.’

  ‘Perhaps, but there would have been a scandal, and everybody would have known about your mum. I tried to catch who was behind the blackmail and lay in wait at the different places where I was asked to leave the money – usually car parks in the national park – but they were very clever, or lucky. I never saw them.’

  ‘You sold your classic cars to be able to pay up, didn’t you?’

  Geoff nodded. ‘They were my only source of ready cash. You know as well as I do how little there is in my bank account. Rupert was still working for me then. He had contacts in London, and he helped me sell the cars.’

  She stepped closer to him, took his hand and gave it a little squeeze. ‘Oh, Geoff. You took Rupert into your confidence, when you should have told me the full story.’

  He shrugged. ‘I didn’t want you to worry. I must say that Rupert surprised me at the time. He wasn’t his usual brattish self. He didn’t ask me why I was selling the cars, didn’t even demand a commission for arranging the transactions. He genuinely helped. Then the blackmailers made more specific threats against you, and I realised I needed to take more drastic action to keep you safe.’

  ‘So you decided to sell Raventhorn.’

  ‘That way I could pay all my debts and give you enough money to disappear and make a new start somewhere where you would be safe.’

  ‘You should have known I would never leave you or Lorna.’ Tears pricked Rosalie’s eyes.

  He sighed. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I put Raventhorn up for sale. I had to be discreet. I didn’t want Rupert to find out. You know how obsessed he is with inheriting the place and being the laird. Anyway, one day last August I caught him sneaking out with the Landseer painting from the Crimson Room.’

  ‘That’s why you sacked him.’

  He nodded. ‘I should have done it a long time before.’

  He closed his eyes and took a moment to catch his breath.

  ‘He kicked up a fuss, of course, and said he was in big trouble. He had some gambling debts, and needed some cash. Call me soft or stupid but I didn’t want him to upset his mother, so I gave him some money and he left. By that time I was getting desperate to sell Raventhorn, but no one was interested in a decrepit castle with acres of forest, a loch and a few live-in ghosts. I didn’t know what to do, who to turn to, until I read an article about Sigmund Petersen and saw the photo of the runestone on his father’s farm. I knew then that I’d found the link I’d been looking for all these years between Harald and his homeland. I went over to North Jutland—’

  Rosalie frowned. ‘I don’t remember you travelling to Denmark.’

  ‘I told you I was going to Orkney. I didn’t want anyone to know about Petersen. Anyway, I found the old farm and the runestone, researched Petersen’s genealogy in local parish records and the national archives in Copenhagen and found there was indeed a connection – albeit a tenuous one – with Harald Johansen’s lineage. I then contacted Sigmund Petersen and offered to sell him Raventhorn. He was my best chance. Not only was he rich but as a distant relation of Harald’s, I hoped he would be interested.’

  He paused, turned to Rosalie and smiled. ‘He was.’

  ‘What about Lorna?’

  ‘She understood my reasons. You see, Lorna was a friend of your mother’s even before you came to live at Raventhorn. They met through her sister. It was Lorna who told your mother to come to Raventhorn.’

  Geoff took hold of her hand. ‘Now, listen, Rosalie, you understand that you must be very careful. When he came to see me at the hospital, before my operation, Rupert mentioned a couple of nasty incidents you and Duncan had been involved in. Has anything else happened since?’

  ‘No, nothing,’ she lied. He was too frail to tell him the truth about her troubles.

  Geoff blew a relieved breath. ‘That’s good. Listen, I have Tyler’s diary and other papers of your mother’s in a blue metal box on the work unit in the garage. The key is in the cupboard, Sellotaped to the underside of the bottom shelf. Give everything to the police. They’ll deal with Tyler.’

  She nodded. ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand. If it was Tyler blackmailing you, then why didn’t he just ask for his diary back?’

  ‘Who knows? He is a criminal after all. He probably wanted to get as much as he could from me first, then he would have come for the diary.’ He relaxed against the pillows, closed his eyes. As if on cue, the nurse marched back into the room. ‘This time, that’s enough. Mr McBride, you will take your medication and go to sleep.’

  There wasn’t a trace of a smile on her face when she turned to Rosalie. ‘And you will leave. He really must rest.’

  Rosalie nodded. The nurse was right. Geoff looked drained and exhausted. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She cast one last glance in his direction. He looked so frail, so vulnerable, so old. For years he had done everything in his power to protect her and her mother. Now it was her turn to keep him safe. She would find that brute Jake Tyler – the man she could never think of as her father – and the men he employed from his prison cell to blackmail Geoff, and she would show him that she wasn’t afraid.

  She clenched her fists. Yes, she would show him.

  The drive back to Raventhorn seemed interminable. The roads were dark and almost empty once she left Inverness behind. Motorists had obviously heeded the weather warnings for snow and gone home early. Fat snowflakes danced and swirled in the headlights, and she had to focus hard on the road when all she wanted to do was think about Geoff’s revelations about her mother … and father.

  When she arrived at Raventhorn, she went straight into the garage and stood in front of the tool shelf. Among the screwdrivers, pincers, rolls of duct tape, half-open cans of car polish and rugs smelling of paint and turpentine, old driving gloves and spare parts covered in oil were several metal tool boxes, all reminders of the classic cars Geoff had lovingly restored and tended to for years.

  She reached out for the blue box and placed it on the worktop before walking over to the cupboard, getting down on her knees and searching for the key, which Geoff had said was Sellotaped to the shelf. He really had taken a lot of precautions to make sure her mother’s papers were secure, she thought as she pulled off the tape and caught the small key in the palm of her hand.

  She slipped it into her anorak pocket and tucked the box under her arm. She wanted to be in Raventhorn to open it, not in that cold, smelly garage. A dark and silent Raventhorn greeted her. Shivering with cold and nerves, she went up to the drawing room, and sat down on the rug with the box in front of her. The key was so tiny and her fingers shook so much it took several clumsy attempts to unlock the box. Holding her breath, she lifted the lid up and peered inside.

  There wasn’t much – a few official documents and faded photos, an old passport, and a small diary bound in dark blue leather. That was all her mother had salvaged of her past after running away.

  Half an hour later, she sat back on her heels, tears str
eaming down her face as her mother smiled at her from a faded photograph. Sophie looked so young, so happy and vibrant. So beautiful too. It must have been hard for her to deliberately sabotage her looks and make herself dull so that she could blend into the background. Erasing her looks and her past had been the price of her and her daughter’s safety.

  From what Rosalie had managed to piece together from the various documents and certificates, her mother had grown up in South London, the only child of Mike and Angela Heart. She had studied art, English literature and history at her local college before attending East London Poly and graduating with a degree in art and design.

  Rosalie touched the battered blue cover of her mother’s old passport. Tucked inside were a handful of photos of a baby girl – herself, presumably – and the couple from the graduation photo. Her grandparents.

  She would make sure these photos were displayed as they should have been all these years. They would never be locked into that blue box ever again, and forgotten.

  Her fingers toyed with the diary. She flicked through the pages covered in tight scribbles – dates, names, addresses. She leaned closer. How odd. Some of the names looked Russian. One in particular kept cropping up: Bazanov, Anatoly Bazanov. Was he, and the other Russians, associates of Tyler, or were they his victims?

  Just touching the thing made her want to be sick. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Jake Tyler, the thug who had destroyed her mother and her family. She would give it to the police the following morning.

  The whirring of a car engine followed by the screeching of tyres on the courtyard’s cobbles ripped through the silence. A car door slammed, and seconds later a hard fist pummelled the kitchen door.

  ‘Rosalie, open up. I know you’re in there,’ Rupert shouted from outside. ‘I’m warning you. If you don’t open this door right now, I’ll kick it in.’

  He would be capable of doing it too! Rosalie looked around in a panic. She gathered the photos and documents, shoved them all back into the blue box, slapped the cover shut and turned the key in the lock. She slid the box under the large oak dresser, threw the key into one of the drawers and ran down to the kitchen where Rupert’s bulky silhouette was clearly visible through the door’s frosted glass panel.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘About time.’

  Rupert strode into the kitchen and pushed her out of the way.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked, even though she knew exactly why he was there.

  ‘I want some answers, and I want what’s mine.’

  He was so close she could smell the beer on his breath, saw the blood vessels in his eyes and felt the anger that always seemed to sizzle around him like an electric current. She stiffened her spine and forced a deep breath down.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was about to make a cup of tea. I’ll make you one too. Or maybe I should make you some black coffee. From the booze fumes you’re giving off, I gather you need to sober up.’

  He grabbed her arm and his fingers closed around her wrist. ‘Don’t go all superior on me. You know exactly what I’m talking about.’ He pushed her until her back caught the edge of the table. He shoved harder until she was reclining on the table and he was almost on top of her.

  ‘What are you doing? Let go of me.’ This time her voice held a trace of panic, her breathing came out too fast and her heart beat so hard it hurt.

  He smirked. ‘I know Geoff sold Raventhorn to that Petersen guy. There’s no point in denying it. I went to see Marion earlier. She told me that the woman who works for Petersen – Kirsty Marsh – was now staying at the Four Winds, so I drove there to talk to her. She confirmed it.’

  He leaned further forward, got hold of her left wrist and pinned both her hands to the table by her sides. His legs encased hers like a cage, his breath touched her face like a cloud of warm, noxious mist.

  ‘Geoff said Raventhorn was mine, but he sold it. So now I want my money. If I can’t have this place, at least I can have the money from the sale.’

  ‘Money? I don’t have any money.’ She tried to laugh but only managed a squeak.

  He leaned closer, and slammed her hands onto the table. ‘You’re lying. Geoff thought he could con me out of the money like he conned me out of this place. Well, he can’t. I bet he gave you most of it, didn’t he? He always liked you best – you and your slag of a mother.’

  Rosalie swallowed hard. Rupert’s eyes were glazed, his face flushed beetroot, his breathing hard. He looked beyond listening, beyond reasoning, yet she had to try.

  ‘Listen, Rupert, you may not believe it but it’s the truth. He didn’t tell me he was selling up. I had no idea Petersen had bought Raventhorn until the day he arrived. I swear Geoff hasn’t given me any money. I can show you my bank statements if you want, and you’ll see there’s hardly anything in my account.’

  ‘Then I’ll look at Geoff’s bank statements. He must have the money somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t even know which bank or building society he put the proceeds of the sale into,’ she said.

  He stared at her as if trying to determine if she was lying or not. She must have put in a good performance because he finally nodded.

  ‘Then I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we? So here’s what we’ll do. We’re going to get his bank details, and then we’ll think of a way of transferring the funds into my account.’

  The man was deluded, he wasn’t thinking straight! There was no way he could do that, and even if there was, she would never help him steal Geoff’s money. She was however desperate to be freed from under his weight – desperate enough to promise anything.

  ‘All right. I’ll see what I can do. Will you let me go?’

  She held her breath, uncomfortably aware of his body pressing against her, of the hot glint in his eyes, the white spittle at the corner of his mouth, and his raspy breathing. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to move, but at last he straightened up and she slid away from him.

  ‘Forget tea,’ he said, ‘I’ll have some of that whisky Geoff always keeps handy.’

  ‘Sure.’ She opened the cupboard to get the bottle of liquor down. She started to pour some into a tumbler but Rupert snatched the bottle away.

  ‘I don’t need a glass.’ He drank a few swallows straight from the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swayed against the kitchen worktop. ‘We’ll start in the library. I know he keeps his bank statements there.’ He gestured to the door with the bottle. ‘Let’s go.’

  Once in the library, he started flicking through the piles of books and folders towering on Geoff’s desk and littering the floor while she pretended to search the shelves. He wouldn’t find any bank statements in the library because she had moved them after his last visit, but she intended to stall him for as long as possible. The man was delusional, and unhinged. How could he not understand that even if he got hold of Geoff’s bank details, he would not be able to transfer the funds into his own account without Geoff’s authorisation?

  ‘Damn!’ He slammed his hand on the desk. ‘I’m sick of this. Where can these bloody statements have disappeared to?’ He glanced around. ‘They were here last time I came.’ He glared at her. ‘Do you have any idea where they could be? And that diary I already asked you about? Are you sure you’ve never seen it? I told you what it looks like. It’s small, dark blue.’

  She felt the blood drain from her face. Rupert had just described Tyler’s diary. But no. It was impossible! How could he know about it?

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ She hoped he hadn’t heard the hesitation in her voice.

  He narrowed his eyes and walked towards her.

  ‘Yes, you do.’ He grabbed hold of her arms and shook her so hard a shard of pain shot through her injured shoulder and she let out a cry. ‘Answer me. Where are they?’

  She pressed her lips together. He shook her again, harder. This time the pain was so intense her breath caught in her throat, lights s
parked in front of her eyes and a wave of nausea made her heave.

  ‘Tell me, you stupid bitch,’ he growled.

  Still she did not speak.

  ‘Then you leave me no choice.’ Rupert said. ‘I’ll call my friends. They’ll know how to make you talk.’ He pushed her away and searched through his jeans pocket for his phone. Looking at the screen, he scrolled down a list of numbers, pressed a key and put the phone to his ear.

  This was her chance to escape – her chance to run to the kitchen, get her keys, and drive to the police station. But as she made a dash for the door her foot caught one of the books Rupert had thrown to the floor and she fell face forward. The last thing she saw was a flash of light as her head hit the corner of the desk. The last thing she felt was an explosion of pain in her skull. Then there was nothing.

  Marc woke up with a start, his heart pounding, his body covered with sweat. Something was wrong. He glanced around his hotel room but didn’t see anything amiss, so he tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut. It was probably due to a bad dream brought about by his meetings with the coroner and the prospect of his father’s funeral later today.

  The investigators’ report was clear and unequivocal. The accident had been due to poor weather conditions. No technical fault or human error was to blame. His father hadn’t been piloting the helicopter. Therefore the argument they’d had just before he took to the air had not caused the crash, and he could stop tormenting himself with guilt. His telling his father that he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep on working for him hadn’t upset him so much he had not concentrated on piloting the craft and crashed into the mountain.

  After coming back to his hotel room, he’d stayed up late, drinking cognac, revisiting the past and thinking about what his mother had told him. His soul-searching had made him feel quite sick and disgusted with himself.

  He had wronged his parents. Misjudged them. He’d always thought they were so wrapped up in each other and in his father’s business that there was no place for him in their life. In reality, he had been the stubborn and cold-hearted one. How often had he pleaded schoolwork, a rugby tournament or a school trip to avoid going home at weekends or cut short a half-term holiday? He had behaved like a spoilt brat, and had rebuffed any attempt they’d made to be closer, whilst placing his grandfather on a pedestal.