Ghostly Business

by K. E. O'Connor

  “This is none of your business,” said Julius, his tone low and threatening.

  “I’m making it my business,” said Sebastien. “Does Cordelia know about this loan?”

  “What my mother knows is also none of your concern,” said Julius. “You are her plaything, and I know she’s already getting tired of you.”

  I looked down to see Flipper and Big Ginge listening into the conversation intently, their heads cocked to one side. Big Ginge was nestled between Flipper’s paws.

  “And my relationship with your mother is none of your business,” said Sebastien. “But it does worry me that you might be taking advantage of her.”

  “And you’d know all about that,” said Julius. “I know you’re not here because you love her.”

  “I do care for your mother,” said Sebastien. “And I care that you might be abusing your position as her son.”

  “How much do you want?” asked Julius.

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you pretend you’ve never seen this paperwork and suddenly decide you have to leave on urgent business and never come back, how much money would it take to make that happen?”

  I opened my mouth and stared at Helen. I hadn’t expected Julius to bribe Sebastien, and I knew how desperate he was for money so he could start his new life with Jasper. This could ruin our plans.

  Sebastien made a few garbled-sounding noises before clearing his throat. “It’s not about money.”

  I let out a relieved sigh, glad Sebastien wasn’t going to cave in.

  “You’ll have your price,” said Julius. “You must have, otherwise why would you be with my mother?”

  “It’s not right that you’re going to remortgage the castle without her knowing,” said Sebastien.

  “And it’s not right you’re dating a woman twice your age,” said Julius. “Seems both of us have got a few things wrong.”

  “I only want what’s right for Cordelia,” said Sebastien. “And you selling this castle out from under her isn’t it.”

  “She won’t lose a thing,” said Julius. “The investment is sound. The new park will pay for itself within five years. All I need is this initial investment. Once I have it, all the work can begin. I have everything planned out. And you are not going to get in my way and stop me from doing it.”

  “I could stop it if I told Cordelia what I’ve found out,” said Sebastien.

  “She won’t believe you if you go telling tales about me,” said Julius.

  “Why do you think Cordelia is still running the estate?” asked Sebastien. “She doesn’t trust you to do a good enough job of an existing business. Do you really think she’s going to let you loose on turning the grounds into some free-for-all full of bears and elephants?”

  “I’m not having bears.” Julius’s tone was sulky.

  “Your mother thinks you’re a joke,” said Sebastien. “And she’ll think that even more when she discovers what you’re trying to do. You’ll have to get her to sign off on this loan, and she’ll never agree to that.”

  I bit my bottom lip as their voices raised. This wasn’t going how I’d planned it. They weren’t supposed to be trading insults with each other. Sebastien should be asking Julius about Leo and what he knew about the loan for the park.

  “Maybe we need to intervene,” whispered Helen.

  “Give Sebastien one more minute,” I whispered back. “He might be trying to rile Julius up so he makes a mistake and confesses.”

  “It’s an interesting interview technique if it works,” said Helen.

  “Why don’t we get Mommy in here and see what she has to say about this?” asked Julius. “And she’ll be interested to hear that you accepted money from me to disappear.”

  “I did no such thing you little snake,” said Sebastien. “I should have done, though, this family is a nightmare. But what you’re doing is wrong and I want that straightened out.”

  “You haven’t been straight with us since you stepped through the front door,” said Julius. “I see the way you covet things around you and wish you’d been born into such wealth. It won’t be the same if you do marry my mother. She won’t give you what you want, she’ll keep you on a tight leash to make sure you do everything she expects of you, and if you don’t, the money will be cut off. And when your looks begin to fade she’ll find another replacement. You’re not that important to her.”

  “That is not how our relationship works,” muttered Sebastien.

  “So you’d be with her if she was poor?”

  I let out a sigh. This definitely wasn’t going how I’d planned it. Julius had the upper hand and was now interrogating Sebastien.

  “Cordelia is a nice person,” said Sebastien. “If she was poor, I wouldn’t care, so long as we were both happy.”

  Julius laughed quietly. “Of course you would. So, I’ll ask you again, how much is it going to take for you to keep your big mouth shut and leave this place for good?”

  I closed my eyes, sending out a wish in the hope Sebastien wasn’t going to give in.

  “Half a million,” muttered Sebastien.

  I gasped and jumped up but Helen pulled me swiftly down. “You’ll be seen if you’re not careful.”

  “Didn’t you hear him?” I said. “Sebastien’s going to accept a bribe. We should never have trusted him.”

  Julius laughed again. “I knew you were only in this relationship for the money. Now I have your words recorded on my phone, I’m going to let Mommy know all about it. You’re not going to get anything from us.”

  “You little sneak,” growled Sebastien. “Give me your phone.”

  There was the sounds of scuffling and a startled yelp from Julius.

  I looked through the window and saw Sebastien holding Julius in a headlock. I grabbed hold of the window ledge and hauled myself through. “Stop fighting you two.” I caught hold of Sebastien’s shoulder and tried to pull him away from Julius but he clung on tightly.

  “He tricked me,” said Sebastien, his normally neat hair sticking up. “He recorded our whole conversation.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But you can’t choke the information we need out of him.”

  “I’ll give it a good go,” said Sebastien. “Search his pockets and get his phone off him.”

  “Let me go!” yelled Julius. “I’ll have you arrested.” He smacked his hands against Sebastien’s arm.

  “Not if I throttle you first you won’t,” said Sebastien. He reached inside Julius’s jacket and grabbed the phone, before stamping on it. “Now your evidence is gone.”

  “You’d better let Julius go,” I said to Sebastien. “He’s injured. You don’t want to make things any worse.”

  “I can still tell Mommy that you were willing to accept money from me,” choked out Julius. “She’ll believe me over you.”

  “You need air in your lungs in order to do that,” said Sebastien.

  Helen jumped through the window and fell on the floor. “What did I miss?”

  “Just a couple of idiots,” I said, before turning back to Sebastien. “No one’s choking anybody, and no one’s going to tell tales to their mommy.”

  “But he deceived me,” said Sebastien.

  “And you were trying to do the same to him,” I said. “We all were.”

  “What are you talking about?” Julius’s eyes bulged in his head as he stared at me.

  “Let him go,” I said to Sebastien. “You’ve destroyed the evidence, so he can’t do you any harm.”

  Sebastien released his hold on Julius and he fell to the floor, his hand around his neck as he gasped in air. “You could have killed me you madman.”

  “Like you did your father,” said Sebastien.

  Flipper and Big Ginge suddenly leapt through the window together. Big Ginge careened across the room and landed on top of Julius, making him grunt as he squashed the air out of his stomach.

  Flipper charged after Big Ginge, only just missing Julius by leaping over him at the last second, c
ausing him to cower and yelp.

  “What are these crazy animals doing in here?” Julius pushed Big Ginge off his stomach and sat up. “Has everyone lost their mind? And what are you talking about, me killing my father?”

  Big Ginge hopped nimbly onto the desk and curled his tail around him, his gaze going around the room as he took in the scene before him. Flipper sat on the floor next to him and gave me a doggy smile.

  “Tell us about your loan arrangement,” I said to Julius. “Did Leo stop you from doing it so you decided to get rid of him?”

  “You’re all crazy.” Julius staggered to his feet and continued to rub his neck. He leaned on the desk, and Big Ginge swiped a paw at him, making Julius jump away and land on his leg cast. “I wouldn’t kill my father over this place.”

  I grabbed a chair and offered it to Julius, seeing the pain etched on his face. “What happened to your leg?”

  Julius slumped into the seat without a word of thanks. “One of the work’s vehicles went out of control this morning. Lucky I wasn’t crushed to death under the wheels. It must have been dodgy brakes because no one was in the vehicle. It’s only a fracture, so the hospital patched me up with this splint and a cast and sent me home. But I’ll be in this cast for three months.”

  I wondered if one of the workmen hadn’t deliberately released the handbrake on the vehicle after Julius had been so rude to them. “Getting back to the park loan, I know Leo wasn’t happy about what you wanted to do.”

  Julius shrugged. “He was old-fashioned and set in his ways. Of course he wasn’t happy, but he understood a good business plan. I’d have talked him round if I’d had the opportunity to. But that wretched cat killed him before I got the chance.”

  “Or you did,” muttered Sebastien.

  “I didn’t touch him.” Julius glowered at Sebastien. “I liked him. He let me do what I wanted and try out different things. In truth, he didn’t care that much about me to be invested in whatever it was I was doing. And now he’s gone, I’m just getting on with things, making the best of it.” He looked at the ground, and for a second I felt some sympathy for Julius. It must be hard to be second best to a bunch of stray cats.

  “But he can’t have agreed to this loan you wanted,” I said. “It would have been too much of a risk for the castle. If it went wrong you would have lost everything.”

  “As long as the cat sanctuary got to stay he wouldn’t have minded,” said Julius. “We talked about it a few times and I could see he was beginning to warm to the idea. I got the paperwork drawn up and was going to talk him through it step-by-step, showing the repayments and the expected return on investment. It isn’t a high-risk deal.”

  “So, why did you bribe me to get me out of the picture?” asked Sebastien. “Why the secrecy over this paperwork if it isn’t a problem?”

  “You’re a separate problem to this.” Julius shot an angry glare at Sebastien. “I want you off the estate because you put silly ideas in my mother’s head. Just last night she was talking about opening a section of the castle as an artists’ retreat. Where did she get that idea from?”

  I also glared at Sebastien. “You didn’t mention that to me. And are you serious about taking the bribe Julius is offering?”

  “I was briefly tempted,” muttered Sebastien. “And the ideas I’m offering Cordelia aren’t stupid. I think an artists’ retreat would make a decent amount of money for the castle. Bring in a different audience.”

  “Artists won’t bring in money,” said Julius. “Most of them are poor.”

  Sebastien nodded his head and then shot me a guilty look.

  Julius looked around the room at us all. “If you’re trying to pin my father’s death on anyone, it’s not just me you should be looking at if you think this loan has something to do with it.”

  “You mean other people are involved?” I asked.

  “Tabitha and Uncle Monty also want the animal park,” said Julius. “If you’re going to accuse me of killing my father so the park can go ahead, you need to ask them what they’re going to get out of this.”

  Chapter 19

  “Hold on a minute, all of you are involved in getting this park up and running?” I leaned against the sofa in the study and rubbed my forehead.

  “That’s right,” said Julius. “Uncle Monty is always hard up for money and Tabitha doesn’t care where the money comes from so long as there’s lots of it to spend. They all have a stake in the castle as part of our trust agreements, and agreed to use it as collateral so we can secure the loan.”

  “So any one of you could have killed Leo,” said Helen.

  Julius shot Helen a curious look. “It was just bad luck father was smothered, wasn’t it? Why do you keep saying he was killed?”

  “We’re not so sure his death was an accident,” said Sebastien. “Lorna thinks Leo might have been killed.”

  Julius turned to me. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because he’s worth a lot more dead than alive,” I said.

  Julius shook his head. “He may not have cared for me all that much, but he was still my father and I loved him. I wouldn’t want to kill him.”

  “What about Tabitha?” I asked, recalling how Leo smelt flowery perfume just before he died.

  Julius considered my question, his hand idly rubbing the cast on his leg. “She can be cruel.”

  “Cruel how?” asked Helen.

  “You always hear about those odd kids who enjoy setting fire to ants’ nests and pulling the wings off butterflies for fun,” said Julius.

  “Your sister used to do that?” I asked.

  “She did. And now she’s graduated to cats.”

  My mouth fell open. “Tabitha hurts the cats in the sanctuary?”

  “She told me she only takes the sick ones, the ones too ill to recover,” said Julius. “But honestly, she creeps me out. She has their fur made into slippers and collars on her clothes. She’s always stroking the fur on her outfits and talking to it as if it’s a living animal. And have you noticed how she stares at the cats whenever they’re around, as if she’s sizing them up to see if their fur will match her next outfit?”

  “Did Leo know about this?” I swallowed the horror I felt.

  “Of course not,” said Julius. “He thought she loved the cats. And I guess she does in her own twisted little way.”

  My hand went to Flipper’s head and I gave him a stroke, more to reassure myself than him. “Tabitha needs help.”

  “That’s disturbing,” said Helen. “And it doesn’t take much of a leap for her to go from killing cats to killing her father.”

  “It’s a bit of a stretch,” said Sebastien. “But I agree it is creepy.”

  It made sense now why the cats ran away from Tabitha whenever she tried to get near them. They probably knew she was considering them for her next pair of mittens. “Did you know Leo was planning to change his will?” I asked Julius.

  “He’d mentioned it to me,” said Julius. “But I never saw any new will. It was the same old one he’d always talked about; leaving trusts for me and Tabitha, the main estate to Mommy, and some donations to various charities. It was nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “He planned to leave some money to a close friend,” I said. “Do you know who that would be?”

  “Father’s only friends were the cats,” said Julius. “I suppose you’re going to tell me he planned to leave everything to them?”

  Tabitha strolled through the doorway of the study, wrapped in a long fur-trimmed shawl. She paused as she saw us all. “This looks interesting. What are you all doing?”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said to her, failing not to shudder as I saw the fur on her shawl.

  Tabitha took a step back and glared at me. “What do you want? I don’t have any filing if you’re looking for extra work. Although, I hear you’ve been enjoying yourself with the kitty litter.”

  “They know about the park loan.” Julius sighed. “You may as well come in, they know you’r
e involved.”

  “I don’t have time to discuss boring loans.” Tabitha waved her hand dismissively. “I was looking for Uncle Monty. He promised to take me for dinner and I’m getting hungry.”

  “Dinner will have to wait,” I said.

  Tabitha’s nostrils flared. “How dare you talk to me like that.”

  I eyed the fur on her shawl again and grimaced. “Nice outfit. Where did you get it from?”

  “Somewhere you’d never be able to afford,” sneered Tabitha.

  “They think someone killed father,” said Julius.

  Tabitha blinked several times and grabbed hold of the door. “Whatever makes you think that?”

  “Do you know anything about it?” I asked her.

  “You think I did it?” asked Tabitha.

  “You do have a lot to gain by him being dead,” said Julius.

  Tabitha trailed her fingers across the fur on her shawl. “If I have anything to gain by Daddy’s death, then so do you.”

  “Maybe it’s time we get the police involved,” said Helen.

  “There’s no need for that. You’d just be wasting their time. Daddy’s death was an accident.” Tabitha backed away, a panicked look crossing her face.

  “Just tell us what you know,” I said to her.

  “I don’t know anything!”

  “You should confess if you’ve done something stupid,” said Julius. “We’ll find out in the end.”

  I looked at Julius in surprise. It appeared we were suddenly on the same side.

  “So should you!” Tabitha narrowed her eyes at Julius. “I wish that lorry had run over your head and not just your leg.”

  “Then you could have inherited my portion of the estate as well.” Julius struggled to his feet, waving away Sebastien’s hand. “You do know something about father’s death, don’t you? What did you do to him?”

  “What rubbish,” said Tabitha. “I had nothing to do with it. A cat sat on his stupid face. You think I trained a cat to do that?”