Blood Red Roses

by S. J. Coles

  “What’s the name of this guy?” Nayar said, flicking open her notebook but then the door crashed open.

  “Detective Nayar.” Stanhope was still in her dress from the wedding, though her up-do was coming apart and her glasses were rain-specked and steamed up. “This is absolutely outrageous, interviewing a client of mine without me.”

  “You’re a witness in this crime, Ms Stanhope,” Nayar drawled. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you—”

  “My negligible association with this crime does not affect the privileged relationship between me and my client, nor does it give you the right to sideline him in this way without legal counsel.” She slammed a sheaf of papers on the table. “Some bedtime reading for you, Detective.”

  Nayar’s stoic expression slipped as she read. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m perfectly serious. And the wrongful arrest, harassment and breach of rights actions are just to start. Now, unless you have enough to charge my client, I suggest you release him right this second, unless you would like me to wake up Detective Chief Inspector Higginson at this ungodly hour and explain to him just what is going on in this station.”

  Nayar glared at the lawyer for a long, stony moment. Walsh, frozen in his chair, was watching the exchange with wide eyes.

  “No sudden trips, Bennett,” Nayar ground out and swept out of the room.

  “Mr Bennett. This way,” Stanhope barked, and Rick followed her from the room, his stomach flopping over itself.

  “Ms S-Stanhope,” he stammered when they were out in the cold drizzle. “I d-didn’t think—”

  “Did you do this, Bennett?” Stanhope spun to face him, her green eyes flashing. “Cecily doesn’t think you did. But Miss Swanson is a trusting and sometimes-naive individual. I will do my job, whether you did it or not, but I need to know.”

  “I didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Of course I am. I only went there to meet you, remember?”

  “I told you to meet me in the East Antechamber, not the West.”

  Rick stared at her. “You said West.”

  “I said East,” she repeated, firmly. “And it was just to discuss these phone records the police have submitted as evidence.”

  “They’re fake,” Rick stammered.

  “Are you absolutely sure of that?”

  “Yes,” he said, blinking the rain out of his eyes but not feeling the cold trickles down his collar or the wet soaking into his suit. “Ask Cecily. I don’t know how it’s been done or who did it but ask her. She’ll tell you they’re not—”

  “Remember, Mr Bennett,” Stanhope cut him off. “I work for the firm. It’s them I’m paid to protect, not you. But at the moment, it is in their interest that you be extricated from this messy any means necessary. And I can only do that if I know the truth.”

  Rick rubbed his hands over his face. The rain was freezing but his skin was on fire, his head pulsing with thunder. He met her sharp eye, forcing himself not to flinch. “I did not kill Harry Gerrard-Hanson—or Edgar Ropeman either.”

  She examined him for a very long, and very painful moment then nodded and raised her hand to summon a black cab. “As I thought. Now listen,” she said as the cab drew up. “You are to go home and stay home. Understand? Don’t go into the office, don’t answer the door or phone to anyone you don’t know. If I ring you, however, answer immediately. Understand?”

  Rick nodded stiffly. “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “Nothing, if I have any say in the matter,” she said, opening the cab door.

  “But what about the company? The merger? What do the Swansons think after—?”

  “Let me worry about all that,” she said. “That’s my job. Your job is to keep your head down and do exactly as you’re told.”

  Rick nodded, numb, and climbed into the cab.

  It was getting near three a.m. by the time he was unlocking his front door. Ella was in the kitchen. She was dry-eyed but her face was strained, with dark shadows under her eyes. Rick did his best to reassure her, but she cut him off.

  “Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t tell me it’s all going to be okay. Just think of yourself for a change.”

  She forced him to drink a large cup of chilli-laced hot chocolate before insisting he go straight to bed.

  He lay in the dark, listening to his own breathing and, for the first time since the bathroom at the wedding venue, he checked his phone. There were four missed calls from Kim, but no voicemails. There was a single text.

  Rick. Ring me.

  It was almost four a.m. but he pressed the green phone icon next to Kim’s name. He didn’t answer. Rick stared at the screen before turning over and laying it face-down on the bedside table.

  * * * *

  Three days slipped by. He received two phone calls from Stanhope. At neither time did she have anything to tell him. He guessed she was checking that he was doing as he was told. He received one text message from Cecily, late on the day after his arrest

  I’m sorry.

  No amount of replies or attempts to phone her resulted in a response.

  He didn’t hear anything from Kim—not a call, not a text. When Rick tried to phone him, it went straight to voicemail. There wasn’t anything he could think of that would get across what he was feeling in a voicemail, so each time he hung up.

  Being confined to his flat made his skin itch and allowed his imagination to work overtime. When he wasn’t visualising spending the rest of his life in prison, he was thinking about what Cecily Swanson’s face would look like when she eventually fired him. He also imagined the expression on any other potential employer’s face as soon as they realised who he was. He also thought about what Ella would think when he told her they were going to lose the flats and that he didn’t know how they were going to afford the next care-home fees.

  More than anything else, he thought about what Kim would say, if he ever spoke to him again, when Rick revealed he was sliding back into poverty and failure and that he’d finally figured out he should have known better than to think he could ever escape his past.

  Ella skipped her Sunday and Monday shifts to be with him, but by that third morning, he insisted she go back to work.

  “This isn’t your problem.”

  “Like hell it isn’t,” she replied. “Someone stitching up my brother for murder? How in any way is that not my problem?”

  “Stanhope will take care of it.”

  “Stanhope cares about the Swansons, not you.”

  “She told me saving my arse is the same as saving theirs, at least at the moment.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “I have to, don’t I?”

  Ella grabbed her handbag with a murderous expression. “This isn’t fair, Rick. None of this is fair. All we wanted was a bit of a security. A bit of hope. Was that so much to ask?”

  “El…”

  “Okay, I’m going,” she said, pulling on her coat. “But I’ve a right to be bloody angry—and so do you.”

  Rick sighed and pushed away his untasted cup of coffee. When Ella still hadn’t moved, he looked up. She was staring at the floor with her lips pressed together.

  “What is it?”

  When she met his eye, her face was tight. “I’m scared, Rick.”

  Rick took a deep breath then heard himself admit, “Me too.”

  “But are we scared of the same thing?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the balcony. “What if this, all of this, is them?”

  “Who?”

  She made an impatient noise. “The Swansons.”

  Rick blinked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Rick, you’re relying on these people to protect you. But what if they’re the ones—”

  “The Swansons have nothing to gain by any of this,” he insisted.

  Ella made an impatient noise. “Quit being dumb. That
detective said that with the deal and the marriage done, Cecily now owns everything—”

  “She didn’t kill her own husband on their wedding day,” Rick said derisively.

  “How do you know that?”

  “For one thing, it’s hard to stab someone in a white dress and have it not show.”

  Ella snorted. “She would hardly do her own dirty work, would she?”

  “And for another,” he continued, “this whole mess has made S&G’s share price plunge. It’s going to take them a long time to recover, if they ever do. Even with the EBR merger, that is absolutely the last thing she would want.”

  Ella shook her head. “You don’t know her well enough to know what she wants.”

  He held her gaze steadily. “Whoever did this is trying to frame me for it. Cecily’s trying to protect me. Even if that’s for her own sake more than mine, it’s still a fact.”

  “So who else could it be?”

  “Someone who was able get in and out of here and the wedding leaving no witnesses or evidence…”

  “Someone…professional, you mean?”

  “Yes,” Rick said shakily. “So someone with money enough to hire a professional. But that’s everyone in this business, friend or enemy.”

  “You think this is all just about business?”

  “People kill for a lot less.”

  Ella shook her head helplessly. She seemed about to say more, then gave up and left. Rick poured his coffee down the sink and ran the tap to rinse the dark liquid away, unwilling to admit how much everything reminded him of pools of blood. He’d thrown out the bunches of roses he’d brought home, no longer able to stand the smell, but he swore it still permeated the air. It was like his whole world was tainted. Bloodied.

  He checked his phone again. Still nothing from Kim. He squeezed his eyes tight. He was watching his life, career and dreams crumbling away, helpless to do anything about it. But not hearing from Kim was the worst part. Their jokes about wedding cake now seemed like they were from another lifetime. Another existence. One now all at once so wonderful and so remote he doubted it could never have been real.

  * * * *

  Ten more days went by. Rick didn’t leave the flat. He watched films on his seventy-five-inch television. He ran miles on his treadmill. He drank some of the best wine, bourbon and beer he’d ever tasted and ate—when he made himself eat—delivery from some of the finest restaurants in the city.

  None of it pleased him. It was like a cold, grey curtain hung between him and the world. He stood out on his balcony for hours, rain or shine, staring at the jagged London skyline, trying to figure out exactly how he’d ended up in such a mess.

  Stanhope came by several times, attempting to establish his movements at the wedding to the minute. She brought maps of the venue and insisted he go through them with her, unnervingly calm when he wasn’t able to tell her where he’d gotten lost during the speeches, which was also the time Gerrard-Hanson was meeting his grisly end. She went through his phone records with him, his bills, his finances. Rick answered everything honestly, even though as more of his previous financial situation came to light, he knew his new future was slipping further and further away. Stanhope’s face never betrayed any thoughts or judgment, but it didn’t need to.

  When he tried to ask her what the police thought or what was going to happen next, she told him not to let it concern him. She appeared to now believe him, at least, when he said the phone records showing texts and calls between him and Cecily before they’d met at Koffee and Kicks couldn’t be real. When he’d asked her what Cecily’s explanation of them was, she evaded the question.

  Every time she left, she reminded him to stay indoors and not answer any questions that didn’t come through her.

  Time no longer meant anything. He stayed up until gone two a.m. and slept, when he did sleep, until lunchtime. He ran every day, but exercise now only drained him further.

  And so it was that sometime after midnight one night, almost a fortnight from the murder of Harry Gerrard-Hanson, he was lying on his sofa, staring at the high ceiling of his flat as some zombie film groaned and shrieked away to itself, unwatched, on the TV when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

  He nearly ignored it. The only person who called him now was Stanhope, and he just wasn’t in the mood. But when it continued to buzz, he frowned and glanced at his watch. She’d never called this late before.

  A rush went through him and he pulled out his phone. The disappointment when it wasn’t Kim was so strong that he didn’t even register how unusual it must be for Cecily Swanson to be ringing him at all, let alone so late at night. He stared at it for so long that the call ended. But a few seconds later a voicemail notification popped in.

  “Rick. Please ring me back when you get this.”

  He frowned. Her tone was flat, almost bored. Why would someone with nothing of importance to say ring at almost one in the morning? And how could there be nothing of importance to say, given everything that had happened? The phone rang three times before she answered.

  “Rick? Rick, is that you?”

  “Cecily, what’s wrong?” Rick asked, alarm cutting through his fatigue at the sound of panic in her voice.

  “Rick, help me. Please. There’s someone—” She cut off, sobbing.

  “Cecily,” he said again, standing. “Where are you? What’s happening?”

  “There’s someone in my house.” The words came in a tight, high whisper. “There’s someone here. I think… I think they’ve got a knife.”

  “Shit,” Rick said, hunting for his shoes. “Call the police. Now.”

  “I can’t,” she whimpered. “There’s stuff you don’t know. I can’t call the police. Dad…he—” A helpless sob. “Rick, help me. Please.”

  “I’m on my way,” Rick said, flinging open the front door. “What’s the address?”

  She whispered it, her voice ragged with terror.

  “All right, I’m coming. Lock yourself in somewhere, okay? Stay quiet.”

  “I’m in the staff bathroom,” she whispered. “I’ve locked the door. But Rick—” the call ended.

  Rick swore again, running down the stairs two at time. He flagged down the first cab that passed and threw himself in, thrusting several fifty-pound notes through to the driver and telling him to get him to Mayfair as fast as he could.

  The traffic was light at that hour and they made it to Cecily Swanson’s townhouse in record time, but Rick was still sweating by the time he was scrambling out of the cab and into the freezing nighttime air. He’d stopped himself from calling the police multiple times on the journey, telling himself every time that he was in over his head already. If Cecily thought she was safer without the police, he had to trust that she was right.

  It was only when he was stood outside her white stone three-story terrace that he realised he had no idea what he was supposed to do about an armed intruder. But he squared his shoulders and hurried up the steps to the front door. It was the same guy. It had to be. This was his chance to find out what was really going on. And if he came face-to-face with whoever was ruining his life, he’d know what to do.

  The front door was open. He stepped into the darkened hallway and froze. The air was thick with the smell of roses. He could just make out three giant arrangements on tables around the hall. The smell made his belly turn to water and his limbs reluctant to obey. But then a muffled crash farther into the house snapped him out of it.

  He crept through a dark sitting room, the vague impressions of large pieces of furniture and a grand piano were mere shadows in the dark, silent space. He moved to the kitchen, hesitated a long time in the doorway but found all to be quiet and still. He took one of the carving knives from the magnetic rack on the wall, the thought of using it making his stomach turn but knowing it would be stupid to go any farther without something to even the odds. He gripped the handle tight enough that his knuckles ached, then jerked when he heard the quietest scrape of a shoe against tiles.

>   Taking a slow, deep breath, he made for a doorway beyond the cooking range. He crept into the room beyond, the air sharp with the smell of washing powder and detergent and a light clicked on.

  His heart leaped into his mouth. He froze, staring, the knife forgotten in his hand. Cecily stood at the back of the laundry room, one hand on the light switch, the other levelling a gun at his head.

  The shot exploded in the silent air. He jerked and staggered. When he managed to draw his next breath, he registered that there was no pain and the screaming he could hear was Cecily’s. He forced his eyes open. She was on the ground, clutching her shoulder, her gun on the floor between them. Blood oozed between her fingers and spattered up the wall. Her face was twisted in agony, but she locked eyes with Rick and he could see a burning hatred in their depths, hotter than fire. Her screams now sounded like they were less from pain and more from fury.

  “Fucking run,” said a voice at his ear that made no sense, then a hand seized him by the elbow and he was being dragged away. He stumbled after the mysterious figure, through the sitting room, out of the front door and gasped in the freezing air. More screams followed them, along with the blasts of three more shots and the sounds of shattering glass and masonry. Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Before he had time to make sense of any of it, he was being manhandled into a battered hatchback and his rescuer was starting the engine and flooring the accelerator.

  They had left Cecily’s townhouse and the blare of the sirens behind by the time Rick’s racing mind, heart and breath had calmed enough for him to speak.

  “Kim?”

  The fine lines of Kim’s face were rigid. He drove like a mad thing, through red lights, down alleys, the wrong way up one-way streets.

  “Kim,” Rick managed, “what the fuck?”

  “Not now,” he bit out.

  Rick stared at him. His expression, his posture, his accent were all wrong. He wore a battered denim jacket, a washed-out grey shirt under that and the set of his face was grave and unfamiliar. By the time he was parking outside a house in the middle of a ramshackle terrace with a brightly lit pizza place on the ground floor, Rick had almost convinced himself it wasn’t really him.