Skin and Bones (25 page)

Bernard Trent had been a hoarder. That much was evident when Julia
and Craig examined the back bedroom more carefully. The wardrobe
had been ransacked, the clothes ripped off the rail and piled in the
corner. Nine or ten cardboard boxes had been tipped upside down,
spilling out not just three dozen diaries but also half a lifetime's worth
of bills, receipts, warranties and instruction manuals.

A glossy brochure for a Philips music centre caught Julia's eye. She
remembered how as a child she'd accidentally broken the Perspex cover
over the turntable. Her father had been set to explode until he saw
she was inconsolable. He had tried telling her it didn't matter, that the
turntable would function just as well without the lid, but she'd been
perceptive enough to appreciate that he was bitterly upset, and aware
that her brother wouldn't have escaped punishment so easily.

She sniffed. Wiped her nose and said, 'Let's get started.'

They spent a few minutes tidying up, scooping the various documents
into piles. Much of it was obviously undisturbed, but some of
the diaries had been opened and then discarded. Julia sat cross-legged
on the floor and picked up a couple of volumes. Craig followed suit,
sitting with his back to the bed. For a time they read in a companionable
silence, no sound but for the whisper of paper on paper. It struck
Julia that in any other circumstances she would have felt uncomfortable
letting a stranger look at such personal documents.

Craig was first to grow restless. 'What did you say to George, exactly?'

Julia gazed at the wall, losing focus as she thought back to the
previous morning. 'That I'd read Dad's diary and discovered Carl did
some work in the garden last summer.'

'And?'

'That was it, really. We talked about Carl, about the fact that no
one could have predicted what he was going to do.'

'Did he ask any questions? Anything about the diaries?'

'No. He didn't seem particularly interested in them.'

'So maybe it's just a coincidence?'

'I don't believe in coincidences. Not any more.'

'No. Me neither.' He turned a page, then sighed. 'Riveting stuff,
isn't it?'

It felt disloyal to agree, but she couldn't help smiling. 'Dad looked
into self-publishing a memoir, but Mum dissuaded him. Said it would
cost too much.'

'He should have stuck it online and called it a blog. The publishers
would have been beating a path to his door.'

Silence for another minute or two. He shut the diary and tossed it
on to the pile. 'Hang on. Where's the one you had on Wednesday?'

She looked up at him. 'Back at my flat.'

'That's the one that mentions Carl?'

'Yes.'

'And there's nothing else that seems significant?'

'I only read as far as August.' She tutted. 'I'm so stupid.'

'We didn't know it was important until half an hour ago.' He got
to his feet. 'Come on. We'll take these back with us.'

Vilner strode towards the drawing room where two days before they
had listened to Julia Trent's allegations. George had little choice but
to follow.

'I saw Toby,' Vilner said. He chose a delicate Queen Anne chair
that seemed overwhelmed by his muscular frame. Leaning back, legs
splayed, his posture radiated power and dominance: a tactic George
had himself used many times.

'I know. He said you threatened him.'

'I warned him not to try and stitch me up,' Vilner said bluntly. 'I'm
giving the same warning to you.'

George absorbed the comment, hoping to look unperturbed. 'That's
why you're here?'

'That's one reason.' He paused a beat. 'This offer you made, to buy
my silence? I talked to Kendrick, but I didn't tell him everything. I
wanted a bit more background before I mentioned Julia Trent. Then
I read the police report—'

'You stole the police report,' George cut in.

'So did you.' Vilner's gaze hardened. 'You weren't going to tell me
about it, were you? That's got me wondering what else you're hiding.'

'I don't answer to you.'

'No, but like it or not, you're stuck with me.' His eyes glittered.
'I'm on the team, and so far I've had a raw deal. That's got to change.'

'In what way?'

'Two options,' Vilner said, pointing his fingers horizontally like a
child making a gun. 'If you're keeping the business, I'm willing to
wait for the contract, but in the meantime I want a sign of your appreciation.
Two hundred grand in cash, right now.'

George's cheeks bulged with indignation. 'That's almost as much
as the original debt.'

'When the risks increase, so do the rewards.'

'I can't lay my hands on that amount of money,' George said. 'It's
tied up in long-term assets.'

Vilner wore a knowing smile. 'You mean shares? Property? Like
Toby's apartment?'

'Yes.'

'Then turf him out and sell up.' He paused to let the suggestion
take root. 'Option two. If you sell the business to Kendrick, where
does that leave me?'

'I imagine Kendrick will retain your services. He seems quite content
to employ you now.'

'That's only to spite you, George, as you well know.'

'You think he'll dump you when you've served your purpose?'

'Who knows? Hope for the best, expect the worst,' Vilner said. 'I
want a cast-iron guarantee that I'll benefit from any sale. That means
a stake in the holding company.'

George spluttered again. 'You want a share of what I've taken years
to build up? A business I've sweated blood to make successful?'

'I don't care if you sweated your mother's milk. You need my cooperation,
and you need my silence. For that, I want ten per cent.'

'Ten per cent?' George exploded. 'You must be mad.'

Vilner got to his feet, not quickly or angrily, but with a calm determination
that made George go cold.

'It's a simple enough choice,' Vilner said. 'You give me ten per
cent, or you lose everything.'

Julia wasn't really expecting to find anything in the diary. She was
half convinced there must be some other reason for the intruder,
perhaps related to her presence there. But certainly nothing to do
with her parents.

Back at her flat, Craig asked if she felt strong enough to read it,
then indicated the kitchen. 'How about if I make us an early lunch?'

Julia nodded. 'A sandwich would be nice. There's ham, cheese,
tomatoes.'

She left him to it and fetched the diary from the bedroom. She sat
down on the sofa and asked herself,
I'm not afraid, am I?
Taking a
deep breath, she quickly skimmed the entries up to the day when Carl
Forester's name first appeared. Then she read on, telling herself there
was nothing to fear.

The remainder of August was uneventful, though Bernard did
mention how he and Lisa had sat outside one warm evening.
So much
more light now the conifers are lower.

The next two months were in a similar vein. A spell of bad weather
had him raging.

Forecast wrong as usual. Walked to Ditchling and got soaked. £10
for a taxi back – I ought to invoice the Met Office!

The entry for 25 November was much longer than most. There
was a jagged look to the writing; heavy indentations as though he'd
pressed harder than usual. He was angry when he wrote this, Julia
knew at once. But that wasn't the only reason it stood out.

Carl's name seemed to leap off the page. She stopped reading and
looked up. Craig was clattering in the kitchen, opening cupboards
and drawers.

'Got any pickle?'

'Top right, next to the oven.'

She looked back at the diary. Took a deep breath and read the entry
for 25 November.

Cool, overcast day. Quite pleasant. Had the usual walk this afternoon,
but Lisa felt tired so we decided to cut back through the
woods north of the farm. We heard a strange noise and thought
it was kids mucking about. I left Lisa and went to investigate. I
found a clearing with two men setting up targets on the trees.
One had a shotgun. It turned out to be Carl Forester, the lad
who cut our conifers. The other was a nasty bit of work, with an
extremely threatening manner. He marched up and accused me
of trespassing on private land. I argued that villagers have always
been entitled to walk in these woods. Lisa heard the commotion
and called me away. Very unpleasant. I still wonder if I should
have gone to the police, but talking to Lisa afterwards she's not
certain that Matheson allows access to the woods any more. All
in all it cast quite a shadow over the day.

Craig came in with the sandwiches. She looked up and he reacted
to the change in her face.

'You've found something, haven't you?'

'He saw them,' Julia said. 'Carl and the other killer. Dad saw them
both.'

When Toby recognised the Range Rover outside Chilton Manor, his
first impulse was to turn round and drive back home. After yesterday's
conversation, he hadn't expected his uncle to speak to Vilner so quickly,
if at all. For a moment he was torn with indecision. He didn't want to
blunder into their meeting, but nor did he want a wasted journey.

He parked around the far side of the house and let himself in via
the old servants' entrance. He had possessed keys to the house since
his teens, when he had lived mostly with his aunt and uncle during
holidays from school and then university. Since then he'd been
permitted, if not exactly welcome, to come and go as he pleased.
His aunt in particular seemed to resent it when he turned up unannounced,
and in the past year or so he had drastically curbed his
visits.

There was a chance Vanessa was here now, but he thought it unlikely.
She and George had lived separate lives for as long as Toby could
remember, and she had always preferred the house in London. Even
so, he kept his movements stealthy as he passed through the scullery
and into the huge, bare kitchen. He was stung by the folly of his
uncle's existence. Used properly, with an army of servants, the manor
could be a sumptuous home. The way George lived he might as well
be a miserly pensioner cooped up in a bungalow.

Pausing in the hall, he could hear voices in the drawing room. He
hurried upstairs to George's office. Knocked gently, just in case, and
opened the door.

His uncle's desk was unusually tidy. Toby had the impression there
wasn't much work done in here any more. He conducted a quick
search of the room on the long shot that he might find something of
value, but both the desk drawers and filing cabinet were locked.
Resisting the urge to kick something, he let himself out.

He was easing the door shut when he heard a noise at the end of
the hall. A burst of music from a TV or a radio. He frowned, listened
again to be sure he wasn't imagining it. The music gave way to the
drone of conversation. Someone changing channels.

He moved quietly along the hall, alert to any movement on the stairs.
He'd only been a minute or two in George's office. If the meeting downstairs
had ended, Toby was sure he'd have heard them coming out.

The sound originated from one of the unused bedrooms. He waited
a second, feeling oddly indignant. Who the hell was it?

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and marched in as if he
had every right to be there, then stopped in shock at the sight that
greeted him.

It was a vision from a nightmare: a hideous spindly creature rearing
up in bed, eyes like dark buttons set deep in a raggedy skull, bony
arms clawing the air in outrage. It turned those terrible eyes on him
and spat with disgust.

'Get out! Get out!'

Craig sat down next to her and read the entry himself. It seemed to
take an age before he turned to Julia.

'He saw them practising with the shotgun.' He let out a sigh. 'If
only he'd gone to the police. The whole massacre might have been
averted.'

Julia was stunned by his comment. 'That's not fair. Dad couldn't
have known what they were planning.'

Craig at least had the decency to look abashed. 'You're right. I'm sorry.'
He took the diary from her and read it again. His frown grew deeper.
'Look at this.
He marched up and accused me of trespassing on private
land
.'

'It's George Matheson's land.'

'Yeah. So maybe they had his permission?'

'Maybe.'

'
An extremely threatening manner
,' Craig quoted again. 'Sounds like
a pretty good description of Vilner.'

Julia nodded. In the gloomy silence that followed, Craig devoured
his sandwich in several bites, his brow creased in a thoughtful frown.
Julia picked up the diary, and steeling herself, read on through
November and into December.

Finally she reached the last entry, made the day before they died.

Weather atrocious again, and more on the way. A quiet day at home.
Started
Our Man in Havana
by Graham Greene – superb! Watched
Countdown
– managed two 6-letter words. Lisa not feeling well.
Coming down with flu, she thinks. I haven't been feeling all that
bright myself. Hope we both shake it off before Christmas.

And that was it. Her father's last words. Julia closed the diary and
set it down. She could feel tears itching to come, but something was
holding them back. Something lurking in her mind: a thought, a question,
darting in and out of the shadows.

She remembered what she had learned in the wake of the tragedy,
how the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning could often be
mistaken for a cold or flu. When Dad wrote this, the boiler was already
playing up. And the bad weather meant they'd closed the windows,
probably keeping internal doors shut, too. Intensifying the concentration
of CO.

Another scurrying question, but this time she caught it.

What if the boiler hadn't malfunctioned?

What if the boiler had been sabotaged?

Craig put his plate down, a sudden look of horror on his face.
Maybe it was telepathy, or maybe just coincidence. Either way, they
had the same idea at the same time.

'If your dad saw them, you don't think . . . ?'

He couldn't quite bring himself to say it aloud, but Julia could.

'He killed them, didn't he? He killed my parents.'

Toby recoiled in horror. The creature went on hissing at him. 'Don't
look at me!'

Something about the voice was familiar. He looked closer, and
understood . . .

'Vanessa?'

'What are you doing here?' She twisted away from him, clutching
her blanket, dragging it up to conceal her body. Her skin was thin
and yellowed like parchment, but her eyes held the remnants of the
woman he knew.

'What's happened to you?'

Cringing beneath her blanket, she snarled, 'What do you think?'

She's dying
, he thought. It was a stunning revelation, and right then
he couldn't say how he felt about it. They had been on little more
than civil terms for many years, but once, in the aftermath of his
mother's untimely death from a drug overdose, they had been considerably
more than that.

Vanessa had been beautiful then, in her way. A thin, icy beauty.
His head swam at the memory of the moment when her distant
sympathy became something else. He recalled the sureness of her
fingers, the press and pull of her soft, expert mouth.

'Why didn't you say anything?'

'It's private.'

He checked over his shoulder to make sure the noise hadn't alerted
his uncle, then shut the door and moved to a chair at the foot of the
bed. He sat patiently until Vanessa released the blanket. There was
pain in her eyes, and in her voice.

'I'll be gone soon. You might as well know.'

'I'm sorry.' He wasn't sure if that was true, but thought he should
say it anyway.

His aunt looked irritated. She attempted to moisten her lips with
her tongue, then reached for the water by her bed. He got it for her,
and as he placed the glass in her hand her fingers brushed against
his. Her skin was dry and scaly.

'Vilner's here,' she said.

'I know. I came upstairs to avoid him.'

She sipped the water. Afterwards her voice regained a little of its
power. 'Do you know why?'

'I'm hoping it's to negotiate a deal.' He told her about his conversation
with George. Her lips formed a caustic smile.

'You won't buy him off now,' she said. 'Vilner's scented blood. My
bet is that he's playing each side against the other.'

She took another sip of water, the glass trembling in her hand. She
wasn't making much sense, and he wondered just how lucid she was.
Probably dosed up with morphine. But he was sufficiently intrigued
to let her continue. Better to hear her out, then evaluate it later.

But Vanessa closed her eyes, seeming to forget all about him. He
waited a long minute, then prompted her with, 'Each side?'

Her eyes opened, regarding him with what seemed like pity. 'Of
course,' she said. 'You don't know about Kendrick.'

He frowned. Shifted closer to the bed. He could feel his heart
racing. It wasn't just the look in her eyes; it was the way she spoke.
Sad and yet thrilled, as if she'd been granted the opportunity to
pronounce a terminal diagnosis on someone else for a change.

He stuttered a little as he spoke. 'Who-who's Kendrick?' Then
another interminable wait for her to respond.

'Kendrick is buying the business.'

Toby thought he had misheard. 'What did you say?'

'George is selling up,' said Vanessa. 'And you're not part of the deal.'