The Valley (17 page)

Lying there, I contemplated going to the nearest police station and telling them everything I knew about Gerry and Angela. At least with Angela there was some proof that she had once existed. I had some texts and emails I could show them. But with Gerry there was nothing. Max had covered up his tracks so perfectly, the police would think I was insane.

Then I remembered there was some evidence proving that Gerry had lived and Max had killed him. It was in the drawer directly below me.

I unlocked the drawer and unzipped the backpack. Touching the gun, I immediately felt more secure. It was not just a weapon, I realised: it was my proof that I was not going mad. I gripped it tight, relishing the sensation of the cold metal of the barrels as I pressed them against my cheek.

When I woke up it was nearly ten o’clock in the next morning and I was over an hour late for work. I looked down. The drawer was open and the gun lay on top of the backpack. I checked whether it was loaded, and to my horror, I saw it was. I hurriedly locked it away, as though it was a particularly sordid piece of pornography that had done its job in the middle of the night and which now I was ashamed of. But not so ashamed that I wanted to throw it away.

It was almost eleven o’ clock when I walked into the PropFace office, striding through the reception area as fast as I could.

‘I hope they dock your pay when you turn up this late.’

I turned around and saw Max, dressed in a pinstripe suit, sitting on the sofa, and smiling like a Cheshire Cat.

‘Max, what are you doing here?’

‘Taking you out to lunch, I hope.’

I glanced at my watch. ‘It’s a bit early, isn’t it? It’s not yet noon.’

‘I’ve got to see Ian first’.

‘He’s not in till Friday.’

‘He’s in today,’ Max said.

Before I could say anything else, Ian appeared. He greeted me politely, but gave no indication as to why he had come in or why he was seeing Max. Instead he took Max directly to the Board Room. Before Max closed the door, he surreptitiously pointed to his watch and mouthed the word ‘lunch’ at me.

The moment I got to my desk, I plugged in my laptop and started checking all my usual websites, fearing that Max’s return might have been triggered by some news about Gerry or even Angela. But there was nothing. I was just deleting all my internet history when Ian phoned me from the Board Room, asking me to join them.

As I came in, Ian handed me some papers to sign. They seemed to be some sort of legal contract.

‘Our financial situation is a little worse than we anticipated,’ Ian explained.

‘It’ll improve in the spring,’ I said. ‘It always does.’

‘Maybe. But we still have the winter to get through and we thought we should err on the side of caution.’

Ian came around and pointed to the contract. ‘Max is offering us a loan of £125,000 to tide us over. It will be on the same terms as before. Corporate and personal liabilities would increase but there will be no interest charge.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It means we won’t have to let anyone go. In fact we can even expand the sales team by one more.’

Max rose to his feet. ‘If you sign quickly, I’ll even throw in a free lunch.’

Ian passed me the pen.

Five minutes later, Max and I were walking across London Bridge, heading to his chosen restaurant in the middle of the City. When we arrived, the head waiter shook Max by the hand and led us to a small private table next to a wall.

We ordered quickly but then Max spent the next fifteen minutes in intense discussions with the restaurant’s sommelier, before choosing a 1990 claret. He waited for the sommelier to pour the wine and withdraw before he said to me in a quiet voice: ‘John, you haven’t told anyone, have you – about what happened on the
Glen Avon
?’

I shook my head.

‘Not even that girl you were seeing? What was her name?’

I stiffened slightly. ‘Angela.’

‘Are you still seeing her?’

I looked straight at Max. There was not a flicker of emotion in his eyes.

‘She’s based in Hong Kong,’ I said. ‘I haven’t told her anything, I promise.’

I could see he was about to ask me more questions about her, so I got my own in first. ‘Where have you been, Max?’

‘France. The boat is midway through a major refit. I told everyone there were too many reminders of Lucy still on board.’

He smiled and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘So it’s over, John, as far as you’re concerned. Nothing ever happened and even if it did, you weren’t there. That’s all you have to remember.’

‘Fine,’ I said, and drank some of the wine, appreciating its smoothness.

‘So there’s no need for you to ask Ian about Gerry.’

I froze. The waiter came over and served us our starters. After he had retreated, Max leaned forward. ‘John, I don’t want you connected to what happened. And I’ve made sure you can’t be – unless you connect yourself.’

‘Is that why you’ve flown over here – just to tell me to keep quiet?’

He lent back in his chair, his eyes studying me. ‘I got a bit of stick from Ian about you. Apparently you haven’t been your normal self: a bit erratic at work, that sort of thing.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘I rang the office yesterday. You weren’t in and no one knew where you were.’

‘I took an afternoon off, for Christ’s sake.’

‘And this morning when I arrived, nobody could find you.’

‘Max, what the fuck is all this about?’

‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘Ian does what he’s told. I just wanted to check you were all right, that’s all.’

‘It’s been a tough time at work. One of our largest clients cancelled their contract.’

Max took a sip and then rolled the glass in his fingers, his eyes flickering from the wine to me and then back to the wine.

‘Max, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.’

He looked at me and nodded

‘So what’s your news?’ I said, desperate to change the subject. ‘Did you come straight from France?’

‘I went via Marbella.’

‘How’s the villa?

‘I‘ve sold it. I’m getting rid of the house in Chelsea too.’

I sat back dumbfounded. ‘Is that how you got the money for the loan?’

‘I don’t need them, anymore. I’ve still got the estate in Scotland and the boat.’

‘Max are you all right financially?’

He tapped his wineglass. ‘This isn’t Coca Cola, John.’

‘I know but –’

‘I’ve got more than enough to last me a lifetime and to make sure PropFace can keep expanding. It’s just a question of priorities, that’s all.’

A waiter came over to clear away our starters and then a few seconds later our main courses arrived. I had ordered steak whilst Max had chosen woodcock. Max attacked his food with zest. He always did, eating every morsel on his plate. But this time, after three or four mouthfuls, he started to prod the bird’s bony carcass around his plate.

‘What’s up?’ I said.

‘This woodcock’s rather bland,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have ordered it. Restaurants never cook woodcock right. They’re too scared to cook it with the guts in. It’s perfectly safe – woodcock always defecate before they fly.’

For a moment I disbelieved my ears and then I started laughing. It was as though a dam had suddenly burst inside me. My whole body rocked with laughter. I had to cling to my chair.

Max grinned nervously. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

‘You,’ I said. ‘You’re the only person I’ve met who knows when the animal he’s just eaten last had a shit.’

‘It’s very useful information,’ he said defensively.

I tried to stop myself laughing but I could not. And soon Max was laughing too, and we were talking about old times. Our lunches that were really one o’clock dinner parties had resumed.

Except later that night, after the wine wore off and I remembered the chill in Max’s voice as he had told me not to talk about Gerry to Ian or anyone else, I realised our relationship had changed.

I stumbled into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. As I drank it, I looked at my framed photo of Karen in her wedding dress, smiling at me, and with Max standing in the background, delivering his bestman’s speech. Briefly I remembered how Angela had picked up the same photograph the night she had come to dinner in my flat. And then I remembered what Max had actually said in his bestman’s speech. He had started off by describing my character with the usual flattering adjectives that prevail on such occasions – thoughtful, kind, loyal, hardworking, trustworthy – and then added one more compliment that could only have come from him.

‘John,’ he had said, ‘would be a good man to bury a body with.’

At the time, like everyone else, I had laughed. But now, remembering his words, I could hardly bear to look at the photograph.

I walked back into my bedroom and opened the drawer beneath my bed, emptying the contents of the backpack onto my duvet: the gun with the cartridges inside; the oily bloodstained towel; the crumbly remains of Max’s home-made silencer.

I held the gun up to the light. Just touching it seemed to help unscramble my mind, separating what had actually happened from what I had merely imagined.

Max had killed Gerry, but he could not have killed or kidnapped Angela, because if she had really disappeared, the police would have read through her emails and text messages by now, and hauled me in for questioning. My involvement in the Lucy Grainger case would have made me the prime suspect. If I was still free, Angela was still alive and leading a normal life somewhere. She had simply chosen to lead it without me.

I opened the gun and prised out the cartridges with my fingers. One was heavy and full of menace; the other just an empty shell.

Max was offering me a deal to forget about Gerry. In return he would ensure that PropFace prospered. That was really what our lunch had been about: Max seeing for himself that not only was I prepared to accept the deal but also that I was still mentally robust enough to stick to it. And I wasn’t certain that I had convinced him.

I dropped the cartridges on my bed and snapped the gun shut. I held it in my hands, slipping the safety catch forwards and backwards several times. I was not insane but I was probably suffering from shock, which was not surprising, given that someone had been shot dead a few feet in front of me. I was also frightened, and with good reason: if the police ever found out what had happened, I could go to jail.

I put the gun down and looked at it. If Max moved against me, I might need the gun, either as a weapon to defend myself with or as evidence that could scare him off. In the meantime, if it also helped me to sleep at night, I should use it. I had to stay alert. As long as I kept the gun unloaded and made sure it was locked away whenever my children came to stay, it was probably safer than asking a doctor for tranquilisers and trying to explain why I needed them. Gradually, I would wean myself off it, just like I would a course of sleeping pills. And when I no longer needed it, I could throw it in the Thames, and my last link to what had happened on board the
Glen Avon
would disappear forever,

My path back to normality was a long one. The hardest step was accepting that Angela was gone, and gone for good, and gone of her own volition. Bicycling to and from work, I would still sometimes imagine I had seen her: I would catch a glimpse of a slim girl with skinny black jeans and short blonde hair, and chase after her. But it always turned out to be someone else.

As for Gerry, I tried to let him slide from my consciousness just like his body had slid from my sight on that October afternoon. I told myself that he was someone I had barely known and probably would never have liked: just another overpaid banker whose bonus-fuelled gambles had brought on the recession. There was no reason to let his death ruin my life. I stopped searching the internet and newspapers for clues about his life or death. Containment, not cure, was my new philosophy. What had happened on board the
Glen Avon
could not be erased from my memory but it could be sealed off.

The seal was not always watertight, however. Just the smell of bleach was sometimes enough to make me break out in a sweat. Once I was watching
Pirates of the Caribbean
on TV with Jack, and a brief scene of an isolated boat rocking up and down on the open sea frightened me so badly that I had to grip the sofa in sheer terror. Another time, I was picking up Tom from a party, and a boy popped a balloon behind my head, and I spun around, shivering and unable to speak for several minutes. But the worst incidents were when Max would call me from the Caymans late in the evenings, and our conversation would go round in circles, with Max endlessly checking on my mental wellbeing and me assuring him that everything was fine; and afterwards, I would have to open the drawer and hold the gun until I fell asleep.

But that was one of the reasons why I had kept the gun and it fulfilled its purpose, ensuring I slept well enough to function like a normal human being. When my children stayed over, I was sufficiently well rested to enjoy their company and listen to what they were saying – and I never again woke them by screaming in the middle of the night.

Cushioned by the latest injection of Max’s money, PropFace also pulled through and even prospered. Inside the office, I returned to my usual hard-working self, and my fortnight of strange behaviour was either forgotten by my colleagues, or put down to the stress I must have been under whilst I was securing Max’s investment. Ian Joseph could have corrected this impression but he remained as aloof as ever.

In the evenings I started going out more. I even tried going on a few dates, but could not help comparing everyone I met to Angela, and the women seemed to sense my lack of interest. At the tennis club, I played at least once a week even on the coldest nights, often hanging around the bar afterwards, looking for another match, or a group of drinkers I could latch onto – anything rather than going back to my flat and thinking about Angela or Gerry.

When the first Christmas toy advertisements started appearing on the television in November, I was reminded that Christmas for me threatened to be a rather lonely experience, with Karen and Nick taking the boys skiing for two weeks. To compensate, Karen had said I could have the boys to stay with me the weekend before, and when I asked Jack and Tom whether they wanted to do anything special with me, they both shouted ‘Disneyland’. Apparently one of their friends had gone to Euro-Disney in the summer and told them it was the best holiday ever.

One glance at the Disneyland Paris website confirmed it was going to be an extremely expensive long weekend. But my finances had improved thanks to Max’s largesse, and even if the trip wiped out all the savings I had managed to accumulate over the last eight and a half months, I could not think of a better use for the money.

The morning after I had confirmed my booking through a hefty credit card payment, I wondered if I had been rather too hasty. Sitting down with Kevin to review our new business leads, I saw we had received only one tentative enquiry that week and it was from an old fashioned chain of estate agents in the South West called Dawsons. They had been one of the last estate agents to build a website and had never shown any previous interest in acquiring our interface.

‘They’re probably just going through the motions,’ Kevin said. ‘There’s also another problem. They’ve insisted the presentation is at their offices on the 4
^th
December, and that’s when all the sales team will be at the user groups in Manchester. I suppose we could send one of the juniors…’

‘No, I’ll see Dawsons,’ I said. ‘Remind me again where they are based?’

He laughed. ‘The backend of beyond: some feudal market town in the West Country called Ferreston. Are you sure you want to go?’

I went completely quiet. Ferreston Hall was George’s ancestral home.

When I returned to my desk, I typed into Google, ‘George Colebrook + Ferreston’. Top of the results was an obituary of George’s father that had appeared in the
Daily Telegraph
three years ago. It ended: ‘The estate now passes to his only son and heir, the Honourable George Colebrook, a successful City investment manager who succeeds to the title of Lord Ferreston.’

I confirmed with Kevin that I would see Dawsons, but did not rush to contact George. On the face of it, it should have been a simple matter of common courtesy to get in touch, given that he had once been my friend, I had not seen him for years and I was now due to visit what he would have doubtlessly called ‘his neck of the woods’. But nothing was simple anymore when it came to George and Max and our shared history, and I still had not picked up the telephone by the time I went to bed. That night, for the first time in weeks, I had to open the drawer and take out the gun to help me get to sleep.

And I still had not called him by the day of the meeting when I drove down to Ferreston. I left London before dawn, having not slept a wink, and reached Dawsons’ offices by 11.30 am, ignoring the brown National Trust signs for Ferreston Hall that seemed to shout at me from every major road junction near the town.

The meeting went badly. I won over the Dawsons’ managing director, but it was clear that their sixty-five year old technophobic chairman had the final say, and he was in no mood to invest.

I tried to persuade him but he cut me off. ‘John, all these hi-tech features might be important for big London estate agents. But it’s a different world down here.’

I knew I was losing the sale, and was relieved when the managing director suggested a five minute break. He popped out to make some calls, leaving me alone with the chairman. As I refilled our coffee cups, I casually mentioned that I had always liked visiting Ferreston.

‘Oh, have you been here before?’ the chairman, asked with only mild curiosity.

‘Yes, the Ferreston family actually set up PropFace,’ I said.

The chairman looked up.

‘George was our first chairman,’ I continued, stretching the truth as far as I dared.

‘You mean, Lord Ferreston? Is he still involved?’

‘I’m seeing him tonight. Do you know him?’

‘Not very well, no,’ the chairman stammered. ‘But we do handle some of the estate’s transactions. And recently we decided to sponsor the local theatre production.’

‘A wise move,’ I said with a knowing grin.

When I resumed my presentation, the chairman’s attitude had changed. Within half an hour, he had agreed to install PropFace throughout his firm and in return I told him I would pass on his good wishes to George.

After the meeting was finished, I got into my car and followed the National Trust signs to Ferreston Hall. They pointed me to the main entrance gates, which were locked with a large sign across them, saying the house was not open to the public until 1st May. I kept going, however, looking out for a back entrance that George had shown me over fifteen years ago, when he had invited me to stay for his twenty first birthday party.

I found it and drove down an unmarked track that snaked around a wood and past a Victorian Gatehouse. Only then could I see the Hall in all its glory: a magnificent Georgian stately home situated above a lake, with a grand neo-classical facade at the front, complete with ornate columns and marble steps. I remembered George referred to this part of the house as ‘the zoo’, because all through the summer, tourists tramped through it, cameras at the ready, which was why his family lived at the back of the house, in far more modest rooms.

I rapped on the back door noticing that its iron knocker had not changed. When there was no answer, I let myself in, walking through a hallway lined with Barbour coats into a large, warm kitchen. I was just about to call out again, when a slightly rotund blonde lady of about my age appeared, holding some secateurs.

‘Can I help you?’ she said in an upper-class voice.

I told her my name and explained I was an old friend of George, and that I was staying in town and had popped in on the off-chance of seeing him.

‘I’m Gail,’ she said, ‘George’s wife.’ Then she added: ‘George is out at the moment. I’m not quite sure when he’s coming back. Do you have a number he could reach you on?’

She said it politely but in the sort of voice a secretary uses when she has been asked to screen calls for her boss. There was certainly no suggestion that I could be given George’s number to speak to him myself. I quickly wrote my mobile number on a piece of kitchen paper, and added a plea that George call me as soon as he could, because I was staying in town for only one night.

I waited for Gail to say that she had heard all about me, or that I must return for supper, but she simply guided me back to the door I had come in through. From there I drove to a small hotel called the Ferreston Arms in the town centre. I had barely checked in, when my mobile rang.

‘John, is that you?’

I had not spoken to George for years but I recognised his voice immediately.

‘I hear you’re in town,’ he continued. ‘You must come for supper. Would eight o’clock suit you?’

‘Couldn’t be better.’

I was just about to put down the phone, when he suddenly said, ‘John, your visit is nothing to do with Max, is it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages.’

Two hours later I was sitting in George and Gail’s kitchen. I had come armed with the smartest presents I could find in Ferreston at seven o’clock in the evening: a bunch of flowers from the petrol station and a bottle of malt whisky from the local off-licence. George had never been a big drinker, but he had always loved a good malt and I saw a twinkle in his eyes when I handed it over.

It was just the three of us for supper. They had a two year old child who was sleeping upstairs and a live-out nanny whom I briefly met as she left for the evening. Gail cooked the food, saying ‘there must be so much that you and George want to talk about.’

That was true for me but not for George. When I asked what he was doing, he was rather vague – ‘just boring rural stuff’ was all I could get out of him. Instead I had to look for clues in his appearance. The same hairless head that had caused him so much grief in his twenties now sat well on his skinny frame. Instead it was his body that had changed: it looked slightly shrivelled.

‘So you’re the new Lord Ferreston,’ I said as he offered me some wine.

He smiled. ‘It’s not something I’m particularly proud of.’

‘And I’ve heard you’re still acting.’

In the background I heard Gail laugh.

‘How did you know that?’ he asked

I told him a little about my meeting with Dawsons.

‘Yes, Dawsons do sponsor us,’ George admitted.

‘Who’s us?’

‘Oh, just the local Am Dram Society. I do bits and pieces for them.’

‘Rubbish,’ Gail cried out. ‘He’s their star actor, and their director and manager.’

‘It’s all very provincial, I’m afraid,’ George said. ‘Anyway what’s your news: how’s Karen?’

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘but not with me.’

After that George asked whether I kept up with any old friends of his. Invariably I hadn’t. Gail lobbed in a few names of former friends of hers. The way they talked, you would have thought they had emigrated to New Zealand rather than moved to a place in the country less than four hours’ drive from London.

At half past ten Gail yawned, apologised for being so tired, and said she wanted to go to bed, adding: ‘Why don’t you stay and talk to George for a bit longer?’

George mumbled something about having had a long day too. It was my cue to leave, but I ignored it.

‘Perhaps we could sample some of that malt?’ I suggested. ‘It’s on special offer in a shop in London, and I’m quite tempted to buy some more of it. But I would really like to hear what you think of it, George. You were always the real expert on malts.’

That was just enough to persuade George to take me through to the sitting room, where I carefully poured out two large whiskies, each with a dash of water. George winced when I asked whether he wanted some ice as well.

‘Sacrilege,’ he said, ‘although to be honest, I hardly touch the stuff now.’

He sat back in a leather armchair and smiled. The room was rather dark, the only light coming from picture lights that illuminated various oil paintings of thin men with high foreheads.

‘You’ll be pleased to know that PropFace is still going,’ I said.

George smiled. ‘That was one of my better investments.’

‘And Max remains a shareholder.’

George didn’t rise to the bait at all. ‘A former life,’ he said.

‘I heard on the grapevine you had some sort of bust up with Max.’

He eyed me suspiciously and then shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s all water under the bridge now. I even own a few shares in his hedge fund.’

‘I bet they’ve done well.’

He smiled and took a sip of his whisky. ‘I’m hoping that when the fund is finally wound up, they might pay for a new roof at Ferreston – and that’s more than my father achieved in forty years. The last major repairs were in my Grandfather’s day. I’ve seen the bills.’

I let him talk some more about the state of his roof and then gently steered him back to what I wanted to discuss.

‘So when you receive your final cheque from the fund, will you and Max be friends again?’