At home in Mill Hill Grant checked his mobile. Missed call: Caroline Howe-Jessops. Why would she be phoning him? He played the message.
‘Hi, gorgeous. You won’t believe this, but Suzie née Hughes-Webb wants to come to London and see you urgently. Do call. Lots of love, Caroline.’
Grant was elated. He had not expected this turn of events. His mind started racing. The Galvins. The Galvins! Hadn’t Danny revealed that his father had survived a poisoning? His latest weird dream had Danny’s mother Alison admitting liability. Who else could have been responsible for these past crimes if not Paul, Alison, Danny – or even Danny’s younger sister, Sharon, perhaps? He allowed himself a wry smile as he was aware he was getting carried away, partly out of frustration but also out of a sense of encroaching dread. He knew he was charging forwards dangerously, but he had to speak to Suzie; he needed to get things back in proportion. He hoped she had reflected further and now wanted to reveal more. He couldn’t wait to hear. He hurriedly dialled her Cape Town number.
‘Suzie Barber speaking.’
Her going by her married name threw him slightly. ‘Hi, Suzie. It’s Grant returning your call.’
‘Er, yes, hello,’ she replied somewhat formally in her clipped businesslike tone. ‘There is something I need to show you, Grant.’
‘Show me?’ he queried. He had not expected an exhibit. ‘What’s that?’
‘Have you watched the three DVDs?’
By this stage Grant had seen them all, and apart from a few significant moments that had grabbed his full attention he had found most of the film footage disappointing in terms of content.
‘Yes. Thank you very much for sending them to me. I was about to drop you an email.’
‘Grant,’ Suzie whispered in an urgent, conspiratorial tone. ‘There’s another disk.’
‘What? I mean, where?’
‘I’ve got it. It’s far more revealing than the others. I’ve kept it since taking it from Danny’s flat, but I think you should see it so I’m going to bring it to London with me next week.’
‘Thank you,’ said Grant. ‘Thank you very much. Can you tell me what’s on it?’
‘No.’ She reverted to her more usual manner. ‘But I can tell you …’ She hesitated before delivering the bombshell. ‘Henry filmed in the pub on Hector’s last evening.’
‘Really?’ Grant exclaimed, exhilarated by this revelation.
They reverted to small talk to ease the tension, and she gave him her flight details. He was keen to keep her talking. He could barely wait for Wednesday week, but she wasn’t prepared to divulge any more at this point. He offered to meet her at Heathrow Terminal 5 and said he would drive her straight to her aunt’s flat in Bayswater.
‘Suzie,’ he continued, in a further and somewhat desperate attempt to prise more information out of her, ‘Danny came to see me. He was quite aggressive, most unpleasant really. At one point I actually felt in fear of physical attack.’ He felt a bit feeble revealing this and immediately wished he hadn’t.
‘Did he?’ she asked, after a long pause, during which time he wondered if the line had gone dead. ‘Be very careful, Grant. You don’t know the half of it with the Galvins.’
‘And are you prepared to tell me everything when we meet this time?’
‘I will show you the last film taken on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the end of the holiday. I think that will suffice.’
‘Ivan Youlen,’ he continued, still trying to keep her on the line. ‘Did you know he showed up that Sunday lunchtime at the hotel when the police set up shop in the Simpkins’ flat?’
‘Yes. I’ve seen it on film.’
‘Why?’
‘I think it’ll all become clearer when you see the last film. I must go. Thanks again for agreeing to meet me at Heathrow. I’ll text you the flight details and my ETA.’
‘Great. Many thanks, Suzie. I really look forward to seeing you.’
She didn’t respond. She was already planning her London visit, which she knew would require meticulous preparation. She didn’t have much time for Grant’s schoolboy excitement, as she regarded it, but she did know it was time to move everything on.
The night before, Grant and Brigit had agreed that he should move out for a short while to continue his research. He had called to ask his brother, Glen, if he could stay for three or four days, which Brigit thought a good idea.
After speaking to Suzie he packed some necessities and set off on the North Circular Road. He soon became aware that a car, although it wasn’t right behind, seemed to be trailing him. He pulled up at a petrol station to see what would happen, and the vehicle sped past. In his paranoid state he fully expected to see either Danny or Ivan behind the wheel, but instead he spotted a rather heavy-looking guy, the type that might be described in the criminal fraternity as ‘a bit of muscle’. This could take things in a sinister new direction. He dallied at the petrol station, buying coffee from the vending machine and drinking it slowly, watching the passing traffic keenly. Some ten minutes later he was back behind the wheel. By the time he was on the A3 he saw the same car about three vehicles behind him. His mind began to race. Should he call the police? He didn’t feel inclined to do so, as he thought it would only complicate things at this stage. He resolved to tough it out. After all, the ‘Spooks of Zennor’ who had pursued him on the west coast and then on to St Austell had never actually carried out a physical assault, although the hand on his face in the dark had been pretty weird and not an experience he was likely to forget. He pulled up at an off-licence close to his brother’s home in a picturesque village near Guildford. As an offering to Glen and his wife, Mandy, for his invasion of their space he purchased three bottles of their favourite Australian Chardonnay to accompany the flowers and the box of chocolates he had bought at the petrol station.
‘Gordon Bennett, are you staying a month?’ inquired Glen, partly delighted to see his big brother and partly anxious as to how things might play out with Mandy, who could be somewhat highly strung and rather temperamental. Glen shot her a swift glance, but much to his relief she had adopted her inscrutable face. Grant was slightly taken aback at Glen’s greeting, as he recalled that Danny had used the same expression a few days earlier; he hadn’t heard anyone say ‘Gordon Bennett’ for around twenty years until that week.
Mandy made sympathetic noises as her brother-in-law revealed his temporary separation from his wife over dinner that evening, although she privately felt for Brigit. She thought poor Brigit must have been driven to distraction by Grant, whom Mandy had long regarded as a self-centred individual. (In addition, she had always been somewhat disconcerted by his eye movements, as he never seemed sure where to focus – but she was not proud of this.)
Grant didn’t mention the events of summer 1972 to the pair. He waited for Mandy to retire before asking his brother if they could talk for a bit, and only then did the elder brother unburden himself, waiting for the fraternal fall-out he rather dreaded. Glen remained silent throughout, expressionless bar a few grunts, raising the odd eyebrow but taking in everything. Finally Grant asked the inevitable question: had he known or suspected anything?
‘What, anything at all?’ responded Glen rather glibly. While he appreciated his brother coming clean on a dark family secret and putting it in context in a lawyer’s concise way, he resented the slightly patronizing tone that Grant reserved for him, although their bond was strong and he knew that he meant well.
‘Well, anything at all or in particular? For instance, did you know that Mum was having an affair with Richard Hughes-Webb?’
‘Yes,’ replied Glen, deliberately sounding authoritative.
‘How did you know?’
‘She told me.’
‘What?’
‘It was just before I took up that golf scholarship in America, after I left school, and Dad was in a pretty poor state.’ Glen looked close to tears.
‘I guess that would have been about September 1974.’
‘Yes that would be about right. Dad died the following spring, I remember that awful call from you when I was in Florida.’ Grant nodded as his brother continued. ‘She wanted me to know before I left the nest –’ Once again he found himself faltering.
‘Why?’ Grant couldn’t stop himself interrupting.
‘Because,’ Glen took a deep breath, ‘because, because …’ He froze like a tennis player getting a bad case of nerves as he tried to throw the ball up in the air, attempting a crucial first serve. ‘Because she was going to go and live with him!’ He blurted this out so loudly that the dog, a docile black Labrador, jumped up and barked.
Grant didn’t twitch a muscle. He was suppressing painful memories of his father. He was imagining him lying there, his face contorted with discomfort, after being told that there wasn’t any chance of surgery, any chance of recovery. He knew he must remain calm, remain the responsible older brother. Finally he spoke. ‘So why didn’t she?’
‘Dad’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and I guess I gave her a volley of abuse – my gut reaction – which really seemed to shock her to the core. I can’t for the life of me think why, as I don’t think anyone else would have reacted any differently in the situation.’
‘No, of course not,’ Grant said, showing the empathy he had always felt for his brother. ‘Your reaction was entirely understandable and justified. Did you find out how this affected Hughes-Webb?’
‘Yes,’ came another slow reply. ‘I sort of heard him give her an ultimatum, along the lines of “I’ve been waiting three years for you to get on with things. Sort it out by Christmas or it’s all off.”’
The bastard! thought Grant repeatedly in his head. ‘So how did you overhear this?’ he asked as calmly as he could.
‘I listened to the telephone call outside her bedroom door. From her responses I could make out his side of the conversation. Dad was already in that converted room downstairs by this stage, with all his medications – deteriorating.’
‘Yes. I understand.’ Grant patted his brother gently on the shoulder, thanked him once more for giving him a port in the storm and made his way to the spare room. He had much to reflect on.
Glen, meanwhile, wished Grant had lingered or had demonstrated some real emotion. He wanted a big hug from his brother; even after all this time Glen found it hard to deal with the events from their shared past. However, he knew his sibling all too well and knew he would always play the calm protector to his ‘little bro’. He also knew that Grant cared deeply for him and had tried to protect him from the fallout of their mother’s affair with Richard. What his brother hadn’t realized was that he had known all along.
As Grant lay in bed, unable to sleep, he knew that he had been unable to admit one of the nastiest aspects of the whole nightmare – the demonic look he had seen in Hughes-Webb’s eyes that night when he accosted Hector Wallace – the full fury of the heart surgeon’s face caught by Tom’s car headlights. Grant wished belatedly that he had been able to give Glen a hug.
Grant’s meeting with Suzie the following week now had an added complication: her father’s ultimatum to his mother. However, he knew he had to suppress his personal animosity towards her father if he was to uncover the truth. Throughout his dealings with Suzie, he had managed to control his feelings fairly successfully. In a way he was relieved to have heard Glen’s revelation, but he very much wished that none of this had ever happened.