Still feeling emotionally wobbly, I walked down the corridor. I’d have to talk to Susie, I realised. Ask her outright about having children, because if we were going to start a family, we’d have to start soon. Like now. But something inside me already knew her answer and the little gust of misery abruptly turned into a full-blown monsoon.
I was so absorbed in my thoughts, I was already through the front door when I realised I’d forgotten to check the hall table for keys. I backtracked to the large bowl that always sat on top but didn’t see any that looked like ours. I opened the top drawer. More keys jumbled among books of stamps, sunglasses and pens. Next drawer down, bingo. They even had a tag attached with my name on them.
My mind buzzed. Had Rob come here and borrowed the keys? He’d know where they were. Or had he told someone else where to find them? My stomach gave a little flip. Had it been my brother who’d left us the CCTV tape? And why had Mum blatantly lied to me saying Susie had every set of keys? Giving an internal sigh, I guessed her motivation: keep a set so when she saved the day, stopping the toilet from flooding or the roof from falling in, we’d be pathetically, apologetically grateful.
Gently I picked them up, put them in my pocket and headed to the office.
When I got there, Ronja greeted me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘How are you doing, Nick?’
I was about to give my stock answer of fine, thanks, when my legs almost gave way. I don’t know whether it was the concern on her face or whether it was because she wasn’t family so I didn’t have to present a strong front, but I suddenly felt incredibly tired.
‘Hey,’ she murmured and pulled out a chair for me. ‘That bad, huh?’
I managed a rather weak smile as I sank into the chair. ‘It’s not been great.’
She made me a coffee and brought it over. ‘Tell me.’
It was a relief to unload to someone I trusted. Unlike with the family, I didn’t have to edit things as much and most of it (aside from Susie’s job) came tumbling out. Rob and the people who wanted to find him, from DI Gilder to the Saint (but I never said his name) and onto Etienne and some unknown Spaniards who wanted their money.
‘And then this CCTV video,’ Ronja said. ‘Left in your home. Scary. Have you changed the locks?’
‘Yup. First thing this morning. We’re also putting in an alarm.’ I indicated her computer screen. ‘What did you find?’
She turned the screen so we could both see. She’d played with the image, sharpening and expanding it, and I’d been right. It was a partial logo of what appeared to be the first part of a fuzzy M. Ronja clicked onto Google and the entire image appeared. A crisp skyline with an M beneath blurred into the word Mayfair. She tapped some more until a website appeared. The Mayfair Group. London Property Investment & Development Specialists.
‘I’ll leave you, yes?’
‘Thanks heaps, Ronja.’
‘Any time.’
I had a browse through their website. Learned it was founded by Anthony Abbott and Roger Marshall in the nineties, and that they’d helped private and institutional clients complete residential and commercial property deals collectively valued at many hundreds of millions of pounds.
My skin prickled.
The photograph of Anthony Abbott showed a man in his early thirties in a sharp suit, prematurely white hair, broad shoulders. He was nothing if not a chip off the old block. He could have been a young George Abbott. Aka the Saint.
I grabbed the mouse and did some googling to confirm that Anthony Abbott was indeed the Saint’s son. I then accessed Google Earth to check out Mayfair’s head offices, which were, surprise surprise, in the heart of Mayfair.
When I had the right street, I switched the image to street view and had a look around. It didn’t take long until I’d pegged the right building because most of them were around a hundred years old, Grade II listed buildings with architectural sculpture and putti on the façades, with big solid oak doors – but the Mayfair Group was housed in a modern construction – a ten-storey block of steel and chrome with automatic doors to the street. Overlooking St. James’s Park, it was a stone’s throw from The Ritz Carlton and Piccadilly Circus. Prime real estate. I mean really prime, like some of the most expensive on the planet.
What had Rob been doing there?
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the image of the building. Anthony Abbott, the Saint’s son, had founded the company. With Daddy’s money? My mind snaked onwards. Property development could be an easy way of laundering Daddy’s dirty money as well. I trawled around the site but couldn’t find any further reference to Anthony Abbott so I put his name into Google.
Instantly six images appeared of the man, all of him in a suit, all of him looking serious and businesslike.
The next reference was Wikipedia. I read that Anthony “Tony” Abbott was born on 5 December 1976 and was a property developer who’d won the Property Entrepreneur of the Year Award when he turned thirty-one. Most of the text was a plug for his business, but then I came to the last line.
Abbott was shot to death aged 32. He was buried in East Finchley Cemetery.
My eyes flew to the top of the page. I hadn’t taken in the dates. He’d apparently died on Friday twenty-third August. Twelve years earlier.
My stomach rolled in ice.
Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. Please no, no, no no no.
Tony Abbott had been shot twice. Once in the chest, and then another bullet had been fired into the back of his head. Execution style. To make sure he was dead.
He’d been murdered in his office, on the third floor overlooking the park. He’d been murdered in the same offices on the same day my brother had been videoed arriving and then leaving at a run with a gun in hand. There were no witnesses and nobody knew who had done it.
Oh, dear God.
I felt shaky and sick.
I got to my feet, sat back down. Put my head in my hands. Tried to think. Had Rob killed the Saint’s son? If so, it would make sense that the Saint had come looking for Rob. He’d want vengeance for Tony. Had it been a hit? Had MI5 told Rob to take Tony out for some reason? Or had Rob’s cover been blown and he’d been forced to silence Tony? And then there was DI Gilder, also looking for Rob. Did he suspect Rob was the killer?
I thought of my brother, his love of the sea, his generous and compassionate spirit. Yes, he was independent and fun-loving, ebullient, but I would never have perceived him to be a killer. He didn’t have a malicious bone in his body. He wasn’t violent. He’d put spiders outside the house, rescued bugs and flies from the swimming pool, and once he’d come home with a kitten that someone had put in a sack at the side of the road to die. He called it Nelson even though it was female. The cat lived for another eighteen years. But then I recalled the CCTV film of Rob taking down the gunman in the restaurant, the efficiency and proficiency of his blows. Had he been trained to attack and kill? Or had it always been in him?
And what about me? Did I have that killer instinct too?
For the first time in my life, I felt my foundations shake.
I closed my eyes. Turned my mind to the police. If Rob had murdered Tony Abbott, why hadn’t the police arrested him? That had to be why he’d vanished. Because he was wanted for murder.