CHAPTER 52

Harry

September 2014

The results were in—Scotland had voted by a whisker to remain part of the UK.

“Thank Christ for that,” said Harry, switching off the TV in his office.

“Hypocrite,” said Terri, from the couch.

“How so, Baskin?”

“You moan about Europe, but when our northern neighbor kicks against being ruled by a distant bureaucracy, you’re all ‘better together.’”

“Entirely different. Brussels interferes too much in British business. We’d be better off without them.”

“Bollocks.”

“You wait, Terri. If the Tories get in again next year, there’ll be a referendum. I’d bet my yacht the British public vote to leave.”

Terri stood up and held out her hand. “Shake on it?”

Harry hesitated. “It was just a figure of speech.”

“No, come on. Bet me your yacht the British vote to leave Europe.”

“How about a hundred quid?”

“Yacht.”

“Small car?”

“Where’s those famous balls, Harry?”

Harry’s superyacht, Janette, was his pride and joy. And he wasn’t a gambling man. But he was convinced this was coming. Britain had always been fiercely independent. Look at the history. Henry VIII had shaken off Rome—no remote pope was going to tell him whom he could and couldn’t marry. Then there’d been Winston, rallying plucky little Britain to resist the Nazis, picking themselves up day after grim day as the bombs rained down, making a cup of tea and getting on with it.

“Right. You’re on.” He shook her hand.

“Fuck! Better learn my port from my starboard, then.”

“What was it you actually came to see me about?”

“Ah yes. I wanted to run something past you. I know I don’t usually, but this one’s a bit different because of Rose’s involvement. I’m doing an in-depth feature on Andre Sokolov. You know his team just won the Premiership?”

Harry tried not to react, took his time sipping his coffee and placing it carefully back on the desk. “When you say in-depth . . .”

“Well, obviously the man’s a crook.”

“He’s no longer involved with our TV offerings. His capital was too suspect. We bought out his investments.”

“So we don’t need to worry about upsetting him. I lure him in with the football, then go for the jugular.”

Harry wondered how to sort this one. No way did he want Terri anywhere near Andre. Her ability to extract confessions was on a par with the Spanish Inquisition’s.

“You know I’m hands-off, but I’m going to say this time, bin it. You do need to worry about upsetting Andre. He’s dangerous in the way only Russians are dangerous. If he thinks he’s coming for a chat about his beloved football and you start asking where his billions came from, you could find yourself in very hot water.”

“Wouldn’t exactly be the first time. Isn’t that what investigative journalism’s all about?”

“OK, let’s put it more bluntly. That hot water, if it were used to make a cup of tea, could see you on a slab in the mortuary following an inexplicable poisoning incident.”

“Like Ana, you mean.”

Harry felt the blood draining from his face. “How dare you. What sort of crass comment is that?”

“Sorry. I’ve just always found it weird, you know? Forget I ever said that. I’ll go back to my cave.” She headed for the door.

“Terri.” His tone was icy.

She turned and met his eye.

“Kill the interview. I don’t want you anywhere near that man.”

Terri

It was a high-risk strategy, but it had worked. The look on Harry’s face had got her further than all those dead-end leads she’d followed since Percy had shared his conspiracy theory with her.

The coroner’s report, hospital records, and eyewitness accounts had led nowhere. A bacterial infection in a wound had caused toxic shock syndrome. Highly unusual, but it happened.

The last person who saw Ana alive was the office cleaner. The police had attempted to track him down, but he’d left the company, whose questionable employment practices didn’t include checking immigrants’ papers. The police felt his disappearance was more likely due to a fear of the authorities rather than any connection to Ana’s death.

Nobody in the office remembered her injuring herself on the guillotine. But apparently it didn’t need to have been an obvious wound. Small but deep would have been enough, like a slip of the bread knife.

And there it had dried up. Until Harry had sacked that odious creep Cranwell for sexual harassment. Tom was bitter, and only too happy to share his thoughts on Harry Rose with Terri. Yes, of course a journalist protects her sources, she’d said.

He’d told her Ana had demanded half of Harry’s assets, which had mostly been tied up in Rose and were security for sizable Russian investment into the company. And about a meeting with Caitlyn Howe, that tragic girl Harry had married after Janette. There had been an attempt at blackmail by her lover, who’d claimed he had evidence that Harry’s relationship with Caitlyn had begun years ago, when she was only fifteen. It had been a lie, apparently, but the interesting part was that front and center in the photo the boyfriend had provided as evidence was Andre Sokolov. Harry had apparently told Caitlyn that while he wasn’t worried about the blackmail attempt, Sokolov might not be so unconcerned. There had been a death threat—Cranwell had heard it with his own ears.

Terri opened up her wallet and pulled out a photo of herself with Ana, taken outside a Covent Garden café. “I haven’t forgotten you,” she whispered. “It’s not over yet.”

She propped the picture up against her computer. In spite of Cranwell’s revelations, her investigations had continued to lead nowhere. But Terri wasn’t one to give up. She’d decided to say something to Harry about her suspicions and gauge his reaction. This morning, she’d had the opportunity.

Harry’s face had said it all. His ruddy cheeks had paled; he looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

What had Harry done? And what was she going to do about it?

Harry

Obviously he couldn’t sack Terri. God, but she was clever. He remembered back to the reasons he’d employed her in the first place. He’d wanted to keep his enemy close. She’d always known too much. Now, it seemed she’d made the connection between Ana’s death and Andre.

Nothing could be proved. Andre would never confess, and there was no one else. And of course, Harry had never meant for it to happen. His failure had been in not recognizing Andre’s intent.

All he could do was get on with life and hope Terri let it go. Why would she want to bring him down?

He turned his mind to pleasanter things. Clare had moved in, but they still weren’t married. He’d proposed to her (again) last weekend, and although she’d refused him (again), he knew he was wearing her down. His children loved her, even Maria, and Clare was properly part of the family now. Charles and Megan approved too. Well, who wouldn’t? Clare was intelligent, sensible, fun.

“Is she superstitious?” Charles had asked, after Harry confided he’d been turned down yet again.

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“The curse of Harry Rose’s wives. Might be safer to remain Ms. Barr.”

Harry had considered the comment to be in spectacularly bad taste.

Terri

July 2016

Damn it, Harry got to keep his yacht. Unbelievably, the idiot British public had voted to cast itself adrift from Europe, to go it alone like it was still fighting off the Nazis in World War II.

Terri threw another file into a cardboard box, then stopped to look around. After what seemed like a lifetime in this office, she’d be leaving it today. She couldn’t help feeling sentimental.

There was still so much to do. Twenty-odd years’ worth of stuff. Terri’s untidiness was legendary. While clean-desk policies had been implemented, no one had been brave enough to suggest Terri complied.

“Ah, Eliza. Just the man.”

Ana’s daughter entered the office like a blast of fresh air. Her red curls were scraped back off her face into a high ponytail, and her deep brown eyes—Ana’s eyes—were full of enthusiasm for her gap-year job helping Terri.

“It’s so exciting to be moving into the new offices, after all these years hearing Dad banging on about how brilliant they’re going to be.”

“Well, if you want to get there quicker, you can empty that filing cabinet. Coffee first, though. If you’d be so kind?”

“On it!”

Terri was delighted to have Eliza on board. She was sharp as a pin, didn’t mind doing the dogsbody jobs, and Terri imagined it would have made Ana smile.

Eliza returned with two coffees and made a start. “Terri, why don’t you chuck some of this stuff out? All the walls are made of glass in the new place, so everyone will be able to see each other’s mess.”

“I ignored that email. I’m too old to change my ways.”

Later, Terri returned from an editorial meeting to find Eliza sitting at Terri’s desk, a file open in front of her. She recognized the papers, and the photo of herself and Ana. Shit.

“Terri, why have you collected all this stuff about Mum’s death?”

Eliza was eighteen now. Didn’t she deserve to know?

“Now’s not the time.”

Eliza must have seen something in her expression. “Nobody’s doing any proper work today. Tell me.”

So Terri did. But she ended by saying, “Look, love. I’ve thought about this long and hard. I’m almost certain it was done without your dad’s knowledge. I’ve never found anything to link him personally to your mum’s death.”

“Why is there a photo of Caitlyn with the Russian guy and Dad?”

Terri hadn’t realized she’d seen that. “Of course, she was your stepmum for a while.”

“She was lovely. I hated Dad for kicking her out. I know why he did now, but he was pretty horrible to her.”

“Yes, that was all very sad. Caitlyn had a dodgy background. She was involved with a drug dealer, and she shacked up with a friend who tried to sell her story to me. Name of Storm. Dreadful person, I sent her packing. Poor Caitlyn. She tried to pull herself out of it when she met your dad, but it’s difficult to shed your past.”

“Dad won’t talk about her now, but he really loved her, I think.”

“He loved all of them, Eliza. Unfortunately for them.”

Eliza was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think I’ll ever get married,” she said. “In fact, I might just stay a virgin all my life.”