CHAPTER 53
Harry
January 2018
Harry glanced up from his desk, looking through the glass walls to the distant boardroom, where he could just make out the huge portrait commissioned to mark the opening of the Rose building. In it, Harry was standing, legs apart, in what Terri had mockingly called a “power stance.” The artist had emphasized his broad shoulders and long legs, but it was a shame the mouth looked rather mean.
They’d been in the new building for just over a year now. The millennials on Harry’s staff were forever Instagramming photos of themselves flying down the glass slide from the third floor to the atrium, or eating their avocado-centric brunches in the café overlooking the Thames. Which was all fine by Harry. He wanted Rose to be the coolest place to work.
He opened up the report on RoseHealth.com that had just popped in from the Greenhouse, his research and development department. It had been Eliza’s idea to share Clare’s “lifestyle change” expertise online. Clare had been all for it. She’d grown tired of Doc Butts’s “twentieth-century approach to wellness” (that word again) and had left not long after her and Harry’s wedding a year ago (a quiet affair, close friends and family only). Now she was casting about for something other than volunteer work to fill her time.
As Harry looked at the report, he could see it showed promise.
There was a knock on his door, and he waved Aleesha in.
“Mr. Latham’s here, Mr. R—sorry, Harry.”
Bugger. He’d forgotten Howe’s ambulance chaser of a lawyer was due. He hated the calendar app on his computer, but a desk diary was so last century.
Five minutes later, Aleesha placed two coffees in front of Harry and the lawyer, and once again Harry was treated to a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage.
“Thank you, Aleesha. Aha—real cups. Excellent!”
“Zero waste, Harry,” she said, and winked.
“Still pulling the young girls, eh?” said Latham as she left.
“Get to the point. I’m a busy man.”
Once again, the sniveling little lawyer trotted out his convoluted case, that Harry owed compensation to “Howie” Howe for the unreasonable behavior that had driven his daughter to suicide.
“Mr. Latham, unless you have something to add to the ridiculous accusations you leveled at me last time, I suggest you leave now. Why are you even here?”
“Mr. Howe now has evidence of verbal abuse, witnessed by your ex-lawyer. Mr. Cranwell is willing to testify that this would have significantly contributed to Caitlyn’s decision to kill herself. If you don’t want Mr. Howe to go to the press, I’d strongly advise an out-of-court settlement.”
“Hm. That would be the same Mr. Cranwell who sexually assaulted Caitlyn at the Rose offices—as witnessed by a receptionist who was similarly harassed by him. I suggest you leave now, Latham. Goodbye.”
The lawyer was sensible enough to do as he was told, and Harry was left alone.
An unwelcome image of Cranwell groping Caitlyn flashed into his mind, followed swiftly by a rush of shame. He should have believed her when she said she’d had nothing to do with the blackmail. Deep down, he’d known she was telling the truth. But at the time he was still too hurt by her infidelity to act reasonably.
Hypocrite, said the voice in his head.
He’d abandoned her, leaving her to be assaulted one last time, just before she ended her short life.
Maybe Harry shouldn’t be worrying about this #MeToo business, after all. Maybe he should welcome it, if it could expose creeps like Cranwell. Supposing someone assaulted Eliza like that. He’d want her to hashtag the hell out of whoever it was.
The phone rang. “It’s your sister, Harry,” said Aleesha.
“Put her through.” He was glad of the distraction.
“Megan! What can I do for you on this particularly grim and gray morning? Recovered from Christmas?”
“It’s not Megan, it’s Margot.”
Good lord, number one sister? Why on earth was she ringing him? He hadn’t seen her for years; she rarely left her Scottish castle.
“Quelle surprise! To what do I owe this honor?”
“It’s been so long, Harry. My New Year’s resolution is to do something about that. How about coming up for a weekend? I’m inviting Megan and Charles too. Bring the children. And your new wife, of course. This one’s called Clare, I believe?”
A few seconds in and she was already passive-aggressively judging him.
“That’s right. Well, I don’t see why not.”
“If you come before the end of the month, we can shoot pheasant. It would be nice for you to get to know Robbie better too.”
Harry could hardly remember her husband. He pictured the dour laird who’d never laughed at his jokes.
“And our daughters—Mackenzie and Eliza are about the same age.”
“Eliza’s at university now. Eddie’s eleven. Not sure either would be up for slaughtering wildlife, but I’m happy to put the wind up a few birds.”
Later, Harry made his way down to the Rack’s offices, where Eliza was working again during the holidays. He found her perched on Terri’s desk. The two seemed close—he was pleased she was getting some top-notch experience, but their relationship made him uneasy.
“Hey, Dad!” Her smile always gave him a lift. “What are you doing here?”
“Something strange happened. Your aunt Margot’s invited us up to Scotland.”
“Why?”
“Wants to reconnect with her family. Megan’s invited too. Margot was always mean to Megan. I guess we should do as we’re told. It was always dangerous to say no to Margot.”
“I’d love to come! I’d like to get to know Aunt Margot.”
Good old Eliza. People were always innocent until proven guilty.
“And your cousin might be there—Mackenzie. She’s about your age.”
“Cool!”
That night, the ghosts came back in a dream, muttering his name. Amorphous shapes, black shadows full of menace. There was a whisper: “It’s nearly time.”
He woke up with a shout.
“Harry, what on earth?” said Clare, switching on the bedside lamp.
“Bad dream.” He was sweating. He could sense them there, in the corners of his mind. He had a terrible sense of impending doom. “Will I ever be free of it?”
“Free of what?”
“The past.”
“You can’t undo the past, Harry. But talking about what’s bothering you might help.”
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Then go back to sleep, love. None of us is perfect; we all have stuff on our conscience.”
Eliza
Aunt Margot was as joyless as Dad had said. No wonder he didn’t bother keeping up with her. And her husband was like some grumpy Scottish cliché. Cousin Mackenzie had gone to Glasgow for a Young Scots for Independence rally, so Eliza didn’t even get to meet her.
The mountains looked beautiful covered in snow, but when you needed five layers of clothing to go out for a walk . . . actually, you needed five layers to stay inside too. The castle was freezing.
There had been only two bright spots so far. The first was seeing Dad and Megan pulling silly faces behind Margot’s back, just as they’d done as children, apparently. The other was seeing Dad dressed up in tweeds and a silly hat, all ready for the pheasant shoot.
Over breakfast, Aunt Margot had filled them in on who was coming to the shoot today. Most of them started with Mc. Dad was looking forward to it, as were Megan and Charles.
How could they? Eliza, along with Clare and Eddie, couldn’t handle the idea of killing things. They’d be going for a walk instead. Aunt Margot had looked down her nose at their “silly” opinions, launching into a lecture on how pheasants that lived their lives free on the moors were a far more ethical source of food than chickens raised in factory farms. She had a point. But still, killing for fun? No.
People started arriving, most of them in cranky old Land Rovers with dogs in the back. They assembled on the graveled area in front of the castle, before setting off on foot, guns at their sides.
Eliza shuddered. Poor birds. She was sitting on a stone bench, the cold numbing her bottom, lacing up her walking boots. Clare and Eddie were still inside, searching out scarves and gloves.
There was the sound of an engine, and another Land Rover appeared, drawing to a halt at the path the shooters had taken. A woman leaped out, dressed in a kilt, a green jacket, and headscarf. From a distance she looked like the Queen. Could it be the Queen? The royals seemed to like it up here.
The woman turned toward her and called, “I’m late! Did they go this way?”
“Yes—they left about twenty minutes ago!”
The woman fetched her shotgun from her car and set off in a hurry.
Eliza was ready to leave. Come on, you two!
It was too cold to sit still. She wandered over to the footpath and noticed something lying in the snow. Car keys. They must belong to that woman. She picked them up and set off after her. Clare and Eddie would be coming this way, anyway.
Coming out of the trees onto the moor, she saw the shooting party lined up ahead, their guns held ready as men and dogs went forward to drive the pheasants into the air.
The birds took off, fluttering and panicking, high into the blue sky. The crack of gunfire echoed around the mountains and several plummeted to the ground.
Eliza felt sick.
Where was the woman? She spotted her, still some way behind the shooters. Eliza carried on, trying to ignore the carnage ahead.
When she was within yelling distance, she slowed down. Beyond the woman she saw Dad, Charles, and Megan, guns at the ready, pointing high into the sky.
The woman had stopped. Her gun was at the ready too.
It was pointed at Dad.
Eliza waited for her to raise it, like the others, but she didn’t. She was squinting along the barrel.
Panic rose in Eliza’s chest. “Hey!”
The woman ignored her cry, intent on lining up the gun sight.
This can’t be happening.
More deadly shots echoed around the mountains, and more birds dropped like stones to the moorland below.
The woman released a catch on the shotgun, then returned her hand to the barrel.
“No! Stop!” Eliza screamed, setting off at a run.
She stumbled slightly, regained her balance, and reached the woman just as she pulled the trigger. “No!” Eliza pushed her to the ground.
But she was too late. Harry sank to his knees. A dark stain spread across his tweed jacket, then he toppled over onto the snow. Screams rang out among the gunfire.
“Is he dead?” the woman said, her voice flat.
Eliza took off past her, desperate to reach her father.
She saw Megan looking at her own gun, as if making sure she hadn’t shot her brother by accident, then staring at Harry in disbelief. A patch of red was growing in the snow beside him.
People were pulling out mobile phones, calling for help.
Clare. We need Clare.
Battling her instinct to run to her father, Eliza headed back up the path, filled with a sense of unreality.
Dad had been shot. Shot.
The woman was still there, sitting on the ground, a stunned look on her face. “Wait,” she said. “I need to know. Is he dead?”
She must have been about forty-five, fifty. Her headscarf had come off, revealing fair hair streaked with gray.
Eliza ignored her and carried on running.
“I need to know!” shrieked the woman.
“Thank God,” Eliza said as she saw Clare coming the other way. “Mum! Come quickly. Dad’s been shot!”
Clare broke into a run, her face panicked. “How? Where?”
Eliza pointed, then ran back toward the crowd now gathered around Harry.
She was level with the woman again.
“She’s not your mum. Ana was your mum.”
Eliza stopped in her tracks. “What?”
Clare ran past, glancing at the woman, Eddie following.
“Ana was your mum.” She looked Eliza in the eye, and Eliza saw madness and sorrow. “And she was my sister. Harry killed her. Harry ruined my life and he killed my darling sister. He deserves to die.”
“Aunt Merry?” Her mother’s sister sent birthday cards, but she was rarely mentioned when Eliza visited her grandparents in Kent.
“Yes, I’m your aunt Merry.” She burst into hysterical sobs.
Eliza was about to set off again, when she saw Charles hurrying toward her.
“Eliza! Are you OK?”
“Uncle Charles! Is Dad . . . ? He’s not . . . ?”
Charles drew level.
Aunt Merry was now sitting with her arms around her knees, her head buried in them, crying quietly.
“He’s alive, Eliza,” Charles panted. “A rescue helicopter’s on its way.”