After the Fire (19 page)

“You tell him.” Freddie snickered.

“Now wait a minute. This was your idea.”

She raised her hands. “Hey, if the doc says you’re sick, then you stay put. She is the expert.”

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Jason folded his arms and pouted.

She grinned. “Yes, I did. Take your own medicine for once, Jace. Now go lie on the couch and fire up the laptop, while I do the dishes. We’ll do the accounts search online.”

Jason grumbled, but got up and left the room. Freddie watched him go, then turned to his sister. “He’s not a very patient patient, is he?”

“He never has been.” Debs smiled. “I never thought I’d see you two back together.”

“We’re not together. We work for the same firm and got assigned to the same case.” She started clearing the table. “But, seeing him again after all this time, just...I never stopped loving him. I understand his reasons, misguided as they were. Perhaps God does move in mysterious ways, after all.” She glanced up. “Does that make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense. We just have to trust Him, in good times and bad.”

“Dad always said “It’s when you see only the dark, you know the light will soon return”. Well it’s been fifteen years of dark, but you want to know something? The sun’s finally coming up.”

She looked down as a pair of arms wrapped around her. Taking in Jason’s cologne, she turned into him, hugging him back, mindful of his bruises. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.” He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I love you, too.”

Freddie smiled and closed her eyes, leaning into him, barely aware of Debs leaving the room.

19

Jason glanced up from the computer screen and rubbed his eyes. “All right, that’s enough. You’ve made your point now.”

“What point is that?” Freddie asked, her head still bent over the journal.

“Your ’it’s really boring being stuck inside all day when I’m perfectly capable of working‘ point. Enough’s enough. I get it now.”

“Good, but you’re still not going anywhere. You think I want to sit here for a fourth day and let the trail get colder?”

He shook his head.

“No, I don’t, but you matter, Jace. And, be honest, could you sail today? You can barely stand up without it hurting.”

“I guess not.”

“You guess?”

“If you are waiting for me to admit you’re right and I’m wrong, then you’ve got a long wait. I never admit when I’m wrong, because I never am.” He grinned innocently at her.

“That’s a yes, then.” Freddie laughed as she glanced back down at the journal. “Hmm, says here about a shipment being late and the problems it would cause.” She turned a page. “Then, ohhhhh...”

“What?”

“The last entry is three weeks ago.”

“
Weeks
?”

“Yeah, weeks.” Freddie got up. “Back in a minute.” She left the room, taking the journal with her.

“Women.”

Jason turned back to the laptop, scrolling down another page, scribbling notes as he did. Far from exonerating someone, this was implicating him deeper and deeper. The money trail in each case, led either directly or indirectly to Nick Steele and one or other of his companies. Behind Nick Steele, however, lay another, far more sinister figure. A silent partner, sitting on the board of directors of each company. Someone who had the know-how and clout to cover their activities. Someone who knew enough to provide false information so the smaller companies who opposed takeovers, suddenly had to sell up or go into administration. Like the mine. No one was indispensable.

Freddie came back in and sat down. She handed him a coffee. “You look serious. Penny for them.”

“Where’s Debs?” For now, he wanted to shield his sister from this as much as he could.

“She’s feeding the baby upstairs in the nursery. Jace?”

Jason lowered his face over the mug, letting the coffee fill his senses. He took several deep breaths, trying to bring his thoughts together before vocalizing them. “Freddie…how many more people does the boss have out there? How many more innocent people are being conned out of their business, so Nick Steele and his cronies can prosper?”

“It’s more than that.”

“He assigned you this case knowing you’d work it out. I want to know why.” He watched her shift uncomfortably.

“Actually he didn’t assign it to me at all, but that’s neither here nor there. He took me off it and reassigned me to you. Presumably hoping you’d keep me in line and busy.”

“That’s a joke, isn’t it? Me keep you in line? You’re the best PI the company has. Freddie Flynn leaves no stone unturned is what they tell me. No one keeps her in line.”

“That’s slightly better than Freddie Flynn, the ice maiden.”

“There is that.”

“They talk about you, too.”

“I bet they do.”

“None of it’s nice.” She took a long sip of coffee.

“Meh. Since when does anyone say anything nice about the boss?”

Freddie pointed her cup at him. “True. But you’re not just the vice president. You have a reputation for getting people fired. People who work with you get hurt or worse.”

“Now, if you mean Neriah—she was off sick more than she was in work. I did some checking, and it turned out she was working two jobs. She claimed sick benefit from us while working the other one.”

“What about Archie?”

“Archie was coincidence. He left after his wife got a big promotion. They moved to Leeds.” Jason sipped his coffee. “So?”

Freddie put the cup down. “So, what?”

“Don’t you try and act innocent with me, Flynster. You start reading the journal, turn a page, go ohhhhh, and mutter something about three weeks, before running out of here and coming back with coffee.” He looked at his watch. “Now, I know for a fact it’s not been three weeks since your last coffee. It’s not even been three hours.”

Freddie nodded, tossing him a piece of crumpled brown paper.

“What’s this?”

“The wrapper Gerald Rafferty posted the journal home in. Check the postmark.”

Jason turned it over. “Three weeks ago.”

“And he sent it to his wife.”

He sat up straight. “Ring her. And give me the journal. I want to see this for myself. Then I want to know who gave you this case if Edwin didn’t.”

****

Freddie turned off the phone and looked down at her notes, before turning to Jason. “Mrs. Rafferty reported her husband missing to the police when he’d been gone four days. She didn’t chase them up because after two weeks he sent her a postcard.”

“A postcard?” Jason laid the journal on his lap, pulled over the file and flipped through it. “No one said anything about a postcard.”

“She assumed he was having an affair and didn’t want anyone to know, so she kept quiet. It also fitted in with the unexpected business trips he’d been taking every so often for the past five years.”

“Plus, she still had the letter with instructions on what to do after four months.”

“Yes, which is what she did. The boss placated her, told her he’d look into it. A week after she spoke to the boss, she gets the journal in the post. She reads part of it, freaks out and goes back to the boss and demands he do something now and put his best people on the case.”

“You.”

“Not exactly. Again he placated her, promised he’d do something. She rang again a couple of days later. I took the call and told her I’d look into it. No one had been assigned the case, so I took it on. The box was buried in storage with security. It took ages to find it, never mind the paperwork that went with it. Anyway I spent hours in the storage room reading. When I first went through it, the journal was unwrapped, but the wrapping wasn’t tucked inside the front cover. I started reading it, but never finished. I got about half way through. Just general stuff, nothing earth shattering.”

“It makes interesting reading. Listen to this.
June fifteenth. Beginning to think I made a mistake getting involved with this. Perhaps the biggest mistake of my life. It’s not just gems anymore. He’s branched out. But as far as the gems go? If he’d stick to one kind then perhaps, despite this being a tin mine, people would accept it. But this? No one believes now... Anyway, I want out, especially now that I found out what was in the last shipment of crates, stored in the village. Drugs...heroin I think. It was under the gems. What have I done? There are too many fingers in too many pies. I think, no, I know he’s paying for the drugs with guns. Should I face him with it? What do I do? Steele suspects I know, and Eddie is no fool.”

Freddie looked up slowly, her stomach sinking. “Eddie?”

“Mum and Dad always called the boss Eddie.”

“Oh, right. Jace, I’m sorry. This must be so hard for you. I mean, you think of him as family.”

“It’s not your fault.” Jason took a deep breath and carried on reading.

“I can still decide. They’ll come, bound to come, but too late. You’re too late, reading this. I can hear the sea, beyond the cliff. The wind and the rain pound on the roof and always the sea, crashing against the shingle. The dumb go down in history and disappear and not one gentleman is brought to book. Tirrel wanted out, threatened to go public, so they made up reports and bought him out, just like they’ve done to so many others. I’ve left it too late.”

He paused. “Then there’s that poetry extract, about the tongueless man. He goes on,
they took his land all right because he knew what was going on and said nothing
.”

Freddie set the cup down, the clatter of china on wooden table resounding in the quiet room. From upstairs came the sound of a baby crying. “Yeah.”

Jason turned the page.
“But no longer. The time for silence is over. This is too big, too deep and too many people have lost their lives to it already. Someone has to step up to the plate and say enough is enough. I have all the evidence I need on the island to convict them all—tapes, photos, times, dates and names. I have plenty of names, starting with Nick Steele and Eddie Jones.”

Freddie closed her eyes. “Do you think the boss read this?”

“I’d say it’s more than likely he did.” Jason turned the last page.
“Gina, love, take this to the police. Disregard the letter, I left you. Please, don’t go anywhere near Edwin Jones at the agency with this. I was wrong about a lot of things, especially him.”

He closed the journal. “The rest is a personal note to his wife. Basically I love you, thank you for being my wife. He was saying goodbye.”

She looked down, her bottom lip trembling. “She told me last week that she didn’t see that bit about the boss until it was too late.”

Jason’s head shot up, his eyes narrowing and his whole body visibly tensing. “
What?
You knew about Edwin before we read those files yesterday?”

“Yes.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ve known since I left the office. She rang me the day the boss took me off the case. Remember that first meeting when my text alert went off?”

He nodded.

Freddie continued quietly. “There were two messages. The first was the Clark case. The second was Mrs. Rafferty. She’d photocopied the original journal and kept the copy. The original she’d given to the boss. She didn’t finish reading her copy until last week. Then she rang me, but it was too late.”

“You knew all along?” Jason raised his voice in shock. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“After your ‘Uncle Edwin’ admission, I didn’t know if I could trust
you,
either. I mean, you’re his second in command, Jace. You theoretically know every move he makes. For all I knew, you and he were in this together. That’s why I disobeyed orders and kept working on this case. I wanted answers.”

“I see.” His jaw twitched, but she could see he caught her reasoning. “It must have been upsetting when Uncle…the boss insisted I work with you.”

“Yes, that was a problem.”

He let out a deep breath. “As we’re being honest with each other, I have an admission of my own to make. The boss gave me a file before we left with your name on it. It wasn’t easy reading. It made you out to be a traitor, skimming funds off the company for your own use, using company time to undermine and implicate other agents in illegal activities.”

“I wouldn’t—”

Jason held up a hand. “I didn’t believe it for a second. But I had to look into it. That’s why I insisted on coming with you.”

Freddie nodded. “Then I guess neither of us trusted the other for good reason.”

“Despite which we still managed to work together. And rekindle the friendship. However, Edwin knows we’re here, and he knows we’ll be onto him.”

Freddie looked at him. “I guess it’s time to admit defeat and call in the cavalry, Jace. Do you have a contact in the police you can call?”

“Yes, why?”

“If they can pick him up now, then we can mop up here.”

“I’m not calling anyone just yet. And I’m definitely
not
admitting defeat. We’ll deal with this on our own. If I call the cops, Edwin will get everyone off the island, tidy up and we lose everything. He’s too good at covering his tracks.”

“He won’t risk losing the supply line, will he?”

“That’s not the way he works. He’ll do what he’s done before, just take us out. We’re replaceable and expendable. Supply lines aren’t. He knows we know. He can’t risk any more leaks. And we can’t risk losing this. Let’s go to the island and try to find this evidence of Rafferty’s. Give me another two days. If we can’t wrap this up by then, then I’ll call the cops and turn everything we have over to them.”

“Fine. You gave me a week. It’s only fair I afford you the same courtesy.”

Jason pulled her into a hug.

Freddie closed her eyes as he held her tightly. She thought about love and trust and forgiveness. And somehow, she knew as they clung to each other that he mourned as much as she did what they’d lost.

20

Over dinner that evening, Freddie pushed the food around her plate as Jason’s words echoed in her mind.
We’re replaceable and expendable. Supply lines aren’t. He knows we know. He can’t risk any more leaks
. She frowned at the fork.