Daughter of Riches (72 page)

Juliet picked up a hairbrush, tortoiseshell-backed, from the set on the dressing table and twisted it round in her hands. She could feel Deborah looking at her and she somehow knew that the look was not merely curious but also anxious and sympathetic.

I have to tell someone! Juliet thought. If I don't tell someone I think I'll go crazy! And who better than Deborah? She was involved yet not involved, she had been part of the family for long enough to care what happened to it, but she didn't know Robin. They lived on opposite sides of the world and would probably never meet. Besides, it was possible she knew the truth already. She was, after all, very close to Sophia.

‘I'm sorry, Deborah,' she said, wondering why she should be apologising about it. ‘ I know I'm being a pain but I've had a pretty ghastly day.'

‘Because of Dan Deffains, you mean? Oh, Juliet, I really am sorry if you've been hurt, but I had to tell you. He's not worth upsetting yourself over.'

‘No, it's not just Dan. It's something else. Something much worse.'

A small frown puckered Deborah's forehead.

‘Worse? What do you mean? I don't understand.'

‘No, I don't suppose you do,' Juliet said drily. ‘It's something I found out, by accident almost – although God knows I've spent practically my entire time here trying to do just that. But I had no idea how dreadful the answer would be.'

‘Juliet, you are not making much sense. What have you found out that is so terrible?'

The bristles of the hairbrush were digging into Juliet's hand, making vivid patterns on her palm. She didn't know even now if she could bring herself to actually put it into words. Then, quite suddenly, she heard herself say: ‘You know I had this feeling it wasn't Grandma who killed Uncle Louis? You know I wanted to get to the bottom of the whole thing? Well, I think today I did.'

‘Oh.' Deborah's voice was oddly toneless.

‘Yes. And I wish I hadn't. Grandma confessed to protect someone. I think I've known that right from the beginning. What I didn't know was that the person she was protecting was my father.'

‘Your father?'

The reaction was so swift, so horrified, that in spite of herself Juliet looked up, seeing Deborah reflected in the dressing table mirror. She seemed to have frozen into a slim beautiful statue but her shocked expression reinforced the immediate impression Juliet had gained from her tone.

So Deborah hadn't known, she thought. Well, it was done now. She couldn't take her words back even if she wanted to.

‘I know – it's awful, isn't it?' she said shakily. ‘ You can see why I'm not feeling so good. It takes a bit of coming to terms with – that one's father is a murderer.'

‘Oh no!' Deborah said. Her voice was urgent and breathless. ‘No, Juliet, you have it all wrong!'

‘I don't think so. I wish I did. Frankly, Deborah, I don't know what I am going to do. I know I don't want to go home. All those lies … I don't think I can face him again, not yet, anyway. And it feels so bloody …'

‘Juliet!' Deborah was beside her, touching her arm. ‘ You don't understand. You
have
got it wrong. I don't know who you have been talking to but they've misled you. I'm not speculating – I'm telling you. Your father did not kill Louis.'

Her tone was urgent but firm. It rang very true. Juliet turned, hope sparking – perhaps after all she had been right in the first place.

‘You mean … it was David?' she whispered.

‘No. No, Juliet, it wasn't either of them. Not Robin and not David.' She hesitated, her voice breaking. Then, in the same firm tones she had used earlier she went on, ‘I know neither of them shot Louis. Because, you see, it was me!'

For a moment Juliet gazed at Deborah in sheer total disbelief. She felt as if someone had knocked all the wind out of her.

‘You?' she whispered.

Deborah nodded. ‘ Yes, me. I shot Louis.' Her voice was low, her face deathly pale so that her carefully applied blusher stood out suddenly in russet streaks high on her cheekbones. ‘ Oh, don't look at me like that, Juliet, please! I loved him so and he … didn't want me any more. He was having an affair with your mother.'

‘But you don't shoot somebody because they're ditching you!' Juliet interrupted incredulously.

‘You don't know the way it was,' Debbie said fiercely. ‘You don't know anything. You have always lived a good life, secure, loved … you don't know how important that is unless you have never been lucky enough to have it. Louis was the only good thing that ever happened to me. Or so I thought at the time. I couldn't see what he was, I blinded myself to it. And then I found out that he didn't really want me at all. He only wanted to use me. To blackmail someone.'

‘Frank de Val.'

‘Yes. He took me to his house that night. It was so humiliating – so degrading. And then he brought me here, to La Grange. I still thought that meant I was going to meet his family, be accepted. That shows you how naive I was.'

She broke off, remembering the way it had been. That whole day had been like a terrible nightmare, the waiting in her room at the Pomme d'Or, the visit to the Jersey Lily and to Frank de Val, the way the Louis she loved seemed to have turned into a monster, hard, cold and unfeeling. She had thought when he took her to La Grange that perhaps it was going to be all right after all, but that too had become part of the nightmare, with Louis's brother arriving and having a terrible fight with him because Louis was having an. affair with his wife Molly. Right across the years Debbie could remember only too clearly the way she had felt – hurt, used and heartbroken because in spite of everything she still loved him; frightened by the violence that was flaring, terrified of what the consequences of the evening's work might be, numbly, coldly afraid for the future.

When Robin had eventually left, slamming the door and screaming away down the drive, Louis's mood had become even more peculiar.

‘So you want to see La Grange?' he had said and he had taken her on a tour of the downstairs rooms, showing her each one not so much with pride as with gloating. This is my home, he seemed to be saying, one day this will all be mine. But take a good look, Debbie baby, because you won't be seeing it again.

She had gone with him, mute with misery, and in the drawing-room he had made love to her on the priceless Aubusson rug. Made love? No, those were not the words to describe that act. There was something cold and vengeful in the way he took her, something almost evil, and suddenly she had realised what it was. The gloating had not only been for showing her a life in which he had no intention of letting her share, rather it was as if he was showing her to the house, without love, without respect, without anything but a desire to defile. She had not fully understood it at the time, that had only come to her painfully over the years as she learned and accepted the truth about Louis, but she had known it instinctively then and it had hurt her so deeply it had made her physically sick. She had gone to the bathroom, that elegant Victorian-style bathroom, and retched helplessly into the blue-and-white ‘Express' bowl.

When the spasm had passed she had washed her face and gone back downstairs. She could hear Louis's voice coming from the study and she guessed he was on the telephone again. She followed the sound of his voice. Her mind was made up. ‘ Please take me home,' she was going to say. ‘I won't be your pawn any more.'

Louis was sprawling elegantly back against the desk, speaking into the heavy black receiver as he cradled it into his shoulder.

‘Yes, darling, I'll see you soon. Tomorrow?' she heard him say. She froze. Already tonight she had learned that Louis was far from faithful to her but it was still a shock that he could actually telephone one of his lady friends while she was in the house. He looked up and saw her and smiled, not in the least perturbed at being caught red-handed. Then he turned his back, shutting her out. ‘Love you too, Kitten.'

Kitten. If he had struck her she could not have been more shocked or hurt. It was his name for her, the special pet name that had made her feel so wanted, so loved. Now he was using it for some other woman. Quite suddenly the last slender thread that had been keeping Debbie's reactions under control snapped.

Earlier, showing her around, Louis had opened a drawer in the desk and shown her a little gun he kept there – showing off as usual, playing a role. Now she ran across the room, jerked open the drawer and snatched the gun out, pointing it at him.

‘Put that phone down! Hang up, do you hear?'

Louis almost laughed, then turned pale. It must have been in that moment, she supposed, that he remembered the gun was loaded.

‘I have to go now. I'll call you tomorrow,' he said into the mouthpiece.

She stood unwavering, the gun pointing at his chest.

‘Who was that?'

‘No one. Now don't be a silly girl. Give me that gun.'

‘Who was it? Was it Molly?'

‘No, it wasn't. Now look, Kitten, give it to me. It's not a toy.'

‘Don't call me Kitten! Don't ever call me Kitten again! I hate you, Louis!'

‘Don't be so bloody melodramatic' He was pale, but in an effort to defuse the situation he walked out of the study, along the hall towards the drawing room. She followed him, still holding the gun.

‘You've used me!' she sobbed. ‘How could you do this to me, Louis? I loved you so much and all the time … how many others are there? How many?'

‘Calm down, for Christsakes! Just calm down!'

‘I am calm.' But she wasn't. She was shaking and sobbing.

‘Kitten …'

‘
Don't
call me …!'

And that was when the gun went off.

She hadn't meant to do it. She'd only meant to frighten him. She screamed at the crack, screamed again as the bullet hit him and the blood spurted scarlet on to his white shirt front. He went down slowly, sagging like a sack of potatoes, his expression more surprised than anything, the only sounds a choking, gurgling glug, and his breath rasping in the quiet house.

‘Louis! My God – Louis!' She dropped the gun, running to him, falling to her knees beside him. ‘I didn't mean it! I didn't mean to … Louis!' She lifted his head, cradling it in her lap. ‘Louis – please – please, Louis!'

But within a matter of minutes, less maybe, the awful rasping breathing shuddered and stopped. Louis was dead. Debbie screamed again as she realised it. scrambling to her feet, relinquishing all contact with him as if he had suddenly become too searingly hot to touch. She backed away from him, hands covering her tear-streaked, mascara-stained face. She crossed the hall, bumped into the door, fumbled for the handle. The door swung open and she ran down the steps to where Louis had left his car. The November night was chilly but she did not notice it. She yanked open the car door, half-fell into the driver's seat. Louis had left the keys in the ignition; she turned it on, let out the clutch and the car surged forward.

How she managed not to be stopped by the police that night Debbie never knew. She was not much of a driver, she had never passed a test though she had her own car in London, and she seldom drove anywhere. Now desperation made her reckless, and surprisingly she yanked up from the depth skills she had not known she possessed. She drove like a wild thing, all accelerator and brakes, squealing tyres and crashing gears, but at first she did not know where she was going. Anywhere, as far as possible from La Grange! Then, as she hit the outskirts of St Helier, the plan occurred to her.

She was booked in at the Pomme d'Or Hotel. Almost opposite it, beside the harbour, was a public car park. If she left Louis's car there no one would connect it with her and certainly no one at the hotel would connect her with him.

Sometimes the car park was full, tonight luckily there were a few spaces. Debbie drove into one, summoning up all her concentration to make sure she did not collide with the neighbouring cars. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself. Then she locked it, threw the keys into a nearby rubbish bin and dodged the thin stream of late night traffic to run across the road to the hotel.

No one took the slightest notice of her as she scurried through the lobby and up the broad staircase. When she had gone out earlier she had forgotten to hand her key in to Reception. Now she thanked her lucky stars for that. She didn't think she could have faced speaking to anyone just now, not even an anonymous hotel clerk.

In her room she leaned against the door for a moment, feeling the remains of her self-control drain out of her, then she went into the en suite bathroom, ran a bath and climbed into it, scrubbing herself feverishly because she felt she would never be clean again.

After a while the hot water relaxed her body a little but her emotions still churned in an oddly heavy and numbed fashion. Tears filled her eyes. She got out of the bath, swallowed a handful of tablets, and paced the room, Then, when exhaustion and the effects of the tablets began to creep up on her she crawled into bed and eventually, curled protectively in the foetal position, she fell asleep.

Next morning as the news of Louis's death was breaking Debbie flew out of Jersey. At that time she had no idea of the family mayhem she was leaving behind.

‘I can't believe I'm hearing this,' Juliet said. ‘You're making it up.'

‘No. I only wish I were, but I'm afraid it's quite true. I shot Louis. I didn't mean to do it. I only meant to frighten him – punish him – I don't know. I certainly did not intend to kill him. I didn't even wish him dead – not really. I was besotted with him. That's the ironic part of it, really. Practically everyone else hated him. His death was the answer to an awful lot of prayers. Apart from his mother and perhaps Molly, I think I was the only person who really grieved for Louis. Yet I was the one who killed him.'