Deadfall (50 page)

‘That's ridiculous!' Crispin exclaimed. ‘You can't really think Nikki's trying to – kill you?' He hesitated over the word, as if it was awkward to enunciate. ‘Besides, I told you, I can't even remember for sure
who was wearing that coat at Coopers Down. It could have been me or Beverley. It's not much to base an accusation on, is it?'

‘No,' Linc agreed. ‘Not on its own. But, you see, that's not all, by a long way.'

At this point Fagan, who was still troubled with his eyes, apparently lost patience with the maddening tinkle of the alarm bell and, with a curse, ripped it from its position and threw it across the mill.

Tiger stood up and voiced his displeasure.

‘Oi, you! Stand still!' Linc told Fagan, who held up one hand and squinted at him through red-rimmed and weeping eyes.

‘What else then?' Crispin asked, ignoring this outburst.

‘Okay. What about the business with Jim Pepper?
Someone
sent that note and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Reagan, so who was it?'

‘Oh, and you'd sooner believe that arsey forester than one of your own family?' Crispin was really bitter now and, remembering his own feelings earlier in the day, Linc couldn't blame him. ‘Any number of people could have found out about the meeting – you said so yourself. Anyone who had access to the office. Anyway, you're forgetting, it was Nikki who turned up to help you out.'

‘Only after I'd got hold of Pepper,' Linc said relentlessly. He hated what he was having to do to his brother but it was too late to turn back now. ‘And of course she'd somehow managed to walk off with my mobile that morning, leaving me without any means of calling for help . . .'

‘No. You're twisting everything! So she picked up
your mobile by mistake . . . so what? It's easily done. She took the trouble of finding you to give it back, didn't she? That's why she happened to be there when you got hold of Pepper. Reagan was the one who didn't turn up on time, as I remember. This is all supposition. None of it proves someone was actually trying to kill you. I mean, a scuffle with a middle-aged ex-employee is hardly the same as setting a hitman on somebody. Pepper was never likely to have killed you, was he?'

‘He had a crowbar,' Linc pointed out. ‘And what about the party?
Somebody
drugged me. And no one had a better opportunity than Nikki.'

Crispin looked helplessly from Linc to his wife, and back again.

‘Cris, you don't believe him, do you?' Nikki asked softly, and with reluctant admiration, Linc could see that she'd managed to produce real tears to plead her cause.

There was a moment's pause, where the only sound was the monotonous rumble of the millstones.

‘Of course not.' Crispin had no defence against those beseeching eyes, and her case was helped by his eagerness to trust her. ‘But I still don't understand what's going on, Niks. Why did Fagan attack Linc and Josie? And why should Linc lie about all this? I thought you were friends . . .'

Nikki bit her lip, lowering her eyes. ‘I – I think it's because I wouldn't sleep with him,' she announced.

NIKKI'S WORDS PRODUCED
a moment's stunned silence.

‘What?' Crispin and Linc spoke simultaneously, outraged and incredulous.

‘When?' Crispin added.

‘He came on to me several times,' she said, avoiding eye contact with him. ‘But the first time was in the hall, after the dinner party. As soon as you and Josie went out he was all over me.'

‘Oh, no, you don't, my girl!' Linc cut in. ‘It was the other way round, as I remember. And you were half-cut anyway.'

‘I didn't know what I was doing. You knew I'd had too much to drink and you took advantage of me. I'm nowhere near as strong as you.'

The cunningly added inference that Linc had used his superior strength to force his attentions on her fired Crispin up. He turned and blazed a look of pure scorn at his brother. ‘You bastard . . .' he began.

Linc had had enough. ‘Oh, spare me the drama. Can't you see the woman's playing you for a fool?
Why don't you ask yourself where Fagan comes into the equation? Personal trainer, my arse! If I was you, I'd want to get that baby paternity-tested when it arrives!' It was cruel, he knew, but his brother's stubborn refusal to accept any slur on Nikki's integrity was as exasperating as it was commendable.

His words stopped Crispin in his tracks. Brows drawn together, he scanned Linc's face intently, as if searching for some sign that he hadn't meant what he'd said, then turned to his wife and intercepted a look of pure poison directed at Linc.

‘Nikki?'

‘Crispin . . .' she began, softening her expression, but Fagan cut in.

‘You're having a baby?'

‘Shut up, Terry! It's got nothing to do with you,' Nikki said, moving closer to Crispin.

‘How do you know that?' Fagan asked, clearly no longer content merely to look on. ‘How can you possibly know?'

The significance of his question was not lost on Crispin.

‘He's your lover.' He said each word slowly and deliberately, his face reflecting more disgust than pain. ‘How long?'

‘Crispin! You don't believe him?'

‘How long?' This time he addressed Fagan, who responded with a sneer.

‘Since way before she met you, pretty boy,' he taunted. ‘We've been laughing at you!' He took a step forward but was brought up short by a rattling snarl from Tiger. Making a conciliatory gesture, Fagan stepped back.

Linc put a steadying hand on his brother's
shoulder. Crispin was as tight as sprung steel and Linc felt him take a deep breath before saying to Nikki in carefully controlled tones, ‘And the other? The things Linc said – were they true, too? Did you put the drug in his drink?'

‘Cris, I told you, Linc's bitter because I rejected him. He's just trying to get back at me . . .'

‘Shut up!' Crispin's self-control broke, and the raw anger in his eyes shocked her into silence. ‘Linc wouldn't do that.'

Linc could see by Nikki's expression that for the first time she was realising her hold on Crispin was slipping away.

‘
I'll
tell you,' Fagan offered, clearly accepting that things were over for him and determined to get every ounce of enjoyment that he could out of Nikki's fall from grace.

She glowered at him, and he grinned nastily.

‘I worked for her old man, in the clubs, but I had a spot of trouble and had to leave London in a hurry. Well, I knew Nikki'd got herself a cushy number up here, and I thought, considering what we'd shared in the past, she might like to help an old friend out. She was quite pleased to see me. Very pleased, in fact!' he added with a meaningful leer. ‘And after we'd got reacquainted she said she'd help me get a job – you know, give me references and the like – if I'd help her with a little problem she had.'

Nikki put her hand on Crispin's arm. ‘You can't listen to him! He knows he's in the shit and he'll say anything to drag me down with him.'

Crispin shook her hand off.

‘Go on,' he invited quietly, staring at Fagan with
a steady intensity that belied the torment he must have been feeling, and Linc's heart went out to him.

‘Well, like I said, she'd got herself a cushy number here, but being my Niks, she wasn't satisfied. She'd set her heart on a title, and all that stood in her way was her brother-in-law here. But it seemed that he'd got on the wrong side of some rough types, so Nikki reckoned, with a little planning, we could do away with Mr Viscount-in-waiting, her adoring hubby would step into the title, and no one would be any the wiser. She said once she was Lady of the Manor she'd see I was all right.'

Through the open window, over the rumbling of the stones, they heard the swish of car tyres turning on to the asphalt surface of the car park, but Crispin and Linc were intent on what Fagan had to say, and only Nikki went to look out.

‘Quick!' she said, rushing back. ‘Terry, we have to get out of here!'

Fagan gave her a scornful look. ‘And where do you suppose we'd go?' he asked, sniffing. ‘Even supposing I still gave a shit about you, which I don't. You're not that hot as a lover, you know!'

Nikki flushed red with humiliation. ‘You never complained.'

‘It passed the time,' he observed.

‘You bastard!' Her slap rocked him back but he countered with one of his own, which brought tears to her eyes.

‘That's enough!' Crispin said sharply, instinctively stepping in to shield his wife.

By Linc's side, Tiger was leaping and straining at his collar.

‘What did she get you to do?' he asked Fagan.
‘Did you plant the note on my car that day in Blandford?'

‘Nah, that was Nikki. She said someone was threatening you, and she wanted to keep the pressure up. It was her idea to drug you, too. The night you had that little party in the village.'

‘You were in the car park!' Linc said, remembering suddenly. ‘When I came out of the hall, you were sitting in one of the cars.'

Fagan nodded. ‘Yeah. She slipped you the Mickey, I was supposed to finish the job. But the stupid bitch used too much, didn't she?'

‘GHB.'

‘Yeah, GHB. Or GBH, as they call it round the clubs. I told her I wasn't sure of the mix but she still ballsed it up. The amount she must've given you, it was touch and go whether you'd even get out of the hall.'

‘I didn't know how much he'd drink,' Nikki complained, stung into betraying herself completely. She stepped out from behind her husband. ‘He kept saying he couldn't stay and I was worried he wouldn't have had enough.'

‘But . . .' Crispin stopped short, shaking his head and laughing humourlessly. ‘Christ, listen to me! I was just going to say you could have killed him, when of course that's what you were trying to do! You see, I just can't seem to get my head round it. My own wife has been sleeping with her personal trainer and plotting to kill my brother – it's quite simple really. I can't think why I have a problem with it.'

‘Cris, don't beat yourself up,' Linc said quietly. ‘You couldn't have known.'

‘
You
ballsed it up, too,' Nikki retorted. Absorbed
in her row with Fagan, she seemed to have forgotten her audience for the time being. ‘You only had to push his car into the fucking stream, but you couldn't even do that right!'

‘I told you what happened! Some bloke came along in the middle of it. What the hell was I supposed to do, push him in too?'

‘You could have thought of
something
! After all my hard work in setting it up.'

‘And what about the business with Pepper?' Linc said, hearing voices below, indistinct over the noise of the machinery. ‘You're a devious little cow, aren't you? Trying to frame Reagan. It almost worked, too, but those initials were a mistake. It was a touch too far. And then I spoilt it all by sorting Pepper out myself. You really should choose your tools more carefully. He was mad at me, but I don't think he would have killed me.'

While he was speaking, suddenly, blessedly, the nerve-jangling drone of the machinery began to slow and within seconds had stopped completely as the stones ground to a halt.

‘He didn't have to. Terry was there to finish the job,' Nikki said into the ensuing silence. ‘Everybody knew the old fart had been threatening you, and then of course Reagan would have found your body. Throw in the note, and the cops would have been so busy trying to decide which of them had done it, they'd never have thought of looking for anyone else. It would have been the perfect cover if Pepper hadn't fucked up!'

‘Reagan said he thought he saw someone in the trees, but I didn't really believe him,' Linc stated, thinking back.

‘Terry was with me,' Nikki said. ‘But you were late and then Pepper took so bloody long that Reagan turned up, so he had to hide.'

‘And Noddy?' Linc prompted, aware that the voices below had quietened, presumably listening. Thank God whoever it was had had the knowledge and sense to close the sluice gate and stop the wheel.

‘It was worth a try. You gave me the idea yourself. You were always so paranoid about him rubbing his legs and getting grease in his eyes. But I didn't want to hurt him. I just thought he might bolt and throw you off.'

‘Nikki . . .' Crispin's tone was despairing.

‘Oh, for Christ's sake, Cris!' she said scornfully. ‘I was only doing what you should have done if you'd had any balls. You're the one who stayed at Farthingscourt with your old man. Why should you let Linc come waltzing back in after all that time to cheat you out of what could have been yours?'

‘But I never wanted the title,' Crispin protested, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I've always known it would go to Linc. I don't want the title, and I certainly don't want the responsibility that goes with it. I'm quite happy the way things are and – fool that I am – I thought you were, too.'

‘But we could have had more,' she persisted, apparently unable to accept his point of view as genuine.

‘But why attack Josie?' Linc asked. ‘She's no threat to you. Was it jealousy?'

‘Oh,
please
! Get over yourself! You're not God's gift, you know!'

‘Then why?' he persisted.

‘Oh, for God's sake! Because she's pregnant, of course. There's no point getting shot of you if the little bitch is going to produce an heir.'

‘Pregnant?' It was Linc's turn to be shocked. ‘She's not pregnant! What gave you that idea?'

‘Oh, I could tell you had some secret you were keeping to yourselves, and then the other night . . . All that “I'm not hungry. I think I must be going down with something . . .” It didn't take a genius.'