The Hunter's Prayer (7 page)

Chapter Seven

T
ake as long as you want.’

She heard the door close gently behind her and she was left alone in the unpleasantly comfortable silence. For all the thick carpeting and subdued lighting, for all the easy-on-the-eye mediocrity of the furnishings, the truth remained defiant and uncompromising in the three caskets before her.

She moved closer, walking between her parents’ caskets, and looked down at their faces. Their eyes were closed but the area around her dad’s right eye looked messy somehow and heavily made up. His glasses were missing and she wasn’t sure if this was standard practice or more evidence that he’d been shot through the eye.

Ella studied her mother’s face, looking for the same telltale signs, but she found none and wondered where the fatal bullet might have struck. No doubt she’d find out in due course. No doubt she’d find out everything.

She realized what she was doing, looking at them as though they were exhibits, unable to connect them with the people she’d known. These were her parents and they were dead but she wasn’t sure what she was meant to feel as she looked at them.

Walking back around the bottom of her mother’s casket, she approached Ben’s from the far side, her gaze still drawn over the top of it to their parents, putting the moment off as long as possible. She didn’t know if she could stand to see him up close, but that was what she was there for.

At first it didn’t look like Ben and in a fleeting second of hope she thought maybe there’d been some terrible mistake. It was him, though, his face simply lacking the fluidity and expression she’d known, a face she’d taken for granted and worn lightly in her memory because she’d thought it would always be there.

She tried to fix him in her mind, seeing him for the first time as a stranger would have done—that he was good-looking, that girls would have found him attractive. She was taking in the details – the shape of his mouth, his nose, eyebrows—and then she spotted the small white scar on the underside of his chin.

She’d done that, had pushed him off his bike when they’d been little, an act of spite, the result of which had so terrified her that she vowed never to hurt him again. She hadn’t either, but seeing the scar now brought back the guilty memory: his small body splayed on the stone path, his desperate attempts not to cry.

A single sob convulsed through her body, violently clenching her chest cavity, her throat. She wouldn’t be able to live with this; it was too great a burden to carry and she was too small, too weak. She covered her face with her hands, forcing herself to breathe through them, and when she recovered some of her composure she looked at him again.

She wanted to hold him, but was afraid to. She stroked his collar-length hair, silky smooth, careful to avoid touching the falsely healthy skin of his face. And finally she noticed what should have been obvious from the start: the small reconstructed patch on his forehead, just above his nose bone.

That’s where he’d been shot, where his future, their future together as brother and sister, had been erased. It made her angry, an emotion stronger even than the sorrow, perhaps because she could at least direct it into a determination to see the killers caught and punished. It was the only thing she could do for them now.

She left, not looking back. When she stepped into the corridor, she didn’t see anyone at first, but near the main door she found Simon waiting for her, sitting on a chair like a schoolboy in trouble.

He jumped up at the sight of her. She’d always thought of them as looking alike but now he looked much younger than her dad, his hair still brown, his face lean and fresh. And he was all at sea. She’d seen him reach for his phone three or four times before stopping and each time, she was certain, it was because the person he wanted to call was lying in there in a casket.

He smiled helplessly and said, ‘Are you okay?’ She nodded. ‘Awkward business—probably best to get it out of the way.’

‘Do they have any idea who might have done it?’

He grimaced slightly, saying, ‘Not yet, and they’ll want to speak to you about that.’

‘They said they would, but why? What can I tell them?’

‘I expect they’ll just ask if Mark had any enemies that you know of, any arguments you might have overheard.’ He looked around quickly and added, ‘Might equally use this as an excuse to investigate the business—or at least, to get your permission to investigate. So if they ask to check records, accounts, anything like that, you just refer them to me.’

She felt uncomfortable, a sense that she was skipping any initiation and being fast-tracked straight into secrets she’d been shielded from her whole life.

‘Simon, that’s what I’d do anyway. I don’t want to be part of the business; I’m too young. I have college to finish. I’m not ready.’

He smiled again, more warmly this time, and said, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to. And I can’t bring them back, but I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to get your life back as normal as possible.’ He put his arm over her shoulder and led her gently towards the main doors. ‘In the meantime, don’t discuss any of this in front of the police. We’ll talk in private back at the house.’

‘Okay.’

One of the policemen was waiting outside and smiled sympathetically as he opened the door for them. He got in next to the driver and they started off for Simon’s.

As they rode in silence, she got the feeling Simon was uncomfortable. Occasionally, the policeman in the passenger seat turned and offered up some friendly comment or sympathetic inquiry. Inappropriate as it was, Ella wanted to laugh at the effort he was making. She found herself thinking of Lucas and missing him, his abruptness and strange social tics.

She thought of Chris too, how two days ago in Switzerland, they’d made love in the woods, sex that had been passionate and desperate, perhaps because there’d been a sense of finality about it. She wanted to call him, see him, touch him.

‘Do you mind if I call Chris later?’

Simon turned to her and said, ‘Ella, you don’t even need to ask. As long as you’re staying with us, and that’s as long as you like, you treat it as your home. We’ll get your computer and everything, set it up in your room. We’ll even get a separate phone line put in for you.’

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek but then the police officer on the passenger side cleared his throat and said, ‘Uh, I’m sure it’s only a temporary measure, but I think we’ve taken the computers that were in the house for analysis.’

‘You’ve taken my computer?’

‘All of them. It’s not that they’ve been seized or anything. It’s just in case they contain anything that might help with the inquiry.’

Simon said, ‘Inquiry into what?’ He sounded angry. He took out his phone and punched in a number. ‘Tim—Simon. The police have taken the computers from Mark’s home, including Ella’s, which has her college work on it and, I would imagine, strictly personal information. Get them back, would you? And fire a shot across their bows—remind them what they’re investigating here: the murders of three innocent people.’

Ella was reeling. She couldn’t understand why the police were being like this, helping her on the one hand and then treating her as someone who was a suspect. She’d seen it in the eyes of all the police personnel she’d met—a curiosity, wanting to know how much she knew.

Until last week she’d considered herself to be completely ordinary, a student from a comfortable middle-class family, respectable. Now their property was being impounded, the whole family being treated like they were in organized crime, a rumor that had even been leaked to the newspapers. Lucas had told her otherwise, though, and she had to hold on to that, at least until she could get to the truth herself.

The policemen at the house seemed more genuinely friendly, but then Lucy had been doing her classic country wife routine, giving them tea and cakes, and George and Harry had been harassing them. As they walked in, the boys went careering through the hall, shouting to Ella as they ran upstairs. Lucy came out to meet them and said, ‘I thought I heard them call your name. How did it go?’

‘Okay, I suppose. It’s a strangely empty experience, isn’t it? They’re there and yet not there.’

‘I know.’

‘Luce, Ella and I need to talk business. I think as it’s a beautiful day we’ll sit out in the garden.’

‘Of course,’ she said, as if acknowledging a coded message. Then she added, ‘I’ll bring some drinks out. Is it too early for a gin fizz?’

‘That’d be nice, actually,’ Ella said. She found Lucy endearing like that; brought up in the city, she’d fallen in love with an idea of affluent country life that was about fifty years out of date.

This whole thing had probably shaken Lucy as much as it had any of them, forcing her to see how easily all of this could be taken away from her. She seemed to be holding up well enough now, but Ella could imagine how hard it would be once the police protection ended.

Simon led her across the large open lawn to the table and chairs under the oak tree. Ella wasted no time getting started. ‘You need to tell me what kind of business we do. If I’m going to be speaking to the police and having my computer confiscated, I need to know the truth.’

‘Of course.’

‘No, wait. Two more things. First, before you give me a censored version, remember I’m entitled to find out for myself now. And second, I already know about the drugs and the arms trade, so don’t spare me.’

Simon looked intrigued. ‘How do you know about all of that?’

‘The guy who protected me in Italy—he knew Dad a long time ago.’

‘Did he now? Tell me more about this chap.’

She shook her head. ‘First, you tell me about the business. Are we criminals?’

He laughed and said, ‘Absolutely not. Look, Mark was involved in the drug business when he was young but that’s ancient history. So is the arms business, but he never broke the law there anyway—some dubious export licenses here and there, but more often than not that was with the cooperation of the government.’

‘So what about the police? And why did someone kill them?’

‘That’s two different questions. I’m assuming the contract is unfinished business from a long time ago.’ The comment resonated with what Lucas had said, a corroboration that left her feeling queasy. ‘The police business stems back mainly to the eighties. Mark was investigated by the US and UK authorities for money laundering. And I’ll be honest with you, he
was
laundering back then, but they couldn’t find anything. This is why your dad was successful: because he was good. Since the mid- to late eighties, the business has been legitimate anyway, but it’s been kept complex and primarily offshore . . .’ He stopped and looked across the lawn. Lucy was approaching, carrying a tray of drinks.

‘Don’t let me interrupt,’ she said, the tone of a gentle admonishment.

‘Nothing you don’t know, Luce. Just the thought of a cold drink broke my train of thought.’

She smiled and said to Ella, ‘I wouldn’t be bringing him drinks if you weren’t here.’

‘Thanks,’ said Ella, taking one of the condensation-frosted glasses.

As Lucy walked away, Simon said, ‘As I was saying, the business has been kept complex and primarily offshore for the purposes of tax avoidance—not evasion, avoidance—so naturally, the authorities are still suspicious.’

‘So you’re saying I’ve got no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed.’

‘Absolutely not. In fact you’ve every reason to be proud of what your dad achieved. Yes, there’s an edge to the Hatto business empire, but we’re not crooked, certainly not by wider corporate or government standards.’

She sipped at her drink, finding it less refreshing than she’d hoped, and said, ‘Am I rich?’

‘Yes. Very. Hard to put a precise figure on it but 80 per cent of the business—you’re probably worth in excess of two hundred million.’

‘That’s impossible!’ People with that much money didn’t live like they had. ‘I’m a multimillionaire?’

‘Ella, please, your house alone makes you a multimillionaire.’ The house. How could she ever go back there now?

‘I want to sell the house as soon as possible.’

‘Perhaps best not to rush into it. You might feel differently later in the summer.’

‘No, I don’t ever want to go back there. Will you arrange it, have everything put in storage, put the house on the market?’ He nodded reluctantly. ‘You don’t mind me staying here the rest of the summer?’

‘Of course not. And you’ll join us in the Caribbean for Christmas.’ She smiled, thinking, though, how she’d never have another Christmas with her family. For some reason, it reminded her of Lucas again, wondering what Christmas was like for him, in Switzerland, alone in his library of a house.

‘I’d like that. And I’ll be at college in between times. It’ll give me a while to decide where I want to live.’

‘Good. It’s good that you’re going back to college. You know, this week won’t be any fun, but after the funeral we need to get back to living as normally as possible, and for you that means being twenty, being a student. The rest can wait; I’ll take care of everything until such time as you want me to step aside.’

‘Which is never. Thank God you’re here, Simon. I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise. I’d probably have sold everything.’

‘No you wouldn’t. You’re tougher than you give yourself credit for.’ He looked around casually. It was almost as if he expected to see a surveillance team listening in. ‘This chap who protected you. You told them you didn’t know who he was, his name or anything.’

‘He told us it’d make life easier for him if we said that. We discussed it on the way to the consulate; it seemed the least we could do, really.’

Simon leaned back in his chair, clearly impressed, as he said, ‘So you do know who he was! Tell me.’

‘His name was Stephen Lucas. Dad hired him to watch us.’

He looked bemused, maybe a little shocked too, saying in response, ‘Stephen Lucas. Is that what he called himself?’

‘No, he called himself Lucas. He was about your age.’

‘Amazing; I thought he’d retired. And he really wouldn’t have been my first choice for close protection work.’