Diamonds Forever (20 page)

‘Jenna's going to be beside herself. Her boyfriend, her ex and her PA all missing at the same time. Surely the boys in blue must be on their way.'

Deano heard the hope in her voice, a hope that came from fear.

‘How long have you been down here?' he asked, putting his own problems aside for the first time in his concern for his co-prisoner.

‘Not sure. Hours.'

‘Not days?'

‘No. I don't think so. Time passes pretty slowly down here, though, so I couldn't really say. They've fed me once, so I guess half a day?'

‘Jesus. What the hell is Harville playing at? Does he really think he can do this?'

‘He's a bastard. I've tried to warn you. He'll stop at nothing to get what he wants.'

‘But what
does
he want? How is holding us prisoner going to achieve anything?'

‘Maybe a ransom? From Jen. She's loaded and he wants to buy back the Hall. Could be a bargaining position.'

‘For God's sake, he'd do all this for a house?'

‘He's obsessed with the place. I've seen the lengths he'll go to, first hand.'

‘He's a lunatic.' Deano paused for thought before adding, ‘Well,
Bledburn's Got Talent
is definitely off.'

Kayley's laugh pealed through the stale air, and warmth crept slowly into Deano's chest. Making her laugh seemed like a significant achievement, especially in these conditions.

But she sobered quickly and said, ‘I wonder what he's done to Jason. Do you think he might …? I mean, he really hates Jason …'

Deano swallowed.

‘You think he's capable of …?'

Nobody wanted to put the thought into the open, where it had to be addressed. But Deano couldn't shake the thought that a man who could attack and imprison a very famous person wouldn't think twice about killing a lesser mortal.

A sound he didn't at first recognise as a sob came from Kayley.

‘Hey,' he said, once he'd worked out that she was crying.

He put out a hand to touch the dim outline of her arm. It shook under his fingertips. He sat up properly and put an arm around her, drawing her close. Her ponytail tickled his wrist as he slid her into his embrace. The perfume flooded his senses and he almost swooned at the feel of her in his arms, shuddering and warm and so comfortable against him. How long had it been since he had just held someone, or been held? He couldn't remember.

All his experiences of intimacy in the last few years had taken place in a coked-up haze, in tour buses or dressing rooms or hotel elevators. They were generally fast, furious and over in a couple of minutes. He didn't like waking up with somebody else in his bed – for some reason, he thought of that as infidelity, while the quick post-gig shags didn't strike him in the same way. He could scratch his itch with any number of groupies, but he had never wanted to share a bed with anyone but Jenna.

All the same, it was nice, this feeling of closeness and protectiveness. Kayley was certainly cute. Did she have a boyfriend? He almost asked her, but it didn't really seem the right time.

‘We're gonna be OK,' he said, as convincingly as he could, although he was by no means sure of this. ‘You'll be out of here in no time, back to work at the Hall.'

‘I doubt it. She sacked me,' said Kayley through her tears. ‘Remember?'

‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that. But she might take you back. If I beg her on my knees.'

‘Would you do that?' Kayley looked up at him. He could see the teary gleam of her eyes.

Yes, God, yes, for you.

‘Of course,' he said. ‘It was my fault, after all.'

‘That's true,' she said. ‘You muppet.' But she said it affectionately, with a little cracked laugh.

She shivered suddenly, seeming to contract in his arms.

‘Did you hear about the body?' she said.

‘What body?'

‘The skeleton they found under the Hall.'

‘Oh … yeah, I did. It was all over the news.'

‘Perhaps that's how we'll end up. Bones in a basement. Perhaps nobody'll come for us and we'll die down here, of starvation. Perhaps that's what happened to her. Perhaps Lawrence knew all about it.'

‘Don't be daft, Kayley,' said Deano, his local intonation coming back in sympathy with hers. ‘They said the skeleton was more than a century old.'

‘Yeah, but they're all the same, those Harvilles. Aren't they?'

Deano sighed. ‘So we always used to say.'

‘I should never have touched him with a bargepole.'

‘Who, Lawrence?' Deano drew back a little, wondering if she could see his quizzical expression in the dark.

She sighed. ‘Yeah. I was gullible and he dazzled me.'

‘Seduced you, then threw you into a cellar? Seems like a Harville way to go about things.'

‘It was a long time ago. That's not what this is about. This is just revenge for grassing him up.' She drew a quick breath. ‘But I wish I knew what he had planned.'

‘He'll let us out soon. He'll have to. He's in a whole world of trouble already – no point making it worse.'

‘Or – in for a penny, in for a pound,' said Kayley gloomily.

Deano pulled her closer, wanting to shut out the dark for her, wanting to bring in some light and some hope. Just for her.

‘Well, do you have any idea where he might be?'

Jenna waved away Linda's offer of a dented can of Coke and looked around the tiny coop of a living room as if Jason might be hiding beneath the coffee table.

‘Not me, duck. He could be anywhere. I'm surprised he ain't told you where he's gone. You two had a row, have you?'

‘Just some silliness,' said Jenna, trying to convince herself. It
was
, wasn't it? Just silliness. He was being touchy and she had more than a genuine right to be agitated over the Facebook photo.

The vultures had been gathering when she left the Hall to come and look for Jason, who had left the phone that had caused all the trouble on the floor in the bedroom.

‘The thing is, Linda,' she said uneasily. ‘Shit. You're going to hear about this from someone, so it might as well be me. The thing is, a … compromising … photograph of me has turned up on the web.'

‘Nudie shots? Jealous, is he, of your past?' Linda's glee rather overrode her clumsy attempts at sympathy.

‘No, it was him that took the photograph,' said Jenna. ‘Just thought I ought to warn you.'

‘Eh? What the bloody hell did he put it online for? Daft beggar. I'm not surprised you had a row. I'll give him a row when he turns up here.'

‘No, no, it was an accident. The wrong buttons were pressed. I panicked, and he thinks I overreacted.'

‘Overreacted? I don't think so, love. You're a big star. This could hurt you.'

‘Exactly, exactly, that's what I said, but he just didn't seem to get it.'

Jenna began to pace, then noticed somebody staring up at the window from the back of the shops and pulled the curtains tightly shut.

‘So he marched off in a strop,' continued Jenna. ‘And I thought he might have come here. That's all.'

‘Well, I wish he had, but he didn't,' said Linda. ‘Look, let me put the kettle on, at least. You look like you could do with a sugary tea.'

‘Oh, all right. While I'm here, there was something I wanted to talk to you about anyway.'

‘Ooh,' said Linda absently, wandering over to the little galley kitchen off the living room and getting mugs sorted. ‘That sounds official.'

‘I haven't been able to mention it to Jason. I just think he'd … not take it very well.'

‘Ooh,' she said again, more interested this time. ‘Tell me more.'

Jenna waited until Linda had put the tea mugs down in front of them. One of them said ‘World's Best Mum' and Jenna wondered for a moment if Linda had bought it for herself. The idea of Jason giving it to her was so poignant she almost felt tears well up. But perhaps that was just the stress.

‘Well, you know how he's just dismissed the stuff about being Lawrence Harville's half-brother out of hand,' began Jenna.

‘Yeah, but I've told him, it's the truth. Swear down.'

‘I believe you, Linda, really. And, deep down, I think he does too. But he just doesn't want to.'

‘No,' sighed Linda. ‘He doesn't.'

‘Anyway, I found something else out the other day, when I was at the county archive, and I wanted to ask you a few questions.'

Linda looked surprised at this new tack, raising her eyebrows at her tea.

‘Fire away,' she said.

‘Watson is your birth name, isn't it? You didn't change it by deed poll or have a previous marriage before Jason that I don't know about?'

‘No, I were born Linda Watson and I daresay that's how I'll die as well.'

‘And are either of your parents still alive?'

‘Eh? Oh no. Both long gone. Dad had that lung thing miners get. Mum didn't last a lot longer once he went.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that. How old were you?'

‘Me? I were about twenty-four, twenty-five. Jason were a nipper. Doubt he'd remember much about them. Why?'

‘Sorry, but do you have any brothers or sisters?'

‘No, only child, me. It's been me and Jase for as long as I can remember. Nobody else to depend on. Mum was good, though, when he were a baby. Used to help out a bit where she could.'

Jenna nodded and supped at the tea, although the sweetness of it made her teeth protest.

‘So your dad was a Watson, and your mum …?'

‘A Craven. Rita Craven. Look, what's all this about? Are you making an episode of that
Who Do You Think You Are?
thing about our Jase? 'Cos it'd make a pretty boring one. Nobody'd watch it.'

‘Not as boring as you think,' said Jenna, leaning forward, her eyes alight with what she knew. ‘Rita's mother's surname was …'

‘Ooh, now you're asking.' Linda's forehead crumpled with the effort of memory. ‘Her family were Nottingham people. Began with an M …'

‘Manning!' said Jenna triumphantly.

‘Ah, that's it,' said Linda, regarding Jenna with some suspicion. ‘How do you know that then?'

‘It's the same name as the woman in the diary,' said Jenna. ‘The one who married Harville, then accidentally killed the maid and disappeared.'

‘What, you think we're …?'

‘Related? Yes. Yes, I do.'

Linda stared. ‘Go on, then. Why?'

‘When I went to the archive,' said Jenna, all her anxieties forgotten in the pleasure of revelation, ‘I wanted to see if I could trace Frances. Find out what happened to her and her baby. The first thing I found was her death certificate – she died just a couple of years after the whole affair. The cause of death was given as diphtheria.'

‘Poor thing.'

‘Yes, awful. Ten years later, they found a cure for it. Tragic, isn't it? She was so young.'

‘Very tragic, yeah. And the baby?'

‘Well, there's the thing. I looked through all the birth certificates, but there weren't any with Frances named as the mother. Then I looked again and there was a baby born in December of that year to
her parents
! Richard and Sarah Manning had a baby boy called David.'

‘But it wasn't theirs really?'

‘No, that was just what they told the registrars. And Frances, when she died, wasn't living at home. She was living at an address in a very shady part of town. I wish, wish, wish I could have been a fly on the wall at the meeting when it was decided to raise the child as her little brother. Can you imagine how heart-breaking it must have been?'

‘Don't you think Harville ever went looking for her? Perhaps that's why they registered the baby like that?'

‘Perhaps. If Harville couldn't prove the baby was his, then he couldn't claim him. No DNA tests in those days. Besides – I looked up Harville. He married again within a year of Frances running off, and had another son a year after that, who went on to inherit Harville Hall. Except the real heir …'

‘Was alive and well and in Nottingham …' Linda's jaw dropped. ‘Are you saying …?'

‘David had two daughters,' said Jenna eagerly. ‘Edith and Jane. Then he went and got himself killed in the First World War, God bless him.'

‘Edith's my grandma,' said Linda. ‘Edie Manning, as was – then Edie Craven. Came to Bledburn to do nursing and met Granddad Craven when she was looking after him after he broke a wrist down the mine. I remember her telling me her dad was killed at Mons. Bloody hell. Bloody hell, Jen. What does it all mean?'

‘It means a lot of things,' said Jenna. ‘But one of them … an important one … is that you are actually the legitimate heir of the Harvilles.'

‘Bullshit! How can I be?'

‘Linda, you're in the direct line of succession. David was Harville's first born son. Your grandmother was that son's older daughter. And so on down the line. You are Lady bloody Harville.'

The pair of them burst into wild laughter.

‘That's fucking funny,' said Linda, once she was able to speak through her tears of mirth. ‘Me a Lady. C'mon, Jenna, you're pulling my leg.'

‘I'm not,' insisted Jenna. ‘I've seen all the certificates. I mean, I don't suppose you'd ever be able to claim your inheritance because of David being registered as the Manning parents' child, but all the same …'

Linda clapped a hand over her mouth, her eye suddenly big with horror.

‘But that means that me and Harville …'

‘You're cousins, albeit fairly distant ones now.'

‘All the same … ugh. It's incest, isn't it? What we did?'

‘No, I don't think so. That's first cousins. Children of your aunts and uncles.'

‘Oh, well, that's all right then. I think. Still seems wrong though.'