Forgive Me (55 page)

‘But he did deal with setting up
subsidiary companies, factories, finding new suppliers. And he made deals on
Portwall’s behalf all around the world. Portwall have some proof now that he took
backhanders for negotiating deals, just as he did in the London estate agency. That sort
of practice is common enough in many quarters, and not actually illegal, but a
principled company like Portwall would never countenance it. But what is totally illegal
is diverting funds owed to Portwall into an account he set up for himself.’

Eva didn’t really understand how that
would work. But then she knew very little about business, and it hardly mattered to her
anyway.

Fellows nodded knowingly, as if he
understood what she was thinking.

‘We think it took him a few years
working for Portwall, and gaining their trust, before he took the plunge and began his
scams. We found a ledger kept by Flora while they were renovating The Beeches. Bribes,
by their very nature, have to be kept secret by both parties and cannot go through a
bank account. We found nothing to suggest that Andrew had been paying workmen in cash at
that time. Flora had itemized the cost of materials, labour charges and so on, and also
cheques issued from their bank account to pay for this. It all balanced with invoices
that show who the payments were made to.

‘But several years later, although
your parents appeared on the face of it to be living within their earned income, we
discovered they had acquired a number of expensive items, which did not show up as
having been paid for through a bank account or with a hire-purchase agreement. We found
the bank account into which he’d been diverting money from Portwall, and also a
fake passport. We also found proof that
he was disposing of the cash
he took in bribes by paying workmen in cash, buying antiques and gambling.’

‘How can you prove that?’ Eva
asked.

‘A tip-off led us to a builder who
admitted he was paid several thousand for a job he did for Andrew, and signed a
statement to that effect. He’s no longer working and has cancer. But we think he
was anxious to cooperate because he was appalled by Flora’s death and
Andrew’s attack on Sophie.’

Eva didn’t know what to say. She found
it hard to believe that the man who had always lectured her about being honest should be
so dishonest himself.

‘However, I don’t expect you two
girls need chapter and verse about the fraud. I think that you probably want to know
what made a measured, methodical man turn into someone capable of being a potential
killer?’

Eva nodded.

‘We believe it was the aftermath of
your mother’s death,’ Fellows said, looking from Eva to Sophie.
‘First, he found he couldn’t claim on her life insurance, and it was a very
large sum he lost out on. Then, to find she’d made a new will leaving her half of
the house to his children, and not to him, must have enraged him. We also discovered in
our investigation that he took out a mortgage on this house ten years earlier, forging
Flora’s signature to do it.

‘If the house had been left to him, he
could have sold it, paid off that mortgage and bought somewhere smaller. Maybe
he’d even intended to go straight. But that was no longer possible. He
couldn’t sell the house without Ben and Sophie’s agreement. He must also
have been very scared that it would come to light that he’d forged the mortgage
document.’

‘But why did he take out the
mortgage?’ Eva asked. ‘He had a good job, and if he was doing all this other
stuff on the side, what did he need more money for?’

Fellows shrugged. ‘He had become
accustomed to living beyond his regular salary. We discovered he stayed in very grand
hotels when he was away from home, entertained lavishly, and he frequently gambled in
casinos. All in all, he appeared to see himself as something of a playboy.’

‘What an idiot!’ Eva
exclaimed.

‘Don’t say that,’ Sophie
retorted. ‘We all had a nice life, and he paid for it – like the swimming pool,
for instance.’

At the mention of the swimming pool Eva was
sharply taken back to five years earlier. She had come downstairs late at night to get
some hot milk, because she couldn’t sleep, and had stopped short in the hall. She
could hear Andrew talking on the phone in the kitchen.

‘I’ll collect the cash from you
in Paris,’ she heard him say. ‘Next Monday OK for you? Usual
place?’

There was a brief silence as he listened to
the person he was speaking to. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t be going in any
bank. I’ve got plans for it.’

Andrew laughed at something the caller said.
‘Don’t worry on that score. I don’t tell her anything,’ he said.
‘She’ll just think I got a bonus.’

Afraid she would be caught eavesdropping,
Eva went back upstairs. She was a bit puzzled by what she’d overheard, but it
didn’t really mean anything to her. The only reason she remembered it now was
because of what Fellows had said. A few days after hearing her father speaking on the
phone she saw architect’s drawings on the dining-room table.

She asked Flora what they were for.

‘Your dad has been going on about
converting the old stables into an indoor swimming pool for years,’ she replied.
‘Those are plans for it.’

Eva was thrilled and started asking excited
questions about when it would be done, how big it would be, and things like
that. But she immediately saw by Flora’s expression that her
mother didn’t share her excitement.

In fact Flora looked very worried about it.
‘I can’t tell you anything, darling. It’s probably only one of your
dad’s pipe dreams that won’t happen anyway. We haven’t got that kind
of money.’

Eva almost reassured Flora that Andrew had
got the money. But she stopped herself, because she thought he might be intending to
surprise them all with it. It certainly never occurred to her then that he was doing
something shady.

But she
was
a little confused by
Flora’s continuing anxiety when the work began. She spent a lot of time watching
the men with diggers doing the excavation work, and Eva overheard her questioning Andrew
more than once about where the money was coming from to pay for it. Andrew had been very
flippant about it, at least in Eva’s hearing, but back then she fully believed
that her dad was utterly reliable, straight as a die, and if he said he could afford it,
then he could.

In fact her view was that Flora was just
being a wet blanket.

But now that she knew the other side of
Andrew, she wondered if Flora had guessed he was getting the money dishonestly. Was that
another worry for her?

‘Was that builder who made the
statement the same one who put in the swimming pool?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Eva. He was – it was the last
big job he did before he became ill. He kept a record of all the payments he received,
and the dates.’

‘What’s going to happen to my
dad?’ Sophie asked in a small voice.

‘We’re told they are operating
on him tomorrow,’ Fellows replied.

‘But what if he dies?’ Sophie
asked, her eyes wide and frightened.

‘His surgeon is optimistic he will
recover, Sophie.’

‘But if he does, you’ll send him
to prison for years and years,’ she said accusingly.

‘Let’s just cross that bridge
when we come to it, shall we?’ Fellows said.

Sophie fled from the room, sobbing.

‘Oh dear, I did my best to be
tactful,’ he said.

‘Sophie’s very confused and
easily upset at the moment,’ Eva said. ‘She was always a daddy’s girl
and it’s very hard for her to hear he wasn’t the man she thought he was. But
can you tell me what will happen to him, if he does pull through?’

‘He’ll be charged with two
counts of attempted murder, and fraud. I’d say he’s likely to get something
between ten and fifteen years in prison.’

Eva thought about this for a moment.
‘But what will happen to this house then? And if he should die, will Ben be
charged with manslaughter?’

‘First, I would advise Ben to see a
solicitor as soon as possible to apply for Power of Attorney – that way, he can deal
with the sale of the house and any other assets. As to whether he will be
charged …’ Fellows paused, looking to Markham as if unsure of how to
proceed.

‘Well, Eva,’ Markham continued
for him, ‘should Andrew not recover from the operation, I’m afraid that
unfortunately Ben will be charged with murder or manslaughter. That is the law. I know
that sounds grossly unfair, given the circumstances, but let me assure you now that he
is certain to be acquitted at the trial. Self-defence, or defence of another, is a
complete defence, and no jury would find him guilty when they hear what happened. But
Ben will need a solicitor to act for him.’

This all sounded like a nightmare to Eva.
‘So what happens if Andrew survives the operation but doesn’t recover enough
to stand trial?’ she asked.

‘I can’t answer that now,
Eva,’ Fellows replied. ‘Let’s wait until he’s had the operation.
We’ll be off now, and let you go and comfort Sophie.’

‘I hate that expression,
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it”, don’t you?’
Sophie said when Eva found her up in her bedroom after the police had gone. ‘It
means people haven’t got a clue about anything.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ she
said, sitting down on the bed beside Sophie. ‘It means that sometimes things sort
themselves out while you wait. So there’s no point in getting into a state about
something that might not happen.’

‘I suppose you mean if he dies, then
they don’t have to do anything. What about if Dad does survive but he’s a
vegetable?’

‘I suppose he would have to be moved
to a hospital that specializes in head injuries.’ Eva stroked her sister’s
hair in an effort to comfort her. ‘But he’ll still get the kind of care
other injured people get. They won’t ill-treat him because he’s done
something bad.’

‘It will be better for him if he does
die during the operation, won’t it?’

Eva didn’t know how to respond to
that. It was true Andrew’s future looked grim – either stuck in a hospital for the
rest of his life, or a very long spell in prison. She thought he richly deserved it. But
it was different for Sophie; until she read her mother’s statement she’d
only seen his good side. She was probably clinging to the idea that, if she hadn’t
said she was going to tell the police he wasn’t home on the night of the fire,
none of this would have happened.

‘But it won’t be better for Ben.
He’d be charged with murder, or manslaughter,’ Eva said. She wasn’t
going to remind Sophie now that, but for her father, she might still have a mother.

‘Can you still love someone who
isn’t the person you thought they were?’ Sophie asked, and she began to
sob.

Eva drew her sister into her arms. She
realized she’d underestimated the effects of shock. Sophie had seemed almost her
old self by Sunday afternoon when Ben left for Leeds. But perhaps the reality of what
had happened to her hadn’t quite kicked in then. Now, along with knowing her
father had tried to kill her, she had to deal with hearing he was a thief.

‘Remember Mum used to say she
didn’t always like us, but she’d always love us?’ Eva said. ‘I
think that covers your dad too. He’s turned everything upside down for you. But it
will get better, I promise. Look at me! I thought I was going to die in that fire, but I
got over it.’

‘I used to think I was an OK
person.’ Sophie sobbed into Eva’s shoulder. ‘I was popular at school,
top of the class most of the time, I had a nice home and parents that all my friends
envied, and I thought I was going places. But it was all fake. I’m not anything,
I’m going nowhere. People will always whisper about me. “Remember her? Mum
topped herself, dad tried to kill her, and he stole money from the company he worked
for.” I can hear them saying it, Eva. I can’t bear it.’

Eva’s stomach turned over in sympathy.
She had never thought of herself as a person who was going places, but she certainly
knew what it felt like to be ashamed and second-rate.

‘You are still an OK person,
Sophie,’ she replied, holding her sister tightly and rocking her. ‘You are
still clever and
pretty, and all that stuff about our family will be
forgotten in a while. You don’t have to stay in Cheltenham. You can start again in
London, Leeds, anywhere you fancy. Just like I did.’

‘I’m not strong like you,’
she whimpered. ‘I go to pieces.’

‘Ben and I won’t let you go to
pieces. We’ll hold you up until you are strong enough to stand on your own. I
promise you.’

‘Why are you so kind to me?’
Sophie asked. ‘I’ve been vile to you. I didn’t stick up for you when
Dad was nasty to you. I didn’t try to see you after you left here. I didn’t
even care that you’d nearly died in a fire.’

‘If you can admit that now,
there’s nothing much wrong with you,’ Eva said. ‘You were too young to
lose your mum, you were all mixed up. I was vile when I was your age too. Can you
remember me in all my goth stuff? How embarrassing was that!’

‘You were never vile – not to
me.’ Sophie sniffed. ‘And I thought your goth stuff was pretty
cool.’

Eva chuckled. ‘Now that is worrying!
So why don’t we go and get a couple of videos to watch tonight, and make ourselves
something nice to eat?’

Sophie moped about all day, and finally
went off to bed about ten. Eva rang Ben then to tell him about the police visit. She
hadn’t wanted to talk about it in Sophie’s hearing, as she was so disturbed
by it all. She ran through about the operation Andrew was to have at the hospital, and
then the news of the fraud.

Ben was horrified and incredulous to hear
about the fraud. ‘But he was always going on about being honourable and
stuff,’ he said. ‘What a bastard! After everything he’s done, I hope
he does bloody well die.’

‘I think I’d rather he gets well
enough to stand trial and go to prison,’ Eva said. ‘Then he’ll have
years of reflecting on
what he’s done to us all. Besides, I
don’t want you to be charged with murder – even if the police do say you’ll
be acquitted. However much public sympathy there would be for you, it would still follow
you around afterwards like a bad smell. Journalists are sniffing around here still. They
can’t write anything much about it until after his trial, but you can bet
they’re collecting up dirt even now in readiness.’