In Denial (15 page)

*  *  *

Fortunately DS Caroline Brown was on duty and she was able to see him.

Adam felt that he hadn’t struck up a particularly good relationship with DS Brown, yet there seemed to be an air of mutual trust. DC John Tilsey on the other hand had been downright hostile from the outset and Adam was convinced that even after providing the police with proof, Tilsey still believed he had something to do with the death of his family.

Adam and Caroline Brown took their cups of coffee into a side room.

‘
What can I do for you, Mr Harrison?’ she asked sitting down opposite Adam. Her hair had changed. It was shorter and it suited her; it emphasised her high cheekbones. As usual she wore no make-up, allowing her unlined ebony skin to accentuate her attractiveness.

‘
I’m not sure if there’s anything you can do for me but I wanted to let you know that I’ll be going away for a couple of months, maybe longer, and I wondered if that might present any complications.’

‘
Complications? You’re free to go wherever you please and for as long as you please, Mr Harrison. But might I ask, just out of personal interest, where you will be going?’

‘
Yes, of course. Hong Kong.’ Adam took a sip of his coffee. DS Brown was looking directly at him, emphasising the piercing blackness of her pupils. Although she was casually dressed in a loose, sleeveless linen shirt and a pair of jeans, she seemed to ooze authority and awareness. Adam understood why she was in the police and why she would deservedly go far.

‘
I remember you telling me Hong Kong was where you spent most of your childhood. Didn’t you lose both your …?’ DS Brown paused. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Harrison, under the circumstances that was insensitive of me.’

Adam smiled. ‘That’s all right and yes I did. My parents were killed in a plane crash.’

‘
Of course.’

Adam looked down at the cup in his hand. ‘Do investigations into murders ever close?’

‘
Not unsolved ones, no.’ Caroline Brown crossed her legs. ‘Obviously time allocation is governed by other cases but in answer to your question, the investigation into the deaths of your wife and children is ongoing.’

‘
But other than me, there were never any other suspects, were there?’

‘
No, and you were never really a suspect.’

‘
DC Tilsey thought -’

‘
DC Tilsey always looks for the most obvious way out and in some cases it is the right approach to take. In your case it wasn’t.’

Adam nodded. ‘So there’s nothing new?’

‘
Unfortunately not. Whoever murdered your family, Mr Harrison, left no clues whatsoever. There were no finger prints, no DNA, there was no sexual motive and there was nothing stolen. In fact the killings appeared totally without motive. The only conclusion we did draw was that it was more than likely your wife and children did know their attacker.’

‘
Attacker not attackers?’

‘
Yes. I don’t want to go into the gruesome details, Mr Harrison but your wife and children were almost certainly killed by the same man and with the same knife. We even know the order in which their lives were taken. They -’

‘
How?’

DS Brown gave Adam a careful look. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
All right, if you’re sure. None of them was moved after they were killed, your wife in the living room and the children in their beds. The murder weapon has never been found but your wife was killed first, then Timothy, followed by Charlotte. The knife was not wiped clean between each killing and as well as finding traces of blood on the carpets and floor, we also found your wife’s blood on Timothy’s neck and then both Timothy’s and your wife’s on Charlotte’s.’

Adam closed his eyes as the scenes he discovered on that fateful Friday evening found their way into his mind. The ghastly pictures were there for his every waking hour, in his nightmares and dreams - everywhere. As Charlotte and Timothy slept, their mother was killed and then as Charlotte slept Timothy had died, and finally Charlotte.

‘
Is there anything else? You say that the killings seemed to be without motive. Did you follow up every possible avenue of enquiry to try to find one?’

‘
Yes, we did.’

‘
Even in Hong Kong?’

‘
Yes … is that why -?’

Adam looked deeply into the ebony eyes staring at him. ‘I’m going to Hong Kong because it’s where I first met my wife. It’s where we spent our first fourteen years of life together and it’s where I must lay her soul and the souls of our two children to rest. That is why I must go to Hong Kong.’

‘
I understand, Mr Harrison. I understand.’

*  *  *

As the gravel crunched under the tyres of the Lexus, Adam noted that both of his parents’ cars, the Bentley and the Porsche, were outside the garage. He had told them so many times that they were asking for trouble by doing that but they had not taken a blind bit of notice then, so why now?

Especially now.

It was just after eight on Thursday morning. He had done the journey from Ashbourne to Dorset in record time, starting well before the rush hour traffic. Adam knew his mother would still be in bed. His father was likely to be at the bottom of the lawn near the lake doing his constitutional exercises. It was a lovely morning and unseasonably warm, though the weather was irrelevant to his father’s routine. It was unlikely Joseph would have heard the car. Forestgreen Lodge was a large Victorian mansion and its thick walls would block any sound so far off the beaten track. But his approach may have been detected as the driveway was covered by CCTV.

Lolita, the Philippino amah who had been employed a year before the family left Hong Kong, would be aware, though, and she would be watching him from one of the downstairs windows, waiting to see what he did. Ah Ho and Ah Ping, the erstwhile Chinese amahs who were with the Yongs for over fifteen years, were released with excellent severance pay-offs. Although it had been their choice to go, Lucinda had told Adam that there was much wailing and breat-beating when the time came for them to actually leave.

Lolita was employed as a replacement having declared her willingness to go to the UK when the time came. She had worked in Hong Kong for several years, sending most of her earnings back to Davo in Mindahao, so that her parents, brothers and sisters could live just above the bread line. Bearing in mind the circumstances of his own entry into the UK, Adam had never asked how his father had also managed to gain permission for Lolita to work in the UK permanently. But that was eighteen years ago and there had never seemed to be a problem. Lolita had dedicated herself to the Yongs and became a relative recluse, only venturing out once a year to return to her family in the Philippines for what they all called her long leave. Surprisingly she always returned.

As Adam got out of the car and viewed the front of the house in the morning sun, he knew he would be placing Lolita in a bit of a quandary. She had always meted out special treatment to him but after the murders and the way in which Joseph and Christina’s attitudes changed towards him, Lolita’s loyalties became divided for obvious reasons. He had only visited Forestgreen Lodge once in the months since the murders and Lolita had been cold and distant, her eyes darting from him to Joseph.

But now Adam had little choice but to visit again.

The door opened before he had time to ring the bell.

Lolita stood just inside the door, her jet black hair scraped back from her forehead and a look of great concern on her face rather than the welcoming smile Adam remembered so well.

‘
Hello, Lolly,’ he said, using the name Charlotte and Timothy gave her and which was adopted by the rest of the family.

‘
Master Adam!’ she replied, her eyebrows lifted in surprise. ‘But -’

‘
I know, Lolly, no warning. I thought it best this way.’

‘
Master, he in garden and Madam, she upstairs.’

Adam smiled. ‘Where else would either of them be at this time of day?’ Lolita was still barring his way and his mind flashed back to Doris barring his route up the staircase a few days before. But it wasn’t Doris who had been on his mind most of the last forty-eight hours, it was Gabrielle.

‘
They not know you coming -?’

‘
No, Lolly, but don’t worry. It’ll be all right.’

Lolita stood back. ‘You better come in and I tell Master.’

Adam moved into the house. ‘No, Lolly, I’ll go into the garden and tell my father I’m here.’

Lolita’s eyes opened even wider. ‘Oh, if Master Adam say so.’

‘
It’ll be all right, Lolly, I promise.’ He bent down and pecked her on the cheek as was the custom. Lolita lifted her fingers to her face and watched as Adam crossed the hall, went through the open double doors leading into the sun-room and then towards the French windows that opened out onto the stone balcony with steps leading down into the garden.

Joseph was at exactly the spot Adam had expected him to be.

He had on his grey coolie suit - which Charlotte and Timothy always said looked like pyjamas - black silk sandals and the white headband with
晨課評語指健全
(
Fitness means Health
) written on it.

He had his back to the house, with the exercise mat under his feet. Adam watched him stretch his arms, rotate his neck and bend his knees. The view over the small lake to the fields beyond was magnificent and he remembered Joseph commenting that the view was as therapeutic as the exercises.

Adam looked at his father from a few yards away. His approach had been undetected. He knew that Lolita would now be watching him from one of the back windows. She may have gone upstairs and woken Christina. Both might now be observing him from the same window, full of apprehension. Christina had never been as bad as Joseph, indeed Adam felt that she held no grievance towards him at all. What had happened was unequivocally tragic and horrific and he was just as heartbroken as they were.

Joseph, on the other hand, felt that a husband and a father was as responsible for his wife’s and children’s behaviour as he was for their welfare and safety. If dishonour was brought on the family as a result of an action, or even the spoken word, the man was to blame; but similarly, if anyone in the family came to harm, the man was equally to blame. In Joseph’s eyes, Adam should have been there to protect his daughter and grandchildren and therefore their gruesome deaths were ultimately Adam’s fault.

The opportunity had arisen but had never been taken up by either man to discuss the tragedies. Adam knew there was little point in raising the subject; he would never change his father’s mind because family culture was too deeply embedded. Joseph, on the other hand, would have said there was absolutely nothing to discuss.

But now there was.

Adam knew the next thirty minutes, or even few hours, were going to be very difficult, but if Hong Kong was his destination and he wanted his parents’ blessing, he had little choice but to bring all of their feelings into the open. He had hidden away from his own feelings for so long. Even when he’d reached Loch Lomond he did his best to stay in denial. That was until Gabrielle Brooks entered his life and turned it upside down. Now he had every reason to want to discuss the situation; it was no longer a possibility, it was now a necessity.

‘
Hello, Father!’

Joseph Yong stopped in mid-movement. He recognised the voice behind him straight away and no doubt with the recognition recent memories would be flooding back.

He did not turn round nor did he speak.

Adam looked at his father’s back. He seemed smaller than Adam remembered him but maybe it was just a trick of the light and the slight slope they were on. The grey in Joseph’s hair had only appeared after the murders.

‘
I’m sorry to interrupt your morning exercises but I need to speak with you.’

Again without turning, Joseph slowly lowered himself onto the exercise mat and sat in the lotus position, his forearms resting on his knees, his fingers pressed together.

Adam moved round so that he was in front of, and a few yards from, his father, then he squatted down. Although he looked straight into Joseph Yong’s eyes, his father seemed to be looking through him at the lake beyond.

‘
On Wednesday I returned to Ashbourne after a few days in Loch Lomond. I went to Loch Lomond with one specific aim in mind and that was to kill myself. Whether it was a cowardly and selfish action to contemplate I don’t know. You may consider it would have been the honourable thing to do, but whatever, the thought of one more day on this earth without Lucinda, Charlotte and Timothy was more than I could bear. Accompanying the loss of my wife and children was also the loss of the respect you and Mother still had for me. I know I am no more than your adopted son and you may have only gone through with the adoption because it was a matter of honour, a promise to a man you never expected to die while I was still so young, but you and Mother are the only parents I know. For me you are my only mother and father. I know you hold me responsible for the deaths of your daughter and my wife, and your grandchildren and this, in all of our eyes, may always be the case if no other person is ever brought to account for their loss. I also know you have never forgiven me, and if Lucinda were still with us you would never have forgiven her either for bringing shame on your house all those years ago. After we were married, and even after the children came along, when Lucy and I were alone we often still talked about what we did when we were so young. At the time and for a long time afterwards we could see nothing wrong in what we were doing but when we had children of our own we began to understand. It was something the four of us never got the opportunity to discuss because the subject was forbidden. I’m sure if you’d been able to you would have thrown me out completely rather than just sending me away to school. I’m also sure the last thing you wanted was for Lucinda and me to get married. In the case of the former it was your honour once again which forbade you doing what your head said was right. In the case of the latter there was nothing you could do about it. We were both over twenty-one and legally entitled to get married without your permission. However, I’m not here to apologise for anything I may have done that in your eyes was wrong and nor am I here to criticise any of your actions I may have thought were unfair. I’m here because while I was in Loch Lomond I met a most incredible young woman.’