Charles emerged from behind Miranda and approached Avril, a smile on his face.
‘These rifles only hold three bullets, don’t they, sweetheart? You’re out.’
I could see from her expression that he was right. Shedropped the gun and slumped on to the sofa, clenching her fists and breathing heavily.
Zack’s body lay still near her feet.
Charles smiled. He didn’t seem to care that Zack, the son he’d never had, was dead. He had gone fully into problem-solving mode. He addressed Holly and Miranda. ‘My girls. Everything that’s gone wrong for us, I’ve fixed it. Elizabeth dying. All that nonsense from 2006. Your affair and the divorce, Miranda. Your drug problems, Holly. I made it all better, didn’t I? Every time. I don’t even know how many times I bailed Lewis out.’
He turned to me. ‘Do you know what the two most important things in life are, Patrick?’
After a beat, I ventured an answer. ‘Family?’
‘That’s one of them. Elizabeth always used to say that family is everything, but there’s something else that’s just as important. Your reputation. Without that, you are nothing. Whenever I have a problem, I can call in favours, loans, help. People keep buying Gravitas’s products. It’s all because of my reputation.’
‘As a family man?’
He liked that. ‘That’s part of it– a very large part of it– but also as a business leader, a thinker, a philanthropist. A visionary.’
‘A narcissist?’ said Avril.
Charles laughed. ‘You young people. Everyone’s a narcissist these days.’ His smile slipped away. ‘If only you hadn’t seen Zack with that boy. None of this would have happened. We’d be having a lovely Hogmanay. Listen.’
He cupped his hand to his ear, and I heard it. A crackle in the distance. Something whizzing, followed by a bang.
Fireworks.
‘Happy New Year.’ He took aim at Avril. ‘I wish there was another way.’
‘No!’
Holly stepped in front of his gun. Finally, she had come back to life.
‘Holly, move out of the way.’
‘No, Dad. You can’t do this. She’s part of our family, too.’
He shook his head. ‘Holly, get out of the fucking way. She’s not really family. Blood, maybe, but that’s all.’
Of course. In the chaos of the evening I had almost forgotten that, as Lewis’s daughter, Avril was related to Charles.
‘You can’t kill your own granddaughter!’ I shouted. ‘She won’t say anything, will you, Avril?’
She shook her head rapidly. Her hands were up. For the first time this evening, she looked terrified. Miranda was still frozen to the spot, watching but not doing anything.
‘Shut up,’ Charles said to me. ‘Holly, move, or I’ll have to move you.’
‘No.’ Holly stood firm. ‘Dad, you can’t do this. You know why.’
‘Don’t say it.’
‘No. I’m not going to let you kill my sister.’
42
2007
Holly
