Slowly, like a boxer dragging himself off the deck, Charles went back to his chair. I did the same.
‘Obviously,’ Jasmine said, ‘that plan isn’t going to work now. Lewis is dead. Things have got very, very messy. If you go to prison, which you really fucking deserve, the company will be ruined. Then I would imagine Samir’s parents will be looking for a very large sum as compensation. Yeah, there’ll still be some money left even if Gravitas collapses, but a fraction of what you’re worth now. And the whole thing will take years. I don’t have that long. I want to get on with my life. The life I deserve.’
She gestured around the room. ‘I think we would all like to find a way out of this, right? If Charles goes to prison, it’s not going to bring back any of the dead. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true.’
‘Everyone.’ Avril was at the window. ‘There are people along the street. They’re poking around all the cars.’
‘Oh shit,’ Holly said. ‘The police are still looking for Patrick.’
‘We need to be quick,’ Jasmine said.
Charles and Brenda both spoke at the same time, using identical words. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘We’re going to do what you’re famous for, Charles. We’re going to make a deal.’
48
I watched the car take Jasmine away, back to the airport in Inverness, from where she’d be flying home. First class, of course.
It was 4 January. Three and a half days had passed since Jasmine had suggested the deal. Snow still lay at the sides of the roads and on the rooftops, making Applecross appear even more beautiful than normal this morning. According to the forecast it was due to snow again tomorrow. But we’d all be gone by then.
Beautiful or not, I had no intention of coming here ever again.
I went back into the house and found Holly in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure where Charles was. Still in bed, probably. We’d all spent most of yesterday talking to the police, a pair of detectives from Inverness interviewing us one by one. Me, Holly, Charles, Jasmine, Miranda, Brenda and Avril. Also yesterday, an ambulance had come, able to get here now the roads were clearer, and taken three bodies away: Lewis, Morag and Zack. CSIs had collected evidence. People from the village had come to watch from a distance. There was a whiff ofschadenfreudein the air. But also sadness. Morag had been loved by everyone around here. She was a daughter of this peninsula. Brenda was its matriarch.
In the kitchen, Holly was making tea.
‘Do you want one?’ she asked.
‘I need coffee. I’ll do it.’ I took the cafetière down from the shelf. ‘Have you seen Miranda this morning?’
‘Yeah, she’s taken Watson for a walk.’
‘You didn’t want to go with her?’
She cradled her mug of tea. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’
We’d hardly seen each other since Susan had turned up at the pub, days ago. And we hadn’t had a moment alone, just the two of us.
‘We need to talk about the big question,’ she said.
‘We do.’
‘How are you feeling about everything?’
I put my coffee down and looked at her. The sun was coming in through the window, dancing on her hair.
‘It’s complicated,’ I replied.
Really fucking complicated.
Charles, Jasmine and Brenda sat around one of the pub tables, hurriedly thrashing out the details of the deal before the police arrived, while Holly, Avril and I listened in.
These were the details:
Charles promised to sign over his house in Applecross to Avril. Her mum had been looking after this place for nearly two decades and in that time its value had skyrocketed. Avril would be an instant millionaire. On top of that, he would create a trust fund for her. Although he wouldn’t ever publicly admit to being her father, he would treat Avril as if she were Lewis’s daughter and she would be included in Charles’s will along with his other grandchild, Miranda’s son.
Charles also agreed not to proceed with his facial recognition app, even though he argued it would make the company far more valuable. Jasmine wouldn’t allow it to be used against women the way it had been used against her.
