Chapter 45
I removed the gag from her mouth and the first word she said was, ‘Water.’ There was a plastic bottle on the floor beside the chair and I lifted it to her lips.
As she drank I spotted a couple of empty barrels lying on their side close to the chair.
It seemed that she had managed to shuffle over to a nearby stack of beer barrels and knock a couple of them loose. That was the banging I’d heard.
‘I thought you were her,’ she said. ‘That woman. The landlady.’
‘Brenda? She put you down here?’
‘I didn’t do it to myself.’
I worked on the rope that was securing her wrists. The knot was tight and difficult to untie.
‘Everyone’s been going mad trying to find you,’ I said. ‘Especially Charles. We all thought …’
‘I was dead? She brought me straight down here and tied me up. She comes down every few hours to give me water and rant about how much she hates Charles. She’s insane. I thought she was going to kill me.’ Her voice was croaky. ‘I heard shouting upstairs. Is that Charles?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did he find out where I am? Is that why he’s here? Why you’re here?’
‘No.’ I paused. I didn’t even know where to start. But there was a question burning. The obvious one. ‘What happened at the cave?’
The knot was beginning to come loose. Just a little.
‘That crazy woman turned up and shoved Lewis off the ledge.’
‘Wait. Brenda?’
She closed her eyes for a second, remembering. ‘We went into the caves – that tunnel was way more difficult to crawl through than he promised me – and he showed me the Serpent Stone, and it was all cool.’
‘He didn’t try anything? To hurt you?’
‘What? No, of course not. Why are you asking that?’
I was aware we needed to get out of here quickly.
I had no idea if Brenda had called the police, although I now knew why she wouldn’t.
She didn’t want them finding a kidnapped woman tied up in her basement, one who was going to tell them she had murdered Lewis.
Charles had started banging on the door again.
How long before he discovered the back entrance?
‘I heard him say something to Miranda, that’s all. But I’ll explain later.’
‘I think you must have misunderstood. What did he say?’
‘Miranda was worrying about you spending all of Charles’s money, and he said, “I promise you, Miranda. It’s not going to turn out like that. I’m going to fix it.” Then he told her to trust him.’
‘Uh-huh.’ To my surprise, she laughed. ‘You got the wrong fucking end of the stick, Patrick.’
‘But—’
‘Patrick. I promise you. Lewis didn’t want to kill me.
He was showing me the cave, and then Brenda arrived.
She was holding a gun. A rifle. She started ranting at him about Morag, about how he needed to leave her alone.
He said he had no idea what she was talking about, but Brenda said Morag had been freaking out the last few days, like she was frightened of the Grants.
Something about that boy who died here? Samir.
She kept shouting at him to leave her daughter alone. ’
I stared at her. Brenda had been so close to the truth, but she’d got the wrong man. ‘It was Zack that Morag was scared of.’
‘Right. Whatever. Brenda kept yelling at Lewis, and then she demanded he hand over his phone so she could take a look at his messages. She tried to grab it, Lewis backed away from her, right up to the edge – and then she jabbed him with the rifle and he went over.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Then she forced me to her car at gunpoint. I think she was panicking. I was, like, begging her not to shoot me, but she just kept telling me to shut my mouth.’
I let this all sink in. ‘There’s so much I need to tell you I don’t even know where to start.
But we need to get you to the police so you can tell them what happened.
’ At least now they would have a witness to tell them I hadn’t had anything to do with Lewis’s death, even if I no longer knew what his conversation with Miranda was all about.
‘You need to untie me first.’
‘I’m trying. I think Brenda must have been a Girl Scout.’
It was still ominously quiet upstairs. What was going on? Had Charles given up and gone away? Or was he trying to find some other way in?
‘So Charles has been going crazy, huh? Trying to find me?’
‘Crazy full stop.’ I found myself laughing, too, on the edge of hysteria.
As I worked on the knot I told her about Morag and Zack and the scene I had just witnessed at the house. She already knew Morag was dead because Brenda had come down here and sobbed and shouted about how the Grants poisoned everything, how she wished they’d all died along with Elizabeth.
When I told Jasmine that Charles was Avril’s dad, she didn’t seem at all surprised. Had Brenda told her?
‘There’s one more thing you need to know,’ I said. ‘About how Charles found you. This might be a bit of a shock.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘He used an app the company developed to find you. Or rather, one they stole. That’s why you look exactly like Holly’s mother. It was no accident.’
‘Fuck. Oh my God. That bastard. That lying bastard.’
‘Got it,’ I said as the knot finally came loose. I unfastened it, and she gasped with relief as she pulled her arms free.
She rubbed her shoulders. ‘It hurts.’
As she stood, she wobbled, and I rushed around the chair to catch her as she almost fell. ‘You need to take it easy.’
‘I’m okay. I just want to get out of here.’
I took a deep breath. ‘This is what we’re going to do. My car is parked out the front. We’re going to leave the pub by the back entrance, go to my car and drive to the visitors’ centre. That’s where the police are based. Together, we’re going to tell them everything we know.’
‘What about Holly?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Aren’t you worried about getting her into trouble? From what you’ve just told me, it sounds like she’s implicated in this whole thing. Like, didn’t she keep Charles’s secret all these years?’
‘She didn’t know he killed Jimmy. And Avril will testify, too. She knows Zack killed her mum and Samir. That Charles is a murderer.’
‘Are you sure? She’s a Grant, too. What if he promises her riches? People will do a lot for money, Patrick.’
‘They’ll do even more for love.’
The look she gave me was one of pity. ‘You’re sweet. You’re also very naive. People like that – all of them, including Lewis – care about protecting their wealth and power more than anything else in the world.’
She seemed stronger now. Less likely to collapse.
‘So what are you saying?’ I asked. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m saying I want you to be sure about what you’re about to do.
If we go to the police, it’s going to be me and you against them.
They’ll be able to afford the best lawyers.
They’ll be willing to play dirty. And we can’t rely on Brenda to testify for us either because, one, she’s a murderer, and two, she’s a crazy-ass bitch. ’
‘What about Miranda?’
‘She’s a Grant, Patrick. When it comes down to it, she’ll take Charles’s side. Holly will, too.’
‘She won’t. She stopped him from shooting me.’
‘We’ll see. Maybe she didn’t want to see you dead, but if it’s you going to jail or the total destruction of Gravitas and her family’s legacy …
I know which one I’d choose. Sorry, Patrick, but they’re going to pin everything on you.
And, I gotta say, leaving that cop for dead on the side of the road isn’t going to play well to a jury. The police must hate you.’
I must have made a distressed noise because Jasmine said, ‘You really are sweet. You think that the truth will trump everything, don’t you? I wish I could be as optimistic as you.’
‘So what exactly are you saying?’
I had been down here about fifteen minutes. I had no idea what was going on upstairs. Why was it so quiet?
No sooner had I wondered this than I heard a shout, muffled from above. It was Brenda, shouting, ‘Get back!’
I heard Charles boom, ‘Let me talk to the girl.’
Brenda replied by screaming, ‘Get away from her!’
Jasmine looked up, then back at me. ‘What am I saying? I’m saying there’s another way.’
‘What other way?’
She smiled. She seemed so different to the sunny, friendly person I’d met when she first came here.
‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘And you’ll find out.’