Chapter 69
They are keeping Rosie heavily sedated for now.
Steve and Amy haven’t left her bedside. They have been taking it in turns to sleep on a mattress on the floor.
‘She’s not normally this quiet,’ says Steve to Adam.
His son has his arm around his daughter-in-law. That’s nice to see. They fit together, the two of them.
Will he fit together with someone again? He hasn’t been able to clear Georgie Glazier from his mind in the long hours he has been by Rosie’s bed. She is not the one, but perhaps there will be somebody else someday.
‘What are we going to do about Felicity?’ asks Amy.
‘She’s the one who shot Rosie?’ says Adam.
‘That’s her,’ says Steve. ‘Our office manager.’
‘Takes her job seriously,’ says Adam. ‘Was it a problem with the photocopier?’
‘It’s up to Rosie,’ says Steve. ‘When she wakes up, we’ll ask her what she wants us to do.’
The machines attached to Rosie continue to hum and beep.
‘What’s Tony’s view?’ asks Amy.
‘He said, “Absolutely fair play, she shouldn’t have shot her”,’ says Steve.
‘Sums it up nicely,’ says Adam. ‘What’s going to happen to this Ernesto?’
‘They’re going to take him back to Spain,’ says Amy. ‘Keep him locked up until his trial starts.’
‘What was he thinking?’ Adam asks.
A nurse appears.
‘Are you Steve and Amy?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ say Steve and Amy.
‘I have a message from a Mr De Sousa de Cuéllar, in room 14B. He wondered if you might be able to pay him a visit?’
Amy gives Steve a nod.
‘We can’t both go,’ says Steve. ‘What if Rosie … what if she wakes up?’
Amy looks at Adam. ‘If she wakes up, don’t believe a single word she says about either of us.’
Amy kisses Adam goodbye. When was the last time a lover kissed Steve goodbye? No, of course, Steve knows the answer to that. Debbie. The morning of the day she died.
Amy takes Steve’s arm, and they follow the nurse out.
‘You okay?’ Amy asks.
‘Thinking about Debbie,’ says Steve. Why lie?
‘Rosie’s not going to die,’ says Amy.
‘People do,’ says Steve. ‘It’s not up to you.’
Amy takes Steve’s hand as they are guided through a series of corridors, down a flight of stairs where a smoking woman is being coaxed back to her ward, and finally through the door into 14B.
Ernesto is in bed, his leg in a cast, but otherwise looking unscathed. On a plastic chair in the corner of his room is a young woman.
‘This is Clara,’ says Ernesto. ‘She has come to take me back to Spain. Terrible taste in music, but a very good officer.’
Steve and Amy shake Clara’s hand. Amy takes a seat in a small armchair. Steve perches on the end of the bed.
‘You got questions, I think,’ says Ernesto. ‘It’s fair enough.’
Steve shakes his head. ‘Only got one question, mate. Why?’
Ernesto gives a small laugh. ‘Yes, there is only one question. One question, many answers. Is Rosie okay?’
‘None of your business,’ says Amy.
‘She’s alive,’ says Steve.
Ernesto nods. ‘Too many deaths.’
‘I mean, two of them were yours,’ says Amy. ‘Vern Blackwood and Mark Drury.’
Mark Drury was the name of the blond hitman.
‘I won’t make excuses,’ says Ernesto.
‘There are no excuses,’ says Steve.
‘I just make an observation though,’ says Ernesto. ‘Both guys I killed were killers.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ says Steve.
‘It matters where I come from,’ says Ernesto. ‘Where I come from, you can lie to a liar, you can steal from a thief, and you can kill a killer. I’m just saying, is justice.’
‘I come from a tougher background than you,’ says Amy. ‘I guarantee you that. And you didn’t kill those two men for justice, did you?’
‘No,’ agrees Ernesto.
‘You did it for greed,’ says Steve.
‘Yes,’ says Ernesto. ‘I seen a lot of dumb, rich people and then this fell in my lap.’
‘Who did you meet?’ asks Amy.
‘Meet what?’ says Ernesto. ‘When?’
‘At Vern’s villa,’ says Amy. ‘While we were in Palm Springs.’
‘Ah,’ says Ernesto. ‘The trellis and the cistern and the Velux window.’
‘Who did you meet?’ Amy repeats. ‘You told us it was a false alarm. That there was no one there. Somebody must have told you everything? Vern and Connor Brooks and Eric Jacobs?’
Steve suddenly realizes he knows the answer.
It must have been Georgie. If Eric Jacobs worked for Vern all those years ago, then he must have worked for Georgie too.
She must have taken one look at the photograph of ‘Jakob Eriksson’ and put the pieces together immediately.
How else would Ernesto have known the full story?
‘Just tell us, Ernesto,’ says Steve. ‘Do one decent thing.’
Ernesto looks at them both. ‘God is my witness, there was no one there.’
‘No one told you about Eric Jacobs?’
‘I was there all alone,’ says Ernesto. ‘I had the whole place to myself, I went through everything, files, old computers, I put the whole thing together.’
‘You’re saying,’ Steve takes a deep breath, ‘that Georgie Glazier told you none of this?’
‘The ex-wife?’ says Ernesto.
‘The ex-wife,’ says Steve.
‘I never even met her,’ says Ernesto.
‘The whole thing was you?’ Steve asks.
‘All me,’ agrees Ernesto. ‘All Ernesto. Thought I was a genius, thought I’d got the whole thing licked. Vern was tidying up his own mess after the note arrived. Korbin was the only one who knew the truth about Eric Jacobs, so Vern hired Mark Drury to kill Korbin.’
Steve sees it all now. ‘And then tried everything to make it look like Eriksson was still operating. So he could be blamed for everything.’
‘That’s the trick of it,’ says Ernesto.
‘And if you killed Vern and Mark Drury,’ says Amy, ‘you could take over the business with a completely clean slate?’
‘When I realized there was no Eriksson to catch,’ says Ernesto, ‘just Vern, I thought either I arrest Vern and get my promotion –’
‘Or kill Vern,’ says Steve, ‘and get your millions?’
‘I kill a killer,’ says Ernesto. ‘I take over the easy bit of the business, the vitamins and potions. And I’m a rich man.’
‘And then I recognized Mark Drury,’ says Steve.
‘I should have known,’ says Ernesto. ‘Why is Rosie in business with Steve if Steve isn’t the best?’
‘I’m not the best,’ says Steve. ‘I’m far from the best. But all I needed was to be better than you.’
‘Yes,’ says Ernesto.
‘You killed Vern with Mark Drury’s gun?’ Amy asks. ‘That’s why we never found it?’
‘I did,’ says Ernesto. ‘Then I threw it in the moat. The deeper one.’
‘And you would have killed Eric Jacobs?’ asks Amy.
‘No, I had money for him,’ says Ernesto. ‘From Vern’s villa. A million or so. I just wanted to buy his silence.’
Steve takes a final look at the man cuffed to his hospital bed.
A man who had achieved so much, but needed so much more.
If that’s who you are, then that’s who you are, Steve supposes.
Nothing is ever enough. Ernesto was right, he had only killed killers, but his heart pumped with greed. What must that be like?
Amy stands. ‘Come on, Steve. Let’s leave Ernesto to Clara.’
Steve stands too. Perhaps Ernesto couldn’t help it? Perhaps it made sense to him in some way?
‘I have one final question for you, Steve,’ says Ernesto.
Steve nods. Go ahead.
Ernesto tries his winning smile. ‘What is your favourite Led Zeppelin album?’
Steve looks at that now-familiar smile. Was Ernesto not still the same charming, shambolic goof he’d met on the runway at Barcelona?
The man who had dragged himself up by sheer force of will?
Overturned the odds of his upbringing to live an extraordinary life?
The man who, despite his achievements, felt thwarted at every turn by those in power? Steve thinks for a moment.
‘None of your business, Ernesto.’
This time it is Steve who takes Amy’s arm, and they leave the room without a backwards glance.