Chapter Fifty-One
Gabe drove along a leafy street and parked outside a smart row of houses. Checking the numbers he headed towards a blue door. According to his findings, this was Daisy Hall’s address. Daisy who had been engaged to Luke Rees at the time of the scandal and court case. Whether or not she still was, he didn’t know, but he wanted to find out why after leaving Harrington’s she went straight to work for the woman who had allegedly been instrumental in putting her fiancé in jail.
He was worried about Letta. She had left Parscombe Court unexpectedly and whilst he understood her sister returning had caused a change in plans, she had stopped contacting him. He’d sent a few texts, but she’d barely replied. He had been closely following the court case and knew that the judge presiding over it had called Letta and the FCA to his chambers. What he didn’t know was why Letta hadn’t told him. After her declaration to him, he would have thought she would have shared this with him. Something had changed and he didn’t know what. All he could do for now was try to clear her name. If the judge was seeing them tomorrow, Gabe needed to secure the evidence as quickly as possible.
He knocked on the door and smiled as it opened. Daisy looked dreadful. It was harsh, but it was the only way he could describe her. In his memory and in all the photos she came across as a well-presented young woman. Now she was without make-up, her hair was unwashed, and her roots were showing. She was barefoot and wearing a pair of baggy joggers and T-shirt that had a red wine stain on the front .
‘Hello, Daisy. Do you remember me? I’m Gabriel St Clair Harrington, I was hoping to have a few words.’
Daisy looked at him nervously and then looked over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed him on her doorstep. Tucking her hair behind her ear she invited him in and showed him through to the kitchen.
‘Give me a minute to freshen up. I wasn’t expecting guests.’
As she disappeared, Gabe put the kettle on. The kitchen was a mess, but he found two cups and giving them a clean, proceeded to make two cups of coffee.
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Daisy, to Gabe. She seemed flustered. ‘Do excuse the mess, we had a bit of a party last night.’
Gabe looked around the kitchen. Everything suggested days if not weeks of neglect, not a one-night party, but he laughed along with her. She was nervous and he wanted to try to put her at ease.
‘So, what can I do for you?’ Daisy sat down at the kitchen table and was fiddling with her newly brushed hair. ‘Did your brother send you? If so, tell him I don’t care. I’m not doing anything else.’ She slammed her coffee cup down for emphasis. Then she apologised and started to cry.
Gabe stood up and found a roll of kitchen towels. He tore off a sheet so she could dab her eyes and with another he wiped up the coffee. He was clearly on the right track and his heart sank. What had his family done? He may as well cut straight to the chase.
‘Daisy, why are you working at De Foix Investments? ’
The young woman stopped wiping her face and looked at him warily.
‘Don’t you know?’
‘No. Why don’t you tell me?’
Now Daisy looked terrified. ‘I can’t. I promised I wouldn’t.’ She stood up from the table. ‘I think you had better leave.’
Gabe remained where he was and sipped at his coffee. ‘You’re clearly not happy. Maybe I can help?’ He returned to his drink whilst she made her mind up. Finally, in the silence she let out a small groan and sat down.
‘Will I go to jail?’
Gabe’s heart sank further. How bad was this going to be? He remembered Daisy only vaguely, but she had been a bright lively girl, in the middle of all the social functions whooping everyone into action. She and her fiancé had the fastest cars, the biggest houses, the best holidays, the loudest parties. Now she was wiping freshly applied mascara onto a kitchen towel, her nails were unmanicured and her hand was shaking.
‘Daisy, I don’t know. I don’t know what you’ve done but I am a lawyer. If you tell me, I can tell you how serious things are.’
‘Only your brother said I would go to jail if I spoke to anyone.’
‘Well, he’s not a lawyer, so let’s see. And you don’t go to jail for talking about what you’ve done. You go to jail for what you have actually done.’
‘So maybe I shouldn’t say anything, like Adam says. ’
‘But that doesn’t change the fact that whatever it is that you have done, you have done it. Wouldn’t it be better to get it off your chest, before someone else discovers it? Come clean before you’re found out.’
‘I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you. You are family.’
That worried Gabe and he cut her off before she could say anything else.
‘Daisy, if you or my family have done something illegal I can’t hide the fact, nor will I ignore it.’
She stood up again in alarm and Gabe cursed inwardly. He didn’t want to frighten her off but equally he didn’t want to lie to her. He drank some more coffee.
‘Imagine how good it will feel to get this off your chest. You’re clearly not happy with what you’ve done. I met Nicoletta Byrne; she thinks you are wonderful. I can’t believe you two aren’t friends.’
‘We are! We were, she’s wonderful.’ Daisy broke off again and started to sob in earnest. Gabe stood up and guided her back to her seat and put the kettle back on again. When she had composed herself he put a fresh cup in front of her.
‘Tell me all about it and start at the beginning.’
Daisy took a deep breath. ‘In for a penny in for a pound,’ she laughed self-consciously. ‘That was Luke’s maxim. He always went large. Which of course was his downfall and why he ended up in jail. I was devastated, my whole life fell apart. The parties, the invitations, the money; everything stopped. And yes, I know how shallow that makes me sound but honestly, that was who I was. I was losing control at work and eventually I was pulled to one side and told to pack my bags. ’
Gabe winced but had read her personnel files, it was a reasonable if unsupportive action.
‘I was livid, after all that Luke had done for Harrington’s—’
‘He brought the bank down!’
‘He did nothing that Paul and Adam hadn’t approved.’
Well, that confirmed Gabe’s suspicions that his brothers’ hands weren’t clean. Daisy continued.
‘Adam had said he would take care of Luke and I suppose I felt that included me. So when I was fired, I stormed over to his. I was screaming and shouting at him, calling him this and that and somehow through the meeting he convinced me that all my problems were down to Nick. That it had been all her fault, and I’m ashamed to say I totally bought into that. By the end of our chat Luke was nothing more than a maverick who had been unfairly caught out. One more deal and everything would have been fine, but she put a stop to that.’
Which is absolute bollocks , thought Gabe, but he knew that Daisy was aware of that.
‘Anyway, me and Adam hatched a plan.’
Gabe thought that Daisy probably had nothing to do with hatching any plan whatsoever. She was a vulnerable person who had been easily manipulated. He listened as she explained how easy it had been to get a job working at de Foix. Adam Harrington built up a fake CV for her, and Nick welcomed her with open arms. At the time she was struggling with her workload and found Daisy’s tireless efficiency just what she needed. Daisy arranged two properties at ridiculously reduced rates – Nick had been thrilled to get such great locations and relieved that the search had been taken off her hands as she tried to keep on top of her business.
In those first few weeks and months Daisy found it child’s play to go in and alter the historic databases. When the time was right Adam would nudge the FCA to have a look and down would come de Foix and Nick Byrne with it.
Gabe was horrified. This was evidence deliberately planted to destroy Letta. He knew she thought it was a case of sloppy bookkeeping or maybe a genuine mistake. She had no idea she had been deliberately targeted.
‘But why would you do that?’
‘Because I hated her. Because she was to blame for the fact that my fiancé was in jail. Because all my friends had disappeared. I know, I know. Of course, she wasn’t, but that wasn’t how I was thinking back then. I would go out for drinks every week with Adam and give him a progress report and it was lovely. Suddenly I was being wined and dined – we always went somewhere very exclusive, and I fell right back into the glamour and the lifestyle.’
‘So what happened?’
‘What do you think happened?’ she wailed. ‘I got to know Nick. She’s lovely. She’s kind, quiet, hard-working. She works into the night helping other people, she never seeks praise, she’s just industriously beavering away in the background. And I fell for her.’
Gabe raised an eyebrow.
‘No, not like that, but it was a bit like hero worship. I wanted to be like her, I wanted to turn my life around and start over.’
‘So what happened then? ’
‘I told your brother that I wanted out.’
‘And?’
‘And he told me that if I backed out now, he would tell the police he had uncovered evidence that I was prepared to blackmail Nick. Psycho fiancée seeks revenge , that was how he said the papers would run the story. He assured me the press would hear all about it.’
‘What happened after that?’ Gabe was listening to this tale of coercion and greed slowly play out and his heart broke. He was going to save Letta, but he knew now that she would never speak to him again once she realised what his family had done.
‘Well, the wining and dining stopped for a start. But that was okay. The scales had finally fallen from my eyes and I knew I was up to my neck in it. I knew at some point Paul would pull on the noose and I didn’t know what to do. When it all started to fall apart, I panicked. I went to your brother and told him I was going to the police and he scared me so much with tales of prison that I slunk away. I was so ashamed of myself. But he did surprise me by doing something nice.’
‘He did?’ said Gabe in surprise.
‘He bought a dachshund and told me to give it to Nick as a present. He thought it might make me feel a bit better and give her some company in the days ahead. That was kind, wasn’t it?’
Gabe looked at Daisy incredulously. Had she really believed after everything he had done to Letta, that he would suddenly give her a present?
‘He used the fact that she had a dog to evict her from her apartment that you had set up for her. ’
‘No!’ Daisy wailed again and started crying. Gabe felt sorry for her, she had been stupid and initially spiteful but had been manipulated by someone with no soul or conscience.
She started hiccupping through her tears and blew her nose on the kitchen towel. Gabe went and got some loo roll and asked her where she kept her painkillers. Taking two she waved the packet at him.
‘I should take the lot.’
‘That would be the coward’s way out. Nick needs you.’
‘I know, I’m being dramatic, I just can’t believe he would use a dog like that. I was clinging onto that one tiny act as something nice I had done.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to go to jail.’
‘I know. But it might be unavoidable.’
She fell quiet for a bit; her head hung down with her hair over her face. Gabe didn’t know what she would do next and waited patiently. Eventually she sat back in the chair and looked straight at him, her eyes were red, and her skin was blotchy.
‘Okay then. What do I do?’