Chapter 29
NOW
Late August
Wednesday
I was already on my second cup of coffee by the time he walked in. Laptop open in front of me, pen in hand as I ploughed through my notes, still trying to figure out what I was overlooking.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ I said, as he reached my table.
‘I almost didn’t,’ Ben replied, his tone wary, but less hostile than earlier.
‘What changed your mind?’ I asked, curiosity battling with my fear of scaring him off.
‘My mum,’ he said with a shrug. ‘She thought you sounded…’ He hesitated, as if the word was difficult for him to say. ‘Sincere.’
My eyebrows lifted in surprise. Going back to his house after my encounter with Charlotte had taken all the strength I could muster. And then he hadn’t even been home.
I tipped my head to the left. Then again, perhaps that had been a good thing. Something told me he wouldn’t have been as willing to talk to me as his mum had been.
Not that she had been happy at the prospect. She believed, as Ben did, that I’d made horrendous accusations against him. What mother would welcome a visit after that?
‘She’s usually a pretty good judge of character,’ Ben continued. ‘But then, I’d always thought I was too. Until I met you.’
I bristled. He might be here, but clearly his opinion of me hadn’t changed from this morning. He still thought I was the enemy.
‘Anyway, she thought I should hear you out.’ His lips tightened. ‘So here I am.’
‘I’m glad,’ I replied. I’d been surprised when his mum had told me to meet him at this café after his shift at the neighbouring veterinary clinic.
I gestured to the empty chair opposite me.
‘Can I get you a tea? Coffee?’ I asked, as he sat.
He shook his head. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’
‘I didn’t do what you think I did,’ I said earnestly.
His expression didn’t change.
‘I didn’t even know what had happened, until I spoke with you this morning. And then Charlotte was waiting for me when I got home and she admitted everything.’
He scoffed. ‘That’s convenient.’
‘I know how it sounds,’ I said quickly. ‘There’s stuff going on that you don’t know. Things with her. Ryan. Blackwater Stables.’
‘Why are you involved in anything to do with them now? I heard you’d left.’
I nodded. ‘I did, but—’
‘Just over a month after you got me fired.’ His words were sharp and bitter. ‘That part never made any sense to me. Why go to the trouble of making things impossible for me, if you were going to leave yourself?’
‘I didn’t get you fired,’ I said, more firmly this time. ‘I never made any allegations against you. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.’ I leaned forward. ‘You were my friend. The only one I had there.’
Something flickered across his face. A softening of his features. It was tiny, but, nonetheless, it was there.
‘And I hadn’t planned on leaving, either. Not without Ryan.’
Ben shrugged. My disrupted plans were of no consequence to him.
‘But there was someone who wanted both of us gone.’
That caught his attention.
‘Charlotte,’ I said.
‘Why would Charlotte want me gone?’ he asked, leaning back, folding his arms across his chest.
‘Because you and I were friends. She wanted to alienate you from me. Make sure that I had no one to turn to. That I was alone.’
‘I’ll admit, it was pretty obvious that Charlotte had it in for you. But you weren’t alone, you had Ryan and his family.’
I stifled a laugh. ‘His family? Are you kidding? His dad didn’t trust me to be anywhere near his precious stables. And as for his mum…’ I shook my head. ‘She despised me even more than Charlotte did.’
‘Then why was she so protective of you?’
I frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Charlotte didn’t fire me.’
My breath caught. ‘What?’
‘She didn’t have the authority. She was there, but the decision, that came from Denise.’
I blinked. ‘Denise fired you?’
Ben stared at me. ‘You really didn’t know that?’ His voice was tinged with surprise and uncertainty.
I shook my head. ‘I told you—’
‘You didn’t get me fired,’ he said.
I waited for the scoff of disbelief to follow. Some form of rejection. But there was nothing.
He held my gaze. The anger had faded from his expression now, he just looked thoughtful, as though he was processing what I’d said.
‘I don’t understand, how did Charlotte manage to get Denise on board with that?
’ I twisted the ends of my hair. ‘Denise had never spoken to me about Charlotte’s claims. She didn’t check what she was accusing you of.
And, even if she believed it, why would she care? She hated me.’ I paused. ‘Unless…’
‘Unless?’ Ben repeated.
‘She was part of it.’
‘Seriously? You’re talking as if there’s some kind of conspiracy.’
‘Maybe there is.’ My gaze dropped to my laptop. ‘Maybe it wasn’t just about you and I being friends. Maybe it was because you were helping me.’
‘I was just showing you how to file the records, fill in the spreadsheets.’
‘Exactly,’ I said, certainty growing within me. ‘I think that was the problem. Charlotte didn’t want me looking around their files. On my own I was pretty clueless, but with you helping me…’
I ran my finger over the laptop trackpad, and opened the sales document.
‘I’ve been going through the Blackwater records and—’
‘Wait,’ he cut in. ‘I thought you left. How do you have their records?’
I shifted uncomfortably. ‘It’s a long story.’
Ben’s eyes narrowed. ‘That sounds suspicious.’
‘Just look,’ I said, pivoting the laptop towards him.
He glanced at the screen and shrugged. ‘It’s a sales contract for one of the foals they bred.’
‘Look at the signature,’ I instructed him.
He hesitated for a moment before scrolling down the page. He leaned closer to the screen. ‘Does that say…?’ His brow furrowed. ‘Is that your name?’
‘Yes.’
He drew back. ‘Why did you sign a sales document?’
‘I didn’t,’ I replied flatly.
He frowned. ‘But you just said—’
‘Someone forged it.’
Ben froze.
‘I never signed anything while I was at Blackwater,’ I assured him. ‘I didn’t know enough to do that. And I certainly didn’t have the authority for it.’
‘But who…? Why…?’
‘Precisely,’ I said, a sense of satisfaction washing over me, as Ben reiterated my own questions.
‘Martin and Ryan were the only ones who ever signed things like this,’ he said slowly.
‘Were they the only ones to deal with the vet too?’
Ben nodded. ‘Yeah, of course. Anything important went through them.’
‘Not Charlotte?’
He shook his head. ‘She might think she had power there, but she was no more senior than the rest of us.’ He frowned. ‘Why?’
I stiffened. Telling him about Charlotte’s meeting with the vet at Corfe Castle would mean telling him how I just happened to see it in the first place. I’d only just got him back on my side, I didn’t want to risk scaring him off now. ‘You don’t want to know.’
‘And I suppose I don’t want to know how you have these records either?’
I shook my head.
He exhaled slowly. ‘Yeah, I was afraid of that.’
I held my breath, waiting for him to push back his chair and storm out of the café. He’d already lost one job because of me. Now here I was trying to drag him into the middle of all this.
He drew the laptop closer to him. ‘So, what else have you got?’