Chapter 129
Poe had expected to find a kitchen full of triads.
In the twenty-second dash from the back-kitchen pantry to the front kitchen, his mind had gone to a dark place.
He thought the Red Chamber had jumped the gun and hadn’t waited to take decisive action.
He expected to see Chinese men with guns.
Lots of guns. They would want the deepfakes.
They would want Océane and they would want Esmerée.
That was what he’d expected to see. But when he skidded around the corner into the main kitchen, there wasn’t a triad in sight. It was the same four people he’d just left. His wife, Bradshaw, Océane and Esmerée. The reason for Estelle’s panicked shouting was clear as American beer, though.
Because although there were no triads in the kitchen, there was a gun.
And Esmerée was pointing it at her mother’s head.
She was holding it in her right hand. Her alien hand.
The gun was chunky and short, black and dreadful.
It looked enormous in her small hand. Poe thought it was probably a Beretta 9000.
He remembered reading an NCA firearms briefing about criminals liking the 9000 because its size made it easy to hide.
It took him a fraction of a second to take this in.
Another fraction to understand why Esmerée had asked him and Bradshaw to track down her mother.
She didn’t want to reunite with Océane; she wanted to kill her.
This wasn’t your typical mother–daughter spat. The hate between them was real.
‘Where’d you get the gun, Esmerée?’ Poe said, a lot calmer than he felt.
‘Hey, Poe,’ Esmerée said without taking her eyes off her mother. ‘Don’t come too close. I am going to kill my mom, but I need you all to hear why first. I owe you that much.’
‘Where’d you get the gun?’ he asked again.
‘It belonged to the asshole triad who punched me, the one Ladder Legs shot in the knee. I wasn’t just going back for my rubber duck when I went through his pockets. I wanted his gun.’
Bradshaw’s laptop beeped. She glanced down. ‘The Red Chamber’s money is in our foreign currency account, Poe,’ she said.
‘All of it?’
‘I don’t know what all of it is, but fifteen million one hundred thousand dollars has just landed.’
‘Too bad the bitch won’t be around to spend it,’ Esmerée said.
‘Esmerée, this is wrong,’ Estelle said. ‘Whatever she’s done to you, killing her is not the answer.’
‘You don’t know shit, Doc,’ Esmerée said. There was no venom in her voice.
‘Poe, would you like to chip in here? Please tell Esmerée that murdering her mother will be the worst mistake she ever makes in her life. That it will be the end of her life. Please make her see sense.’
Poe said nothing. Unanswered questions were the drumbeat to which this case had marched. They were white noise, always there in the background.
Why had Océane abandoned her daughter?
Why had it taken her all those years to confront Vincent du Buk?
Why had du Buk secretly paid for her sterilisation to be reversed?
And why had Océane said her daughter had ruined everything?
Poe hadn’t been able to come up with a single theory that explained any of it, and although he was a strong believer that perfect was the enemy of good, it had rankled with him.
But now Esmerée was pointing a Beretta 9000 at her mother’s head.
Which Poe thought explained everything.
Estelle tried again. ‘Poe, tell Esmerée to put the gun down. She’s scaring me.’
‘I’m sorry, Estelle, but I don’t think I can.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I don’t think I can ask Esmerée to put down the gun. I think she has every right to kill her mother.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me!?’
Poe ignored his wife, hated doing it. Instead, he faced Esmerée and said, ‘After all, she planned to kill you, didn’t she?’
Esmerée glanced in his direction. Gave him a tiny smile. An even smaller nod. ‘How long have you known?’
‘Just now. It’s the only thing that makes sense.’
‘What the hell are you two talking about?’ Estelle said.
‘Océane raised Esmerée as a fatted calf,’ Poe said.
‘She found out, probably exactly how she said – by interpreting the ramblings of a blackout drunk – that the Red Chamber planned to kill her rather than pay her when her contract ended. But instead of running, which, looking like she does and with no resources, was always going to end in failure, she came up with a solution that allowed her to live. Probably with a big payout. Not the ten million she had been promised, but enough to buy that farm on the South Downs. Live the rest of her life in peace. She convinced Vincent du Buk there was a way for them to both get what they wanted. She would have a child – almost certainly a designer baby girl via a private sperm bank – and raise it to take her place. I’m taking an educated guess here, but I think when her contract was almost up, du Buk was going to help Océane fake her own death.
He would then decline a new contract with the Red Chamber, and because they’d used him for some of their financial transactions, they wouldn’t force the issue. And …’
‘… Esmerée would take her mother’s place,’ Estelle finished for him.
‘Saving him a million dollars a year in the process.’
‘And when he tired of her, he would kill her like a Christmas turkey. He’d probably even get his Red Chamber pals to dispose of her body. Spin some tale about a session with a prostitute that got out of hand.’
Estelle stared at Océane, hate in her eyes.
‘What was I supposed to do?!’ Océane cried. ‘They were planning to kill me.’
‘You were supposed to go to the police,’ Poe said.
‘The police,’ she snorted. ‘You’ve seen how far the Red Chamber’s reach is. How could the police have helped me?’
‘Maybe they couldn’t. But if it was a choice between that and the one you made, well, it shouldn’t have been a choice at all. You do not sacrifice children to get yourself out of trouble. Ever.’
‘Fuck you. You have no idea what my life has been like. Don’t you dare judge me.’
‘I’m not judging you,’ Poe said. He gestured towards Esmerée. ‘She is.’
‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ Bradshaw said.
‘What’s up, Tilly?’ Esmerée said, her eyes not leaving her mother for a second.
‘Poe says it might not have been Océane Blue who killed Vincent du Buk. He said it was probably you, Esmerée. I think I would like to know why.’
‘You would, huh?’
‘Yes, Esmerée.’
‘Do you think my whore of a mother told me about her and Vincent’s little arrangement?’
‘Gosh, I wouldn’t think so.’
‘You’re goddam right she didn’t. You can imagine my fucking surprise when he put his hand up my jumper one night. Said I belonged to him and that I should give him an early taste of what he could expect when my mom was no longer around.’
‘He sexually assaulted you?’ Poe said.
‘Tried to. That kinda stopped when I stuck a knife in his neck. Mom came in and found me covered in blood and her meal ticket cold on the floor. She freaked out. Said I’d ruined everything.
I told her that Vincent had groped me and we should call the cops.
Explain what had happened. You know what she said? ’
Bradshaw shook her head.
‘She said that I was his property and I should have just let him do what he wanted. I asked her what the hell she was talking about. I think she must have been panicking by then, as she told me. Not everything, but enough to know I was in deep shit. She then grabbed her stuff and left. I didn’t have the first clue what I was supposed to do.
I knew I couldn’t go to the cops, though.
Not without my mom backing up what I said.
I didn’t even exist. I still don’t exist. As far as the cops were concerned, I’d just be some child prostitute who’d murdered her john. ’
‘So you ran too?’
‘I made like a scalded cat. Took some of Vincent’s money and worked my way over to Britain.
I assumed my mom had been killed. That the Red Chamber assholes had quickly caught up with her.
Spin forward a couple of years and hey presto, there’s the whore doing what she does best. Spreading her legs for money. ’
‘Which is where we came in,’ Poe said.
‘Sorry I used you guys,’ Esmerée said. It looked like she meant it.
‘And I’m sorry I have to do this, Esmerée.’
‘Do what?’
Poe stepped in front of the gun.