Джеймс Паттерсон: Revenge

“I heard what sounded like a load of trendy management-speak.”

She rolled her eyes. “‘Trendy management-speak’ twenty years ago, maybe. Nowadays, just a way of getting ideas out of our heads and into the fresh air, so that, oh, I don’t know, we can maybe get this PSC off the ground and start earning some actual money?”

He sighed but went along with it. However, their brains remained unstormed. After a while of getting nowhere, Lucy picked up her phone. She was a fan of the Mail Online website, a “guilty pleasure” that she part justified by claiming that if you dived past the trashy Kardashian-and-sensationalist-headlines stuff at the top, then there were some interesting tidbits in the uncharted depths beneath.

“Hey,” she said, “didn’t you once do some work for a bloke named Guy Drake?”

The name took Shelley by surprise. “Uh, yeah. Before we were married, well over ten years ago. More like fourteen. I had extended leave and . . .” He trailed off, feeling his cheeks warm.

“You were saving up for our secret wedding.” Her smile was fond but it was tinged with sadness and he could sense that whatever she’d seen on her phone wasn’t good news.

“What is it? He’s not dead, is he?”

“No,” said Lucy, “Guy’s not dead—”

That was when the phone rang.

CHAPTER 3

On the other end of the line was a Scotland Yard copper, Detective Inspector Gary Phillips: “Who am I speaking to, please?”

“Why do you ask?” Shelley looked across at Lucy, who bit her lip and placed her phone carefully to one side.

“This number is registered to a Mr. David Shelley of Stepney Green, London. Would that be you, sir?” the detective pressed, doggedly, the way detectives are supposed to press.

“Yeah, that would be me. What can I do for you?”

“Do you know a woman named Emma Drake?”

For a moment Shelley struggled to match the word “woman” to the name Emma Drake, but then it came to him. “Yes, years ago,” he said.

“So you know her?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“And in what sense do you know her?” the detective asked.

“In the sense that I was employed to provide close protection for her and her family. She was just a little girl then.”

“I see,” said Phillips. “Then I’m sorry to have to inform you that Emma Drake took her own life two nights ago.”

Sadness descended upon Shelley like a heavy blanket. “How?” he said. “How did she do it?”

“I’m not at liberty to say, Mr. Shelley. I must ask, though, when was the last time you saw Miss Drake?”

A wariness crept over him and he pushed his grief to one side for the moment, ready for inspection later. “Why do you ask?”

“Could you just answer the question, Mr. Shelley?”

“Or . . .?”

“Or maybe you’d prefer to come to the Yard, and we could talk about it there.”

“Okay, I last saw her fourteen years ago,” answered Shelley. “Like I say, when I was working for her family. I’ve had no contact with her since.”

“No contact of any kind?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You didn’t speak on the phone?” the detective persisted.

“I’d call speaking to her on the phone ‘contact,’ and I’ve just told you that to my knowledge I’ve had no contact with Emma for over fourteen years. I’ve had no need to.”

“I ask because she called you a couple of days ago, on the day of her death.”

That hit Shelley hard. “Uh . . .” he floundered. “Come again?”

“As I say, Mr. Shelley, Emma Drake called you shortly before she took her own life.”

“She called me?” repeated Shelley.

Shelley tried to think, then he remembered it was about two days ago when the phone had rung during Game of Thrones . He hadn’t recognized the number and because it was evening, and thinking it was probably a cold-caller trying to sell him a better phone package, or loft insulation, or something to do with PPI—whatever that was—he’d ignored it.

“If it’s important they’ll leave a message,” he’d told Lucy, which was his standard response whenever he didn’t feel like answering a call.

But whoever it was hadn’t left a message, and Shelley had felt vindicated, thinking, Yeah, dodged a bullet there , before returning his attention to Westeros.

He told the cop about it, listening out for a note of disbelief but not hearing one. He guessed the facts supported him.

“How did she get your number, Mr. Shelley, do you know?”

“It’s the same number. I’ve had it donkey’s years.”

“And she remembered it, all these years later? Sounds somewhat unlikely if you don’t mind me saying so, sir.”

“I was with the Drakes for close protection. I made her memorize my number. She was ten. You remember stuff like that.”

“Yup,” agreed Phillips. “I hear you. It’s the stuff you did yesterday that you forget. Lastly, then, have you got any idea why she’d call you, Mr. Shelley? Like you say, it had been a long time.”

“No,” Shelley replied. “I’ve got no idea.”

But more than anything, he wished that he’d paused Game of Thrones and taken the call.

CHAPTER 4

SHELLEY USED THE Saab’s rearview mirror to check his short hair was army-neat and his black knitted tie straight. Lucy sat beside him in the passenger seat, gloved hands in her lap, gazing out across the near-empty car park.

She hated sitting still, doing nothing. Usually she’d have had her phone out, checking emails, puzzling over a never-ending game of Scrabble, or playing those brain-training games she loved so much. But not now.

The funeral cortège appeared from over their shoulders, winding its way along the approach road to the entrance of the crematorium. The Rolls-Royce hearse stopped. Two black Daimlers cruised past and stopped. Their doors opened, decanting black-clad figures.

“Looks like that’s our cue,” said Lucy, and they stepped from the Saab with the wind whipping their clothes. They linked arms and crossed the car park to watch the coffin unloaded and carried into the crematorium.

There were just a handful of other mourners present, all of whom looked somber and shivered with cold: aunts, uncles, and sundry scattered family, by the looks of it.

From what Shelley could recall, the Drakes weren’t an especially close or affectionate clan. Guy Drake considered Susie and Emma his true family and everyone else as just relations. Guy’s attitude to his “relations” had changed when huge wealth entered the equation. Always the way. With money comes resentment, distrust, and entitlement. A whole bunch of shit you never considered when you bought your lottery ticket.

Guy and Susie stood slightly apart from the other mourners, drawn pale features accentuated by their funeral attire. Susie, tall and slim, as swan-like as ever, caught sight of Shelley, took a moment to recognize him, and then offered a weak smile in thanks.

Guy had put on weight over the intervening years. His jaw clenched and Shelley saw that his habit of moving his mouth as though chewing seemed to have become more pronounced over time—or perhaps it was just the stress of grief. He gave Shelley a short nod of recognition and gratitude, but it was a formal gesture, and something about the way his eyes slid away struck Shelley as odd, given how friendly they’d once been.

Shelley became aware of two new arrivals, a pair of bodyguards who wore suits in keeping with the occasion. They stood erect with their hands clasped in front of them, jackets cut so as not to reveal whether or not they wore shoulder holsters, which Shelley had a feeling they would be.

What’s more, he knew one of them—the older of the two, who had graying hair and a short salt-and-pepper beard and wore large, studious-looking spectacles. His name was Lloyd Bennett and, like Shelley, he was ex–special forces—a Para, in Bennett’s case. Like Shelley he’d sought new opportunities in security after being put out to pasture. Unlike Shelley, he’d joined the Circuit.