The Hunter's Prayer (17 page)

Chapter Eighteen

I
t was another week before Dan got in touch. There were no progress reports, no contact of any kind, and then he called her from the lobby and told her that he had someone with him she’d really like to meet. A few minutes later they were standing facing each other in the sitting room of her suite.

Dan was wearing his usual lethal styling but the guy with him was dressed in sloppy jeans and a hoodie. He was quite young but it was hard to see it through the long scruffy hair and what looked like the uncertain beginnings of a beard.

She felt her body tighten uneasily with the thought that this wasn’t some associate of Dan’s but the employee with a grudge she’d hoped for. He looked like he could fit that bill but she didn’t want it to be him. The guy in front of her was too unassuming, too inconsequential, to have caused her this much pain, to be deserving of the wrath she would have to direct at him.

‘Take a seat, Jim.’ Dan smiled at her then, dispelling her fears as he said, ‘Don’t worry, he’s a friendly.’

‘Jim Catesby. How do you do?’ He shook her hand before taking a seat.

‘Pleased to meet you.’ She turned to Dan and said, ‘I take it you found something?’

‘My mate Jim, that’s what I found. Works for Larsen Grohl, testing computer security, as luck would have it. But provenance first. Jim, tell Ella how you got your job.’

Jim cleared his throat and said, ‘Of course, yeah. Summer I finished college, couple of years ago, I was flying home from Chicago—my dad lives out there. Anyway, I got bumped off my flight so they put me on the next one and upgraded me to first class. That’s how I ended up sitting next to your dad.’

‘My dad?’ It saddened her suddenly to hear a stranger saying he’d known him.

‘That’s right. We talked a lot on the way back, mainly about computers, the Internet, security, and I was telling him about the hacking we did at college. He was really interested in that bit. Anyway, by the time we touched down he’d offered me a job. I couldn’t believe my luck: a cool job, good money, all from talking to a guy on a plane. I only met him a few times after that but he was always interested in what I was doing, you know, not just at work, but like, my life. He was a cool guy. I’m really sorry he’s dead.’

‘Thank you.’ It made her want to cry because it reminded her of the kind of man her dad had been.

Dan sat forward now and said, ‘Obviously, in theory, Jim here could be lying but the one other person I spoke to at the company seemed to back up his story, and anyway, I’d know if he was lying.’

‘So would I,’ said Ella. ‘So where’s this going?’

‘I gave him the info Lucas gave me, to see what he could do with it.’

He gestured towards Jim, who hesitantly took over the telling of the story, saying, ‘Yeah, the account you’re talking about was marked for external relations.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just the name they attached to it. The only people with access to it were your dad and your uncle. I did some unauthorized digging—which, I stress, is something I wouldn’t normally do.’ She waved away his concern. ‘Your dad was the one who used the account. Last year, for example, he’d used it five times, then once in January of this year. Your uncle hadn’t used it in eighteen months, but this June he used it to make two payments.’

She heard the words like she’d been punched in the face with them.

‘Is it possible someone else pretended to be my uncle?’

‘Theoretically. I could have done it, a couple of other people if they’d been determined and lucky enough not to get caught. In other words, no.’

She looked at Dan and said, ‘Does he know what this is all about?’

‘The basics.’

‘So you know what you’re telling me, that my uncle killed my family?’

‘That’s how it looks, I know.’ On the verge of saying something else, he halted, then built up the courage again. ‘Your dad and your uncle, they always seemed to get on well enough but your uncle was always very much the sidekick. The feeling at LG was that he resented that, felt undervalued.’ Jim’s earlier doubts appeared to resurface now and he added, ‘I’m not saying that explains anything. I resent my brother but I wouldn’t kill him. I’d probably risk my life for him.’

Ella nodded. She’d never noticed any bad feeling between Simon and her dad, but then she’d managed to live for twenty years knowing almost nothing about her own family, how it did business, its wealth and where it had come from.

She thought of Ben, too, wondering if he’d resented her. Perhaps it was the prerogative of the younger child to resent the elder, just for being first, for gaining freedom and privilege ahead of them. It made her wish she’d given him more time in the last couple of years, shown more interest, as pointless as it was to wish for something like that.

‘Thanks for your help, Jim. It won’t go unrewarded.’

‘That’s not why I did it.’

‘I know. Dan, could you show Jim back down to the lobby and then come back.’

She shook hands with Jim and closed the door behind them. Her thoughts piled up into a sprawling and confused wreckage. She felt like she should be screaming, tearing the room up, that her heart should be spilling out in pieces on the floor, but she could muster none of it. It was as if her spirit had been hardening unnoticed, growing colder, and now at the moment of truth, there was no passion left within her.

Dan knocked and came back in, saying as soon as he sat down, ‘So, you want me to kill him?’

She nodded. ‘But we have to do this carefully. I need to think it through.’

‘Are you okay?’ She shrugged and he said, ‘Well, you just found out your uncle had your family killed, tried to kill you.’

‘Strange, isn’t it? I didn’t think I’d feel like this either.’ She laughed. ‘It’s funny, they protected me my whole life from the truth of what they did and yet, after one summer, here I am thinking about killing Simon—no doubts, no soul-searching, no reservations. What’s become of me? Surely I should feel something.’

She felt a sudden urge to look in a mirror, to see whether she recognized the person looking back at her. The Ella Hatto she’d been would have felt something, but her memory of that person was unsound, like a dream or like the unformed memories of early childhood.

‘You do want me to kill him?’

‘Of course. How could I do otherwise? If I didn’t see justice done I’d feel like I’d sanctioned the death of my own family.’

‘Too right. That’s how I’d feel.’

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

‘Kid sister. She’s a marine biologist.’ He seemed full of pride for a moment, then regretful as he said, ‘Were you and your brother close?’

‘I don’t know. It’s the kind of closeness you take for granted, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’

‘I think that’s why it upsets me so much. He got killed at the one time in our lives when we really didn’t know very much about each other.’

‘It’s a real bloody shame.’ He appeared genuinely saddened, displaying a warmth that Ella found attractive. As she looked at him, she thought of asking more about his own family but stopped herself, realizing it would be a mistake. Lucas had taught her that lesson: there were no real friendships in this business.

‘I’ve agreed to spend Christmas in the Caribbean with Simon.’

‘That’s good. People get murdered all the time out there. Very low detection rate.’

‘He owns a house on the shore on Saint Peter. He’s got his own boat, too. One year, we rented a house just along the coast and they came over in the boat.’ He was smiling at her and she got the impression he was hearing a reminiscence, not the foundation of a plan. ‘I’ll be able to speak to him on the phone but I know I won’t be able to look him in the face. So I’ll call him, tell him I’m going traveling, but that I’ll be in Saint Peter for Christmas. I’ll try to rent the same house, for old times’ sake, you know? Then I’ll invite him over and he’ll come in the boat. That should give us plenty of opportunities, shouldn’t it? A boat?’

Dan finally caught up with her but tried to sound like he’d followed her from the start as he said, ‘Oh yeah, too right! Especially if he doesn’t know I’m there. One thing, though.’

‘What?’

‘Like I said, the Caribbean’s a good place to make someone disappear. So we’re gonna have to be pretty damn careful we don’t give him the opportunity to make you disappear first. We need to cover our tracks but do it in a way that doesn’t make him suspicious.’

‘He knows I was in Budapest.’

‘Ah.’ He looked stumped for a second before saying, ‘Does he know why?’

‘He knows when, and by now he must know what happened when I was there.’ She was tempted to mention the visit from Vicky Welsh, but was afraid that Dan would back out altogether if he knew the police were closing in on her.

‘Even if he doesn’t suspect, that could rattle him enough to force his hand. So we really do need to take care. At the same time, I’ll get Jim to spread some misinformation. If he thinks for a minute that you killed Bruno, he’ll never take the bait.’

She’d had her doubts about Dan, but she could see now that he was smart and that she could almost certainly trust him, for the time being anyway. He was being cautious—part of his job, she supposed—but Ella believed unquestioningly that he’d deliver Simon into her hands.

‘There are some things I’ll need to do before leaving but I want to go soon. A few days, no more.’

‘Suits me. I’ll need some time on the ground out there anyway.’ It was decided, and she could see no other possibility than that it would happen. The details would take some working out but the fundamentals were fixed, written in stone, as if it had always been so, as if she’d been born to fulfill this role.

Two days later she rented a car and drove home. She was tempted to drive by the house but didn’t. She couldn’t bear to look at it, to see the signs of another family living there, occupying the rooms her family had lived in.

Instead she drove to the village church. It was a small place but it still took her a while to get her bearings and find their graves. Two new ones had already been added since and she glanced at their flower-decked plots before standing at the foot of her own.

Two simple wooden crosses, one for her parents, one on the neighboring grave for Ben. The gravestones would be on within the month but she almost preferred it like this, the bare facts of their names on the little metal plates pinned into the wood, no sentiments declared.

The turned soil was half lost in fallen leaves, the boundaries merging with the surrounding grass, an integral part of the churchyard with its trees and hedgerows, its crows’ chorus in the hollow autumn air. She’d never imagined it being important, where a person was buried, but she was glad they were here.

Someone had put a bunch of red carnations at the foot of Ben’s cross. They were beginning to die off now but she guessed they’d only been there a short time. It saddened her to think of someone else grieving in isolation, unknown to her; it made her realize again how little she’d known him at the end.

But it was too late for regrets, too late for wishing she’d known them better. Nothing she could say or do now would make any difference. These gentle mounds of earth would sink a little more, the past would grow a little more distant, its precise details blurring.

The day would come when she wouldn’t be able to remember her mother’s infectious laugh, or the way Ben told a joke, all self-conscious and constantly correcting himself, or the skeptical smile he’d throw at people when he thought they were teasing him. For now, those things still seemed in the present, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold onto them.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there, fifteen minutes perhaps, when she realized there was someone else in the churchyard. She turned, expecting to see someone visiting another grave. It was a girl, standing some twenty yards off, staring at her.

She was wearing jeans and a short duffel coat, a bunch of red carnations in her hand. She looked about Ben’s age; she was pretty. When she realized Ella had seen her, she looked around nervously, like she wanted to run.

‘Hello,’ said Ella.

The girl moved closer. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘Not at all. Please.’ The girl came the rest of the way. ‘I’m Ella Hatto, Ben’s sister.’ She pointed at the flowers and said, ‘I’m guessing that’s who you came to see.’

‘I hope you don’t mind. I was at school with him. We were friends.’

‘I don’t mind at all. I’m glad someone else remembers him, thinks of him.’

‘Oh, a lot of us do. I don’t think anyone else comes here but . . .’ She appeared to have second thoughts about finishing the sentence and said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m Alice Shaw.’

‘Were you and Ben . . .?’

‘No.’ She was insistent, embarrassed, but went on, ‘I liked him, a lot. A few people thought he liked me, but we never, I mean . . . There’s no point in speculating. We were friends.’ Her face choked up with emotion.

‘I’m sure he would have liked you. I know it.’

Alice smiled but her eyes filled quickly with tears. One ran a rapid course down her cheek and she wiped it away. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ Ella took a step forward and held her, surprised by how tightly Alice held her back, and by the tears that flowed from the girl, as if this were the first time anyone had given her permission to express her loss.

And for all she knew, her loss was even greater than Ella’s. She thought of Joyce’s
The Dead
, of Gretta Conroy still mourning the long-lost love of her youth, and then she thought of Lucas, wanting to ask him if he’d read it, feeling a loss herself that she would never be able to do so.

For another twenty minutes or so, she and Alice talked through their memories of Ben. She walked back with her then to the small parking lot. And as she drove away, Ella tried to sort her thoughts and feelings into a pattern that made sense. It was a puzzle that had troubled her nearly every day and there was only ever one clear way out of the maze—vengeance.

For the first few months, that need had been focused on the imagined shadowy figure who’d done this to her family. That figure had taken on a form now, a name and a face, all too familiar, but the need remained the same, and if anything, her resolution was firmer.