Dig Two Graves by James Harper (important books to read .txt) 📗

would pay handsomely. He showed her his palms.

‘Forget I said that. It’s just the way my nasty mind works. Aldrich was right to try to keep me away.’

She smiled at his attempt to recover the situation, even if it stopped well short of her eyes. Damage had been done. He hoped it wasn’t irreparable.

‘What about Leon the chauffeur?’

It helped to move the focus away from her son, but not a lot. She shook her head again. This time it said, who let this man into our house, our lives?

‘You’re very suspicious, aren’t you?’

He opened his hands wide.

‘What do you expect? I don’t get hired to find out all the good things about people.’

‘I suppose. It’s just so—’

‘Grubby?’

‘I was going to say depressing. You must end up with a very jaundiced view of the world.’

He might have admitted that, yes, his eyes were wide open, without the comfortable protective screen of money over them to shield him from life’s harsher realties. He didn’t, of course. People didn’t hire him to tell them home truths like that, either.

‘Do you suspect me?’ she said.

He wasn’t sure if she was serious or trying to lighten the atmosphere, didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t give him a chance anyway, put her hand on his arm.

‘Don’t answer that. It’s a stupid question. Besides, Arabella’s never been interested in money. If she inherits and I ask her for half of it, she’d give it to me gladly.’

Although he’d only talked to her sister for a few minutes, the assessment fit with his own impressions.

‘Can we get back to Leon? How long has he worked for your father?’

‘That’s definitely forever. It must be since before . . .’

He nodded, didn’t need her to finish the sentence—before Arabella went missing.

‘Do you know what he did before that?’

‘He was in the military. He was hired as a combined chauffeur and bodyguard. He was a lot younger then, of course. My father had business interests in some very nasty parts of the world. The sort of places where your business rivals don’t waste time with things like hostile corporate takeovers. They prefer more violent hostile actions. Anyway, Leon is devoted to my father. And he gets that big ugly car in the will whoever gets everything else.’

There wasn’t anything else that he wanted to ask her. They made their way back through the house without getting lost, and Evan thought he’d escaped without having to say goodbye to LeClair. Unfortunately, he was waiting for them at the top of the steps at the front of the house, as if he was keen to make sure that Evan was safely off the property.

If Blair hadn’t been standing beside him, he’d have asked LeClair when he last spoke to Merritt to gauge his reaction. But he didn’t want to upset her, held his tongue. For the fun of it he slapped LeClair heartily on the back instead of shaking hands, nearly knocked him down the steps, said something about looking forward to visiting again.

Leon was leaning against the Bentley’s fender, a cigarette poked into the grin on his face. It wasn’t only the way Evan almost pushed LeClair down the steps that put it there. He’d bet LeClair didn’t approve of smoking along with most other things.

‘What do you think about LeClair now?’ Leon said as soon as Evan had finished waving out the window.

‘He’s okay. And I think he likes me too.’

Leon gave him a look. He grinned back.

‘No, he’s an ass. But I liked the old man. And Blair’s nice, of course. She definitely liked me.’

That got him an incredulous snicker.

‘She’s only human, I suppose.’

‘You got it. Did you know her husband?’

Said as if he was asking what the color of the leather upholstery was called. Leon knew what he was doing, answered anyway.

‘Who, Vance? I knew him. As much as any of the help can know the people they work for.’

‘How did he die?’

‘I don’t remember.’

Bullshit! would’ve been appropriate. It just wouldn’t have gotten him anywhere.

‘Did you like him?’

‘Yeah. He was always good to me, gave me a big tip at Christmas.’

‘Why didn’t Thomas like him?’

Leon didn’t answer immediately. And it wasn’t because he was offended by Evan’s impertinent use of his employer’s first name.

‘You ask a lot of questions.’

‘That’s like me saying you turn the steering wheel a lot. It’s hard to do my job otherwise.’

Leon nodded his head at the truth of it. Seemed it loosened him up a bit, too.

‘It wasn’t so much to do with Vance himself. It was more to do with who his father was.’

‘And who’s that?’

‘Gerald Bloodwell. And since you don’t seem to know who anybody is, he’s the man behind Bloodwell Networks. Bloodwell and Mr Carlson have been business rivals since way back when. And not in a friendly, there’s room enough for all of us sort of way. Bloodwell is ten years younger than Mr Carlson is. Mr Carlson gave him his first big break. He took him on, gave him a slice of the business. Grooming him for the top job seeing as he didn’t have a son of his own.’

Evan saw where it was going and it wasn’t anywhere good. He let Leon finish the story. The more he talked, the more he relaxed, the better.

‘Then Bloodwell set up his own company and took a big chunk of Carlson Communications’ business with him. Mr Carlson was pissed, like you’d expect. He felt he’d been betrayed. But he wasn’t blameless. You don’t get to build a company like he did by sticking to the rules. It got really dirty. Bloodwell started it but Mr Carlson did his damnedest to finish it. And then Blair goes and marries Bloodwell’s son, Vance. They’d gotten to know each other before the big bust up and they weren’t going to let it stop them.’

Blair’s words came back to Evan.

It’s not like I ran away with a married man and brought everlasting shame on the family reputation.

No, but you married your father’s rival’s son.