‘It solved a financial crisis, but has destroyed the lives of my family.’
‘Rubbish. It’s your stupid old-fashioned sense of right and wrong.’
‘You may be right, but I cannot live a lie.’
‘So you’re going to confess all to the police. Do you know what they’ll say inside the prison when they know your story?’
‘No.’
‘They’ll regard you as the biggest fool in Christendom. The man who had everything and gave it away due to a guilty conscience. Your wife is right in one respect. The pact we made all those years ago was a childish fantasy. The fantasy of four young boys wanting to be men. And now we are men, and the world is not so idealistic. It’s dog eat dog, and I intend to be the top dog. You’ve got your fortune, your loving wife and family, your stately home. What did I get as your relative? Nothing.’
‘Keith, one thing you should have received was the sense of right and wrong.’
‘Stop acting as if you were that little boy again. This is the real world, and it’s for the strong and resolute, not the feeble and honourable. How much money would you have made if you had had to work for it, if there had been no inheritance? Hell, man, you would have been lucky to have afforded a house in the suburbs. And what did I get, apart from the Allerton connection and a history of noble ancestors? I received nothing, but I did not complain and go weak at the knees when someone was threatening me, us. I’ll tell you what I did; I acted decisively. Hughenden was a liability. I couldn’t risk him talking to the police again.’
‘He’s right,’ Griffiths said. ‘It’s not something I could have done, but Keith has saved us. If you go blabbing to the police, we’ll all be in prison together.’
‘Why?’ Allerton said. ‘We did not know what was going to happen. We didn’t know that people were going to be murdered.’
‘Murder?’ Keith said. ‘That’s what the police call it. With the business we’re in, people die every day. Some on the street from the products we sell; others because of their treachery.’
‘Hughenden?’
‘Eventually he would have done what was necessary to save his own skin. I had nothing against him personally, but business is business. Griffiths understands.’
‘That I do,’ Jacob Griffiths said. He had helped himself to coffee and was sitting comfortably on a chair to one side of the kitchen. He looked around the house, and he had to admit it looked good. Fortescue, they all knew, was not a man of any great skills, but he knew how to live well. Even Griffiths had to admit that the idea of a mistress appealed, but then he thought that was more likely a middle-aged itch. He had been married to the same woman for over twenty years, good and bad, and he knew his conscience would not allow it. Still, it was good to daydream.
Miles Fortescue was not sure which way to turn. The money had been great, and he had no strong morals, only an innate desire to do what was best for himself. He knew that as a politician he was no Disraeli or a Churchill, but he knew how to ingratiate himself with his constituency, and how to ensure he was a member of various select committees, especially the one addressing the escalating supply of illegal drugs in the community. Committees always allowed him to get his name in the papers and on television, and that was all he wanted, apart from his mistresses. He did not envy Allerton with his obsession about title and duty, or Griffiths with his need to deal with trade. Fortescue knew that politically he was savvy, and the bumbling politician, more often than not, was an engineered affectation.
Keith, he knew, even in their time at Eton, was a dishonest person. It was he who would steal cigarettes and sell them around the dormitory of a night-time. It was he who would sneak them into the emergency exit at the local cinema to watch the latest risqué movie, and somehow he would always have a few X-rated magazines for hire to the boys who could not afford to partake of one of the obliging ladies in the area.
‘Allerton, you’re a bloody fool,’ Fortescue said. He could see political expediency, the need for drastic action if a disaster was to be avoided, a need for compromise. ‘Keith, it’s up to you,’ he said.
‘Allerton, Tim, what are you going to do? Keith asked.
‘I will wait one more week. If there are no more deaths and this whole sorry business is wrapped up, then I’ll do no more.’
‘And the police?’
‘I’ll not talk to them.’
The four men, all relieved after resolving the issue, went out to a restaurant favoured by Keith. No more was said of the events that had led to their unexpected meeting. At eleven in the evening, Lord Allerton left their company for the drive back to his home and his family. He was a man at peace with the world.
Chapter 19
Isaac, along with his team and Len Donaldson, waited in the office at Challis Street for Allerton. Bridget had done some preliminary work on the man. They had a dossier of his friends, past and recent, as well as a complete rundown on the man’s history, his family, a provisional statement of wealth. The one thing they did not have was the man, and he was not answering his phone.
‘It’s suspicious,’ Donaldson said.
‘The man said he would be here and he was willing to blow this case wide open.’
‘He’s not going to show, you know that.’
Isaac phoned Richard Goddard to keep him up to date. The death of Hughenden had
