She shook her head. ‘Come on, this way.’ She went to the back of the club where the wine was stored. Flinging open the door, she almost screamed with relief when Gennaro turned round from inspecting a crate full of empty bottles.
‘Yes?’ He came towards her, frowning. ‘Is something wrong?’ He looked suspiciously at Malik.
‘Don’t worry about him, he’s a friend. It’s about your nephew … Marco.’
Gennaro looked grim. ‘Oh. Marco. I
knew
he was in trouble. He told me he was mixed up in something and wanted to get out of it. What’s the boy done?’
‘I don’t know but I think he might be able to help us. We need to talk to him.’
‘Is it very serious?’ Worry clouded the manager’s face.
‘I just don’t know, Gennaro, and I can’t tell you any more right now.’ Imogen tried to control the nervousness and urgency in her voice. ‘Where is he? Please tell me.’
Gennaro looked past her towards the restaurant. ‘He’s through there, in the DJ’s box. He’s doing the music tonight. I promised that he could.’
Imogen and Malik turned to stare at each other, then rushed back to the dance floor as fast as they could.
Chapter 64
ADAM SEEMED TO
notice Alex for the first time. ‘What’s he doing here?’ He took the car seat from her and pushed her ahead of him into the drawing room.
‘I have to get him to Imogen,’ Allegra said quickly. ‘She’ll be desperate.’ Just then her phone beeped with an incoming text.
‘Who’s that?’ Adam said nervously. ‘Open it.’
She reached for her phone. ‘It’s from Imogen.’
‘Show me.’
She handed it over and he read it, frowning. ‘
Clue re Rom
? What’s she talking about?’
‘Don’t you know?’ She watched him carefully as he shook his head, looking blank, searching for any indication that Adam knew what Romily’s situation was.
‘Should I?’ If he was faking ignorance, he was doing it brilliantly. There was not a flicker of reaction in his eyes.
‘You don’t know why we should be interested in Rom?’ she said slowly.
His face suddenly cleared. ‘Oh, Rom. Romily. Your old school pal. But you haven’t been in touch with her for years.’
She felt a chill shiver down her spine. ‘Is there anything you don’t know about me?’
A muscle twitched in his cheek and he blinked. ‘Not much,’ he admitted with a hollow laugh. ‘Sit down.’
Allegra watched him put Alex’s car seat on the hearth rug
as
she sank on to the canary-yellow seat of the sofa.
I think Mitch is right. I don’t think Adam is involved in Rom’s kidnap. So what does he want?
She tried to stay calm and alert. He was obviously in a highly agitated state. He didn’t appear to have a weapon but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something concealed on him.
‘I need a drink,’ he said, glancing about. He went over to the drinks table and poured himself a large whisky. ‘Want one?’ he asked, turning to Allegra.
She shook her head.
Adam stayed standing with his back to her and said in a high, tense voice, ‘It really wasn’t supposed to turn out this way, you know.’
‘Wasn’t it? What exactly did you want to happen?’
‘That’s the crazy thing.’ He turned back to face her, his lips twitching. ‘I don’t know. Every step of the way, what I’ve wanted has changed. Except for one thing. I’ve always wanted to know the truth about how my sister died. You know she’s my sister now, of course, since you found my memorabilia.’ A despairing expression passed over his face. ‘I was stupid to leave it there for you to find.’
‘Maybe you wanted me to,’ she suggested quietly.
He stared back at her, his eyes burning. ‘Maybe. Because I want you to tell me … I’ve always wanted you to tell me … the
truth
. Those nights when I held you while you screamed and reached for me … I knew the truth was locked up there in your head.’ His voice hardened. ‘Sometimes I imagined ripping you open to get it out …’ Then he laughed. ‘Which makes me sound like a nutter, I suppose. Your worst nightmare.’
‘But …’ She tried to stop the fear that had rippled through her from showing on her face. ‘But why would I know the truth about your sister?’
‘Come on, Allegra.’ He gave her a look that was almost
pitying
, and took a big gulp of neat whisky. ‘Because you were there.’
The office seemed almost eerily quiet after the thudding music of the dance floor. Marco sat on his chair looking very young and scared. Gennaro stood next to him, translating Imogen’s questions, and Malik looked on, listening carefully.
‘Did you come to London with Romily?’ Imogen asked.
Gennaro relayed the question, and Marco shook his head.
‘Then why are you here?’
When Marco replied, Gennaro looked over at Imogen with a worried expression. ‘He’s just said that he came to London to visit me, his uncle. But that’s wrong. I had no idea he was coming and had the impression that he was surprised to be in London.’
He turned back to his nephew and the two of them talked in rapid Italian, Gennaro looking impatient and Marco round-eyed and frightened, his tone defensive and scared.
‘Please, please, tell me what you’re saying!’ Imogen begged, unable to stand the wait.
Gennaro turned back to her and Malik. ‘He says that he came over with two men but won’t say who they are. They told him he could make some easy money and he was interested, but when he found out that they intended to kidnap his old boss, he didn’t want anything more to do with the plan and ran off.’
Marco looked about, his eyes terrified, and released a stream of panicky Italian.
‘He says that he tried to warn the boss,’ Gennaro said. ‘Sent her some pictures the men had taken, with a note. He says it’s not his fault, there was nothing he could do.’
‘What was the plan?’ demanded Malik roughly.
‘He doesn’t know,’ Gennaro said, looking helpless. ‘They
planned
to take her somewhere beginning with B. That’s all he knows. He wasn’t even sure if they were going to go through with it. He says he didn’t know she’d been taken.’
‘Beginning with B … In London? Bermondsey? Borough?’ Imogen hazarded. ‘Or further away? Bromley? Brighton?’
‘No, no,’ Marco said, shaking his head. He looked very young and very scared.
‘OK.’ Malik sounded impatient. ‘I’ve had enough of all this. Tell your nephew he’d better co-operate. That lady is the wife of your new boss and it’s very much in Marco’s interests to tell us everything he knows.’
‘Is this true?’ Gennaro asked Imogen, looking shocked.
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is,’ she said sadly.
He straightened up proudly. ‘We will help you because these men are bad and dangerous, not because we are frightened of our new boss, whoever he is. Marco knows very little – he ran away from these men and is very afraid of them.’
‘He knows who they are,’ Malik said curtly. ‘We need to know that.’
‘He won’t tell – they will kill him if he does, he says.’
Malik looked grim. ‘He might find the alternative just as bad. Now listen, we’re all going back to the house, understand? We need to go through every aspect of this story and check it all out. Also, we will persuade Marco to give us the names of the men he came here with. He has nothing to be afraid of if he helps us. OK?’
Gennaro looked over at Imogen who said, ‘Please, Gennaro. He must help us.’
‘Very well, we will come.’ Gennaro turned to Marco and talked to him in Italian.
Malik said, ‘A wise decision, my friend. A very wise decision. You can be sure we’re going to find the men responsible for
this
, and it will go very much in your favour if you help us. Now let’s go.’
‘How did you know I was there?’ Allegra whispered. She was still sitting on the yellow sofa, and Adam was opposite her in an armchair. Outwardly, a civilised scene.
He sighed. ‘When Sophie died, people said it was suicide. They said she’d killed herself even though the coroner didn’t give that verdict. I knew she would never have done that. Became obsessed with knowing the truth. I spent my teenage years poring over it, trying to figure it out. There was a mystery there, I just knew it.’
Allegra said nothing but concentrated on keeping her breathing under control while she thought,
None of us ever told … except … Romily told Mitch. Is that where the leak happened?
‘I did a lot of research and there was something I kept coming back to. Who was this guy who found Sophie’s body? A security guard, they said. Well, what was he doing there anyway? How many boarding schools have guards like that? I discovered eventually that he was a private guard, paid for by the de Lisle family to protect their precious little daughter. I devoted a few years to tracking him down and, when I did, he had some interesting things to tell me about your little gang.’ Adam’s dark hazel eyes searched her face. ‘How you went up to that attic to smoke your cigarettes. The attic just above the spot where Sophie was found. He saw her … and he saw you … both of you at the window, struggling.’
Allegra gasped and leapt to her feet. ‘Oh, God!’ She saw it again, as plain as day, and the familiar terrified sickness coiled in her belly. She stared at Adam with wild eyes. ‘It was an accident, you have to believe me!’ She was back there on that terrible night, could feel the full force of
Sophie
’s weight as the other girl pushed and pushed … and then the surreal lightness as she disappeared through the open window. She still remembered the stark terror in Sophie’s eyes in the split second before she fell. Eyes that were the image of Adam’s. Why on earth hadn’t she noticed it before? She’d seen those eyes so often in her nightmares.
She panted out, ‘We were in the attic, where it was strictly forbidden to go. We had a stupid argument and got carried away. Sophie and I ended up …’ Her voice cracked but she carried on. ‘… we ended up tussling, fighting … she tried to push me but I fought back and in the struggle by some awful chance, Sophie slipped and fell.’ She gave a half sob. ‘It was an accident, Adam, you have to believe me!’
He blinked at her for a moment. ‘I believe you,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘But why didn’t you tell anyone? Why did you lie?’
Allegra dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘We should have,’ she said in a broken voice. ‘It was the worst mistake of my life. We didn’t tell, and then we were caught in our silence. We couldn’t tell.’ She gazed up at him, agonised. ‘It’s haunted me all my life. You know … you’ve seen the nightmares! Maybe I was lots of things – stuck up, silly, naughty, hot-tempered, I don’t know – but I never wished harm on anyone. What happened to Sophie … Adam, it ruined my life!’
He gazed at her, calmer now as he watched her emotional outburst, and then said in a cold voice, ‘Yes. But at least
you
are still alive.’
The car was distinctly more crowded on the journey back, with two extra passengers. Gennaro and Marco sat in the back, muted and worried, as Malik drove them through Mayfair and towards Chelsea. It was now after three in the morning and the roads were quiet.
‘What are you going to do?’ Imogen asked in a low voice, turning her head towards Malik so he could hear her but those in the back couldn’t.
‘We’ll find out everything he knows,’ Malik replied, taking the car up a gear and increasing his speed.
‘You’re not going to hurt him, are you? He’s just a boy.’
Malik stared straight ahead and shrugged lightly. ‘That all depends. My hunch is he’ll co-operate. If he doesn’t, we’ll use any means necessary. If he’s telling the truth and tried to warn her, that will stand him in good stead.’ He slid his gaze towards Imogen for a moment. ‘Romily’s life is at stake here. We’ve got to make him help us.’
Imogen nodded, letting out a slow stream of breath. She’d had a brief glimpse into a different world, one far removed from her own comfortable safe upbringing but existing alongside it. There were different rules in this parallel world. She shivered.
They arrived back at the Chelsea house and, before they were out of the car, Malik had his phone clamped to his ear and was murmuring urgently into it. The front door opened and they were all ushered inside by Mitch’s staff. Gennaro and Marco were instantly whisked away down the hall, accompanied by three tough-looking men.
‘Where’s Allegra? Is she here?’ Imogen asked, as another dark suited, broad-shouldered man strode past her. He shot her a glance and shrugged. She turned to Malik. ‘Can you find out where she is?’
‘Sure.’ He walked off towards Mitch’s office and returned a few moments later, looking worried. ‘She’s not here. She didn’t come back.’
Imogen felt her stomach plummet. She gasped, ‘But she was due back an hour ago at least! She only went to pick up Alex …’ She ran to Malik and grabbed his arm. ‘We have to go and find them!’
He stared back at her for a moment, his brown eyes unreadable, then he nodded. ‘OK. I’m not supposed to leave here without permission and you’re making me head out a second time, but I owe you for Marco. Gee, this is turning into a crazy night! Let’s go.’
‘Do you believe me?’ Allegra asked in a small voice. She sat hunched on the carpet, her knees tucked under her. She watched Alex’s peaceful sleeping face, envying his innocence and serenity, the clean slate of his life.
Adam looked down at her. He nodded and said slowly, ‘Yes, I do. It was all I wanted. The truth. I knew you could tell me, I was waiting for it. There was never any need for you to know that I was Sophie’s brother.’ He laughed joylessly. ‘But maybe you’re right. Maybe I did want you to find out. I didn’t want to live a lie, and conceal myself from the woman I love.’
She raised her head, gazing up at him. ‘You love me?’
‘Of course.’ He rubbed one hand through his short coppery hair and took another slug of whisky. ‘I can see how it looks … all those pictures of you. I found the first one of you in Sophie’s school photograph in her bedroom. I think I fell in love with you from that moment.’ He gave her a sad smile. ‘You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life. My dream girl. After that, I learnt all I could about your family. The handy thing about aristocrats is how interested everyone is in their lives. You were often in the papers, anything you did made some gossip column or other. “Earl’s daughter buys clothes”; “Socialite goes to party”. I half expected to read “Allegra McCorquodale breathes air, eats food”.’ He shrugged. ‘The nonsense people like to read about.’