Green Light Read online

  Slowly, she reached up to touch his face.

  “Like your father,” she said dreamily, scanning his features. “You look so much like him now. A spitting image, you might say. He would have been the same age…Well. Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

  “Are you going to cry again?”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  She lightly slapped his arm.

  “God. It’s like hitting a wall,” she remarked.

  “Tea,” Angela announced, bringing three steaming cups into the office from the kitchen.

  The cups were handed out. Sutton took a sip. Strong. Nice.

  “You’ve met my daughter, Angela,” Maggie said, with a flourish. “You remember Angela, don’t you.”

  “Of course,” he said, his eyes on her. “She was all scraped knees back then. The same eyes though. Everybody used to call her Angel. Very smart for one so young, and very well spoken. She could sit for hours in a room, completely silent, and you would never know she was there. Dreaming up stories in her head. I think the psychiatrists call that ‘inner directed’.”

  Angela’s delicate mouth formed a small O of surprise before she recovered.

  “Yes,” Maggie said, eyes far away. “Angel. I’d forgotten that. She was an angel. Never complained. Such a happy little thing. Sitting in a corner, talking to imaginary friends.” Maggie sat on the edge of the desk by the window, the tea held in both hands. “A lot’s changed since then, mind you,” she said, looking at Angela. “Hasn’t it? Maybe I let her spend too much time alone as a child, I don’t know…”

  Angela turned her head away, as much a dismissal as a disregard for whatever her mother had to say.

  “Well,” Maggie said. She gave Sutton a look that he thought was meant to convey motherly exasperation. “So, what are you doing here, Mr Mills? You certainly haven’t come looking for somewhere to rent.”

  He grinned.

  “Why haven’t I?”

  “I don’t know.” She checked him over. Angela had allowed him the time to scrub and to change before departing. Now, he wore jeans, a black jumper over a black shirt, and a black leather bomber jacket. Eventually, she settled on his face. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “You just don’t have that look.”

  Angela spoke then.

  “He’s come to help.”

  “Help? Help who?”

  “Help you, mother.”

  Maggie feigned surprise.

  “Help me? Whatever for? I don’t need help.”

  “Oh, mother.”

  “Did you go to him?” She asked, craning her neck around savagely. She seemed very angry. “Did you go to him and drag him here with some sob story? Is that it? Answer me, child.”

  Angela opened her mouth but did not speak.

  Maggie did however. She was fully in the grip of some kind of fury.

  “How dare you go to him without telling me? How dare you. To involve him in this…I don’t need anyone’s help. I’ve lost my husband. I’m in mourning. My heart’s broken. And if there’s other problems, then I will deal with them too, just like I had to before you were even born…”

  Her voice trailed away, and she hung her head. A hand went to her chest. It was shaking. Another hand, equally as tremulous, brought the handkerchief to her eyes.

  Maggie Douglas was not in a good way.

  “Oh, mother,” Angela said again.

  He waited until Maggie was more together before saying, “your daughter merely explained the situation to me. It was my idea to come.”

  “That’s nice, but she shouldn’t have told you anything in the first place,” Maggie said softly.

  “What could it hurt? If you want my help, then the offer is there. If you don’t, then I’ll leave.”

  She stared at him.

  “Do you want my help?” He asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t know if you can help,” she said eventually.

  “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is first. Then we’ll see.”

  *

  CHAPTER 6

  “The problem is solicitors,” Maggie said.

  “The problem is Daniel,” Angela corrected.

  Maggie shook her head but other than that she did not deny it.

  When Maggie didn’t continue, Angela said to him, “so if the divorce had been finalised, then the business would have been split. Terry would have retained his properties, and perhaps a small portion of the lettings business – after all, he did invest in it. But after he died, and with the divorced not finalised, Mum got it all. There was no will, and they were still legally married.”

  “Which left Daniel with nothing,” Sutton said knowingly.

  “Mum offered to sign over Terry’s holdings to him. It seemed only fair. After all, they were Terry’s properties. It didn’t matter if they were married, or going through a divorce; it was the right thing to do. I thought it was more than generous. But Daniel didn’t want them.”

  “I don’t understand why he’s doing this,” Maggie said quietly, a hand massaging her heart.

  “Because he wants it all, that’s why,” Angela said, angry with him…but maybe angry with her mother too. For not seeing who Daniel really was. “Because he’s a greedy little shit who doesn’t care about you.”

  “No.”

  “Mum, it’s true.”

  “He was always good to me,” Maggie said, beseeching Sutton with her eyes to believe her. “He never resented the fact that his father got remarried. He was happy for us. The only one of Terry’s family to attend the wedding. The only one to stand up and make a speech. The only one who cared.”

  “He was investing in the long game,” Angela said. “His father wasn’t going to live forever. He was just waiting on his inheritance.”

  “Angela!” Maggie said, shocked.

  “Tell me it’s not true,” Angela said.

  “It’s not true!”

  “Oh, mother, you can’t see it-“

  “He’s not like that,” Maggie protested. “Not one bit. He’s nice, and charming. And his fiancé…”

  “The less said about her the better,” Angela said.

  Maggie shook her head angrily.

  “Stop projecting on to other people how you feel,” she said. “Just because you’re not happy…”

  Angela turned away, a brief flash of misery visible on her face.

  This was not a healthy family unit, Sutton thought.

  Sutton said, “so that hardly leaves you in a vulnerable situation. What legal recourse does Daniel have to attack your business? If there was no will, and the divorce wasn’t final, then I can’t see that he can do anything.”

  Maggie said, “his solicitors are insisting that it was final. That the divorce would have been complete a week later, and therefore the properties would have been his. Should be his. Along with a percentage of Green Light.”

  “Could you make a deal?”

  “I tried!” Maggie protested, sliding off the desk. She rubbed at her forehead. “But he wanted more. Green Light has grown exponentially since I married Terry, and Daniel argued that the biggest chunk of this growth was because of his father. Which is certainly not true. We did it together. Not one alone. I just…I just can’t believe how bad he has turned out. It’s not like him at all.”

  There was silence a moment.

  “I can believe it,” Angela said.

  Maggie shot her a warning look. This was not a subject she wished to debate.

  “Could he get more?” Sutton asked. “Than what you’re offering?”

  Reluctantly, Maggie nodded.

  “My solicitors seem to think so,” she said. “They’ve spent most of the time preparing me for the worst.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t have my work. I’ve never not worked. I just…I can’t picture myself doing nothing. It’ll end me.”

  There was a profound silence a moment.

>   “I just can’t believe he would do this,” Maggie said again.

  Sutton cleared his throat.

  “Do you want me to find out, Maggie?” He asked. “I can talk to him, if you want me to. Find out what he wants. Maybe…bring him around.”

  “Oh, would you do that?” She said, in a whispery voice. “Would you do that for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I can pay you. How much? How much do you want to help me keep my little business? I can pay. All I want is to keep my little business. Terry’s dead, I don’t have anything else. Without it I’m lost. I’ve lost my husband, my future…I can’t lose Green Light too. I’ll go insane.”

  Angela was right: she was falling apart. Stubbornness was holding the pieces in place up to this point, but there was no telling how long she would last.

  She was a woman on the edge of a breakdown.

  “Do you remember the Favour, Maggie? Do you remember the Favour you did for me – it must have been almost thirteen years ago now?”

  Maggie nodded almost immediately.

  “Of course I do.”

  “I said I’d repay it, and that’s why I’m here. I don’t want your money. I’ve never forgotten what you did for me all that time ago. So I’m here to pay you back. If you want me to, that is. If you do, well…then I’ll help in any way I can.”

  “Oh, Sutton…”

  “But, if you don’t mind me saying, I don’t think you should be working. Not right now. You’re in no condition.”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said, pulling a little of herself back together. “Anyway. This place would fall apart without me. I can be strong for that.”

  She gave him a sharp, no nonsense nod.

  He smiled.

  “Alright, Maggie.”

  A thought struck her then.

  “You won’t…hurt him, will you?”

  “What?”

  “Daniel, I mean.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  But he wasn’t sure she believed him in that moment.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she reiterated.

  “Alright.”

  She nodded.

  “But we’re not done yet,” he said, settling himself on the edge of the desk with the fern. “You need to tell me all of it. Everything. Leave no stone unturned. No wart unexposed. That is, if you think you’ve got the strength?”

  The same sharp nod.

  “What do you need to know?”

  He looked at Angela. There was a strange expression on her face, and she quickly smothered it, but not before Sutton saw it and recognised it.

  She wanted him in that moment.

  With surprise, he realised he wanted her too.

  The soft mouth, the delicate neck, the golden hair.

  Those dark and mysterious eyes…

  But he couldn’t let himself be distracted by that.

  “I suppose…the first thing is, how did Terry die?” He asked.

  Maggie stared at the carpet as if she didn’t see it, and as if she hadn’t heard him.

  But she said, “it was horrible. He was murdered.”

  *

  CHAPTER 7

  The return journey went quicker.

  Angela was different. Not so that Sutton could point to it…but she was easier in herself. She still drove the car as if riding a dragon, but she wasn’t vibrating like before.

  “What’s the son like?” Sutton asked. “Daniel. What sort of a person is he?”

  Angela wrinkled her nose quickly in distaste.

  “Honestly?”

  “Of course.”

  “An idiot.” She seemed satisfied, but then added, “and a mummy’s boy. I met her once, his mother. Nadine. She doted on him, so I suppose it’s not strictly his fault. But you wouldn’t think it to look at him. He looks like Terry did at that age: dark hair, tall, wiry. And he acts like Terry did: all swagger. But Terry was good with people. And, even if I didn’t like Terry, at least you could respect him; after all, he built himself up from nothing. What has Daniel done? He may look like his father, but he’s not him. And I think he knows it. He always seems to be over compensating.” She paused. “God, I’m sorry to speak so ill of Terry. I didn’t love him, but I wouldn’t have wished that end on him. I wouldn’t have wished it on anyone.”

  In the offices at the back of Green Light, Sutton had been able to see the very visible strain on Maggie as she recalled what had happened to her estranged husband. He could remember thinking sometimes memories have claws. They could cut deep.

  “He was going to visit a property with Daniel in Hanham they were thinking of buying,” Maggie said. She stared into the corner of the room as if there was something there to see; what she was really looking at was the past. Light from the window painted a bright golden track down one side of her face; it brought out the unfamiliar lines in it, the wear and tear. But in its own way it was a beautiful face; the lines added character; Sutton would have liked to paint it. “Daniel’s his oldest son, you understand, from his first marriage. Danny was learning the ropes – he wanted to get into the landlord business with his father. Terry was always on the lookout for a place to buy, you know, to expand. But he was cautious. He very rarely bought anything, but he always seemed to have an appointment with an estate agent, to visit some property. At least that’s what he told me…Anyway. That’s a different conversation.” Quickly, Maggie shook her head, as if to dismiss a tangent. “Danny was waiting at the building with the estate agent but his father never showed up.” She swallowed something back…maybe her grief. Sutton looked at Angela. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she was staring at her mother with compassion. “They found him at the back of another property for sale that he must have stopped to look at on the way to meet Danny. It was a homeless man that did it. Just…stabbed him. For no reason.”

  “How sure are the police that it was this homeless man?”

  “Very sure. Why?”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “No reason.”

  But there was a reason. The incident – so close to current events – made his antenna prickle.

  Angela moved up to place a comforting hand on her mother’s shoulder and said, “there was a witness. Some guy on the street. He called out to the homeless man, William Bennet I think his name was, to try and stop him. The homeless man ran, in a panic, I suppose, straight in to the line of a passing car. He died instantly. As far as I’m concerned, he got what he deserved.” She released her mother. “Look. Does this have anything to do with what Daniel’s trying to do? It’s not an easy thing for Mum to talk about.”

  “Every bit has something do with something else,” Sutton said. “You wouldn’t miss a couple of brushstrokes in a painting…unless they happened to be essential to defining your subject. A highlight…or a shadow. I don’t know what’s what until I know all there is to know. If I’m going to help, I need to have as much background information as possible.”

  “She’s tired, Sutton.”

  “I know,” he said, not without sympathy. “I’m almost done.”

  Angela leaned down and whispered to her mother, “you okay, Mum?”

  Maggie nodded silently, still staring with vacant tragedy at the empty corner of the room.

  “Okay,” Sutton said. “What about the divorce? What went wrong?”

  Slowly, she turned to him.

  “What goes wrong with any marriage?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been married.”

  Maggie smiled slightly, but there was an edge of pain to it.

  “Boredom. Routine. Familiarity. Complacency.”

  “What?”

  “He was having an affair.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t know when it started. As I said, he was always out looking at properties, or at least I thought he was. But it turned out he was using that as an excuse to fuck some little slut on the side. I suppose…it must
have started after Danny met Suzanne, because it was Suzanne’s cousin that he was having an affair with.”

  “Suzanne is Daniel’s girlfriend?”

  “Fiancé,” Angela said. “Their engagement party’s tomorrow night.”

  “You stay away from there,” Maggie said blackly to Angela. “Don’t you dare go.”

  “Don’t worry,” Angela said. “I won’t.”

  “And when did Daniel meet Suzanne?” Sutton asked.

  “Oh, about a year ago now,” Maggie said. She smiled at the memory. “I was so happy for him. He loved her from the start. We were closer then. I used to see him a couple of times a week. He was so happy. I could remember what it was like to be in love like that. All he could ever talk about was Suzanne this, Suzanne that. I knew they would get married. They are just so well suited for each other.”

  “So they met a year ago. When did Terry start having an affair with the cousin?”

  “I found out eight months ago. I followed him one night. It’s hard to put into words what made me suspect, but I suppose it was the little things: a lack of attention; a disregard; the way he looked at me sometimes. The night I followed him, he didn’t even try to be surreptitious about it: he just went straight there, bold as brass, straight to the grotty little council house of hers. Where she used to live. Not the one he signed over to her, the one in Cotham. God, it makes my blood boil…” She flapped her hand in the air, to dismiss it. “Anyway. I could hear them all the way out in the street. It was disgusting.”

  “You confronted him?”

  “You bet I did. I confronted them both.”

  “And the cousin’s name?”

  “Lisa. Lisa Rice. And Daniel’s fiancé of course is Suzanne Rice. Suzanne’s the best of the family. All the rest are no good ruffians. Especially that Bobby.” Maggie looked over her shoulder at Angela.

  “Bobby?” Sutton said, looking between them. “Who’s Bobby?”

  Angela said, “Robert David Rice. Suzanne’s brother. He scares me.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s just…he’s violent. He reeks of it. He came on to me once. I couldn’t get away fast enough. He’s not big, and he’s not particularly impressive to look at, but you just know you shouldn’t ever mess with him. I think he’s got a screw loose or something. He doesn’t act right. He’s nuts.”