‘So I left him there. Hoped someone else would find the body. It was bad luck that it was my friends.’
‘But why didn’t they help him or report it?’
‘We all agreed it was best to let one of the staff find the body. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Alex and Grace went to see Nelson – the old caretaker – and when they came back, the body had gone. My father convinced me the boy had simply been drunk, feared getting the sack, so had stolen one of our Boston Whalers.’
‘And did you believe that?’
‘Why wouldn’t I? There was no body there.’
Michael moved out of the shadows, his face grave. ‘But you suspected Robert had made the body disappear?’
‘Yes – no! – I don’t know,’ said Miles, running his fingers through his hair. ‘I certainly wanted to believe he had got up and walked away. But if that was the case, whose body is DeShaun Riley inspecting?’
‘He isn’t inspecting anyone,’ said Michael in a low voice. ‘There is no body.’
Miles looked up at him sharply.‘What? What do you mean? Have you done a deal with them?’
Michael shrugged. ‘In a way, yes. But not in the way you mean.’
Miles found his mouth had gone dry. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying he didn’t die, Miles. The boat boy . . . it was me.’
Miles shook his head in astonishment. Was this a joke? But he knew from the hard look on Michael’s face that he was deadly serious.
‘You . . . you’re the . . . ? Don’t screw me around, Michael!’ he shouted in confusion and fear. Michael’s face was like stone; hard, unyielding. And there was something in the lawyer’s eyes he didn’t like, something he’d never seen before. Triumph, or fury? He began to back away, but Michael brought his hand up. He was holding a gun.
‘What is this, Michael?’ shouted Miles. ‘Who are you?’
Before he had finished forming the words, Michael stepped forward and whipped the pistol sideways, catching Miles on the temple and sending him crashing to the floor.
‘I am revenge, Miles,’ he said, his voice quiet and controlled. ‘I am your conscience finally catching up with you. I am the last thing you will ever see.’ He raised his hand again, levelling the gun.
‘No, please!’ said Miles quickly. His head was swimming from the blow, but he had to think. This couldn’t be the end, he had to find a way out.
‘Tell me,’ he pleaded, playing for time. ‘I have to know.’
Michael didn’t lower the pistol.
‘It wasn’t your father who got rid of the body. It was Nelson. Except I was alive. He saw you and your friends coming back to the house, scared and jittery, and went out to investigate. He found me just before daybreak, took me back to his house. Nelson knew your father well and knew he would have taken your mistake out on me, possibly had me arrested. “Mr Ashford’s a bad man,” was what he said to me. “A very bad man.” So when you’d left the island and your father’s guests had arrived, Nelson got me off the island to a doctor.’
Miles knew the only way out was to try and reason with him. ‘So you were OK,’ he said. ‘It all turned out OK.’
He could see Michael’s hand trembling with simmering fury.
‘OK?’ spat his lawyer. ‘OK? You tried to kill me, Ashford, you put me in hospital, my brains scrambled. You almost ruined my life.’
‘Clearly not,’ hissed Miles. ‘You have a good life now, because of me, not in spite of me.’
Michael’s voice was level and hard. ‘Two months. That’s how long I was in hospital. I had a broken nose, ribs, jaw. Thanks to my head injuries, I lost my short-term memory. I woke up screaming. It goes without saying, I lost my place at Harvard. Not that I could take it up anyway – far too dangerous.’
‘What?’ said Miles.
‘Even as an eighteen-year-old hick, I knew how powerful the Ashfords were. I knew how you might come looking for me. To check I was really dead, and if I wasn’t, to silence me.’