‘So what?’ He raised his voice to shout at the goons. ‘Get a move on, for Christ’s sake. We need to be out of here yesterday.’
‘And the wife ran off to Nottingham, where she gave birth to a son … Harville’s son, though he never knew it …’
‘Lies,’ said Harville. ‘So his name was on the birth certificate, I take it?’
‘Well, no, but it was him. Harville’s heir. I’m sure of it. And, through the years, more generations were born, and if you follow the paper trail, the nearest direct living heir of Harville Hall is Linda Watson!’
‘Who?’ said Harville coldly, then his face paled and his eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t mean some relation of that …?’
‘His mother,’ said Jenna triumphantly. ‘Jason’s mother is the true and legitimate heir of Harville Hall.’
‘You’re insane,’ said Harville.
‘That’s rich, coming from you. How many people have you tried to kill today? How much blood do you want on your hands?’
Harville grabbed her by the wrist, pinching his nails hard into her soft skin.
‘Just yours and his will do,’ he whispered. ‘But there may have been a little collateral damage as well.’
‘What … do you mean? You’ve seen Jason? What?’ Jenna’s lips couldn’t seem to form the right words and her head began to swim.
‘There’s another little fire, a few miles west of here,’ he said. ‘And certain friends of yours are all caught up in it.’
‘You mean, Jason was in that cottage?’
Harville blinked.
‘You know about the cottage?’
‘I saw it burning. I was looking for Deano, but … you say …’
‘Oh, Deano is there. And so is Jason. And so is your little girl Friday. But you’re going to have plenty of time to think about them.’
One of the goons had located and opened the cellar flagstone.
‘Shame Fairy Fay isn’t still there to keep you
company,’ said Harville, shoving her towards the dark opening. ‘Still, you’ll have your thoughts. Goodbye, Jenna. I’d like to say it has been a pleasure, but we never got that far. Perhaps if you’d been a little more forthcoming with me, things would have been different. But you made your choice, and now you’re going to have to live and die by it.’
He pushed her hard down the stone steps. She stumbled, unable to see a thing, screaming into the pitch-black musty cold.
The flagstone shut above her.
She was trapped.
Mia could barely string two words together for a statement; she was far too frantic with worry.
‘They’d call if anything happened, wouldn’t they? The hospital?’ she said, halfway into a description of events at Ross’s house. ‘Look, I’ve given you the details of what I saw. All this is just … well, why do you need to know how I know Jase and all that shit? I saw what I saw. I’ve told you what I saw. Please, can I go to the hospital now?’
The detective in charge of the interview sighed and clicked off his tape recorder.
‘All right. We’ve got what we need on Harville. It was definitely him you saw?’
‘Definitely, swear down, I’d know that bastard anywhere.’
‘But you couldn’t identify the two men that were with him?’
‘I’ve told you!’