The Hunt and the Kill Page 23

  ‘When I was little, I would pretend he was someone famous. Or a soldier who had gone off to war. Or an astronaut, even. Stupid stuff like that. And then as I got older, I assumed it was a one night stand or something. You don’t really want to think about that sort of thing – not about your mother – so you don’t.’

  One of the surfers had caught a wave, and was arrowing over the ocean in a bright flare of speed. Garrick’s eyes followed the trajectory of the surfer until they reached Casey’s face.

  ‘You didn’t wonder about the money for school fees or anything?’ Casey failed to stop herself sounding accusatory. ‘A school like Drewsteignton doesn’t come cheap.’

  ‘No,’ Garrick sounded apologetic, ‘not really. You don’t question that sort of thing when you’re a kid. Well, I didn’t, anyway. We’d come back to Cape Town in the holidays, and my grandparents – my mother’s parents, that is – lived in a perfectly nice house in Claremont. I didn’t really ask.’

  ‘But your mother was living in England at the time?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Garrick. ‘She would turn up for things like Sports Day or the school play, and I would be so proud of her. She was so much more beautiful than all the other mothers … ’

  Casey could just imagine. Jeanie McElroy, the gorgeous blonde South African, all long legs and white teeth. A daffodil on a grey day in Norfolk. Pretty little Jeanie. Pretty Jeanie McElroy.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I wanted to be a success,’ Garrick said flatly. ‘My mother was living in a rented house in Sussex while I was at school. She never said anything when I was growing up, but I knew that she didn’t have much in the way of security. And I was starting to realise that things weren’t quite … I wanted to make us more secure.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I went into business,’ said Garrick.

  Maurice Delacroix’s research floated across Casey’s mind. The tech company in San Francisco. The property companies in Canada.

  ‘What sort of business?’ Casey wanted to hear his version of events.

  ‘I needed to make money,’ said Garrick. ‘But I also wanted to make the world a better place too.’

  His eyes were pleading. We all, thought Casey brutally, want to make the world a better place.

  ‘But you’re working in oil now?’ she asked. ‘I googled you,’ she added quickly.

  ‘I am,’ said Garrick. ‘I am now.’

  ‘And how did that come about?’

  ‘I—’ Garrick stalled.

  ‘Where were you when Elias Bailey came into your life?’ Casey took him back.

  ‘I was working in Toronto at the time,’ Garrick said. ‘I was running two property companies I’d set up. They were going … OK.’ The pause told Casey everything she needed to know. ‘And then one morning, I got a call at work. It was this voice I didn’t recognise. A man’s voice.’ Garrick stopped, running through that day again. ‘It was Elias Bailey, and he said he wanted to meet me. He didn’t say why at first. But I’d heard of him and his business, and I was curious, so I was happy to meet up. We had a coffee down on the waterfront the next day, and he told me who he was: my father.’

  For a second, Casey’s throat closed up. Zac was watching her out of the corner of his eye, a flicker of curiosity. Casey stared at Lion’s Head, and ignored Zac.

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘I had done some more research before I met up with him,’ said Garrick. ‘So I’d read about everything he’d done with Adsero. He is an impressive businessman.’ This, defiantly. ‘And we got on fine at first. Better than fine.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘We got to know each other bit by bit,’ said Garrick. ‘I liked him. He was tough, but he could be fun. Adsero have a big factory in Pennsylvania, so he was over fairly often. And he did a lot of business in New York. And each time either he would come up to Toronto or I would go down to New York. We got to know each other quite well.’

  Garrick went down to New York more than Bailey went to Toronto, Casey guessed.

  ‘It sounds as if Bailey made an effort to get to know you,’ she said.

  ‘He did.’ And for a moment, Garrick’s face lit up. ‘We’d go for drives near Toronto. We sailed in the lake once. It was great. He could be great … ’

  His voice trailed away. ‘What happened next?’ asked Casey.

  ‘Things started to go wrong with my property companies,’ said Garrick. ‘I was trying to make them work, but they just didn’t. Eventually, I decided that I needed to shut them down.’

  ‘You didn’t ask Bailey for investment?’

  ‘No. But I told him I was wrapping them up, and a week later he suggested I come and work at Adsero for a while.’

  ‘Did you have any experience in the pharmaceutical industry?’

  ‘No,’ Garrick admitted. ‘But he put me to work on their CSR programme.’

  ‘CSR?’ asked Zac.

  ‘Corporate social responsibility,’ recited Garrick. ‘You know, the sort of thing that big companies do to show they care.’ He emphasised the word with a twist of cynicism. ‘Donating to charities, supporting local groups, telling their staff to volunteer in the community.’

  ‘Would Adsero donate drugs?’ asked Casey. ‘In a big international crisis?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Garrick easily, not thinking about it. ‘Adsero would definitely do that sort of thing.’

  Garrick didn’t know about zentetra, thought Casey. Not even a hint.

  ‘Did you enjoy working for Adsero?’

  ‘I did at first,’ said Garrick slowly. ‘But things started to go downhill with Elias.’

  Elias, Casey noted: not Dad. Not Bailey, either.

  ‘How?’

  ‘He was having difficulties with his heart,’ said Garrick. ‘Everyone could see it. Everyone who worked closely with him, that is. He was breathless, and he would have to sit down, and then it got worse suddenly. But he hated anyone mentioning it. Absolutely hated it. I remember one secretary asking if he wanted a chair, and he basically fired her on the spot.’

  ‘And it affected your relationship?’

  ‘It made him very short-tempered. He became very controlling,’ said Garrick. ‘Or maybe he always had been and I just hadn’t known him for long enough. And he was utterly ruthless when it came to Adsero.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Early on, just after I had started working at Adsero, he decided he needed to close one of the factories in the US. It was a small one in Ohio, and he worked out that production could be done more efficiently in the Pennsylvania factory. So he decided to sack everyone right before Christmas. I was saying that we should wait and see if there was any way of saving the factory in the New Year, but he just ignored me.’ For a moment, there was a hint of petulance in Garrick’s voice. ‘Everyone was laid off the week before Christmas. And it was in one of those bits of Ohio where there aren’t any other jobs.’

  ‘Brutal.’

  ‘Yes. He never listened to me. He treated me like a child.’

  There was too wide a gap between the son Bailey had wanted, thought Casey, and the reality of Garrick. If Bailey had spent those years watching his son grow up rather than just imagining him, it might have been different.

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘In the new year, we travelled down to Cape Town,’ said Garrick. ‘We often travelled together back then, and it was fun. We were staying at his house in Llandudno. He’d bought it right after his divorce. It’s a beautiful place.’

  The three of them were down by the ocean’s edge now, the roar of the waves blotting out the noise from the city. Casey let the water splash over her feet. As the waves rushed in, she winced. For all the golden beauty of the day, the water here was icy. Over on the other side of the Cape, the Agulhas current brings a flood of warmth down from the Indian Ocean but on the western side of the continent, the Benguela current rushes cold water up from the Antarctic in an endless, relentless flow.

  ‘What happened at
the house in Llandudno?’ Casey asked.

  ‘He has an office there,’ said Garrick. ‘It’s right at the top of the house. Massive, with huge windows looking out to sea. You feel like you’re in a ship. There’s a balcony running all the way round, and during the summer he opens it all up.’

  ‘Does he work up there alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ Garrick nodded. ‘He has a PA, of course, but she has an office in a different part of the house. He’s always working. Always.’

  The sea was navy now, reflecting the sky. Two children – maybe eight and nine – were playing in the sea, daring each other to stand firm as the waves crashed in.

  ‘Watch out for the rip,’ their mother called out. ‘It’s very dangerous along here, sweethearts.’

  ‘He was working from home though?’ Casey asked.

  ‘Adsero is his company, but it also isn’t, if you see what I mean. The board has to OK everything. He has shareholders. He shouldn’t even use the jet as much as he does. He was secretive about his work, though. He’s always kept a small team slightly separate from the company. They’re his people, not Adsero people.’

  Casey wondered if the Adsero board even knew about the Njana operation.

  ‘I was up in his office one day,’ Garrick went on. ‘He’s got shelves and shelves of files up there. I suppose you’d expect it, but, still, hundreds of files. And I saw that one of the files was just marked “Garrick”. Elias was off somewhere, so I didn’t ask, I just opened it. And it was Corax. There wasn’t much information, but enough for me to know what it was. I’d listened in to a lot of meetings about antibiotics by then. I knew enough to see that this one was important.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I asked him about it,’ said Garrick. ‘At dinner, that evening. He was absolutely furious. Apoplectic. Told me I must never go into his office again. Told me I must never mention Corax ever again. I’ve never seen him so angry. And the file had my name on it.’

  ‘But you carried on working for Adsero after that?’

  Garrick paused. A cargo ship was tracking across the horizon, and Garrick’s eyes followed it. ‘For a while. And then I decided to stop. I decided to go and set up Pergamex, swiping the information from the file, and see if I could get Corax to work. I know it was wrong, but … ’

  ‘But something else happened first.’ Casey was watching him closely. ‘What happened to make you finally decide to leave?’

  50

  Garrick’s eyes met hers for a second. ‘I can’t … ’ He was almost pleading. ‘He’s my father.’

  ‘What did your mother think about Elias reappearing in your life?’ Casey decided to come back to Garrick’s departure to set up Pergamex later.

  ‘She didn’t like it,’ said Garrick. ‘Whatever there had been between the two of them once, it was long gone by the time I was in my twenties. She was young when she met him, you know? And after she had me, I don’t know … It knocked her out of the life she ought to have had. She was on a track going one way – a happy family, a nice home, a nice life – and suddenly she was right off that path. I remember her talking about growing up in South Africa. She loved it here, absolutely loved it. She always adored the outdoors, and she’d talk about riding on the beach at Noordhoek, swimming in the sea at Hermanus, driving to Knysna for a weekend of parties. She was at her happiest here, and then she had to give it all up.’

  Pretty little Jeanie.

  ‘What is she like?’ Casey was curious.

  ‘She’s a golden person,’ said Garrick. ‘Whenever I think of her, I think of her laughing. She’s generous, kind. But she always worries about what people think of her. And she worries about letting people down. I don’t know … She’s always been a bit fragile.’

  Insecure, Casey diagnosed. Looking for someone to look after her. But also adept at making men feel as if she needed looking after, especially her son.

  ‘What is she doing now?’

  ‘She was with a nice guy for a bit,’ Garrick’s face clouded over abruptly. ‘But he died.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Casey. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘She was very upset about it.’

  ‘What does she do for work?’

  ‘This and that,’ said Garrick. ‘She teaches Pilates a bit. She never really got into a career.’

  ‘And she didn’t like Elias coming back into your life?’

  ‘Not at all. I rang her after I had met him for the first time, on the waterfront in Toronto. And her voice just went flat.’

  ‘But she didn’t put you off getting to know him?’

  ‘She never mentioned it again,’ said Garrick. ‘That’s what she does when she doesn’t like something. She doesn’t mention it at all, just acts like it isn’t there.’

  Garrick was thinner round the face than he had been in Miami, Casey thought. There were two lines down the middle of his forehead, between permanently anxious eyes.

  ‘So after you left Adsero, you moved back to San Francisco,’ Casey prompted him.

  ‘I knew people in San Fran,’ Garrick explained. ‘I could get investors. I needed capital to start working on Corax.’

  ‘And I moved out there not long after,’ said Zac. ‘I started working on Corax too, so we could get more money into the business.’

  ‘Then we recruited more people,’ said Garrick. ‘We put together a really great team.’

  ‘Including your little doctor friend,’ Zac smirked at Casey.

  She ignored him, speaking directly to Garrick. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘A few months later, Bailey found out that we were working on Corax.’ Garrick’s face tautened. He paused. ‘What are you actually going to do with all this information?’ he asked Casey. ‘I don’t even know who you are, not really. What is your plan?’

  Casey stopped walking and met Garrick’s eyes. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I think Bailey is doing something odd in Zimbabwe with saepio, but I can’t prove that it’s actively malignant. And separately I can’t work out what happened with the development of Corax.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’ Garrick sounded impatient. ‘What do you want?’

  Casey sat down on the sand. Zac dropped down too. A moment later, Garrick threw himself to the ground beside them.

  ‘People close to your father.’ Casey looked Garrick straight in the eye. ‘People linked to Corax. They die, Garrick. Too many of them have died.’

  Garrick jumped to his feet. ‘You can’t prove that.’

  Casey stayed on the sand, staring out at the sea. ‘I know I can’t prove it, Garrick. Not yet. But I just know it. I know that it’s true.’

  ‘Who died?’ Garrick took a few steps down the beach, moving convulsively. ‘When?’

  ‘A scientist in London. A young woman in Devon a few years ago.’ Casey’s throat closed up for a second. ‘An ex-Marine, a few months back.’

  ‘And why do you think it is Corax that links them all?’ said Garrick. ‘Maybe it’s you who links them all. Have you ever thought of that?’

  Casey closed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I have thought of that.’

  ‘We have to get to the bottom of all this,’ Zac interrupted Garrick’s rising hysteria. ‘You know that. And this is the only way, Garrick.’

  Garrick was pressing his palms against the back of his neck, fingers interlinked, all the muscles in his shoulders tensed.

  ‘What happened?’ Casey couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘In San Francisco. What did Bailey say to get you to back off, Zac?’

  Zac met her eyes coolly. ‘You already know, Psyche,’ he said. ‘Bailey wrote me a cheque. A very big one. And I went off to Mauritius, to live happily ever after.’

  ‘It wasn’t just that though.’

  ‘No.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘It wasn’t quite.’

  Back in the beautiful Constantia house, Casey had looked at the photograph for a long time. Stared at it just as Loelia Bailey must have once gazed. Calculating, deducing, guessi
ng.

  In a rage.

  ‘You can have that one if you want,’ Loelia had said casually, as she flipped through the stack of photographs in the shade of the periwinkle parasol. ‘I’ve got copies.’

  Because there he was. Three across from Garrick, standing to attention in the back row: the dark hair, the eyes slanting against the sun, that sardonic smile.

  Zac.

  ‘You were at school together,’ said Casey now. ‘Both of you, at Drewsteignton’s.’

  ‘I knew you’d get there in the end,’ Zac grinned. ‘It took you bloody ages though. You must be losing your touch.’

  ‘You went there on a scholarship, Zac?’

  ‘Yes. A teacher steered me that way when I was twelve. Odd how one person can change everything.’

  Drewsteignton – school to a dozen foreign princelings – had nothing visible online. Everything digital was swept clean, so carefully. So there was no photograph of the head boy, a line of badges neat on his blazer. There was no photograph of the hockey team grinning in tidy rows, those loyalties like steel hawsers under the sand. And there was certainly no photograph of the first fifteen, nearly twenty years on. Not with the treasured son of a Gulf sheikh right there, next to Garrick.

  For all her hours of searching, Casey could never have tracked down a young Zac Napier in Drewsteignton’s impeccable uniform. That had required Loelia, working angrily, fiercely, from the opposite direction.

  ‘They must be just delighted with how you’ve turned out.’ Casey smiled thinly. ‘And how about you, Garrick? How did Bailey buy you out?’

  Immediately, she knew she had said the wrong thing. Garrick’s face crumpled like a paper bag.

  ‘I can’t … ’

  ‘You can,’ Casey snapped, the frustration biting hard. ‘Of course you bloody can, Garrick. And if you don’t, you’ll have to be scared of him forever. And scared of what I’ll find out too, because I will get to the bottom of this, Garrick. I will. And when I do, you’ll be right in the heart of it all.’