Page 46 of Duke It Out
Two hands and maybe a couple of toes.
The good news is that once I realised he was well and truly out of the picture I found it a hell of a lot easier to get down to work. The bad news is that it’s becoming clearer with every page I turn that his father was a complete and utter dickhead.
There’s his obsessive grudge-holding and the imaginary rivalries. I don’t know who the Laird of Arbothy is, but his ears must have been burning on the regular. Then there’s the paranoia and delusions of grandeur – don’t ask me how a billionaire can have delusions of grandeur, because if I hadn’t seen it scrawled in black and white I wouldn’t have believed it. And the things he’s implied about the royals… well.
I’m cross legged on the floor of the library, surrounded bystacks of journals, loose pieces of paper, and sticky notes in a rainbow of colours. Muffin the terrier is curled up by my side, snoozing gently. I think I’ve made a friend for life with the aid of some strategically shared toast crusts in the mornings.
I’ve been at it for hours already, trying to untangle a particularly convoluted tale about the late duke’s trip to Monte Carlo in the ‘90s. According to what I can make out from his ramblings, he’d won a yacht in a poker game, lost it the same night, then ended up owning shares in a failing casino that mysteriously started making a profit within a matter of months.
“How am I supposed to make this sound respectable?” I’m muttering to myself when Janey appears with a tray of tea and sandwiches.
“You missed lunch,” she says, setting the tray down on the floor beside me. Muffin opens a hopeful eye and spots the sandwiches.
“What time is it?” I look up at the grandfather clock. I’ve heard it chiming once or twice, but I’ve been so caught up in the tangle of this story that I didn’t really pay attention.
“Nearly three.” She surveys the sea of papers with amusement. “Are you making progress?”
“Sort of.” I accept a cup of tea gratefully. “I’m trying to create some sort of order from chaos, but your former employer doesn’t make it easy.”
She settles into the leather armchair by the window. “He didn’t do anything the easy way.”
I gesture to my notes. “Yellow is for verified facts, things I’ve cross referenced with newspaper articles and things like that. Orange is for plausible but uncorroborated stories. Red is ‘absolutely no way did this happen, but it makes a good anecdote’.”
“And purple?” Janey points to a smaller stack.
“Things that might get someone sued.” I give a wry grin. “I’m trying to tell the truth here without… you know, telling the whole truth.”
Janey leans over and picks up one of the journals, flicking through the pages. “It’s funny to see his handwriting. He used to come back from a shoot or a party and sit right there by the fire” – she points to the big sofa – “scribbling away to himself for hours with a drink by his side. I can see him now, laughing to himself.”
“That’s the funny thing.” I pick up a sandwich and tear off a corner for Muffin, who devours it in one gulp. “When I read these, I can see why people were drawn to him. He’s got this way of making everything sound like an adventure, even the terrible decisions. It’s sort of compelling, in a horrible way.”
“But not the whole picture.”
“No.” I tap my pen on the cover of one of his diaries. “That’s why I’m trying to weave in the estate records, the achievements of the foundation, all of it. Balance the man with his legacy. It’s like being a detective and a storyteller all at once. I have to work out what happened, then decide how to frame it.”
“That’s quite a responsibility,” Janey observes.
I nod, chewing thoughtfully. “I keep thinking about who’s going to read this. Not just Rory, but researchers one day in the future, or historians.” I look at Janey for a moment. “I want to be fair, but I want to be honest, as well.”
“A fine line to walk.”
“Exactly.” I reach for my laptop. “Do you know about the Monte Carlo thing?”
Janey grins. “Oh, do I ever.”
“I’ve framed it on the outcome, how the casino investmenteventually funded the marine conservation project on the islands.” I shrug. “It’s still true, just… focused differently.”
“And that’s why Rory hired you.”
“The trust,” I correct her, thinking of the look of distaste on his face when I turned up like a bad penny, and our encounter in the study. “I think that he might have had other ideas.”
Janey’s brow lifts slightly. “Well, for someone who claims to find the whole project tiresome, he asks about it rather often.”
Two dayslater I’m standing in the hallway waiting for Janey, who rushes out of her office with a stack of envelopes in one hand and her bag in the other.
“You ready?” She hooks her car keys out of her purse. “Let’s go. Road trip time!”
She takes the road to Kate’s house at speed, the detritus on the back seat of her Discovery flying in the air every time she goes over a bump.
