Page 60 of Carbon

“Did you ever find it?”

“No, I didn’t.”

His face softened into a sympathetic smile. “I’m so sorry that happened to your family. Angie was a great girl. Between you and me, I can’t understand how she got into that position with the caretaker, but your father only hired us to find him, not look into the whys and wherefores.”

My ears pricked. Was it possible Nye shared some of my initial doubts?

“What do you mean?”

“Angie vetted her guys and knocked them back if they didn’t have enough zeroes on their bank balance. No exceptions. I overheard her talking to a friend once about how she turned down a guy because he wore a Timex. It became a standing joke among the guys—you want to impress Angie, you’d better borrow a good watch. I’m wondering what kind of watch a caretaker would have been able to afford.”

I screwed my eyes shut, remembering the way Ben’s digital watch lit up in the dark when he pressed that button on the side. “Beau’s watch wasn’t expensive. I think it was a Casio.”

“Interesting. So, she wouldn’t have gone with him voluntarily, yet nobody saw her being forced out of the house and all the way across the grounds.”

“She was with somebody else. I kept telling the police that, but they wouldn’t listen.” I closed my eyes again, trying to remember what the man looked like. Most of his face had been obscured, but the wrist resting on her left shoulder sure hadn’t been graced with a Casio. “Patek Phillipe. The man at the party was wearing a Patek Phillipe.”

“Are you sure?”

“My father has one.”

“Curious. Of course, it could have been a fake. But you know what else is curious?”

“What?”

“Until he came to work here, Beau Davies didn’t exist.”

17

Itucked my hands between my legs so Nye wouldn’t see them trembling. “What do you mean, Beau didn’t exist?”

“The police can’t find any record of him having a passport, a driver’s licence, a bank account, anything in fact. Your mother paid him in cash. Not sure the taxman would like that.”

“Why don’t you call and tell him?” A little snark crept into my voice.

“Report your mother?”

I slumped back against the pillow. “We haven’t been seeing eye to eye lately. Okay, ever.”

“Not my place to comment on that.”

No, it wasn’t, and I had other things I wanted to discuss. “What do you think about the man with Angie at the party? Have the police found him?”

“They’re not looking. According to the reports I’ve read, Beau crashed the party, and that’s who she was with.”

“They’re wrong.”

“Why are you so sure? I know we spoke about the watch, but you can pick up a reasonable imitation for a few dollars on any London backstreet. And the man was wearing a mask.”

Because my nipples didn’t stand to attention when I got near him? Because he reeked of expensive cologne rather than Ben’s musk mixed with lime? “Because my sister may have been tipsy, but as you pointed out, she’d never have gone with a man like Beau. They say she was in his bed in the cottage, and even if he hid his face, she’d have realised who he was if he took her there, don’t you think?”

“I get that you believe that, but the DNA says otherwise.”

“I know.” And it still hadn’t sunk in how wrong I’d been about Ben. “Could they have made a mistake with the DNA? I mean, how did they match it if...B-Beau isn’t here?”

Shit, I’d almost called him Ben. Thank goodness he’d chosen another name that began with the same letter.

“A sample from his toothbrush, another from his hairbrush, and a third from skin cells on a shirt in his laundry basket.”

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