Page 81 of The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby
“Then when he heard that Harry had found Self-Portrait as Sphinx, Freddie thought he had a right to whatever the painting sold for too,” I say. Everything was starting to fit together now. “And with your phony buyer and his fake bid, you ensured that was an extraordinary amount.”
“An artwork is only worth what someone will pay for it,” she says with a shrug. “I didn’t force Dave White to up his offer.”
“But you did try to force me to authenticate,” I say.
“Yes. Freddie took those pictures while he was on the scaffolding, waiting for Harry. He took a lot of photographs that night. When he had them developed, most were of people snogging in bushes or the Osiris boys passed out on the lawn, but a few of them came in useful,” she admits.
“Had Harry figured out Freddie was the blackmailer?” I ask, remembering the haunted look in his eyes the night he died. “Because I had no idea who sent me those pictures.”
“No, and the plan was that he would never find out. But when Freddie heard that his cousin was in town, he couldn’t resist. He just wanted to scare Harry, demand one big payment to set us up for life.” She looks down at her hands, shrugs. “But Harry’s temper—”
“What a load of absolute rubbish.” I am half shouting, unable to help myself. “You can’t actually believe that? You don’t accidentally slit a man’s throat, using a champagne glass with someone else’s fingerprints on it. I always knew Freddie was a terrible person, but I never thought you were an idiot.”
Athena’s face hardens. “Believe what you like, Caroline. I really don’t care. But for the record, I’ve been with Freddie Talbot since I was eighteen years old. How’s your great Cambridge love story working out for you?”
“How dare you.” I stand up so quickly I upend the coffee table, shattering the water glasses on the tiled floor. “We might not still be together, but Patrick Lambert is the kindest, most loyal human being I’ve ever met, and right now, he is in prison for something Freddie did. I’ll go to the police. I’ll tell them what you’ve just told me.”
She shakes her head. “They’ll ignore you. Understand that I am only telling you all of this because Freddie has already gotten away with it. The Dubai police think they have their man, so they won’t cast their net wider. That’s simply not how it works here. And it wouldn’t matter anyway. Freddie is in the air on a private jet with a fake passport as we speak.”
“Heading where?”
“Longhurst, of course. The drug dealers he was so afraid of are all dead or banged up in prison, so that threat’s disappeared. The chances of Freddie himself being charged with any offenses are slim, because who is left to give evidence? Freddie has never officially been declared dead, so with Harry gone and no other living relatives, the house will pass down to the next of kin. Freddie will get what’s rightfully his—and once everything has died down, I will join him.”
Although I have never hit anyone in my life before, it takes all my willpower not to slap her across her smug face.
Instead, I half run out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me.
PATRICK, DUBAI, SIXTY HOURS AFTER HARRY’S DEATH
When the guard calls my name, I assume something bad is coming. An interrogation. An admonishment. A punishment. He asks, in Arabic, if I would like to bring anything with me—a cellmate translates, and I shake my head. We seem to be heading out of the prison, not deeper into it. For a second, I allow myself to hope.
Then we stop, and I am led into a room where there are several men sitting, heads down, on a bench, all handcuffed, all looking as confused and concerned as I feel. Some seem to be in the clothes they were arrested in, instead of the prison’s white tunic and trousers. Nobody makes eye contact.
The guard behind a desk calls a name, and the man at the end of the bench takes a seat in front of him, placing a blue plastic bag on the table. The guard pulls out a selection of pitiful items one by one, listing them as he goes. A belt. An ancient Nokia phone. A plastic bottle of water. When he is finished, the man is roughly escorted out the door. I slump forward, head in hands. They are taking us all to another prison. I am being digested even deeper into the system.
I can’t even bear to look, but I hear more men being marched into the room and shuffling out, the rustle of plastic bags, the scratch of pencil on paper, more names called. Eventually, the guard barks my name and I take a seat in front of him. He places a clear ziplock bag in front of me, with my phone, my belt, my keys, and the clothes I arrived in.
“Goodbye, Mr. Lambert, you are free to leave,” he says matter-of-factly, and directs me to a different door than the other inmates have been shoved through. Although I can just about stand, my legs can’t seem to figure out how to move toward it. I am still rooted to the spot when the next name is called.
Frederick Talbot.
My mind must be playing tricks. I haven’t slept in days, I’ve barely eaten. My brain has conjured the man walking toward me, a bundle of possessions under his arm. We lock eyes and he nods.
It is him. It is Freddie.
Even in handcuffs, he still has some of that old insouciance in the way he carries himself, that cocky confidence. After a little start of surprise, a wry smile spreads across his lips. As he approaches, I can feel him studying me closely. Perhaps he is assessing the ways in which I have changed over the past three decades, the past three days. Perhaps he’s wondering what it feels like to be in my shoes.
“Hello, Patrick,” he says. We are barely two feet from each other now, each with a guard close behind us.
“You killed him,” I say. “You bastard, you killed Harry.”
He does not deny it.
“He killed me first,” he says.
Then a door slams somewhere and Freddie flinches, and in that moment I see the smile falter, the false bravado waver. Before I really have time to process any of this, I am being walked down the corridor and through a door, and through another, and then I am outside, blinking in sun so powerful it feels like it is literally beating down on my face. On the barbed wire along the perimeter fence, the sunlight glitters. On the tarmac, the air shimmers.
For a moment, I genuinely feel like I might fall to my knees and kiss the ground. There is a gleaming silver Rolls-Royce in the middle of the car park. Standing next to it is Caroline. I have never been so glad to see anyone in all my life. Somehow, I make it halfway to the car before my knees start to buckle. Caroline reaches me just before I topple.
