How to Kill Your Family(103)

I’d never have even considered doing what you did if I’d not watched it play out. Even if I’d been wronged in the way you felt you’d been wronged. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t make something good out of it. I guess on a sliding scale of morality I’d be somewhere in the middle. I reckon most people would look at my situation and come to the same decision as me if they were being honest. Hard thing to be honest about though – that’s why telling you all this has been so freeing. I know you can never show anyone this. It’s enforced trust, which is probably better than the normal kind.

I’m getting tired of writing all this down though, so I’m going to try and wrap it up. You know the majority of my story now. Or as much as you need to know. I watched you continue on with your course of action. Janine went a bit far, if you don’t mind me saying – the description of her death really made me feel queasy. Again, I wasn’t there (you took off abruptly and I couldn’t get the time off work at such short notice), but I found out pretty sharpish from Simon’s PA. I still don’t fully understand why you let Lara off – did she just seem like small fry? I wasn’t there for Bryony of course, but I very much enjoyed how you executed that (well, her). Funny and effective. But that’s when Simon really started to unravel. He loved Bryony. I think he was bored of Janine – had been for years. We’re the result of that, I suppose. But Bryony was his only child. His only true child. He’s oddly old fashioned, for a product of the modern world. Marriage, kids, a reputation, that all mattered immensely to Simon. And no matter how ghastly she might have seemed to you or me, he loved his daughter. Beyond the pain of losing her, he also began to get paranoid. Though I guess it’s not paranoia if someone is actually out to get you. He would summon me to his house, and sit on the sofa with the curtains closed, occasionally getting up to pace the room manically. He’d tell me repeatedly that someone was killing off his family. He’d been to the police, hired security, the works. Nobody really believed him, which I guess you can take as a compliment. Everyone thought it was just a series of unlucky coincidences – the Daily Mail ran a double-page spread on ‘the mogul’s misfortune’ listing all the bad luck that had fallen on the Artemis family. But the fact that nobody seemed to take him seriously made Simon even more insistent. He thought it was someone he’d crossed paths with in business. He didn’t say who, but he clearly had someone in mind because he was frightened.

I stepped into the role of dutiful son at this time. I slept at the Hampstead house, often woken up several times a night by Simon, who would want to point out more ways in which someone was trying to kill him. These were always nonsense – a man he thought was loitering outside the front gates, or a car parked too near his office entrance. He was just looking for signs. Every time a window rattled, the man would fall apart. Not that the windows at his house rattled, the originals had long been ripped out and replaced with sturdy double glazing.

We became close, as I leant into my new position as closest relative and confidant, hopeful that it would be short-lived with your assistance. I helped organise all the grim things that need doing when someone dies. And I listened when he wanted to scream and shout about it all, which was often. He became more and more unbearable as the weeks went on and from what I could see, you weren’t doing much. I occasionally saw you lingering outside his gates, you know. It wasn’t very subtle, Grace, I must say. Even if you did have some big plan in the works, I was beginning to despair of you being able to get near Simon. His security detail was immense by now, he was surrounded by burly men who would have snapped you like a twig if you’d got within five feet of him.

I began to feel furious with you, which is bonkers, isn’t it? But I felt like I had finally figured out how to extricate myself from this appalling situation and I’d come to imagine that we were working in tandem and to a schedule. But you weren’t playing ball. I barely had time to follow you much back then, since Simon was growing more aggressive, more erratic, more dependent on me. But when I did, I saw you going for dinners and heading off on long runs, carrying on as if you’d not got one more target to tick off, and I was confused by your lack of momentum.

I was barely able to function at work because he called every five minutes, crying or drunk or both. I’d turn my phone off and he’d email me. I began to flinch whenever I looked at my inbox. I pride myself on being a hard worker, I really do think that work makes a man and I was furious with myself for doing a half-arsed job when I was meant to be attacking this opportunity and rising up through the company. Bonus time was looming and I could just see mine shrinking every time my boss saw me on the phone.

Looking back, my mental health was plummeting, something I’d never even considered before. My sleep was shot to pieces, my weight dropped alarmingly, no matter what I ate. I just felt completely trapped, like a fox in a hole. It’s rather put me off hunting now that I see the analogy actually. Another thing Simon has ruined for me. But he wouldn’t leave me alone and his will was overwhelming. Eventually, I marched round there and told him that I couldn’t do it anymore. I was firm but I was calm. I told him he was behaving appallingly and couldn’t treat me like one of his assistants. I went on and on until he started crying again, but I wasn’t swayed this time. The tears dried up pretty fast when he realised I wasn’t going to comfort him, and he walked over to his desk and sat down. I carried on listing the ways I felt he wasn’t being a gent, getting so worked up that I wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing until he came back over to me and presented me with a cheque. It was made out for ￡500,000. That stopped me in my tracks, I can tell you. My mouth hung open for a few seconds as he pushed it into my face and told me that if I went with him to St Tropez for a week, he’d make sure it was worth my while.