The Family Game(54)

And if she’s not, I need to go to the police. I try not to think of what will happen to me and Edward if I am the one to bring down his father, his family. Which raises the question of why on earth Robert gave me his tape in the first place. Does he have a death wish?

I can’t help but wonder if Edward ever had his own suspicions about his father. He lived in the same house as the man for years. Perhaps I might have stumbled on the real reason they fell out.

Samantha’s question about who I was planning on marrying sticks in my mind. She didn’t seem that concerned about Edward, which makes me wonder who she might have been concerned about me marrying.

Oliver, Stuart, or even Robert himself.



* * *



Edward’s car safely returned to the parking lot under our building, I head back up to the apartment, shedding my winter layers as I pull up a chair at my desk.

I type: girlfriend Bobby Holbeck into my internet browser.

But, once again, the results auto-correct to Robert Holbeck, filling the screen instead with a plethora of images of Robert Holbeck and various models and heiresses from the ’70s and ’80s. In among them, I spot a young Eleanor, doe-eyed and mysterious – the woman he would eventually marry.

Without a name, I know I won’t find Bobby’s girlfriend.

In the kitchen I grab a consolatory snack to pep my energy and consider my options.

I could just ask someone. I could just call Edward, or Matilda, or Eleanor. Granted, it would be an odd question: what was your dead brother/son’s ex-girlfriend called? – but it would save me a lot of time and anxiety. But then I recall Samantha’s words and for some reason I am reminded of the conversation Matilda and Robert were having in Fiona’s living room the other night and I’m suddenly not sure I can trust any of them with a question like this.

But Edward was his brother, and this is his house, so there’s bound to be photos of Bobby somewhere in the apartment. All I need to find is one from Bobby’s time at college, a party, a mixer, a ball game, anything. If they were a couple, she’ll be in one of them. Bobby’s stuff must have gone somewhere after he died, because it sure as hell wasn’t in his old room.

Standing in front of Edward’s closet, I suddenly baulk at the idea of rooting through his personal belongings. Since the night of the proposal, I realize, I’ve unwittingly been chipping away at the bedrock of trust between us. Do I really want to rifle through Edward’s things, his dead brother’s life? Because I wouldn’t want him to do the same thing to me, and I know exactly what he’d find if he did.

But if I can just find out who this ex-girlfriend is and if she’s okay, then I’ll know Robert’s tape is a trick and I can go to him and end this.

Buoyed by my resolution, I grab a chair so I can reach the high shelves above, where shoe boxes peek out over the edge. Up there I find exactly what I thought I might: an old school trunk, and a sun-bleached file box.

I pause, a dark thought blossoming. If I do find a photo, and the girl is dead and Robert’s tape is real, I will have to do something about all of this, and if I do there’s a chance my own past might be dragged into things. I push the thought away. I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.



* * *



An hour into my search, legs numb from sitting on the floor, I come up for air, taking in the chaos fanned out around me. Photos from Edward’s school days, university, weekends and holidays. Friends, partners, family members I do not recognize and a precious few I do. Hugs, kisses, alcohol-rogued cheeks and practical jokes. Wet hair, Bermuda shorts and suntan-lotion-smeared books I didn’t even know he’d read. Snapshots of Edward’s life lie all around me. I try not to focus on the other girls. The fresh-faced women he has known and loved. I try not to judge myself against a poem written to him on the back of a postcard.

I try to have eyes only for Bobby. But I cannot find him among the old letters, gap-year trinkets and report cards.

I stand to better take it all in, the relics of Edwards life so far. Bobby is not here.

It’s only natural that he wouldn’t be, I suppose. That he’d keep Bobby in a separate place. I do not keep the soft-focus ’90s disposable camera shots of my own long-dead parents with the other memories of my life. I lock them away, so that I can only see them if I make a conscious effort to see them. No surprises. It’s easier that way.

If my own experience is anything to go by, then Edward’s photos of Bobby will be somewhere else, somewhere safe, possibly somewhere locked.

I jiggle life back into my legs and head out to Edward’s home office. His is larger than mine and rigged to the gills with cutting-edge computer tech, hard drives and multiple screens. The similarities between the studies of father and son suddenly hit me.

I slip past the double-banked screens and head to the wooden filing cabinet next to Edward’s desk, but fifteen tiny drawers later I am none the wiser. Invoices, statements, correspondence, but no personal items. I turn back to his desk and try the drawers. Nothing.

I let my eyes scan the room; bookshelves, hard drives, paperwork. On the bookshelves across the room, I find a row of dog-eared old coding books bookended by a small lockable steel storage box. My eye snags on the box. I remember noticing it before. Something so analogue in a room so full of new tech.

I head over and gently lift the dark grey metal box from its resting place. It’s heavier than I expect. Full. There is no helpful key slotted in the lock, but looking at the rudimentary design I know I can open it. My aunt used to keep my maintenance allowance in a similar steel petty cash box in the short time I lived with her after the accident. It took me a while to pluck up the courage, to get the knack, but back then days rolled into each other with nothing but reminders of what was gone. I had time.