The Family Game(91)

There are a million things I could say to him, that I want to ask him, but only one question really matters.

‘How long did you know?’ I ask, careful not to play the idiot. ‘What I was?’ I’m pretty sure we both know what’s going on here; I just need some of the gaps filled.

‘Very early,’ he says gently. ‘I had you vetted the day after we met. A week later I had everything. But in a sense I knew from the beginning. I felt it. Your strength, your loyalty, your love. I loved you the night I saved you but by God did I love you more when I found out what you were capable of. How you responded under pressure. That man took from you, but you took straight back, without hesitation. What you could do for love, what you had done—’ he breaks off with a shake of the head. ‘I spent a lifetime looking for you. Looking for someone I could be honest with, finally be myself with.’

Robert stirs slightly in the seat beside him, but Edward’s focus is on me. I don’t know what his plan is, but I know I need to keep his attention.

‘But you weren’t honest,’ I nudge gently, careful to stay the right side of empathetic. ‘All this time you knew about me, but you said nothing. Why?’ I ask, and in spite of everything I hear the rattle of emotion in my voice, because however twisted his thought process was or is, I loved him.

‘I wanted you to tell me first. It might seem childish, but I wanted you to trust me enough to show me who you were,’ he answers. ‘Then I would know what I felt was real. But you never said a word, did you?’

A sickening wave of guilt hits me in spite of what he has done, and who I have found him to be, because he is right: I have never, in my life, trusted anyone with my truth. Least of all the people I have loved. I feel myself bristle at the accusation.

‘I was scared you wouldn’t love me. That I’d lose you if you knew,’ I tell him honestly. ‘Isn’t that what you felt too? You didn’t trust that I could love you. The real you. If I knew what you had done, that you had killed Bobby and Lucy, and Alison, and Gianna. And all the others.’

He looks away fleetingly. ‘I didn’t kill Bobby.’

‘You had something to do with it.’

‘Yes,’ he says, taking the hit with a strange, disarming honesty. ‘He wasn’t taking Adderall. I was slipping it to him, in his meals back at the apartment. I found a way to make the drugs interact. He would never have taken a stupid drug like that. I think they all knew, afterwards. Dad knew. He was pulling away from what Dad wanted. He would have taken the company, everything, in the wrong direction. I wanted to take him out of the game, that’s all. I wanted to force him to step aside, for his health; I wanted to break him. But it went much further than I anticipated; he had a mind of his own and I lost control of things. I tried to stop him that day; I told him it was all in his head, what he was feeling wasn’t real, but it was too late. He wasn’t listening. It was my first time and I made mistakes. I didn’t mean to kill my brother. He did that to himself.’

‘You wanted to be Bobby? To have the company? Why did you hand it all over to Oliver, then?’

He looks down at the man beside him. ‘We made a deal, Dad and I. He would keep it all quiet if I waited until he thought the time was right for me to take over. Oliver was only ever supposed to be there until Dad stepped down,’ he says. ‘And that hasn’t happened yet. I thought it best to do my own thing until full control passed to me. But by God did they want me back in the fold, where they could keep an eye on me. I’m not the only one in this family with secrets, but I’m sure you know that.’

Robert stirs once more in the seat beside him, his eyes flickering hazily open, disorientated.

‘Why did you kill them, Ed?’ I ask, desperate to buy more time for Robert to come around.

He studies me for a second before speaking. ‘Why did you kill him?’

I’m momentarily back-footed by a question no one has ever asked. I think about obfuscating, but there is little point, and part of me desperately longs for the release of unfettered honesty. ‘Because I wanted him to pay, to suffer, to understand what he did.’

‘And do you think he did?’

I consider the question for the first time in my life. ‘Yes, actually. Yes, I think he understood.’

‘So, you got what you wanted?’ he asks simply.

‘In a way, but I have to live with that. That a momentary whim of mine cost an entire human life.’

‘His whim cost you two lives though, didn’t it?’ he argues, and I see what he is doing.

‘We aren’t the same, Edward.’

He tilts his head to one side. ‘No, we are not. You meant to kill your first; mine was a mistake.’

The distinction smarts. ‘But the second wasn’t, was it?’

‘The second was necessary. Lucy was there the day he died; she heard everything. I had little choice.’

‘And Alison. She was your first real girlfriend, wasn’t she? Did you have no choice then?’

He flinches at my words. ‘Yes, I had no choice. I thought I loved her, that she loved me. I tried to tell her, everything, about Bobby, about Lucy; I tried to be honest. She ran from me. I don’t know what I expected; she was young and good and it was na?ve to think she’d forgive anything, but I had to try. You know that impulse, I’m sure, even if you’ve never followed through. I thought it would be safe to share my secrets, but it was not. I had no idea what she might do, who she might tell. And then Gianna. I pulled her close in the hope I might be able to uncover how much she knew or suspected. But she had a strange way about her. I could never be sure what Alison had told her; how much she knew. Is this what you want to hear?’ he asks suddenly. ‘The why of everything?’