‘Good God, it’s bloody freezing in this place. I should’ve stayed in London, like Bart should’ve too,’ he said.

‘You don’t like the Lake District?’ she asked, trying to change the topic a little to distract herself more than George. ‘Bart loved it,’ she said, and the tears came again.

‘I know he did, Nellie, but I doubt it had anything to do with the bloody scenery. Give me the names of the girls,’ he demanded.

She jumped at his abruptness. She handed over her phone to him, and her hands shook a little.

‘They’re just schoolgirls, wee things, they won’t say a word,’ she said.

‘Well I need to make sure of that, don’t I?’ he said. ‘Bart’s dead now, and my job is to make sure that he doesn’t take the rest of his family down with him. I’ve wiped the CCTV, anything else you can think of?’

‘No, I’ve told you everything,’ she said.

‘Good. I can count on you, Nellie?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘And, Nellie, don’t ever use my private mobile number again.’

He’d only just met the woman who kept the place going for his ex-boss. And he wasn’t impressed. His job was to find holes in leaking ships and this one was like a fucking deluge.

Chapter 28

Fabian Kennedy-Craig slammed the newspaper down on the occasional table. It knocked the china cup containing his Earl Grey tea with milk, and it spilled onto the carpet. He put his head in his hands and got up to pace towards the window, out of which he stared at the London street beyond. A tear rolled down his cheek and he wiped it away. A fire raged in a grand hearth, making his cheeks burn. His father’s name was already muddied in the press, but this was a step too far. A respected broadsheet had published a piece only this morning about his involvement with fracking and greenwashing, intimating that his helicopter had been brought down by environmental fanatics.

He scuffed the carpet roughly with his stockinged feet, then paced back to the newspaper and looked at the name of the journalist scum who’d probably wet his pants when he’d made the front page.

Lord Reilly’s helicopter brought down by climate fanatics? It asked, with the sub-heading: Questions asked this afternoon of PM: Was Tory-funding climate denier, CEO of Tactika Enterprises, a target too?

It was a crass headline for the highbrow rag and he made a note to phone the editor in person, who his family had put through fucking college.