Final Venture

'Something like this has never happened to you before,' I said. 'And I hope it won't happen again.'

She smiled up at me. 'Will you forgive me?'

'Of course.'

She looked at her watch. 'If we go now, do you think we might get into Olive's?'

I smiled. 'We could try'

'Come on, then.'

Olive's was an Italian restaurant in Charlestown. It didn't take reservations, but we made it before the six o'clock rush, and were seated at a corner of one of the large wooden tables. As always, it was crowded, with lots of noise, warmth and excellent food.

We ordered, and surveyed the commotion around us.

'Remember the first time we came here?' said Lisa.

'Of course I do.'

'Do you remember how much we talked? They kept on trying to throw us out, so they could give the table to someone else, and we wouldn't go.'

'I do. And we missed the first half of that Truffaut film.'

'Which was crap anyway.'

I laughed. 'I'm glad you admit that now!'

I suddenly realized Lisa was staring at me. 'I'm so glad I met you,' she said.

It was the right thing to say. I smiled at her. 'And I'm really glad I met you.'

'You're nuts,' she said.

'No I'm not. You've done so much for me since we've been together.'

'Like what?'

'Oh, I don't know. You've pulled me out of myself, encouraged me to show my feelings, made me happy.'

'You were a tight-assed Brit when I met you,' she conceded.

It was true. And to some extent I probably still was. But Lisa had helped me escape from my old life in England, from parents who hated each other and wanted me out of the way, and from the ever-present traditions of Marlborough, Cambridge and the Life Guards, with their inescapable rules of how you should behave, how you should think, how you should feel.

'And I'm really sorry I've been such a pain,' she said.

'Forget it. You've had a really bad week.'

'It's funny. It sort of comes in waves. Thinking about Dad. One moment I'm fine and the next I feel awful. Like right now I…' She paused, and a tear ran down her cheek. She tried to smile. 'I was going to say I feel fine now, but look at me.' She sniffed. 'I'm sorry, Simon. I'm just a mess.'

I reached over and touched her hand. Despite the crowd, no one seemed to notice Lisa's distress. There was something about the barrage of noise in the restaurant that seemed to create walls around us, giving us our own little space of privacy.

She blew her nose, and the tears stopped. 'I wonder who killed him,' she said.

'Some burglar, probably. The house is pretty isolated. Maybe he thought he could get away with it in broad daylight and Frank surprised him.'

'I guess the police haven't got anywhere yet, or we'd have heard.'

'Oh, I didn't get a chance to tell you. Sergeant Mahoney came to see me a couple of days ago at the office.'

'What did he say?'

'He just asked me some questions about where I went after I left your father. Apparently your father spoke to John on the phone when I was walking on the beach. Mahoney wanted to try to confirm I was where I said I was.'

'Could you?'

'He hasn't found anyone who saw me. But I didn't get the impression he had made much progress in any direction. I think I'm still his number-one suspect.'

'Oh, Simon.' She squeezed my hand.

'Did you tell him about Helen's legal case?'

'Yes, I did. Why? Did he ask you about it?'

'Yes. He implied that it was convenient Frank had died, that now we can afford to fight the appeal. It makes me sick just thinking about it.'

'I'm sorry, Simon. He asked about money and whether we'd had any financial disagreements with Dad. I thought I should tell him the truth.'

I smiled at her. 'That's OK. I suspect it is best to tell the truth. Otherwise he'll catch us out, and it'll be even worse.'

'Don't worry, Simon. They haven't got any evidence.'

'Not hard evidence, no,' I said. 'But I have to admit, I am a bit worried.' The waiter brought a bottle of Chianti, and I poured us both a glass. 'Mahoney definitely has his sights on me. I wonder if it's because I'm British. Or rather because I served in Northern Ireland.'

'What do you mean?'

'He asked whether I had ever killed anyone. I said I had, in Ireland.'

Lisa shrugged. 'It's possible. He's obviously Irish. And even after the peace agreement, there must still be some strong pro-IRA feelings in this town.'

I sighed.

Lisa stole me a quick glance. 'Eddie thinks you did it.'

'No!' I was about to mutter something about what I thought of Eddie, and stopped myself just in time. In Lisa's eyes, Eddie could do no wrong. She had probably been reluctant to admit his suspicions to me. 'Well, he's wrong, isn't he?'

'Yes,' said Lisa. 'I know he is.' She looked at me, embarrassed. 'But I have to say in my darkest moments these last couple of days, I've wondered. You were there, you did have an argument with Dad, you do know how to use a gun, I'm going to inherit a lot of money. And the last person to see a murder victim alive is often the murderer.'

'Who says?'

'Eddie.'

Once again, I resisted telling Lisa what I thought of Eddie's idiotic theories. She didn't want to believe Eddie, she wanted to believe me. She was asking me for a reason.

'Lisa, you saw me when I came back from seeing Frank. Did I look like I'd just killed him?'

'No. No, of course not.' She smiled. 'Don't worry, Simon. I know you had nothing to do with it. Eddie's wrong, and I'm sorry I doubted you.'

Bloody Eddie. No doubt he felt guilty that he had got on with his father so badly in the years before he died. No doubt this self-recrimination had encouraged that basic human instinct to blame someone for his father's death, someone real, someone he knew and mistrusted. Me. Since the police seemed to be considering the possibility, and since I fitted into his half-baked ideas of criminology, I was the perfect candidate.

Lisa's closeness to her brother wasn't really surprising. He had always looked after her, and helped her through difficult times. I was grateful to him for having supported the woman I loved, but what I couldn't tolerate was him trying to turn Lisa against me.

The food came, and the conversation moved on. We didn't talk about Frank or Boston Peptides or BioOne for the rest of the evening. For a couple of hours we were as we had been before Frank's death. Eventually, they threw us out, and we decided to walk up the hill behind the restaurant to the Bunker Hill monument.

It was a warm evening for October, and we sat down under the tall obelisk, neatly hemmed in by black railings and crisply mown grass. We looked out over the Charles to the lights of Boston.

'I like it here,' I said.

'That's strange, considering it's where so many of the evil redcoats met their final destiny'

'At the hands of a bunch of violent tax-dodgers.'

'Not paying taxes is a fine American tradition,' Lisa said, 'and one that our wealthiest citizens are proud to follow.'

Anyway, wasn't the battle fought a few hundred yards from here?'

'Smart-ass.'

I smiled. I lay on my back, and looked up at the obelisk, tapering upwards into the night. 'No, seriously, things happened here hundreds of years ago. Wherever you walk in Boston you feel that. You can imagine the townspeople grazing their cows on the Common, or the clippers sailing into Boston Harbor. So many places in America have no history. Whatever was there before the latest strip mall was put up is obliterated, forgotten. But not here. As I said, I like it.'

Lisa kissed me. 'So do I'.

11

Lynette Mauer sat next to Gil, watching him through her large glasses with an expression close to awe, lapping up everything he was saying. This was a Monday morning meeting with a difference. The firm's largest investor was present.

It was also the first Monday morning meeting since Frank had died – the previous week's had been cancelled. The chair opposite Gil, Frank's chair, was empty. I could almost see him now, relaxed, cracking a joke, one long leg crooked over the other. His tenseness over the week before he died was forgotten. The old Frank, the relaxed, amiable but remarkably shrewd venture capitalist, would be the person we would all remember.