Page 2 of The Quarterlands (Dark Water #4)

“I did.” Noah looked skywards for a moment, as if gathering his strength.

“The truth is, Isobel and George were very much in love at university. He talked about her all the time. It made me quite jealous, which I’m not proud of.

I’d always been the one with everything, and now he had this beautiful girl.

The moment I saw her, I fell in love. She was everything I’d ever wanted in a woman – bright, lively, funny, warm, and so pretty… and she was with George.”

“The son of an IS, someone you were used to lording over,” Josiah said quietly.

Noah’s face reddened. “Yes. It pains me to say it, but yes. I was younger then. I hope I’m a better person now.

I’ve had many wretched years to reflect on my shortcomings, and it’s time I admitted them.

In fact, it’s a relief.” There was a pained look on his face.

“I did steal Isobel from George. I deliberately set out to win her behind his back. I took her out to fancy places, splashed my cash around and spoiled her. She’d grown up in a government work camp and never even knew her father.

Her mother had to do all sorts to get by.

” He grimaced. “She was wise to the ways of the camp but charmingly unworldly about the normal things of life outside that environment, and I deliberately set out to impress her with my wealth. She knew she’d always be taken care of with me, whereas George – well, he had nothing except a fierce intellect and huge ambition.

It could have gone either way with him; he could have ended up a billionaire or in prison.

Yet, they were a good fit, a better fit than her and me.

I just didn’t want to see it back then.”

As Noah reached out to pick up his glass of water from the coffee table, Josiah noticed that his hand was shaking.

“I’m sorry, sir. That must be a difficult thing to admit in front of your son.”

“We paid a high price for my hubris,” Noah said. “As a family, we paid a terrible price for making an enemy of George.”

“Isobel played her part, too,” Josiah pointed out. “She chose the suitor with the best prospects.”

“Who can blame her, given the poverty she came from?” Noah shrugged. “Oh, I know she loved me, but I suspect she always loved him more. No wonder he hated me.” He placed his glass back on the table, his hand still trembling.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Charles murmured.

“Tyler never forgave Alex for Isobel’s death,” Josiah told them. “He wanted revenge, so he set him up, hiring a beautiful young woman to befriend him at university.”

“What?” Charles exclaimed. “Hang on… do you mean that girl Alex was seeing on and off for a while? I met her a few times.”

“You did?” Noah looked confused. “I don’t remember her.”

“Alex always kept her under wraps until we saw her at his graduation. He was annoyed because I brought along a camera crew to make a documentary about my paralympic bid and he didn’t want to be in the spotlight again.

But he was also protecting her. He didn’t introduce us formally, but we saw her dancing afterwards.

You might remember her because she was such a beauty. What was her name? Sally?”

“Solange,” Josiah said.

“Solange… but that’s the name of the girl Tyler is accused of murdering!” Charles exclaimed.

“That’s right.” Josiah filled them in on Alex’s life with Tyler.

How he was prostituted and abused, and how Solange had helped him escape and paid for it with her life.

“He beat Alex so badly for trying to escape that he almost died,” he told them.

“She ran forward to protect him and Tyler lashed out, killing her.”

Noah’s face was pale, his eyes shocked, but Charles’s expression interested Josiah more. He looked horrified, sickened, as if he might throw up.

“Tyler did this to Alex? He did all these evil, wicked things to him because of the accident?” he babbled almost incoherently. “All this because he told one mistake?” He reached for Noah’s glass of water but fumbled it, and the glass smashed to the floor, drenching Josiah’s trouser leg.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Charles leaned forward and patted at Josiah’s trousers ineffectually with his handkerchief.

“It’s fine.” Josiah pushed him away .

Noah’s eyes were glassy. He sat looking straight ahead for a few moments. Then, finally, he turned to look at Josiah.

“Why are you here, Mr Raine?” he asked quietly. “Why did you come here to tell us this?”

“Alex is in a bad way, mentally and physically. You might remember Neil Grant? You hired him to go to university with Alex.”

“How could I forget?” Noah said stonily. “Alex persuaded him to embezzle all that money.”

“I rather think it was the other way around,” Josiah said. “Tyler got to Neil, too. He paid him to persuade Alex to take the bait and steal the money.”

“But why?” Noah asked blankly. “I gave that young man every advantage. I paid for his education. Why would he do that to Alex?”

“Because he wanted to hurt him. They’d had an affair at university, but then Alex rejected him,” Josiah explained – and then, too late, he wondered just how much Noah knew about his son’s sexuality.

“Alex and Neil?” On a day of shocking revelations, this was perhaps mild by comparison, but Noah looked stunned all the same. Josiah remembered reading that he was a Floodite, so maybe this was a bigger deal to him than it might be to someone else.

“Did you know that Alex is bisexual?” he asked.

“George implied he was homosexual that time he came to my office, but I knew he’d been seeing that pretty girl, so I’m not sure I believed it.” Noah looked at Charles. “Did you know?”

“Well, yes. Alex told me and Mum years ago.”

Josiah winced. There was something tone deaf about Charles.

“Was my entire family keeping secrets from me all this time? First Isobel’s relationship with George, and now this!” Noah looked crushed rather than angry. “Am I such a monster that Alex couldn’t tell me himself?”

“Oh no,” Charles said hurriedly. “It’s just you are very involved with the Floodite church and they do have quite strong views on this kind of thing.”

“I was involved with the Floodites,” Noah said in a bitter tone. “But I haven’t been to church since Isobel died. My faith died with her. Not that you seem to have noticed. ”

“Oh! I did wonder, but I assumed it was because of your illness.” Charles leaned forward and patted his father’s arm gently. “Sorry, Pops. I didn’t like to pry.”

“You really had no idea about Neil and Alex?” Josiah asked.

“No. Like I said, Alex was seeing that young woman Charles just mentioned. Solange.”

“Neil had a crush on Alex long before you sent him to spy on your son at university,” Josiah explained. “Alex was using croc again, despite promising you that he wouldn’t after the accident. Neil blackmailed Alex into sleeping with him as a condition for not telling you about it.”

“What?” Noah looked as if this was one revelation too many.

“Neil continued to be obsessed with Alex,” Josiah continued.

“It was entirely one-sided – Alex didn’t even like him.

For years, Neil plotted to find a way for them to be together.

In desperation, he abducted Alex from my house recently, injuring him quite badly.

I was able to rescue him, but Neil died in the process.

Ever since that night – and if I’m honest, for some time before then – Alex has been struggling.

He’s been through a lot, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

That’s why I’m here: to ask you to visit him. ”

Finally, he’d said it. He hoped he’d laid the ground work well enough that Noah would at least consider it.

“No,” said Noah flatly without missing a beat, dashing those hopes instantly.

“That’s an old reaction, based on your past feelings,” Josiah said firmly. “Take some time to think about it. You have new information now.”

“No, I just can’t.” Noah shook his head vehemently.

“After all I’ve told you about how he was targeted? How you played your part in that by sending Neil with him to university to spy on him?”

Noah made no reply. He sat staring down at his hands, clasped rigidly in his lap.

“Come now, sir,” Josiah remonstrated. “You must understand that this information changes things. If you knew how brave Alex has been, how strong, holding out all this time in the hope of obtaining justice for Solange. If you understood how awful his life has been, then surely you’d forgive him.”

“There’s too much between us. I lost my company because of him. I lost everything because of him: Isobel, Lytton AV, my money. All gone, because of him.”

“I agree, you’ve lost a great deal, but you could still get something back.”

“What?” Noah frowned.

“Him!” Josiah exclaimed, feeling utterly exasperated. “Alex. You could get your son back.”

Noah gazed at him blankly, as if this wasn’t a prize he considered worth gaining.

Josiah struggled to keep control of his temper.

“Listen, Alex may be a grown man, but after all he’s been through, he needs his family,” he said urgently.

“Most of all, he needs his father . I was brought up in the Quarterlands, not a fancy house like this, and maybe we did things differently there, but I knew my father would always be there for me, no matter what. There’s nothing I could have done that would have stopped him.

He might have given me the sharp end of his tongue, but he’d have been there for me. ”

Noah’s face was flushed but there was a stubborn set to his mouth. “I can see what you think of me, but you can’t possibly understand what he’s put this family through.”

“And you don’t understand what he’s been through. He’s shut down, at a low ebb, and I’m worried about him. He’s survived so much, and I’m not sure how much more he can take. I didn’t even dare to tell him that I was coming here. I didn’t want to disappoint him if you said no.”