Blood, Wine and Chocolate Read online

  Dedication

  To Mike, Ann and the team at Destiny Bay on

  Waiheke Island for their help and guidance,

  to the brilliant Michael Ball for his humour and his

  love of New Zealand wine, and to my mum,

  who died on Christmas Day 2013, for being

  the best everything in the world.

  He did not wear his scarlet coat,

  For blood and wine are red,

  And blood and wine were on his hands

  When they found him with the dead …

  Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  PART ONE – THREE LITTLE BOYS

  1 Vinnie

  2 Marcus

  3 Tom

  4 Rack and Ruin

  5 Marcus Grows Up

  6 Tom Grows Up

  7 Vinnie Grows Up

  PART TWO – THE MIDDLE YEARS

  8 Marcus and Vinnie

  9 Millie

  10 Romance

  11 Anna

  12 Limbo

  13 Marriage

  PART THREE – BLOOD

  14 Down the Market

  15 David Kelt

  16 Pétrus

  17 DCI Ron Matthews

  18 Nicked

  19 Goodbyes

  20 Trial by Jury

  PART FOUR – WINE

  21 Mr and Mrs Darcy

  22 DS Donna Crawford

  23 Rocky Bay

  24 Herman D Granger

  25 Norman Lane

  26 Harvest

  27 Rumbled

  28 Reunion

  29 Showdown

  30 The Vat

  PART FIVE – CHOCOLATE

  31 Melissa Lane

  32 New Beginnings, Again

  33 Mercy and Crackpots

  34 Whakamaria Bay

  35 Millicent Morrison

  36 Mitchell Dawson

  37 A Testing Time

  38 Sabotage

  39 Misunderstanding

  40 The Jealousy Tango

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books by Julie Thomas

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  Whakamaria Bay, New Zealand, summer 2015

  It was a heart-stopping view.

  Michael Wilson looked at his first sentence. It was true, sometimes the view from his deck was glorious, and sometimes it was both glorious and distracting. It would be so easy to close the laptop, decide this project was not for him and go for a swim in the inviting surf that rolled onto the beach a few metres away. Or, better still, he could open a bottle of wine. However, the real reason he had stopped writing was because the term ‘heart-stopping’ was, perhaps, ill-advised, considering the fact that he had killed three men in the past three years. Not that they didn’t deserve it, but still … you could take irony too far.

  He had never written a book before and he wasn’t sure that he could. The plot was the simple part, so simple he didn’t even have to make it up. Truth was certainly stranger than fiction in this case: more murders than you could fire a gun at, two near-drownings, an apparent suicide, gang violence, bent coppers, lots of running away, gallons of wine and pounds of chocolate.

  Could he capture the emotion? Could he find the words to explain how much some of it had hurt? The fact that his victims had deserved to die, and that each one of the killings was in self-defence, felt ominously irrelevant. While he loved his wife dearly, he’d nearly broken her heart and lost her, and all because of his damn obsession with doing the ‘right thing’. Could you justify all this chaos by having done the right thing? Well, there was no way to find out other than by writing it down.

  He squared his considerable shoulders and began to tap at the keyboard again. The place to start was not with the view; it was at the beginning, when he was ten, when he had another name.

  PART ONE

  THREE LITTLE BOYS

  CHAPTER ONE

  VINNIE

  Vinnie’s first real lie was about the death of his father. In 1976, his mother had moved them to Hendon in north-west London and he had transferred to a posh public school. The uniform felt uncomfortable and slightly too small. He couldn’t wait to get home and rip it off. On his first day, a spotty kid called Alfie, with braces on his teeth and knuckles grazed from fighting, pushed him against a brick wall and demanded to know how his father had died. Vinnie paused as the options swirled through his ten-year-old brain. How could he impress them and become part of the gang? A group of five boys, all around the same age, were watching him closely.

  ‘Don’t you even know?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Bet he never had a bloody father,’ another said, looking him up and down with contempt.

  ‘Are you a bast–’

  ‘In a car,’ said Vinnie. ‘He died in a car crash. Some drunk in a Porsche hit him head-on. It wasn’t even Dad’s fault.’ Well, that was easy. Nothing fell from the sky and no loud voice branded him a liar. ‘We were awarded compensation and the man went to jail, lost his leg too. It was in the paper and everything. A picture of my mum and me.’

  Alfie stared into his face. Vinnie didn’t flicker; he gazed back defiantly.

  ‘You? In the paper?’ Alfie sounded suspicious.

  ‘Me. In the Daily Mail.’

  The arm went slack against his throat and his feet took his weight again.

  ‘Wanna join our gang?’

  So it became his stock answer. As long as his mother wasn’t around, he told people his father had died tragically in a car crash. The truth was somewhat more lurid.

  Bert Whitney-Ross, an accountant, had married Mary Crosby, his childhood sweetheart, in a registry office in 1958. After the service they took the two witnesses, Mary’s sister and Bert’s best friend, for a pint at the local pub. Bert and Mary had grown up as neighbours and had lost their homes and most of their families as children in the Blitz, so they were used to hard times and relying on each other. Marriage was a logical conclusion rather than a passionate explosion. Bert was fond of joking that marriage was an institution and that he had always suspected that, as orphans, they would end up in an institution. They began wedded bliss in a rented two-bedroom terrace flat in East London. Bert worked for Lawrence & Tizdall, a City accounting firm, and Mary was in the typing pool at the air ministry.

  After several years of trying for a child, Mary gave birth to Vincent Albert in June 1966. In later years Vinnie liked to say he was named after a Don McLean song, but the American Pie album wasn’t released until 1971. He was, in fact, named after Vincent Willem van Gogh, the Dutch post-impressionist painter who was the subject of McLean’s song. A print of van Gogh’s painting of irises hung in the kitchen and another, of an elderly man with his head in his hands, hung in his father’s study.

  Vinnie caught whooping cough as a baby and spent many weeks in hospital, with his desperate mother expressing breast milk and feeding it to him through an eyedropper. He survived, but the experience left his mother anxious and overprotective and him with a propensity for chest infections, so she was reluctant to let him play with other children.

  Mary was a brilliant seamstress, and after she gave up work she earned extra money by making clothes for the neighbourhood children. She had read to Vinnie from before he was born, and it was an easy step to teach him so he could read to her while she sewed. At weekends his parents took him to museums, art galleries and musical theatre in the West End. They discussed life with him on an adult level, and he learned that adults were amused when you said clever and funny things. If you
pleased them, they gave you a treat; if you annoyed them but made them laugh, they forgave you almost immediately. He was the centre of their universe and assumed that this was his proper place.

  School, therefore, came as a rude shock. The teachers had to divide their time among many, and seemed somewhat disconcerted by the witty comments of a five-year-old. He took after Bert and was stocky – ‘sturdy’ his mother called him – and if other children were intimidated by him, he used his humour to defuse the situation.

  Not long after the start of his school life he was surprised to be collected at the end of the day by his dad. He knew his mum was due to have a baby soon, and immediately assumed that he was, at last, an elder brother.

  He ran towards his father. ‘Daddy! Where’s Mummy? Do I have a sister or a brother?’

  His father bent down to talk to him at his height. He looked very serious and some other feeling that Vinnie couldn’t quite understand. ‘Mummy’s in hospital, Vinnie, and she’s sick. I’m going to take you to Aunt Sheila’s and she’s going to look after you for a couple of days –’

  ‘Has she had the baby yet?’ Vinnie demanded.

  His father shook his head and stood up. ‘Come on, son, we need to get you to your aunt’s.’

  Two days later he was taken to see his mum. She looked pale and she didn’t have that large bump in her tummy anymore.

  She hugged him very tight. ‘My darling Vinnie. Mummy’s brave boy,’ she said softly.

  He was puzzled. ‘Where’s my baby, Mummy?’

  She stroked his curls. ‘In heaven, with Jesus. We’re not going to have a baby sister or brother for you, Vinnie. But you’ll be Mummy’s special boy for her, won’t you?’

  He blinked against the tears and the intense disappointment. ‘Of course!’

  His father lifted him off the bed. ‘Mummy’s very tired and we need to let her sleep. It won’t be long before she’ll be home again and we’ll all be together.’

  Once home, Mary became withdrawn and quiet, and, when she was diagnosed with depression, Vinnie began a determined campaign to cheer her up. He adored dinosaurs and created elaborate stories for her around his favourite wooden models. He would set them up on a plastic sheet on the floor and tell her long tales of herds of Diplodocus, Triceratops and Stegosaurus, who were grazing on trees when they were set upon by gangs of Velociraptor, Allosaurus or his very favourite, Tyrannosaurus rex.

  ‘And you think that they’re all going to get eaten by the carnivores … but then –’ He carefully poured white vinegar on top of the baking soda and red food colouring in his volcano, and the pink foam flooded out. ‘– the volcano explodes!’

  He picked up little stones and let them fall through his fingers, knocking over the dinosaurs. ‘And a meteor shower rains down and kills them all off.’

  Mary clapped and smiled broadly at him. He picked up a stone and took aim at the last dinosaur standing.

  ‘I think I need to add palaeontologist to my career list, don’t you, Mummy?’

  ‘Absolutely. How many does that make?’ she asked.

  ‘Pilot, astronaut, rock star, chef and palaeontologist.’

  In 1972 Bert’s boss, Amos Lawrence, made some unwise investments at the racetrack with his clients’ trust funds, the miners’ strike hit the economy hard, and the company fell on difficult times. Decisions had to be made and, reluctantly, Amos decided he had to let Bert go. The next day the police arrived at the practice, and Bert realised he had ‘dodged a bullet’. While he was looking for another job, he did the books for Monty Joe, his darts partner at his local pub. Monty was a small-time fence with a pawn shop around the corner. He had two sets of accounts, and he paid Bert well to keep the transactions in one ledger hidden and to minimise his tax payments.

  The night that changed Bert’s life started like any other. He and Monty were drinking in the pub and playing darts.

  ‘How’s the job-hunting going, Bert?’

  Bert shrugged. ‘Had a couple of interviews, but people seem reluctant to take on new staff. Add to their wage packet. Thanks to you, it’s not urgent.’

  Monty snorted with disgust. ‘I blame the bloody Tories. Half a million more unemployed in two years and Heath’s too busy with his damn yachts and his orchestras to see what his policies are doing.’

  ‘Times are tough everywhere – my brother-in-law has been looking for six months.’

  ‘Ever heard of Tobias Lane?’

  Bert glanced sharply at Monty, but the other man was studiously grooming the flights on his darts.

  ‘No. Should I know the name?’ he asked.

  ‘Not necessarily. He’s a businessman and, like me, he needs a discreet accountant. You’re good at your job. He’s looking. I can recommend you, if you like.’

  A sudden sense of relief swept over Bert, and he smiled broadly. ‘That’d be most appreciated, Mont.’

  Vinnie’s memory of his first visit to the Lane home in Richmond was a vivid one. They drove around the corner and there it was, a three-storeyed, red-brick building, partially covered in ivy, surrounded by what seemed like a private park.

  ‘Wow! Look at that, Dad.’

  His father seemed very pleased with himself. ‘If we lived in a house like that, your mum would spend all day cleaning.’

  Vinnie laughed. ‘I’d get lost. If we lived in a house that big, I’d get very lost.’

  They were met at the front door by an elderly butler who saw them into the drawing room. The cavernous space was full of antique furniture, with oil paintings on the walls and a huge Turkish carpet on the polished wooden floor. Bert was examining an impressive bronze of a crouching tiger when Tobias Lane joined them, accompanied by his grandson.

  ‘Mr Whitney-Ross, delighted you could accept my invitation and that you brought your son.’

  Tobias Lane was well over six foot, with pale green eyes and black hair, greying at the temples, his prominent cheekbones giving his face a gaunt look.

  ‘Thank you for inviting us, Mr Lane.’

  The two men shook hands.

  ‘Vinnie, this is my grandson, Marcus. And Marcus, this is Vinnie Whitney-Ross.’

  Vinnie wasn’t quite sure what to do. The boy was taller and very skinny, with long arms and legs. Marcus smiled, so he smiled back, and when the hand was extended towards him, Vinnie shook it. What he wanted to say was that the immense oil painting over the fireplace was a very good likeness of Mr Lane, but instinct told him the man wasn’t used to children making comments.

  ‘Marcus, why don’t you take Vinnie to see Nanny, and then you can go and explore the grounds?’

  Vinnie looked at his father, who nodded his agreement.

  The stern nanny dressed Marcus in a woollen coat, scarf and leather gloves, as she lectured him about the nippy autumn cold and how he wasn’t to take these warm things off. In the corner of the nursery, a little girl with dark curly hair sat on a cushion and played with her teddy bear.

  Marcus pointed at her. ‘That’s Millie. She’s my baby sister.’

  Vinnie winked at her, and she held out the teddy towards him.

  ‘Bear,’ she said.

  ‘He’s lovely. What’s his name?’ Vinnie asked.

  She giggled. ‘Silly.’ She had a slight lisp.

  Marcus waited while Nanny finished with his gloves. ‘Yes, that’s right, Millie, his name is Silly Bear. I named him. Come on Vinnie, let’s go.’

  As soon as they were outside, Marcus ripped off the gloves and scarf and stuffed them in his pocket. They wandered down the lawn towards a wooden bridge that spanned the stream flowing into the lake. A group of black swans glided around the lake like a ballet on the water. Their intricate movements fascinated Vinnie, and he stopped to watch them. Marcus turned back to face him.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Six,’ Vinnie replied.

  ‘So when’s your birthday?’

  ‘June.’

  Marcus laughed, and Vinnie could see he was delighted.

&
nbsp; ‘Mine’s January. I’ll be seven five months before you are.’

  Marcus started walking and Vinnie followed him.

  ‘Have you ever played pooh sticks?’ Vinnie asked.

  Marcus looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘No. What’s that?’

  ‘We throw sticks into the water off the bridge, then run to the other side and see whose stick comes out first. It comes from Winnie the Pooh, the book by AA Milne. Want to try?’

  They had reached the bridge. Vinnie swept up a fat twig at his feet. Marcus hesitated, then ran back up the lawn out of sight. For a moment Vinnie didn’t know what to do, and then the other boy reappeared with a big dog turd skewered on the end of a stick.

  ‘Let’s see if this floats!’ Marcus yelled triumphantly as he threw both stick and turd off the edge of the bridge. Vinnie didn’t show how surprised and slightly repulsed he felt. They sprinted to the other side as the stick and turd, now separated, drifted past.

  Marcus punched the air with a clenched fist. ‘Yes! It floats. Let’s do it again.’

  He ran towards the shrub garden on the far side of the stream. Vinnie paused and then followed him. He was impressed by the boy’s confident manner, even if it wasn’t what he’d had in mind. When twilight came and it was too hard to see the dog turds in the garden or the twigs floating in the dark water, they chased each other up to the big kitchen.

  The cook was exactly what a cook in a house like this should be: plump and rosy-cheeked, wearing an apron and rolling pastry on a kitchen bench.

  ‘Hello, Cookie. This is my new friend, Vinnie,’ Marcus said as they burst through the door. She looked up and smiled at him.

  ‘Hello, Master Marcus. What have you been up to then?’

  Marcus looked at Vinnie, and they both giggled.

  ‘We’ve been playing pooh sticks on the bridge.’

  The cook was rolling with strong, rhythmical strokes, and Vinnie could see the muscles working in her bare forearms. ‘That sounds like fun. Like in the book Winnie the Pooh?’

  Vinnie nodded. ‘Like that.’

  ‘Not quite like that: we used dog poo.’ Marcus sounded gleeful.