Free Never Go Back by Robert Goddard

me the benefit of, anyway. But he did ask me a strange question as I was leaving. Bloody strange. It’s been bugging me ever since. I can’t figure out what he was getting at.’
    Harry waited for Lloyd to continue, but there was only silence. For several long, slow seconds. Then Harry’s patience snapped. ‘And the question was?’
    ‘What?’ Lloyd jumped in his seat. ‘Oh, sorry. Of course. Yes. The question. Well, he asked me… how I could be sure Fission wasn’t on the train when it left Dundee.’

ELEVEN
    The strictly logical answer to Geddes’s question was that no-one could be sure. Chipchase had told Dangerfield he was flying to Manchester. But he could have travelled south by train instead and boarded the London to Aberdeen train at Dundee — or Edinburgh, come to that. Almost anything was possible. But where was Geddes’s speculation leading? He surely did not suspect Chipchase of murdering Askew. The very idea was absurd. Except that Geddes did not know Chipchase as well as Harry did, so perhaps the absurdity was not apparent to him. He reckoned he was onto something. Or someone. And the obvious candidate was the former proprietor of Chipchase Sheltered Holdings Ltd — long since in receivership.
    The true explanation for his old friend’s daylight flit from Aberdeen seemed clear to Harry. It was what Geddes had grudgingly suggested himself. Chipchase had persuaded Askew to invest in one of his dodgy enterprises, with predictable results he had no wish to discuss during the weekend at Kilveen Castle that had loomed ahead of him. Cue dead sister and grieving dash to Manchester. It was as simple as that.
    Ironically, as things turned out, he would never have had to discuss the matter with Askew. But Askew, of course, might not have been the only veteran of Operation Clean Sheet duped into trusting Chipchase with his money, which Harry could have told them from personal experience was an act of folly. It would be interesting to find out how many had fallen for the silver-tongued old rogue’s patter — assuming anyone was prepared to admit it.
    —«»—«»—«»—
    The clouds thinned as the afternoon turned towards evening. Mellow sunlight bathed the castle. A call from the reception desk alerted Harry to a change of venue for pre-dinner drinks. They were to be held on the roof. The upper reaches of the tower had been out of bounds to Professor Mac’s students during Operation Clean Sheet and the door leading to the roof permanently locked. This was actually their first chance to sample its panoramic views. Dangerfield, it was revealed, had planned that they should do so all along, on a ‘weather permitting’ basis. And the weather had happily permitted.
    —«»—«»—«»—
    Harry phoned Donna before leaving his room and came clean about Askew’s death. He presented it as a complete mystery, which it was, of course, while failing to mention the connection with Chipchase Sheltered Holdings Ltd. ‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ he explained lamely, only for her to retort, as well she might, ‘But now I’m worried about what else you mightn’t be telling me.’ He assured her there was nothing, by which he really meant nothing he judged she needed to know. A weekend of domestic normality was about to unfold in Vancouver. Daisy would be going back to school on Monday after the Easter break. Donna would be preparing to stretch her students’ minds at UBC. Fretting over what might be happening to him in Scotland would not be good for them. Accordingly, Harry struck a jaunty tone throughout the conversation — and hoped it was more convincing over a long-distance telephone line than it would have been face to face.
    —«»—«»—«»—
    He spent longer talking to Donna and Daisy than he had anticipated and was consequently the last to make it to the roof party. It was strange to have spent three months at Kilveen Castle without ever stepping out onto the flagged and balustraded