Race (10 page)

TWO DAYS LATER ...

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

ARRIVAL

"What is the status of the flight arriving from Cape Town?" Chantelle asked down the phone line. She sat down with Ronan. "Thank you," she finished, and dialled off the phone, and turned to Ronan. "Noah's flight has arrived."

Ronan grinned. "The countdown begins."

Noah and Alice drove out of the airport and back to Alice's house. Noah stopped the car when they arrived.

Alice smiled at him. "These two days that I've spent in Cape Town with you, are two days that I will never forget." She paused as Noah smiled at her. "They were the most wonderful days of my life," she said softly.

Noah gave her a warm smile. "Same here."

"Bye," Alice smiled widely, getting her handbag, and departed from the car.

"Bye," Noah replied, nodding, and just as he was about to rev up the car again and make his way back to the stud farm, his phone began to ring. He looked at the phone and the picture and saw that it was Ronan who was ringing him. Noah grinned to himself, and then looked at his watch. "Very punctual," he muttered. Sighing heavily, he answered the phone, trying to put as much enthusiasm as he could into his voice. "Hello brother!"

"NOAH, YOU BASTARD! THE AFFAIR THAT CHANTELLE'S HAVING IS WITH YOU! I'VE FOUND OUT EVERYTHING, IT WAS YOU, YOU COCKROACH!" Ronan was yelling dramatically, trying to find the foulest words to shout down the line but got stuck with the word cockroach.

Noah laughed to himself. "Listen, Ronan, what you're thinking is nothing to do with anything. I can explain everything. Where are you?"

"ON THE OFFICE TERRACE, YOU RAT!" Ronan bellowed. This was yet another terrible word he'd used, the word rat, when he could have said an awful swear word.  Chantelle walked over to him, giving him a drink of alcohol. "I'M GONNA COMMIT SUICIDE!" Ronan continued to say down the line.

"Don't do anything like that. Ronan. You've got it all wrong," Noah sighed.

"OH, SHUT UP! I HAVEN'T GOT IT WRONG! CHANTELLE TOLD ME THIS HERSELF!" Ronan said cleverly.

"Why are you saying this? Chantelle's your wife! She loves you a lot!" Noah confided. Even Noah was struggling with how to compose his responses.

"DON'T YOU HAVE ANY SHAME? YOU SLEPT WITH YOUR BROTHER'S WIFE!" Ronan roared, and then saw Noah's car approaching the office building. Ronan signalled to Chantelle to leave. Then, he continued to speak down the line. "I COULDN'T EVEN THINK THAT YOU WOULD BETRAY ME LIKE THIS!"

"Look, stop all this crazy nonsense. You stay there. I'm coming right now." Noah yawned. Chantelle had explained how everything was going to happen, so it was very predictable as to what Ronan was going to say.

Ronan sat down on the edge. "THERE'S NO NEED TO COME HERE! WHAT EXPLANATION WILL YOU GIVE ME? THAT IT WAS A MISTAKEN AFFAIR? DON'T SYMPATHIZE WITH ME, NOAH! THE PERSON WHO'S BEEN BETRAYING ME IS YOU, MY OWN BROTHER!"

"No, Ronan, that's not true!" Noah was getting tired of this drama now. He parked the car, and began rushing through the endless lifts and stairs to try and get to the rooftop as fast as he could.

"YOU CHEATED ME! YOU BACK STABBED ME! AND NOW, I'VE GOT NOTHING LEFT TO LIVE FOR!" Ronan said fiercely.

Noah arrived on the office terrace, and walked up to Ronan. "Listen to me, Ronan. I know I've made a mistake."

"A mistake?" Ronan repeated. "Sleeping with your younger brother's wife, is something that you find as just a little mistake?" Ronan's face looked as if it were fit to burst.

Noah sat down on the ledge with him purposefully. Everything was going according to plan. "Listen to me, Ronan. ..."

"What should I listen to?" Ronan said bitterly. "You only told me that she was a really good friend of yours.  If you liked her so much then you should have just told me, Noah! I wouldn't have married her!"

"First off, you get off this ledge. Then, I'll explain everything to you." Noah was getting incredibly frustrated.

The two brothers continued to argue, and that's when Chantelle arrived through the door that led to the open office terrace. She walked slowly but surely, wearing a very revealing green minidress and silver high heels, her dark hair blowing in the wind. Noah saw her from the corner of his eye, and nodded at her, all a part of his plan.

Chantelle pushed Noah, hard, across the ledge. Noah toppled backwards, struggling, holding on to the ledge with just his fingertips. He made a dramatic scene, trying to climb back on, but was finding it too hard to grasp.

"I still love you, Noah," Chantelle said in a seductive way, although her voice was edging with a bitchy tone. "But twenty million dollars is a lot of money. I'm sorry."

Ronan's face filled with delight, a disgusting smirk plastered on it. "I guess this is where we say goodbye, Noah." He gave a devilish grin to his brother.

Noah couldn't hold on anymore, his hands slipped away from the ledge and all that could be heard now was a massive smash and shattering of glass as he had fell from so many storeys of the building. Everything came in a huge rush. The pavement below them was filled with a huge, dark pool of blood. Next, there were the loud sounds of sirens wailing, as the police made their way to the crime scene.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CRIME SCENE

Then, one police car arrived, and an irresistibly beautiful lady walked out, dressed in a mini dress. Her name was Mini - she was Inspector Harry Rodgers assistant. She did a huge lot of office work, but didn't understand a single thing that came from Harry's mouth as she was so brainless.

The next person that stepped out of the car was Inspector Harry Rodgers, a sharp tongued detective. He was constantly eating wherever he went. He threw an apple in the air and caught it back in his hands, beckoning to Mini and taking a bite out of it. "Now comes the fun," he murmured.

"Welcome, sir, welcome!" exclaimed a jolly policeman, Ted. "We've been waiting especially for you two to arrive."

"Are you inviting me here as if it's a wedding or do you actually want me to do something?" Harry remarked, his voice like venom.

"No, Sir, we were just one hundred percent sure that this was the case for you," said Ted.

"Hmmm ..." Harry said vaguely. "First things first, you tell me..."

"Yes, sir?" Ted asked.

"Where's my pie?" Harry did not mean this as a joke.

Mini laughed in appreciation, clicking away on her phone with her long, manicured nails.

"Pie, sir?" Ted repeated, slightly confused.

"Yes, you promised you would bring me some pie." Harry reminded him.

"I forgot, sir," Ted said.

"You're so useless! If you don't remember things, how are you going to get any promotion?" Harry scolded. He hated it when people forgot to give him his food. "You've completely ruined my mood!"

Then, he saw Noah with a sheet on top of him, being carried away into an ambulance truck. "How big was this guy's fall?" he asked.

"Twenty storeys, Sir," Ted said matter of factly.

"Goddammit.  People want to go to the moon, other people try and go all the way back down. Idiots." Harry shook his head in pity.

"Sir, this wasn't a suicide. It was an accident, Sir," Ted explained.

"Who was there?" Harry quizzed him.

"His brother and his brother's wife." Ted stated.

"So were they just casually waving goodbye to him whilst they witnessed his crash?!" Harry mocked. trying to imagine them doing so.

"They're still on the top floor, Sir," Ted told them.

"Idiots," Harry repeated. "Come on, Mini. We'll go and ask them two fellas about it." He paused. "Maybe they'll have some pies for me, too."

Mini laughed again. "Come on then, Sir," she giggled, and they walked into the Stallion's office headquarters.

They walked into the main room, where Ronan was sobbing to his heart's content, and Chantelle had her arms wrapped around him.

"Sir, this is Mr Ronan and his wife, Mrs Chantelle," said the policeman, who was standing with them.

"OK, thanks, Sir," Harry nodded vaguely, and the policeman nodded back and walked away. Harry sat down on the sofa, casually taking his jacket off. "Hi, I'm Harry. Harry Rodgers. I'm the investigating officer for this case and this is my assistant, Mini."  He watched them both imperiously. "There's some questions I need to ask you both."

Ronan dabbed at his eyes with tissue. "Yes, go on," Ronan mumbled tearfully.

"Can you tell me how this accident happened?" Harry asked, going straight into the details with no nonsense or sympathy.

"This wasn't an accident," Ronan sobbed. "I hit my brother." He cried harder. "This is all my fault." Chantelle held on to him tightly in sympathy.

"Relax, Mr Ronan, relax," Harry said hotly, handing Ronan a glass of water so that he could cool himself down..

"Yeah, relax," Chantelle whispered to him.

"Thank you," Ronan said in a muffled tone, taking the glass of water from Harry. "Will you have it?" he asked Chantelle, his face now drenched with tears.

"No, you have it," Chantelle replied reassuringly, so Ronan took it back.

"It should be me who's saying thank you because you've admitted to your mistake so quickly," Harry stated, and then Ronan spluttered, the water from his mouth spraying everywhere: the floor, the furniture and even on Harry's leg. Ronan covered his mouth with tissue and did his best to dry himself up, all though he still couldn't get over what Harry had just said.

Chantelle's eyes glistened with tears as she pat Ronan's back. "Officer, my husband didn't mean it like that. Actually ... he's an alcoholic. And because his brother died, he's admitting to his addiction. It
was
an accident."

Mini stared at them, her face filled with sympathy. "Sir, if his wife wasn't here now, then he would have passed out or something, wouldn't he have?" she murmured.

"Absolutely right. He's safe because of his wife," Harry agreed, nodding. "I mean, some people die because of their wives." Chantelle raised an eyebrow, and Harry turned to Ronan again. "Listen, Mr Ronan, if you believe that your brother's fall was an accident, then what has it got to do with drinking?" he asked, intrigued at the topic of drinking. Harry himself had never drank alcohol in his life - mainly because of the fact that he spent nearly all of his time eating.

"Because of my bad habit, Noah's had big losses in business," Ronan explained. "We had to sell on our ranch house, and he even went to Cape Town to sell a property off to an estate agent. In all this pressure, I drank even more. I thought that I was the person who caused all of the problems, so that's why I felt like committing suicide ..." He broke off his sentence with another sob.

Mini continued to tap away notes on her phone. Chantelle made an act of comforting Ronan.

"In the last minute ... in the last minute ... Noah came to save me ... but then he lost his balance ... he lost his balance ..." Ronan created another string of incomplete sentences. "T - t - that's w - w - when h - h - he f - f - fell d - d - d - d - d - d -" It looked like Ronan would not be able to say the word 'down', so Harry provided the sentence for him.

"And then he fell down the building," Harry provided, and Ronan nodded.

"Sir,"  Mini piped up, "the person who was meant to die, didn't die, and the person who came to save him, did?  Isn't that, well, you know, strange?"

"Mini, how many times have I told you not to talk about the investigation in front of strangers!" Harry hissed. Mini sighed. "We speak alone. For goodness sake, he's just lost his brother, and by saying these things you're breaking his heart even more."