He glanced at her.She was genuinely puzzled.
“Surely you must know why?”He smiled, but she gave him a blank look.“Because of you,” he said simply.“You seem so confident that your dad could not have been involved.And to tell you the truth, I’ve never stopped thinking about the case.Your dad’s death has been haunting me ever since I found out.”
She folded her hands and looked down.“The dad I knew was a caring, loving man.He wouldn’t knowingly have been dishonest—it was simply not part of his nature.”
“You were close?”
Dana nodded.“Very.He was my rock, my go-to person.If it hadn’t been for Caitlin and her mom, I don’t know how I would have coped after his death.”
“You and your mother don’t get along?”David asked then held his breath.Would she answer such a question?
She shrugged.“We’re just so different, and she struggles to cope with life.”She didn’t elaborate, but sadness filled her voice.
He couldn’t imagine another kind of mother than his own.Even though she had always worked as a chef, first for other people and then in her own restaurant, her children had always been, and still were, her priority in life.And as far as he was concerned, that was how mothers were supposed to operate—they handled things, they hugged, and they wiped tears.But it sounded like in Dana’s case she was the one having to do the hugging and the handling.
Taking her hand in his, they drove the last few kilometers in silence.
Chapter Nine
“Well, clearly thisguy hasn’t been able to get back on his feet,” Dana mumbled under her breath as David knocked on the front door of Toby Johnson’s house.
The small house was in obvious need of paint.The door opened a fraction, and a tired-looking older woman looked suspiciously around the door.
“I don’t want to buy anything,” she said crossly and started to close the door.
“We’re here to see Mr.Johnson.”David gave her one of his winning smiles.
The door stopped.Irritated, Dana rolled her eyes.It would appear, no matter what her age, no woman was immune to that killer smile.
“I phoned him earlier this morning, and he said he’d be home.”David smiled again, and this time the woman opened the door widely.
She nodded and showed them in.“Yes, sorry.He mentioned it.He’s in the sitting room, over there.”She pointed to a door across the entrance.
The house was dark and musty-smelling.
Uncomfortable, Dana glanced around.Here was no display of worldly goods as in the Jordan household.It looked as if they were struggling to make ends meet, but the dining-room table looked new.
A man was sitting close to the window in the small room, staring outside, coughing every now and then.
“These people have come to talk to you, Toby,” his wife said.
He turned his head toward them, still coughing.“Yes, you’re the journalist who talked to me two years ago, the one who phoned earlier this morning?”He shook David’s hand.
“Yes, thank you for seeing us,” David said.“This is Dana Roux.”
Dana stepped forward, and the man inhaled audibly.“Gareth Roux’s daughter?”he asked, clearly shaken.
“Yes, I am.”Dana sat down on a chair near him.She didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he sounded ill.
Still coughing, he smiled tiredly.“Have asthma, jail didn’t help, the medicine’s expensive.”He wheezed.
“We don’t want to take up too much of your time, Mr.Johnson, but I’m trying to find out to what degree my dad was involved in the Hastings’s scheme.”Dana said directly.This was no time for beating around the bush.
Another fit of coughing racked his body but he kept shaking his head.His wife handed him a glass of water, and he finally settled down.
“But your dad wasn’t involved.I never understood why he was taken into custody.We spoke two years ago, just before the story hit the newspapers.He heard about Hastings’s scheme from one of his clients and contacted me to find out whether I knew anything about it.He didn’t trust the high interest rates clients of the scheme spoke about and didn’t think it could be sustainable.Of course, I confirmed the high interest rate.What I didn’t know was that things were already going downhill—the article in the newspaper was the last straw.Investors stopped, there wasn’t any new money coming in, and the well dried up overnight.
“I was happy enough to earn the big commission and didn’t ask too many questions while it went well, stupid idiot that I was.Typical of these types of schemes, the initial payouts were enormous and investors were happy.But when no new clients brought in more money, we all realized what was going on.Hastings never invested the money in new buildings as the clients were promised, instead he used it to support his own lavish lifestyle.That is of course exactly the kind of thing that brings down a Ponzi scheme.”
