Later, as they were leaving, Hayley pounced again. ‘So? Are we all going?’
‘What?’
‘God, Daniel, it was less than twenty minutes ago. The wedding fair.’
‘Oh. Didn’t you say you’re taking your mum?’
For a second he thought she might slap him. Instead she shook her head, a small vicious movement.
‘Forget it. All you care about is this ... this
dream
of owning a cafe.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s starting to feel like an excuse.’
She said it quietly, but there was no mistaking the challenge in her voice. A couple of colleagues were easing past; they offered bland farewells, but once outside there would be smirks, whispers, gossip.
‘I can’t talk about it now.’ He pushed through the exit. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Aren’t I giving you a lift home?’
‘Er ...’ He recalled his lie from this morning. ‘No, I have to pick up my car from Robbie’s.’
Hayley gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘I suppose I could take you over there.’
‘It’s the opposite direction for you.’
‘I don’t mind. It would give us a chance to talk.’
‘No, the bus is much easier. We may go for a quick drink. Non-alcoholic in my case,’ he added. Gave her a peck on the cheek and said, ‘Sorry. Got to run.’
****
The William IV was only moderately busy, with a small group of after-work drinkers at the bar. There was a TV mounted on the wall, but it wasn’t switched on. Probably for the best, Dan thought. He needed to forget about the news for the time being.
While he waited to be served, his stomach roiled with a kind of pre-performance nerves. On the bus he’d rehearsed various expressions, settling on one that he hoped would make him look appropriately concerned, but essentially innocent. He must have been unconsciously practising again, for one of the bar staff appeared from the back and gave him a curious glance.
He ordered a pint of lager, carried it to a vacant table at the back of the pub and nursed it for a good ten minutes till Robbie walked in, a stern look on his face. He got a pint for himself and joined Dan. No greeting as he pulled out a chair, just: ‘Bloody Cate.’
‘You dragged her into this mess.’
Robbie scowled. ‘How did she sound? Suspicious?’
‘No. She just wants to discuss this visit from the police.’
‘Can’t be too terrible. Nobody’s arrested us.’ He registered the look on Dan’s face. ‘You wanna tell her, don’t you?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Dan had been wrestling with that question for most of the day, and still wasn’t able to articulate how he felt. ‘She has a right to know, doesn’t she?’
‘Not really. And you won’t be doing her any favours. At the moment she’s innocent. She hasn’t had to lie to that cop, because she was genuinely unaware of the accident.’
‘But she
has
lied. That’s what I was getting at on the phone. She told him she didn’t know who we were.’
Robbie looked relieved to hear it. ‘Cool. That’s a minor detail. As long as they don’t suspect her for the accident, they’re not gonna push her on the two guys who came to her rescue ...’
You didn’t come to her rescue
, Dan thought. Robbie seemed to read his mind, flashed a grin and ploughed on.
‘Whereas, if we own up to it, and then the Old Bill come sniffing round again, she’s bound to give something away.’
Dan shrugged. But he could see Robbie’s point.
‘Like today,’ Robbie said. ‘She’ll have reacted with surprise, which is almost impossible to fake. The cops are trained to spot it. Do you wanna make things harder for her?’
‘No. Of course I don’t.’
Robbie leaned forwards, fixing him with a steady gaze. ‘The worst thing you can do now is blab. Do you see that?’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’
‘And you’ll keep your mouth shut? No cracking, even if she starts accusing us?’
Dan nodded, under duress, then caught sight of movement over Robbie’s shoulder. It was Cate, marching towards them.
Cate stepped over the threshold and looked round for Dan, hardly expecting Robbie to be present. She was surprised to see the pair of them sitting at the rear of the pub.
Something about their postures gave her the sense that they were conniving. Robbie had his back to her, but Dan glanced in her direction and quickly looked away.
As she reached the table, she exclaimed: ‘My God, you made it!’
Her brother turned, a lazy smile at the ready. ‘Anything for you, my darling sister.’
Dan, already blushing for some reason, was rising to his feet. ‘Drink?’
‘I’m okay, thanks.’
‘A short meeting, is it?’ Robbie said. ‘Good.’
‘Don’t get lippy. I want to know if the film company paid five thousand for using the house.’
‘I had expenses. I had to get it ready for them. Some of the furniture had to go into storage—’
‘Robbie, I agreed three thousand with Hank in good faith. It’s no wonder he got so upset.’ In frustration, she swatted him on the head. ‘It’ll be a long time before I forgive you.’
He winced, rubbing his scalp. ‘Yeah, yeah. So what’s the story now, then?’
Cate sat down next to Dan. There was plenty of room for them both, but he shifted an inch or two away from her nonetheless. He looked embarrassed by Robbie’s flippant tone.
‘Hank O’Brien was a horrible man,’ Cate said. ‘And when he left the pub last night, I dare say I’d have relished the idea of him being knocked down by a car.’
Robbie spluttered: ‘I hope you didn’t say that?’
‘No. But I didn’t hide how I felt, either.’ She rounded on her brother. ‘It’s obvious they’ll interview everyone who saw O’Brien in the pub. You don’t think it would look strange if I’d pretended Hank and I were best buddies?’
‘She’s right,’ Dan said, and Robbie, though he avoided her eye, seemed to agree.
‘This isn’t a joke, Robbie. And it didn’t feel very pleasant to come under suspicion.’
****
Now both men were staring at her. Dan said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘DS Thomsett wanted to look at my car. His colleague, DC Avery, made it clear that they’d be asking at the pub to see if anyone can corroborate that I was driving the Audi.’
‘They don’t seriously suspect you?’
‘Thomsett, not so much. Somebody in the other bar saw Hank taking a pee in the bushes before he set off for home, which would have been when I left. But, even so, Avery kept looking at me like I was a ... a worm on a hook.’ She shivered. ‘He reminded me that he could easily check the ownership records with the DVLA, as if I might have swapped cars overnight.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Dan said.
‘But imagine how it looks to them. Hank and I have a fight, and within ten or fifteen minutes he’s dead at the roadside.’
There was a glum silence; even Robbie seemed affected by it. Then he said, ‘You didn’t tell them the whole truth, though?’
‘About you two? No, I didn’t.’ Her tone was intended to leave him in no doubt as to the debt he owed her. ‘I said there were a couple of lads drinking nearby. They broke up the fight and sent Hank on his way.’
Robbie groaned. ‘So we’ll be the chief suspects?’
‘Well, how else was I supposed to describe it?’
‘It’s only what the other witnesses will say,’ Dan pointed out to him.
‘Did the cops want descriptions of us?’
Nodding, Cate said, ‘I was as vague as I could be. Whether anyone else remembers you more clearly ...’ She opened her hands, and in the pause that followed the voice that had been nagging at her all day finally asserted itself:
Ask them. You have to ask them
.
Cate swallowed. She looked from Dan to Robbie and said, ‘Please tell me the truth. Were you involved in what happened to O’Brien?’
****
It felt disloyal. She told herself that was why she’d been reluctant to ask the question. But the reality, Cate suspected, was somewhat darker. She was scared of the answer she might receive.
‘Involved?’ Robbie echoed, as though baffled by the concept.
‘Yes. I’m asking whether you knocked him down.’
Robbie’s gaze shifted to Dan, who opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. There was a brief, wallowing silence. Cate experienced a twinge of shame.
‘I wouldn’t normally go flinging accusations, but it’s not unreasonable, is it? We were all pretty worked up after the fight, and you’d been drinking, Robbie.’ She hesitated. ‘In fact, I wondered if you’d persuaded Dan to let you drive ...’
‘So you thought I did it? Well, thanks a lot, sis. The answer is no, I didn’t. All right?’
Dan was nodding in confirmation. ‘I’d never have let him get behind the wheel. It was me who drove home last night. And I didn’t kill O’Brien.’
Chastened by the emotion in his voice, she said, ‘And neither of you saw anything? You didn’t pass him on the road?’
Robbie drained his pint and gave her a gloating smile. ‘We may have done. But if he was lying in the ditch, we wouldn’t have known, would we?’
‘You’re a heartless bastard.’
‘Hank was a twat. I’m not gonna mourn him.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We done now? Interrogation over?’
****
Before she could reply, Dan said, ‘These detectives, did they say how likely it is that they’ll find whoever did it?’
Cate shrugged, recalling how her initial reaction to DS Thomsett had been soured by the presence of his colleague. ‘There’s no CCTV in the area. They mentioned something about looking for traces of paint on Hank’s body. From the car.’
‘Half of that CSI stuff is bollocks,’ Robbie said cheerfully. ‘You can’t identify a car from a few flakes of paint.’
‘If you say so. But both of them struck me as bright, and dedicated, and Avery is one of those cops who can make you feel guilty even if you’re pure as the driven snow.’ She eyed Robbie. ‘So we’d better hope the other witnesses can’t describe you too clearly.’
‘No reason why they’re gonna trace me – as long as you stick to your story.’
‘Actually, no. If they decide to gather some background info on the deal with Hank, they’ll be off to Compton’s to speak to you.’
‘You really think they’d be that thorough?’
‘I do. And there was something else. An odd reaction when I told them about the money.’
Dan leaned forward. ‘Odd in what way?’
‘Just ... they really pounced on it. Wanted to know exactly how much was there, in what denominations. What size and colour was the envelope? Did I recall which pocket Hank put it into?’ She gave another shiver. ‘It was as if they didn’t know anything about it.’
The shock was so great that Dan couldn’t stop himself from reacting, but he managed to turn his exclamation into a cough. While Cate give him a quizzical look, Robbie filled the silence with a single word: ‘Weird.’
A quick warning glance at Dan, then he added, ‘Maybe it fell out of his pocket when he was hit.’
Cate nodded. ‘That’s what I wondered.’
‘But they’d have searched the whole area, wouldn’t they?’ Dan knew he shouldn’t be inviting speculation, but there was a spark of fury burning inside him and he wasn’t about to extinguish it yet.
‘Not necessarily. If the car hit him at high speed, the envelope might have gone flying. It could be lying in the middle of a field right now.’
Robbie even gave a wistful little sigh. Perhaps Cate was fooled by it, but Dan wasn’t.
He said, ‘Either that, or he was robbed.’
‘You mean, after he was dead?’ Cate was aghast. ‘I suppose, if the driver got out to see what he’d hit, and then spotted the money ...’
Dan nodded. ‘Not only killed him, but stole from a corpse.’
‘Disgusting. To think there are people who’d stoop so low—’
‘Isn’t this getting a bit morbid?’ Robbie cut in. ‘Like I say, the cash is probably still there. I’ve a good mind to go and look for it.’
Cate gasped. ‘Don’t be so silly. Anyway, I expect DS Thomsett has organised a thorough search.’
Another pensive silence. Dan glared at Robbie, who avoided his eye. Cate picked up her bag and slipped it over her shoulder. ‘Well, I’ve said my piece. I’ll leave you two to enjoy the rest of your evening.’
‘Thanks for letting us know about this.’ Dan rose alongside her. Because of their proximity it seemed possible that they would kiss goodbye, but after leaning forward he hesitated, unsure if it was appropriate. Cate sensed the movement and turned, so Dan had no choice but to plant a clumsy kiss on her cheek. He sat down, red-faced, Robbie sniggering as Cate stepped past him.
‘Don’t kiss me!’ he cried.
She gave him a slap. ‘Your first task is to tile my bathroom.’
His muttered response was unclear, but sounded like: ‘Fuck that for a laugh.’
‘Oh, you’re doing it – or I’ll fill Mum in on last night’s escapade, and perhaps a few more things besides. Understood?’
Robbie glowered. ‘Yeah, well, give me a shout when you’ve bought the tiles.’
****
The pub was busier now. Dan watched Cate weaving her way through a group of men in suits clustered around the side door. She attracted several admiring glances but appeared not to notice.
For ten seconds he said nothing. This was Robbie’s chance to come clean, but he went on staring at the table, not a trace of shame or guilt on his face.
‘You took it, didn’t you?’
‘Come on, Dan. What was I supposed to do?’
‘Leave it there!’ Dan didn’t intend to shout. A couple of people looked round. He continued in a harsh whisper: ‘Leave it for the police to find, so that Cate’s story held up.’
‘It was the heat of the moment. I couldn’t just leave it there for some lucky bastard to take. You don’t think one of the cops wouldn’t help themselves?’
‘No, I don’t. Most people are honest.’
A growl from Robbie, as though he couldn’t be bothered to debate the point. ‘That fucking Hank. If he hadn’t texted Cate, the cops would never have found her. I still don’t see why she had to tell them about the deal.’