‘We know you did. Funny how you forgot, seeing as it was only two days ago.’
‘I get a lot of calls. I forget most of them. Life is too short to keep shit in your head for long, you know what I mean?’
‘But now that it’s all come flooding back to you, what were these conversations with Joey about?’
‘Music.’
‘Music?’
‘Yeah, man. See, he wants to put a band together, and he was asking if I might be interested.’
Hannah noted Barrington’s use of the present tense. If he knew about Cobb’s demise, he was doing well at thinking on his feet.
‘A band? He was asking about forming a band?’
‘Yeah. See, he knows I can rap. Joey, he plays the drums, and he knows a couple of other guys who—’
‘Cut the crap, Barrington. What time did he come here?’
‘What?’
‘After the phone calls, what time did he visit you?’
‘Wait, did I say he came here? I do not think I said that.’
‘We know he was here, Barrington.’
She knew nothing of the sort. Joey was definitely in this building, but so far there was nothing to indicate he visited his prospective band member.
Barrington searched their faces. ‘He tell you that?’
‘What?’
‘Joey. He saying he was here Saturday?’
Hannah flicked her eyes towards Marcel. He arched his eyebrows in return. Barrington’s demeanour was very convincing. He seemed anxious to know if Joey had dropped him in it or was looking for an alibi. Either way, he appeared genuine.
‘Just answer the question,’ Marcel said.
‘Yeah. Okay, man, he was here.’
Hannah was glad to get to the truth, but its face was shown too easily. Barrington could have simply kept on denying it.
‘What time?’
‘Afternoon. Maybe three, round there.’
This chimed with what they knew about the taxi drop-off, which was logged in at ten past three.
‘What did he come here for?’
‘Nothing. We talked, we drank, we smoked, we played on the Xbox. That’s it.’
‘That’s it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Just two friends getting together for a catch-up.’
‘Yeah. That so hard to believe? Why don’t you ask Joey? He will say exactly the same thing.’
‘Then why did you lie to us about seeing him? If this was all so above board, why the secrecy?’
‘Because . . . because I know how it is. I know how you work, man. You hear about two people like us meeting up and you turn it into some kind of a conspiracy, like we’re a terrorist cell or something. Like we’re Obama bin Laden. That’s what you do. That’s what you always do.’
Hannah tried not to smile at the name corruption. She didn’t want to put Marcel off while he was in full flow.
‘You’ve got form, Barrington,’ Marcel said. ‘You’ve both got form.’
‘Yeah, and you ain’t never gonna let us forget that, right? Well, fuck you too, man.’
‘He called you from an unregistered phone. A burner phone. Just like yours. You don’t think we should be suspicious about that?’
‘Nah, man, I don’t. We got a right to talk without The Man listening to everything we say, don’t we? Why should you know where we go and what we do every damn minute of every day? Just because we took a few wrong steps in the past, that doesn’t mean we lose all our rights, does it? You know what I’m saying?’
‘Tell me more about Saturday. You hung out. What then?’
‘Nothing. He left. Simple as.’
