‘It was. I’d got it out of my system. I didn’t feel like I had to do any more to her. I didn’t follow her or anything. And then tonight . . .’
‘Tell us about tonight, Shane.’
‘She turned up again, didn’t she? Walked straight into my pub, my local boozer. Bold as brass. Like she was taunting me or something. I was in the bar, but I could see through into the lounge. She sat there with her bloke, eating and drinking and laughing, and I got madder and madder, and the more I drank, the worse it got. She had no right being there. Felt like she was taking the piss.’
‘So how did the fight start?’
‘She got up and came straight towards me. I thought she’d spotted me, but her eyes were all weird, like she was too bladdered to see straight. I watched her go up the stairs, and I should have gone home then, but I couldn’t. I was too angry. I went after her, and I saw that the door to the ladies’ toilet was open, and she was just standing there with her back to me, and there was nobody else around. Something snapped. I had to let her know that she couldn’t keep turning up on our doorstep and causing us grief. She needed to be taught a lesson.’
Shane sat back in his chair. ‘I know you’re going to lock me up for this, but I don’t care. That bitch took my mother away from me, and there’s nothing you can do to me that’s worse. I might be going to prison, but she’s going to hell for what she did.’
Hannah turned the volume down and stepped away from the monitor. She needed no further reminder of how she had ruined lives.
Scott sat in his car and polished off the second of the two cans of lager he had purchased from a twenty-four-hour supermarket on the way home.
He stared at Erskine Court. No signs of life in the lobby, but he didn’t really care. He wasn’t going to get into an argument with the youths. He couldn’t prove they’d mugged him. One of them probably had a scabby lip or a swollen cheek, but that wasn’t proof.
Besides, he had only himself to blame. It had always been a risky gamble. Even if the drugs deal had run as advertised and he’d made some extra cash, Ronan probably wouldn’t have let him off. He needed an accomplice, and he’d already decided it would be Scott Timpson.
There was no backing out now. If he didn’t try to get the money from Barrington Daley, Ronan would come after him and his family. If he did try, there was a good chance he would be killed, but at least Daniel and Gemma would be safe.
That’s all that matters, he thought. That’s what this has been about all along.
He climbed out of the car, entered the building and took the lift up to the top. Halfway up, he got the sudden impulse to press the button for the eighth floor. When it stopped there and the door opened, he stayed in the lift, staring at flat 801 opposite. Tomorrow, he would cross that threshold, and he might die for doing so.
The lift closed off the view and took him to a safer, more familiar set of numbers. As he entered his own flat, he tried to straighten up and look as though he hadn’t been run over by a bus.
Gemma was curled up on the sofa, drinking tea and watching an old film. As soon as she turned to him, he could tell that she saw through his deceit. He bent to kiss her, allowing the escape of alcohol fumes to add weight to his story, even though the simple act sent flashes of pain through his ribs.
‘Good time?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, it made a nice change. Been a while since me and Gavin had a pint.’
He came round to join her on the sofa, and could feel her eyes on him all the way.
‘What’s up with your leg?’ she asked.
‘I, er, I fell down some steps. I wasn’t even that drunk.’
‘You haven’t broken it, have you?’
‘No. Just a sprain, I think. Bashed my ribs a little, too.’
‘Bloody hell, Scott. You’ve only been gone for a couple of hours and you end up in this state.’
He smiled, shrugged. That hurt too.
‘So what did he say?’ she asked.
‘Who?’
‘Gavin.’
‘Nothing much. We talked about the footy, mostly.’
‘I meant what did he say about the money?’
‘Oh. Yeah. He was really good about it. Said he’s got plenty of work coming in if I want it. I’m starting tomorrow, in fact.’
‘Tomorrow? When tomorrow?’
‘I’ll stay at the garage a bit longer. Do a couple of extra hours. That’s okay, isn’t it?’
She stared for an uncomfortably long time. ‘Sure,’ she said flatly. ‘No time like the present, I suppose.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
She turned back to her film and sipped her tea and left him in a silence that was drowning him. He watched with her for a while, but the black-and-white images felt alien. They were pictures from a long time ago, infused with an innocence and morality that didn’t fit into the world he now knew.
After a few minutes he said, ‘I think I’ll turn in. Long day ahead tomorrow.’
‘Okay,’ she answered. ‘I’ll just watch the end of this.’
He smiled, kissed her on the cheek, tried not to show his suffering as he rose from the sofa.
In the bathroom, he decided on a shower rather than a bath. He stripped off slowly, each garment inducing its own particular form of pain. He looked at himself in the mirror, at the array of colours blemishing his body. He touched a particularly dark spot on his chest and winced, wondering if the rib might be broken.
He turned on the shower and climbed in. Stood still while the needles of heat massaged him with simultaneous pain and relief.
