She squeezed his hand. ‘At least nothing really happened between us,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t have worked, Nick. You can’t go back. We were kidding ourselves.’
‘Sure.’ He smiled ruefully and she went back to talking about her new job. Soon afterwards, he left. It was the dignified way to behave. The future was out of their hands. He couldn’t blame himself for the thing with Sarah going wrong. At least nothing really happened between us, she’d said, forgetting the kisses, the promises made prior to her passing out on election night. The absence of sex made it easier for Sarah to move on. Women were like that. For men, it was the other way round. If he’d made love to her one last time, it would be easier to put this behind him. The more time he’d spent with Sarah this last fortnight, the more he’d wanted her in bed. One night could, at the very least, have satisfied some of his curiosity about how it would be between them. As it was, he knew he would obsess about her for months.
36
When Nick got home on Sunday evening, he rang the Cane Cars office.
‘Has Ed Clark booked a cab to take him to the airport tomorrow?’
‘Yeah. Four-thirty a.m. pick-up to get him to Birmingham. Why?’
‘I need to do the job.’
‘Didn’t you get stopped by the police for driving without a permit?’ Nas asked.
‘I won’t charge him,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll use my sister-in-law’s car, rather than a cab. Just don’t give anyone else the job.’
‘What’s your game? You going to stop Ed having a holiday?’
‘I need a chat with him, that’s all. What’s the address?’
He cycled over to Joe’s, made an excuse and collected Caroline’s car. Then he went to bed and set the alarm. Impossible to sleep, but he mustn’t drink any more. He needed to be sharp when he picked up Ed.
Ed wasn’t leaving from Polly’s place. The address he’d given Nas was a road on the Bestwood Estate, where it was notoriously easy to get lost. Ed’s secret base turned out to be in one of the nicer parts of the estate, near the country park that sat incongruously at its edge. The semi had net curtains and a neat front garden. As Ed came out, with his bags, a sixtyish woman appeared at the door next to him. She kissed him on the lips and Ed hugged her. Only then did Ed turn and call out to Nick.
‘You going to help me wi’ these, then?’
It was dark and the streetlights were sparse. Ed didn’t recognise Nick until he got out of the car and opened the boot. Nick had been worried about this moment, but the presence of Ed’s mother removed all risk of violence.
‘Nice of you to get up early for me, Nicholas,’ Ed said, as he placed the first huge suitcase in the car. ‘T’other one’s too big for this boot. Reckon we’ll put it on the back seat.’
He joined Nick in the front of the car. Ed’s mother, in her dressing gown, waved the two men goodbye. Nick negotiated his way out of the estate. Ed grinned when they drove past Oxclose Lane police station.
‘Whose car is this?’
‘A friend’s.’
‘Didn’t want to risk being seen in a cab? You’re in trouble, a little bird tells me.’
‘I’m not in any trouble,’ Nick said.
‘Your girlfriend got you off, did she?’
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Nick said. ‘Just an old friend.’
‘You can’t be friends with a good-looking woman you’re not related to,’ Ed said. ‘Not without thinking about sticking it to her all the time.’
He was right, so Nick shut up. With the roads empty, the journey to the airport only took forty-five minutes, less if you didn’t stick to the speed limit. Nick didn’t want to spend that time talking about Ed’s philosophy of sex. He wanted to talk about murder. But it had to be Ed who brought the subject up.
‘What time’s your plane?’
‘Seven-thirty. Plenty of time for check-in.’
‘And you’re going to . . .?’
‘Far, far fucking away. The land of five-star fuck-and-suck with constant sunshine and warm seas on tap.’
‘Not taking Polly?’
Ed didn’t reply.
‘I suppose her and her kids would cramp your style.’
‘What the fuck is it to you?’ Ed asked. ‘You want her back?’
‘Why, have you finished with her?’
‘I won’t be using her for the next three weeks anyways. You offering to keep her in training for me?’
‘We were okay until you showed,’ Nick said, keeping his eye on the road ahead.
Ed laughed. ‘Look on your face, when you walked in on me and her. You had no idea, did you?’
‘Why should I? Did you think she’d have told me?’
‘Told you what? That she were kicking you into touch, or that she were fucking me before I got sent down the first time?’
This was the opening Nick needed to seize on, but his brain was slow at this time of the morning, whereas Ed seemed his usual self: bold, teasing, arrogant. He chose his words carefully.
‘What about when you got out the first time. Were you fucking her then, too?’
‘What do you think?’
‘The way Sarah tells it, you were arrested for the murders within two weeks. And wasn’t there a working girl in the story too? Doesn’t give you much time to see Polly.’
‘Her husband had gone by then, just her at home wi’ the two kids. She had all the time in the world for me.’
‘Was it then she told you Terry Shanks had been recording you?’
Ed turned to look at him but Nick kept his eyes on the road. ‘Where’d you hear that?’
‘Sarah. She said that was how you got caught.’
Ed was silent. Nick glanced round to see his reaction. Blank. He took a right turn at the roundabout by Nottingham University. The Derby Road was only a single carriageway, with the university on one side and Wollaton Park on the other, but it was wide enough for him to easily overtake a milk float.
‘I could tell you it all,’ Ed said as they bypassed Beeston.
‘Go on.’
‘But then, after we got to the airport, I’d have to kill you.’
Nick laughed unconvincingly. ‘It’s Polly I’m interested in,’ he said, ‘not getting you to confess what you did or didn’t do.’
‘Good thing,’ Ed said, ‘’cos I’ve got the money now, free and clear. And if you think I’m coming back to this shithole, you’ve got another thing coming. There’s enough in the kitty for me to start up again anywhere. Offshore account. No tax, high interest. What’ve you got to show for your five years inside?’
‘Fuck all. You mean it? You’re not coming back?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘You work for my brother.’
‘That’s not it. You want to get back together with Poll. I’ll bet she’s the best you ever had.’
Nick played along. ‘We seemed to be getting close, for a while.’
‘You don’t get close to Poll,’ Ed says. ‘She keeps it all in.’
For a moment, Ed seemed to have stopped boasting. Nick had to be careful not to force it. ‘I thought she needed me,’ he mumbled.
‘She pulled the old hard-done-by routine on you, did she?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Aye, me too. I was a real sucker for her. All that time inside, thinking about when I got out, knowing she were on her own, waiting. Then, when I go to see her, she’s not interested.’
‘What do you expect when she thought you’d killed her brother and sister-in-law?’ Nick said, taking the exit for Long Eaton and the M1.
‘I didn’t mean the second time,’ Ed muttered.
Nick considered what he was saying. Polly had given Ed the cold shoulder when he got out of prison after doing six months for theft. Was that a motive for murder? Ed killed Terry and Liv to get back at Polly? It didn’t add up.