Dee Sloane didn’t answer the question. ‘I think it’s time for you to leave.’
Once again Jessie ignored her. ‘D’you think Stuart Sloane knew Jeff Hibbert?’
‘I … don’t know. Probably not.’
‘D’you think Stuart Sloane killed Jeff Hibbert?’
‘No. I don’t. I don’t know.’ She stood up. ‘Now please leave. If you have any more questions or accusations to make, you should do so through my solicitor.’
Jessie frowned, her voice dripping reason. ‘Accusations, Ms Sloane? What have we accused you of?’
‘Just … ’ Dee pointed to the door. ‘Just … please leave. Now.’
Jessie and Deepak rose, made their way to the door. Once there, Jessie turned. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘one more thing. Do you or your brother know someone called Marina Esposito?’
Dee looked taken aback. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard of her.’
Jessie and Deepak were shown out.
They waited until they were past the gates before they started talking.
‘Very well handled, ma’am.’
‘Thank you, Deepak. I told you, watch and learn.’
‘Incisive,’ he said. ‘You’ll get a job on Loose Women yet.’
‘Thanks, smartarse.’
But Deepak wasn’t finished. ‘And “one more thing”? Are you channelling Columbo now?’
She smiled. ‘Always worked for him.’ They kept walking back to the car. ‘So what did you think? Impressions.’
Deepak frowned. ‘Didn’t like her. Can’t say why. Just … something about her I didn’t like.’
‘Strange. I felt the same way. Must be a chemical thing.’
‘Or she’s guilty of something.’
‘There could be that.’
They reached the car. Before they got in, Deepak spoke to Jessie over the roof. ‘That last question? The one about Marina Esposito?’
‘What about it?’
‘Only truthful answer she gave.’
Jessie smiled. ‘My thoughts exactly.’
They got in the car, drove away.
65
Eileen Brennan looked at her son’s face. They had removed the tape from his eyes. That was something, she thought. A gesture to be hopeful about.
She was holding his hand once more, clasping it with both hers, frightened it would be taken away from her. And talking. Incessantly. Telling him all the things she hadn’t been able to say to him when he had been around, all the things she had kept inside, decided not to share, thinking there would be another time to do so, a later time, a better time. But the events of the last couple of days had changed her.
‘And … and I’m telling you all this because … ’ A sigh. ‘Because. Because I should say them to you. Before it’s too late. There were things I wanted to say to Don, should have said to Don … ’ She drifted, her eyes watery glass. ‘And now, now I never will … ’ Another sigh. ‘So … there is no better time. There is no time. There’s only now … ’
She kept talking, kept clasping his hand. Telling him about her husband. His father. Don.
‘I met him by chance, you know. And I didn’t like him. Not at first. I didn’t like policemen, see. I was a social worker then, properly political, militant you’d probably say now. We thought they were the enemy. And they could be at times. But not all the time. And not all of them. I thought he was at first. All cocky, Jack Regan, throwing his weight around.’ She laughed, eyes no longer in the room. ‘He said he was just doing it to impress me. Told me that years later. Thought it would be the kind of thing I’d go for. Didn’t know me at all well … ’
She drifted off. Lost in memories. Came back again.
‘Kept asking me out. Eventually I said yes, just to shut him up. And he was different. To what he had been, to the others too. Softer, gentler. Talked about his work, about the things he’d seen. Some of the problem families he’d dealt with, the things he wished he’d been able to do but couldn’t. To put things right. I liked him … ’
She smiled at the memory, clung to it, instead of facing the present.
‘And then we … ’
Phil’s eyes moved. Eileen missed it.
‘We started to see each other regularly. And I knew. He was the one. The one for me … ’
Phil’s eyes moved again. Flickered back and forth beneath his eyelids.
This time Eileen noticed.
‘No … no … ’
She looked round to see if there was a nurse in sight. Not a seizure, an attack. She couldn’t bear that.
His eyes kept moving. His body moved too. Shoulders lifting up, dropping, as if he didn’t have the energy to move fully.
‘Phil … ’ Eileen didn’t know what to do. She held on to his hand. ‘No, don’t … don’t go, I’ve got so much more to say to you … ’
Then his eyes opened. Fully.
Eileen stared.
‘Phil?’
She watched as they focused, flinched from the light in the room, closed again.
‘Phil?’
And opened once more. Slowly this time, cautiously.
‘Phil?’
He saw her now. Smiled.
‘Phil … ’
The tears sprang from Eileen’s eyes, ran down her cheeks. A nearby nurse hurried in.
But Eileen didn’t notice.
She had her son back.
66
‘So you could handle them, could you? That’s right, is it?’ Dee sat on the sofa. Unmoving. Stared as Michael paced the floor before her. Stared hard.
‘Just police, you said. “Nothing to worry about. Wrap them round my little finger.”’ He waggled his own finger to emphasise the point. ‘Well you couldn’t. They outsmarted you. I told you to say nothing, let Nickoll handle it, get the solicitor to run interference, but you knew best. Now look at it … ’
He walked away from her.
She stared after him, eyes like laser beams boring into him, pulling him back. ‘I was trying to clear up your mess, Michael. That’s all I was doing. The mess you made. The mess you deliberately made.’
He turned back, stood over her. Most people would have felt intimidated, would have backed down. But Dee wasn’t most people. She stared up at him, unblinking. ‘The mess you made. Leaving the car in front of the cottage. Letting it get burnt out.’
‘Precisely. I didn’t have time to move it, so I did the next best thing. Left it to burn.’
‘But it didn’t burn enough, did it? They traced it back here. They may even find some DNA in it.’
Michael shrugged, attempting nonchalance. Failed in his attempt. ‘So? Of course there’s my DNA in the car. I drive it. Yours’ll be in there too, probably.’ He tried to lighten his voice once more. ‘Nickoll’ll tie them up. We pay that fat fuck enough, let him earn his money for once. Keep them off our backs.’ He stared at her. ‘Like we should have done earlier today.’
Dee ignored his response, kept staring up at him. ‘And the false name and address? Stuart Milton? At Hibbert’s address? Couldn’t you have just drawn them a map?’ She fixed him with a cold, unblinking stare. ‘They’ll find you, Michael. They’ll come for you. And then what?’
He opened his mouth, retort at the ready, but snapped his lips closed once more, biting it back. Instead he sat down on the sofa opposite. Leaned forward, hands clasped together.
‘You know what you are, Michael?’
‘Do tell, Dee.’
‘You’re like some celebrity who’s got it all but still isn’t satisfied, that’s what you’re like. You’ve got everything but it’s too easy. And you’re bored. Now you’ve got to mess it all up.’
He sighed, ran his hand through his hair.