Finding Grace(58)

‘No. You’ve got it wrong.’ He sighs, and the corners of his mouth turn downwards. ‘Lucie, this is the last thing I wanted to explain to you now, in the middle of all our pain. I wanted to protect you from it as long as I could, especially with you being unwell.’

‘I’m not unwell, I’m just insane with worry!’ I yell at him, and then lower my voice before Dad or Fiona hears. ‘Why does everyone keep saying I’m not well? My daughter is missing… I’m losing the will to live, for God’s sake.’

I wait for a response but he just looks at me.

‘Look, if you’re trying to wriggle out of this by focusing on my weaknesses, it’s not working,’ I say curtly.

‘I don’t know how you’re going to handle what I’m about to tell you, Lucie, but you’ve got to promise me you won’t lose it. You can’t let this affect you, because you might not be able to recover.’

He closes the bedroom door behind him and walks towards me.

I’m scared now, but I won’t show him. What the hell could be so bad, if it’s not that he’s having an affair with my best friend? Nothing in this world can be worse than Grace being gone, anyway. Nothing.

Blake sits down on the bed and puts his head in his hands. When he looks up, his face is white and his voice is low. ‘OK, here goes. Your dad is in trouble, Luce.’

‘What?’ I sit down next to him. ‘What’s Dad got to do with you and Bev?’

‘He’s got himself into a mess. He’s been gambling, betting on the horses, the dogs, the outcome of football matches… you name it, he’s betting on it. He’s been doing it for months. He’s well and truly addicted.’

I shake my head. I knew Dad liked the odd flutter at the bookie’s, but he’s always been restrained, careful. He’s never had the money to be a high roller. And then it suddenly hits me. ‘Hang on, are you saying that cash in your office drawer is money that Dad’s won?’

Blake gives a sad laugh. ‘If only, but no. Far from it. That’s the problem: he hasn’t won for a long time, and if he did happen to get a win, by his own admission he’d just put it straight back on another bet.’

Now I’m puzzled. ‘But where has he got money from to gamble big amounts? Dad draws incapacity benefit. He can’t work, for goodness’ sake.’

Blake nods, his expression grave. ‘Now you’re starting to put the pieces together. He’s borrowed the money, Lucie.’

‘The bank gave him a loan?’ How irresponsible, lending money to a man who clearly can’t make the repayments. It serves them right if he defaults on it.

‘Not the bank, no. Loan sharks. Doorstep lenders. Your dad met some dodgy bloke in a pub his friend Bob knew, who offered him a small amount of money a few months ago. After that, Pete said he always seemed to be bumping into him and before long there was a ready supply of funds on offer. Serious money.’

‘How much are we talking about?’ I ask faintly.

‘He’s borrowed nearly twenty grand over a period of six months.’

I suck in air. Twenty grand!

‘Except loan sharks have their own unregulated rate of interest,’ Blake continues. ‘The debt has now soared to fifty grand, and if he doesn’t pay up in the next fourteen days, they’re demanding he sell his house.’

I can’t speak. I can’t process the horror of what my husband is telling me. Dad’s worsening respiratory problems, his weight loss, his depression… it’s all fitting together.

‘Obviously, at your dad’s age, with no income, he hasn’t got a hope in hell of getting any help from the usual sources. He came to me, Luce. He was too worried about how you’d react to involve you in it.’

‘But how… I mean, the cash in the drawer…’ I can’t even feel irritated at yet another accusation of me being flaky. I’m too distracted by this mammoth development.

‘Bev works in financial services, as you know.’ Blake looks exhausted. ‘She arranged a remortgage on Pete’s house to raise the money, but she said Mike would go absolutely crazy if he knew she’d got involved in something like this. It’s not illegal exactly, but let’s just say she bent the rules slightly to pull it off.’

My insides feel like they just turned to liquid.

Blake falls silent for a moment, as if he’s trying to find the right words.

‘Mike saw me go into Bev’s office building and, after she’d been acting so secretive, accused her of having an affair with me. So she had no choice but to tell him, and now Mike is totally pissed off at us both. I can’t blame him, but I knew it would kill Pete if he lost his house because of his own stupidity, and I knew it would finish you off too.’

Now I can see why there are such simmering tensions between the three of them. Why Blake tried to stop me going down to Bev and Mike’s house last night, in case it all kicked off, I suppose.

My eyes brim. ‘You and Bev did all this to help Dad?’

He nods. ‘I was due to pay the money over to the loan sharks this morning, but then Grace went missing and I’ve had to bail for a few days. They said if I got the police involved, they’d…’

‘They’d what?’

‘They’d burn Pete’s house down with him in it.’