Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(117)

‘So Nate could have been anyone really? He was just your passport to a normal life.’

She doesn’t look offended by the suggestion. ‘You could put it like that, I suppose. He had a young child so it was certainly a passport to a readymade nuclear family. Leo. Amber. One boy. One girl. It was perfect. And I think I did love him, in a way. I liked that he’d been brought up well. He knew all the best restaurants, all the best schools, where to ski, what wine to pair with what meal. He was part of the scene that I wanted to be part of so I made myself love him. But it turns out he wanted to be part of my Dad’s scene even more.’

‘Not so respectable.’

‘He was corruptible.’ Her eyes bore into mine. ‘Most people are, given the right set of circumstances.’

There’s no way Gina Hicks knows anything about me or Dad – how could she? – and yet her words sound heavy and loaded.

She carries on, chin propped on one hand. ‘I recognised Nate’s greed the first time I met him, but that was good, I knew it meant he’d accept who my dad was, where I’d come from.’

I nod. ‘Nate fronts some of your dad’s businesses, we know that.’

She doesn’t argue. ‘I was OK with that. Listen, I said I wanted more of a normal life, not that I wanted to completely disown my previous one.’ She shrugs again. ‘Whatever Dad and Nate got up to was fine with me, I just didn’t want to hear about it. And then when Dad fled the UK, it got easier anyway. We were happy. Things were good.’

‘Until Maryanne came back, asking about her baby.’

Her voice is hot. ‘Until my Dad came back and got his claws into Leo. Filling his head with all this talk of succession, about taking over the family business. And Leo idolises him, that’s the worst part! Thinks he’s this great big legend and wants to be just like him. He’d do anything to impress him. It kills me to watch.’

I try a theory out for size. It’s been bubbling and forming since two a.m. this morning.

‘Was Leo at the house, Gina? Did he see you push Maryanne? Is that why you wanted him out of the country, to keep him out of all of this?’

She sits up, says nothing for a while. There isn’t a sound in the room but I wait out the silence, determined she’ll break first.

She does after a huge sigh.

‘Not bad, but not a hundred per cent. He wasn’t there at the time. He didn’t see what happened. He came home shortly afterwards, though, while I was waiting for Dad. He wasn’t supposed to, he was supposed to be at rugby practice but it was raining and he was already getting over a nasty cough. He had the Vienna performance to think of.’

‘And he saw Maryanne.’

‘She saw him, that was the problem.’ She pauses, rolls her eyes. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, do you honestly think Leo had any idea who she was? He’s a teenage boy, Detective. He doesn’t register anyone unless they’re half-naked or carrying some sort of sports equipment. But she knew though. She knew straight away.’ Her face sours. ‘Touching, isn’t it?’

I picture Leo Hicks walking into that house. His hair blackened a shade darker by the rain, the sculpted spikes dampening into curls. And those tell-tale blue eyes staring straight into the eyes of the woman on the floor. The woman who gave birth to him.

Of course Maryanne knew and it was the reason she had to die.

If Gina didn’t have the balls to do it, daddy dearest would, and she knew this. She as good as killed Maryanne when she called Patrick Mackie, asking for his help.

‘I tried to do everything right by Leo. He was my perfect boy. Private school, extra-curricular everything, educational holidays, piano lessons.’ Even now, she can’t help but puff up with pride. ‘He’s so incredibly gifted, you know? He sat grade eight on his sixteenth birthday.’

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say so I say nothing. I feel a quiver of something though. Things quickly falling into place.

‘And it was all fine until my dad came back.’ She looks straight at me, defiant. ‘You have no idea how it feels to be scared of your father.’ I blink away something. A laugh? A tear? ‘To feel like he defines you and that no matter what you do and how hard you try, you’ll never escape what he is. That maybe you’re as bad as he is, deep down? I didn’t want that for Leo. I had to get him away, out of the country, away from my dad’s poison.’

I don’t have the heart to tell her I think it’s too late. That Leo is no longer Maryanne’s baby or her perfect boy.

Leo Hicks is Patrick Mackie’s boy now.

He was the second he helped his grandad dispose of Maryanne’s body.

Maybe even helped murder her?

The shallow slash-marks to her throat – hesitation marks, Vickery suggested. Someone trying to work up the courage. An inexperienced killer, the whole team had agreed. Not the shaky work of one of the UK’s most wanted criminals.

But can we prove it?

Will we ever be able to prove that Leo Hicks unwittingly killed his own birth mother?

*

From the car park I call Richard Little – the piano teacher whose car was stolen and used to dispose of Maryanne’s body. He confirms he has a pupil called Leo Hicks. He’s been rather worried about him, in fact. He was supposed to be back in lessons from 17th January and he hasn’t heard from anyone, neither Leo or his parents. No one appears to want to take his calls.