Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(33)

And yet I haven’t felt safe with you in years.

‘They found Maryanne Doyle’s body.’ There’s a roar from across the bar. A last-minute penalty. An eleventh hour reprieve for someone. ‘Near here,’ I say, louder over the cheering. ‘Leamington Square.’

Dad’s eyes flick to the commotion. He hunches his shoulders as if bracing himself against an invisible storm. It can’t be more than a few seconds before he speaks again but it’s time enough for him to make a decision.

‘They found who?’ he says, cocking an ear towards me, squinting in irritation at the noise.

‘Maryanne Doyle.’ My mouth feels full of grit. ‘You know, the girl from Mulderrin.’

A slant of the head. A search through his mental rolodex, then suddenly, enlightenment. ‘Jonjo Doyle’s girl, you mean? The one that ran away?’ His voice goes up a notch higher. ‘What, they found her here, in London?’

I nod. ‘Yep. Murdered. You must have seen it on the news? Heard about it?’

His face clouds over but it’s not what I think. ‘I haven’t been able to watch any frigging news. Noel did something to the TV and now it won’t “initialise”, whatever the hell that means. Do you know what “initialise” means? I can’t find the manual .?.?.’

Classic stonewalling.

I don’t let him off.

‘It’s just, well, it happened pretty much on your doorstep. The old grapevine mustn’t be working like it used to?’

‘To be honest, I haven’t been here much the past few days.’ He takes a slug of his pint, a third in one swallow. ‘I mean, yeah, now you mention it, I think I did see some yellow tape flapping about up the road but that’s hardly big news around here.’

My heart bangs. ‘So what do you think?’

He looks at me quizzically, like he doesn’t quite understand the question. ‘Well, it’s terrible, of course. Bloody terrible. Tessie Doyle – wasn’t that the grandmother’s name? She was one of your gran’s cronies. We should send a mass card, at least. What do you think?’

I slap down the sentiment. ‘The granny’s probably dead by now. She was practically dead then.’

‘The father then. Don’t get me wrong, he was a prick of the highest order but I wouldn’t wish that on my worst .?.?.’

‘He’ll be dead soon too.’

His eyes narrow. ‘I must say, you’re very well informed.’

‘I’m working the case.’

And for that second, the world shrinks to just us. Just his face and mine. Every smell seems to evaporate. Every colour ceases to exist. And there’s a silence. A silence so laden with fear and mistrust that it turns everything else abstract and us both to stone.

Dad recovers quicker though, lets out a low whistle and a sarcastic tut.

I wait for a few seconds as the room comes back into focus. ‘What?’

He tries to do casual but there’s a flush creeping up his neck. ‘Ah, nothing really. Just thought there’d be some petty coppers’ code about personal connections and all that jazz .?.?.’

I try casual too but my shoulders are locked. My neck’s coiled like a helix.

I plump for confusion. ‘And what’s my personal connection, Dad? That my gran played bingo with her gran?’

His hands lock tight around his glass. ‘Is that how your boss sees it?’

‘Since when have you been so concerned with police ethics?’ I say, bristling.

He picks up a napkin with the other hand, a grease-stained white flag. ‘Hey look, work away, Detective. I mean, what would I know? But if memory serves me right, Jacqui had a few words with the Guards at the time.’

I stare at him, blankly, pretend I don’t get the point.

‘Well, that’ll be on some system somewhere, surely?’

Top marks.

‘Tell you what, Dad, how about you let me worry about that? And anyway, she was killed on Monday night, thirty-five years old and a long way from Mulderrin. I doubt there’s a connection.’

I’m about five bottles of wine, sixty sleepless nights and seven hundred dark thoughts away from knowing whether I believe that or not.

Dad seems to take it at face value.

‘God, that Mulderrin holiday, that takes me back,’ he says, forearms on the table, all slumpy and relaxed now. ‘Good-looking kid, weren’t she, the Doyle girl. Jacqui will remember her, I bet.’

I remember her, Dad. I remember every little lie you told too.

‘Do you know what I remember about that holiday?’ I tell him. ‘You disappearing all the time. Mum putting me to bed every single night so I never got a story.’

‘Christ, and you reckon Noel knows how to hold a grudge!’ His laugh is short, sharp and hard. ‘Aw poor little Catrina. Do you want me to read The Three Little Pigs to you now? Make up for it, like?’

I refrain from ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Convey it with a death-stare instead.

‘Do you know what I remember about that holiday?’ he says. I switch the stare to ‘impassive’ but I’m ravenous for what he’ll say next. ‘I remember you didn’t want to go. Got yourself in a bit of a state about it. We were taking you out of school a few days early and you were stressing your class rabbit wouldn’t get fed. And you were worried about Reg. Do you remember Reg?’