Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(73)

‘Out.’ It’s an inane icebreaker and he knows it. ‘Just say what you have to say, Catrina’

On the outside I think I’m doing an OK impression of calm but inside my body’s gone rogue. Heart racing, head pounding, fingers tingling. Panic attack 101. Something stops me from being completely consumed by it, though.

A purpose.

I take a small shaky breath. ‘You told the Guards you didn’t know Maryanne Doyle. Why did you lie?’

If I’m expecting catharsis, it doesn’t come. If anything I feel worse.

‘I didn’t know her.’ He sounds calm, almost relieved. As if he was expecting much, much worse.

‘You did, Dad. We picked her up in the car. She was hitch-hiking.’

‘Did we? I must have picked up twenty hitchers that holiday, the place was rife with them back then. It was the only way some people got to work.’ Over his shoulder. ‘Maybe we did, I honestly don’t remember.’

I sit up straight, anchor myself. ‘It was only a few days before she went missing. You’d have remembered then, when the Guards asked you, even if you don’t remember now.’

He gives me that look. The one that says I’m the apple of his eye and the bane of his life and his world would be a whole lot easier if he didn’t love me so much. I’ve been staring down that look for so long now, I recognise it even in his blurred reflection.

‘I’ll tell you what I do remember, sweetheart. I had forty stolen mobile phones stashed under Gran’s dresser, two feet away from where that fat fucking Guard had planted himself, and all I cared about was keeping him talking, keeping his eyes pointing forward, you know?’ He turns around, offers his wrists across the kitchen floor. ‘So go on then, arrest me if you want. Historical handling of stolen goods, is that a thing? Because if it isn’t, we don’t have anything else to talk about.’

For one soaring, luminous second I let myself believe him. He’s just Michael McBride, your average dodgy London geezer with his stash of knocked-off phones and his cockney heart of gold that can’t resist helping out the odd honest, hard-working hitcher. And if they’re pretty, hard-working hitchers, well what’s a man to do .?.?.?

And it’d all sound so feasible if I hadn’t seen what I’d seen.

‘You were with her in Duffy’s field, Dad, a day or two after we’d picked her up. I heard you arguing. You implied she was blackmailing you.’

He sways a little, like a boxer seeing stars, riding out a blow to the head. All his questions collide at once. ‘But how did you .?.?. why didn’t you .?.?. I mean, what the hell were you doing there?’

I give it to him straight. ‘I followed you. You were hardly ever around and I missed you. And I was bored,’ I add cheaply, to sour the sentiment. ‘Jacqui and Noel were off doing whatever. Mum was always busy with Gran. I had nothing to do, so I followed you. I thought it was a great game.’

If I was prone to arrogance I’d say he looks impressed, although by what, I’m not sure. The eight-year-old me with the keen ear and the sharp eye? Or the grown-up me who’s kept his secret hidden for so long?

He stubs out his cigarette, lights up another. Takes a seat straight across from me, settling in for the duel.

‘So?’ I say, chin high. ‘Why were you with her in that field?’

His answer is a long plume of smoke but I see his eyes wavering through the trails, weighing things up, charting the path of least resistance. He doesn’t speak for a long time. The fridge hums in the background and there’s raucous canned laughter from a distant TV. He takes another deep draw of his cigarette and during the long inhalation, he seems to make a decision about something.

My stomach churns as I wait for the exhale.

‘It was your mum’s fault.’

I recoil like I’ve been slapped. Actually, scrap that – like I’ve been head-butted.

He backtracks. ‘Well, OK, maybe that’s unfair. It was your mum’s idea though.’

Fault. Idea. The interchange of words means nothing.

Mum?

‘Maryanne was a wild one. A bad influence on Jacqui. She’d given her some weed, you see, and your mum found it in her pocket, completely lost the plot.’ He shrugs. ‘She told me to put the hard word on Maryanne, threaten her with the Guards if she didn’t steer well clear of Jacqui.’

I think of fourteen-year-old Jacqui, of that sweet leafy scent that had hung off her for months, long before she encountered Maryanne Doyle. And then I think of Mum, her warrior-like approach to protecting her kids. She’d have had no qualms about tackling Maryanne Doyle herself. She’d have relished it, in fact. It doesn’t make sense.

And nor does another thing.

‘So why didn’t Mum say all this when the Guards came round? I mean, it could have been relevant, a drugs slant. There’s no way Mum would have held that back, not when a girl was missing.’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, because your mum was faultless, Catrina. A real modern day saint.’ He knows it’s a low blow, I don’t bother pointing it out. ‘She was protecting Jacqui, I suppose. Weed was still a big deal back then and there was no way your mum was going to drop Jacqui in the shit, didn’t matter who’d gone missing.’ His face softens. ‘That’s what you do when you’re a parent, sweetheart. You protect your own kids first and sod all the rest. It’s just the way it is and your mum was no different.’