The Guilty Couple(25)

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

He mentally searches the house. He’s got a couple of nice watches, his great-grandfather’s war medals and a fair amount of tech but he doesn’t keep cash at home. Was Olivia looking for something of hers? He packed up most of her shit when she was sentenced: clothes, jewellery, make-up, that sort of thing. Nancy collected the boxes to keep in her garage. Ian wasn’t keen. He said Dom should burn the lot. Unless … he stares out into the gloom of the car park. Unless it wasn’t something of Liv’s that she was looking for.

‘What did they steal?’ he asks. ‘Did you arrest them?’

‘I don’t know.’ Dani’s looking at him like he’s a piece of crap. ‘And no, I didn’t.’

He sits up taller in his seat, puffed up with indignation. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you—’ he breaks off as a thought hits him. ‘What were you doing at my house anyway?’

‘Looking for you. According to your PA you’d gone home early because you felt unwell.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Go anywhere nice?’

Dom ignores the question. It’s none of her business where he was but he’s going to have a word with Maira when he gets back to the office. She needs to be more careful about what she says.

‘So,’ he says, ‘why didn’t you arrest them?’

‘Good question.’ Dani gives him a long look.

‘Send me the photo. I’ll get them arrested. Liv’s not supposed to go within a mile of my house.’

A small smile creeps onto Dani’s lips. ‘I’m not going to send you the photo, Dom.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘I have my reasons.’

He sits back in his seat. He’s bored of the game-playing now. ‘What is it you want?’ Even as the question leaves his mouth he knows what the answer will be.

‘I want to help you, obviously. I take it Liv doesn’t have her own key to the front door.’

‘Of course she doesn’t. I changed the locks years ago.’

‘You might want to do that again because I saw them in the street, surrounding your cleaner. Were her keys on a brightly coloured lanyard?’

‘Oh shit.’ Dom runs a hand over the back of his neck. It’s slick with sweat. Those were his spare keys. When he had the locks changed he’d got only three keys cut. One for him, one for Grace and a spare set. He gave the spare set to Rosa meaning to get more cut but he never got round to it.

‘Is Rosa all right?’ he adds, suddenly aware that Dani’s looking at him strangely.

‘I doubt she even realised what was happening.’

‘Well, that’s something. Who was Olivia with?’

‘Kelly Smith, career thief. She can sniff out money a mile off and if she thinks you and Liv have got some you’re not going to get rid of her any time soon.’

‘This just gets worse.’ Dom doesn’t even bother to hide the weary tone in his voice. Liv’s up to something, he knows it. His mum told him that Olivia managed to have a private conversation with Grace in the butterfly enclosure at the zoo. His ex-wife isn’t going to settle for supervised visits for long. She’ll want Grace to live with her again; that’s why she was poking round the house, looking for something she can use against him. She won’t have found anything but if she was determined enough to break in god knows what else she’ll be prepared to do. He’s been struggling to sleep since Olivia was released from jail and when he does he wakes up gasping and thrashing, still gripped by nightmares about the police turning up at his door. The only way he’s ever going to sleep well again is to get out of the UK and he’s been given an out – a way for him and Grace to have the future they deserve, free from fear. He just needs to get through the next few weeks and Olivia will be out of their lives for good.

‘I’ll keep an eye on Olivia and her little friend but …’ Dani pauses as though she doesn’t know what to say next but Dom doesn’t buy it. She knows exactly what she wants. ‘… But my time doesn’t come cheaply. I’d have to give up all my PT clients for a start. And then there’s the risk involved, nipping out to keep an eye on them when I should be doing case work.’

‘Let me guess,’ Dom says. ‘You want thirty grand?’

Dani tilts her head to one side and flashes her eyebrows at him as though to say, ‘clever boy’.

‘I haven’t got it.’

Her expression hardens. ‘Then I suggest you find it. And quickly. Now get out of my car.’





Chapter 19


OLIVIA


I’ve done a lot of crappy jobs in my life – working in retail at Christmas, serving pervy middle-aged men drinks in a golf club and interning at Sotheby’s – but cleaning office blocks isn’t one of them. It’s half past ten at night, I’m knackered and I’ve still got another half an hour to go, but the rest of the team are efficient, if not hugely chatty, and our supervisor doesn’t seem to be the hovering type which is good. I was a bundle of nerves during my interview two days ago. After my inability to find any evidence that proves my innocence it was more important than ever to get some money coming in. I shouldn’t have worried. I’d googled the types of questions that might come up and managed to answer the majority, fudging anything I wasn’t sure about. A couple of hours later I received a phone call telling me I’d got the job and that I should pop into the office at some point to fill out some forms and collect a polo shirt and ID. I had a minor heart attack when I was handed my rota and The Radcliffe Building – the soaring skyscraper where Dom works – was on the list but there was a blank space where my shifts should have been. Out of the seven buildings C&C Cleaning Services contract for, I’d only clean two.