The Guilty Couple(44)

Now, as the kettle wheezes steam into the small kitchen, Brenda sighs loudly. ‘I don’t suppose you could lend me nine hundred, could you, Dan? That was supposed to be for the rent.’

Dani looks into her mother’s tired lined eyes and she pounds the kitchen table with her fist, making Brenda jump. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

Her mother’s startled gasp makes her want to cry with frustration. ‘Sorry, Mum. That wasn’t aimed at you. Here.’ She reaches into her jacket and pulls out an envelope thick with banknotes: one thousand pounds minus the fifty she gave to Smithy. Her mother’s eyes grow big and round as Dani eases the bundle out of the envelope and peels off fifty pounds.

‘Where’d you get that much?’ Brenda asks in awe.

‘PT clients,’ Dani lies.

She tucks fifty quid into her pocket and presses the rest into her mother’s hands. The irony of the transaction isn’t lost on her. She was supposed to use this to help Casey go to rehab again, instead she’s paying for her drugs.

‘Hide it,’ she tells her mother, ‘until you can get to the bank on Monday. Not in your sock drawer, not under the mattress, not in the biscuit tin. Hide it somewhere Casey could never find it even if she turns this whole house upside down.’

‘I will. I promise. Thank you, love. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ Brenda has tears in her eyes as she approaches Dani for a hug. She also has nine hundred pounds clutched in one hand; money Dani earned by sneaking off from work and spying on Olivia Sutherland. Money she risked her job for. Again.

‘You could get me a glass of wine,’ she says as her mother releases her from the hug. Sod tea. She needs something stronger. Not only has she spent her day off digging around in Olivia Sutherland’s life, she’s also discovered that the man she’s taken money from, lied for, and slept with, is a convicted criminal. Matt Platt? Seriously? No wonder Dominic changed his name.

She did a lot of thinking about that on the drive from Audley End to London; not the name change specifically but the type of man she’s dealing with. The type of person who’d befriend and then defraud an elderly man would be someone with very few scruples; someone superficially charming, manipulative and self-serving. Someone with very little guilt. Looking at her own situation five years ago an observer might say that Dominic identified her as a vulnerable victim (her sister was an addict who desperately needed help), groomed her (by giving her five thousand pounds as a gift) and then manipulated her (by getting her to lie in court for more money). And here she is, five years later, dancing to his tune again. Only this time he hasn’t given her all the money in advance and she’s got a creeping suspicion that when she asks for the remaining twenty-nine thousand in three days’ time, she’s not going to receive it. Well, two can play at that game.

She glances at her watch. She was supposed to meet Dom some time ago but headed home instead. Her phone pinged with a text – Where are you? What’s happened? He was obviously panicking. Well, let him panic a bit more.

Brenda, digging around in a food cupboard, presumably to find somewhere to stash the money, shakes her head. ‘Sorry, love. I took the bottle of Prosecco I had to book club.’

‘Vodka then? Tequila? Terps?’

‘I might have a bottle of Advocaat from last Christmas.’

‘I’m not that desperate. By the way, that’s a shit hiding place. It’s the first place I’d look.’

The sound of keys in the front door makes both women turn sharply and stare towards the hallway.

‘Casey?’ Brenda shouts. ‘Is that you?’

Only the stairs creak in response and Dani gets up from her seat. She holds out a hand, telling Brenda to stay where she is. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

She steps into the hallway prepared to peg it up the stairs before her sister can lock herself in her bedroom but Casey hasn’t made it more than halfway up. One hand is gripping the banister and she’s swaying lightly and staring into the middle distance, a beatific smile playing on her lips. Her hair, once halfway down her back and glossy, is greasy, dirty and sticking up at strange angles. When she left Josh she had her hair cut into a cute elfin style. There’s nothing cute about it now, or the red rash on her neck.

‘Case?’

Her sister’s eyes slowly swivel towards her. Her pupils are pinprick small. ‘I’m going to bed.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re talking to me. Where’s Mum’s money?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She lifts her left foot slowly, as though her leg weighs more than she does, and lowers it onto the next step. She does the same with her right foot. The movement is so tediously slow it makes Dani want to shake her or shove her up the rest of the stairs.

‘I could arrest you,’ she says. ‘What you did is theft. You’ll probably get arrested anyway. How are you getting the money for drugs? Shoplifting? Stealing? Turning tricks?’

Casey’s soft chuckle ignites the fuse of the rage, fear and frustration that Dani’s been feeling for months. She’s put everything on the line for her sister – her reputation, job, self-worth and freedom – and for what? To be laughed at and mocked?

‘Funny, is it?’ she spits. ‘Taking the piss out of me? Stealing from Mum? Have you got any idea how worried she is about you? How worried we both are? Do you think these new friends of yours will give you mouth-to-mouth and thump on your chest when you overdose? Will they fuck. They’ll probably go through your pockets and see if you’ve got any smack left.’