The Guilty Couple(49)
Chapter 33
DANI
Dani is sitting in a window seat in a Costa coffee shop on Kilburn High Street. There’s a lukewarm caffè latte on the table in front of her but she hasn’t had more than a few sips until now. She’s had to make it last, a placeholder to signal to the staff and the customers that she’s a coffee lover like them, not a cop keeping an eye on the solicitors’ across the road.
The text from Kelly Smith arrived as Dani and Brenda were listening at Casey’s door. It was 7 a.m. and neither of them had had much sleep. After Casey had fallen asleep on the stairs they’d half carried, half dragged her up to her room and undressed her. When they put her to bed she was a ragdoll: limp, floppy and lifeless. completely out cold. She didn’t so much as grunt or turn over as they whispered to each other and searched her underwear, jeans, hoodie, socks and trainers for any sign of money, or drugs. They found neither. God knows where all the money had gone; heroin was roughly ten pounds a bag.
It was Dani’s idea to lock Casey in her room. She needed to talk to her sister when she was with it, not smacked off her head. Maybe she could convince her to see a doctor about getting methadone although she was pretty sure she knew what the answer would be. Casey was still in denial about her addiction, lying and doing god knows what to get hit after hit after hit. Dani’s going to have a fight on her hands to get her sister to set foot in Carmichael House, never mind check in. That’s if Dominic pays up. He didn’t bite like she thought he would yesterday. He was certainly intrigued when she told him about Olivia going to see Sonia, and wanted to know more. But when she said she’d tell him more on Thursday, when he handed over the rest of the cash, he didn’t object or try and convince her to tell him there and then. He simply replied ‘fine’. Dominic Sutherland isn’t a ‘fine’ kind of man and it only heightened her suspicion she was being played.
Smith’s forwarded text that morning only added to her paranoia:
Found out yesterday that Dom might be moving to Dubai with Grace. Going to see a solicitor on Kilburn High St at 11.30. Want to meet at the Costa opposite for a catch-up before? 10.45?
Dominic was moving to Dubai with Grace? Interesting little detail that he hadn’t mentioned before. Was he planning on leaving before, or after, he’d given her the twenty-nine grand? She messaged Smith back, telling her to make an excuse not to meet Olivia at 10.45 a.m., and to find out what date Dominic was flying to Dubai.
Now, she checks her phone for the time. It’s been fifteen minutes since Olivia left Tooby Davies and Partners and there’s been no text from Smith. Requesting passenger information from airlines for flight risks is something Dani’s done dozens of times at work but it would be far too risky to put in a request for an individual who wasn’t part of an active case. There’s a paper trail for practically everything and it would almost certainly result in a request to have a chat with the boss. She’s going to have to wait for Kelly Smith to do some digging instead.
She takes a sip of her tepid latte, grimaces and forwards the photo she took of Olivia opening the solicitors’ black front door. She doesn’t add a message. She wants to see what Dom will do.
Chapter 34
OLIVIA
Colours and shapes leap from the walls as I walk into the gallery. They draw me in, each painting clamouring for my attention, but I’m struggling to take a step in any direction. It’s been nearly five and a half years since I was last surrounded by art and it was my gallery I was standing in; each picture carefully curated by Lee or me. Our tastes couldn’t have been more different. I was drawn to seascapes, to wild dark skies, fading light bouncing off water, waves churning, and the threat of a storm. Lee favoured bold, urban images crafted using stencils, spray paint and tape. The two styles shouldn’t have worked, displayed in adjacent rooms, but somehow they did, just like our friendship. Lee was the loud and demonstrative counterpart to my quieter, more organised self.
I almost didn’t come, after my conversation with Mr Ghavi earlier, but, right now, I need all the friends I can get.
I can see Lee now, standing with his back to me, looking at a powerful, loose portrait of a nude in a wide-legged pose. His bald head shines under the gallery lights and he’s broad and strong in his black tailored jacket, dark denim jeans and black leather boots. The shape of him – still so familiar after all these years – makes me feel simultaneously excited and wary. Unlike Ayesha who visited me in prison every month, and Nancy who visited me every two or three months, Lee suddenly stopped coming after my first year in jail. I wrote to him, asking him if he was okay, and he didn’t reply. I asked Ayesha and Nancy if they’d been in touch with him and whether everything was all right. They said they saw him occasionally but he seemed withdrawn and distracted. They didn’t see each other very often either; without me as the glue that held their friendship together, they’d drifted apart. Lee’s initial replies to my letters were brief – ‘Sorry, so busy, will visit soon’ – and then he stopped replying at all. There was a part of me that worried that maybe he thought I was guilty; that Dominic had said something damning to him when they sat side by side in the gallery at my trial. It would have been so easy to ignore his delighted text, to ghost him just like he ghosted me, but I’ve missed him, and I need answers.