I Owe You One(96)

“No,” says Nicole with a shrug. “I mean, like, that’s really …”

“As I say, it’s a business-to-business loan,” says Jake tightly, and takes another swig of his drink. “It’s perfectly standard.”

“But why can’t you go to the bank?” I persist. “Why do you need to keep raiding Farrs? I mean, once I get, but three times?”

For a moment Jake looks as though he wants to hit me, almost. But he reins it in and even manages a taut smile, though his eyes are incandescent with fury.

“You really don’t understand anything, do you?” he says. “Poor na?ve little Fixie. Have a drink. Calm down.”

“No, thanks.” I meet his gaze evenly. “I’m not drinking overpriced cocktails on Mum’s expense. And I’m not ‘Little Fixie.’ If you won’t talk about it properly, I’ll leave. But I haven’t finished,” I add, looking from face to face. “This isn’t over.”

Bam. Kapow. Crunch.

As I stride out of the restaurant, adrenaline is rushing through me, and I’m breathing hard. I don’t quite know what to think. Did I achieve anything just now, except offend Uncle Ned and make a fool of myself? Was that a success or a fail?

I stand on the pavement for a while, the icy wind in my face, trying to sort out my jumbled thoughts and make a plan for what to do next. Go back to Seb’s is the obvious one. Have some food. Relax. I’ve said my piece; what more can I do right now?

But for some reason I don’t move. And gradually I become aware that my fingers are drumming in the way they do. My feet have started pacing: forward-across-back, forward-across-back.

Something’s bugging me. What’s bugging me?

It’s Jake, I suddenly realize. His strained face. That vein throbbing at his temple. His raw anger. The way he batted me away, again and again.

I’m used to Jake being impatient and sarcastic. But I’m not used to him looking like a cornered tiger. He looked evasive. He looked on the edge. Amid the flashes of anger, I realize, I saw flashes of fear.

A bad feeling is coming over me. I think for a few moments, then pull out my phone and dial a number.

“Oh, hi,” I say when it’s answered. “Is that you, Leila?”

—

As Leila opens the front door, my heart drops. She looks shrunken and there are shadows under her eyes too.

“Hi, Leila!” I clasp her warmly, and I swear she’s lost half a stone. “It’s been ages! I just fancied a manicure.”

“I thought you were having dinner with Jakey?” she says, looking anxiously past me as though expecting to see Jake too.

“I left them to it,” I say easily. “You know what they’re like. Six bottles of wine each.”

“I’ve told Jake to stop drinking,” says Leila, and her face becomes even more drawn and I feel a swell of panic, because none of this feels good. I follow Leila into the living room and stop dead at the sight of the big empty wall in front of me, wires trailing from four points.

“What’s happened to the telly?” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “Are you getting a new one?”

The words are out before I have a horrible, sinking suspicion.

“It went,” says Leila, after a pause. She picks up a plastic bowl from the coffee table and gestures to the sofa. “Sit down. I’ll get some warm water.”

“It ‘went’?”

“They took it away.” She flashes me a smile, which I don’t believe in for a moment. “It’s fine, I watch all the soaps on my laptop.”

I sit down warily, looking around at Jake’s flash pad, full of leather and glass and glossy magazines. It always seemed like the pinnacle of achievement, this flat. Now it all seems kind of … perilous.

As Leila sits down and instructs me to put my hands in the bowl of water, I eye her closely. She looks on edge. Frail, almost. I don’t want to freak her out by firing questions at her, but I have to know. I have to know.

“Leila,” I say, in my quietest voice. “Is Jake in trouble?”

For a long time, Leila doesn’t answer. She’s washing my hands, rhythmically, her gaze distant. Then she raises her head.

“Oh, Fixie,” she says in a trembling voice, and the look in her huge eyes makes me suddenly fearful. “Of course he is. But he won’t admit it. He won’t talk about it. I only hear bits and pieces. I’ve said to him, ‘Jakey, what’s going on?’ But he gets so angry.…” She adds, more calmly, “If you could place your right hand on the towel?”

As she starts on my cuticles, I say, “He’s been taking money from Farrs.”

“Taking money?” Leila’s eyes widen. “Stealing?”

“No, not stealing,” I hastily assure her. “Just loans. But what I don’t get is, why does he need them?”

“He can’t get finance.” Leila’s hands quiver as she dunks my fingers back in the bowl. “That’s all he talks about, getting finance. If you could please place your other hand on the towel?”

“But I thought everything was going well? I thought he was doing something with manufactured diamonds?”

At once Leila starts. Her hands quiver even more and her eyelids flutter.