Brand New Friend
Page 25
‘But the house, the money –’
‘I’ve got a job.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Today.’
‘This is a surprise.’ His brain was struggling to catch up. ‘That’s why you needed your passport.’
‘Yes. You really thought I was opening a bank account?’
‘I knew you hadn’t developed a sudden interest in thrift.’ He didn’t tell her what he had thought.
‘If this isn’t what you want –’
He held her close, breathed into her hair, felt the raindrops on his face. ‘It is. It really is.’
The girls came back from judo or chess or whatever today’s activity was. There were heads of state who had less rigidly structured schedules than his daughters. Salma went to put them to bed. Experience had taught them not to share big announcements near to bedtime. They would talk to them about the move at the weekend.
He sat for a moment, watching the rain fall in the garden that was tended by someone else. Now he wasn’t losing Salma, he had space for other, subsidiary worries.
Should he call Isabel? He had the powerful sense that Isabel needed someone but that he wasn’t that person. He thought of how he’d had the chance, all those years ago, to reach out to her, and had faltered. Would she have told him the truth, then? What would he have done with it? It seemed his instinct for self-preservation had been sound, he thought wryly, but he wasn’t free yet.
He was almost sure Mark wouldn’t go to the police. If he did what could he say? Maybe there’d be a scandal but there wouldn’t be enough evidence for criminal charges. He’d keep his job. Probably.
He had lived in the shadow of the threat to Salma. Now he too could worry that he might end up in jail. Perhaps like Claire he would find it made life more intense. He laughed. It felt unreal. As unreal as the idea of bringing up a family in this house. Moving back to London already seemed inevitable. People said you couldn’t go back but they were wrong.
In among the percussive thrum of the rain there was a discordant dripping sound. The guttering again? Syncopation.
He picked up his phone and made a call. Afzal answered on the third ring, as he somehow knew he would.
Paolo asked, ‘Did you learn anything about the fire?’
‘Not yet.’
He thought of Afzal, quietly resolute, pursuing justice for a crime no one wanted to solve. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help,’ he said, and almost meant it.
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About Kate Vane
Kate Vane writes (mostly) crime fiction. Brand New Friend is her fourth novel.
She has written for BBC drama Doctors and has had short stories and articles published in various publications and anthologies, including Mslexia and Scotland on Sunday.
She lived in Leeds for a number of years where she worked as a probation officer. She now lives on the Devon coast.