‘So, that’s good then,’ Emily said, looking at Slider.
Atherton looked too. ‘He gets like this,’ he told her. ‘Adrenalin withdrawal. Plus the Universal Guilt syndrome – but he always has that.’
‘I can hear you,’ Slider pointed out.
It wasn’t just adrenalin withdrawal. He had spoken several times both to June and Buckland since they were charged. Buckland was miserable and frightened, June furious and defiant, but neither had the slightest remorse, or pity for their victim. Buckland simply had no room to think about Lionel in the clamour of his own woes; June still hated and despised her former husband, and utterly repudiated her son. Her attitudes had not softened a whit, and he wondered tiredly if people could ever fundamentally change. It made so much of what he did seem pointless. You could revenge the dead, but what good did that do them?
He tried to console himself with the thought that father and son had at least been reconciled for that brief time. He hoped very much that Danny would open his club, and that he would call it Bygod’s. A gay tranny cabaret club would be a curious, ironic but somehow satisfying memorial to the mild solicitor who championed the underdog.
Atherton was still studying his guv’nor’s bent brow. ‘Mr Porson’s throwing buckets. I don’t know what more you want,’ he complained.
Slider pulled himself together. ‘A hot cup of tea would be nice for a start.’
Hard Going Page 27