‘Sorry. I was thinking out loud.’
Because of the heels, she didn’t have far to reach, pressing her lips into the nape of his neck. It only lasted for a moment but was plenty enough to make Andrew tingle. He’d been waiting almost nine years to feel this chemistry.
Keira stood on her toes, breath brushing his ear seductively. ‘Chinese or pizza?’
She burst out laughing, wobbling slightly and falling into him. Andrew held her close, resting his head on her hair, breathing her in. She was slightly tipsy already and hadn’t even finished her first glass of wine. Either that or she was happy. He couldn’t tell the difference.
‘Can we talk first?’ he whispered.
‘We are talking but I’m hungryyyyyyyyy.’
Andrew took her hand and led her across the room to the sofa, where she flopped into the corner and started giggling. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, trying to get comfortable.
‘We could just go to the bedroom,’ she whispered silkily.
‘We should talk.’
She reached out and grabbed his hand. ‘We can do that after.’
Anything up to ninety-nine per cent of Andrew’s body was more than happy to go along with that suggestion but there was that pesky little conscience in the back of his mind whispering its malicious spoilers. What a heartless bastard it was.
‘We need to talk about what happened when we broke up.’
Keira pressed a finger to his lips, shaking her head, the giggles gone. ‘No.’
He opened his mouth anyway: ‘I should have told you then.’
‘We were different people then, kids, we got married too soon. We had too much, too young. I get it. We’ve grown up now.’
‘It’s not that.’
She took his wrist, running her slender fingers across the back of his hand, tracing a pattern. ‘Shh…’
‘Keira…’
‘Do you know why I fell for you?’ she said. Andrew gulped, wondering if he was going to bottle it. He shook his head. ‘My friends thought I was crazy for going out with you. You’d dumped all that food on me in the refectory and then acted like a bit of a dick about it.’
‘I was trying to make you laugh.’
‘Then you gave me your number because you wanted to pay for any cleaning bills.’
‘I thought it’d be chivalrous!’ She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Okay, I was hoping to get your number and I thought that might be the best way.’
‘I texted you a very simple message, which I thought couldn’t be misinterpreted—’
Andrew completed her sentence: ‘“How are you going to make amends?”’
Keira nodded. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I thought you might offer to take me out for a nice dinner, perhaps for cocktails, some dancing, that sort of thing. But where did we end up?’
Despite his mood, Andrew couldn’t stop himself grinning. ‘I thought you literally meant “make amends”.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘So we’re in the launderette doing my washing, you’ve fed a quid fifty into the machine and we’re watching my dirty jeans spin around. It’s just us and a noisy washing machine. You’re wittering on about this games club you’re involved with and I’m there thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” When I’d been on dates with lads before, we’d gone to nice places and they’d fussed over me, paying for things, asking me how I was all the time. It was like that at home too. I’d never had a Big Mac until I was nineteen because Daddy didn’t approve of fast food.’
‘I never knew that.’
She shrugged. ‘It occurred to me that I’d never had a good time with any of the lads I’d been out with. Not when I thought about it afterwards. They were fun at the time but… hollow. It’s like the world is fake and you get dressed up to go to all of these places, talk about mundane things and then go home – but it’s not real life. The next day, you wake up and reality’s dawning. But I was there with you in that launderette and it was really hot. I’d never had to wash my own clothes before – my mum or the maid always did it. I just thought that if you were the type of person who’d dare take a girl on a date to wash her clothes, then you were the type of normal person I’d quite like to hang around with. By the time it was one in the morning and we’d been there chatting for six hours, I knew we were going to get married one day.’
‘Keira—’
She talked over him, eyes beginning to puff. ‘You broke my heart when you left but I’m willing to let it happen again if it means having another go with that lad who could spend six hours talking to me in a launderette.’ She gripped his hand tighter, thumb pressing into his skin. ‘This is the first Valentine’s night that I’ve spent with anyone since we had our last one together. I’ve been waiting for all this time for you to walk back into my life.’
Shit, shit, shit.
Andrew could feel the lump in his throat, choking him. He should have cut her off before she’d told him all of that. It was only going to make it more difficult to say what he had to. Slowly, he pulled his hand away from hers, shuffling backwards until they were at opposite ends of the sofa.
‘What?’ she asked, gulping, surprised.
‘I’ve really got to tell you the truth.’
‘What about?’
He held his hands up to indicate the flat. ‘This. My office, all of it.’ He suddenly felt cold, hairs bristling on his arms, chest tight. ‘I chose this over you.’
‘Chose what?’
‘Everything. The money, this life.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He found himself squeezing the top of his nose, struggling for the words. ‘I know it sounds bad. It’s the way your dad speaks, he—’
‘My dad?’
Andrew nodded.
‘My dad paid for… this?’ Keira kicked her knees up to her chest, hugging them, confused.
‘He never liked me and didn’t want us to be together,’ Andrew replied. ‘You didn’t speak to each other for a while after we got married and then we thought he’d come round to the idea, at least a little.’
‘I know that.’
‘He never stopped wanting to break us up. When we went to your parents’ house to ask for some money for a deposit on a house because we wanted to start a family, he took me to one side when you were off talking to your mum.’
‘You should have said something.’
‘He said there was no way he was going to let a scrounger like me have a child with his daughter, that if I was worthy of you, then I’d be able to look after you without coming to him for handouts. He said he’d do whatever it took to break us up before you got pregnant, that he’d destroy my life. He told me he knew people and he’d stop me getting a job. He was going on about my parents—’
‘Your parents?’
‘He said he’d buy the houses on either side of theirs and rent them out for next to nothing, so the neighbours would drive them crazy.’
‘My dad said this?’
‘While you were upstairs with your mum.’
Keira reached for her wine glass, downing the remains in one, sucking the final drops from the bottom. She was blinking so quickly that it was as if there was something in her eye. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘He said I had two options. He’d either destroy my life, or he’d pay me to go away. One way I’d have nothing, the other way I’d still have my life. Both ways, I’d lose you.’
Andrew stretched to take her hand but their shared moment was long gone. Keira snatched it backwards, standing too quickly and staggering slightly. He stood, reaching out to steady her but she pulled away a second time, rushing around the coffee table to the kitchen. She turned on the cold tap, cupping the water in her hands and drinking it down, before dousing her face. When she eventually spun to face him, there was still water dripping from her cheeks and the skin around her eyes was red.
‘Don’t you think I’d have had a say in it?’
‘It’s hard to describe. It was just me and him and he said
I had to decide within twenty-four hours. If he didn’t hear anything, then he’d assume I’d rejected his offer and he’d put wheels in motion.’
‘What wheels?’
‘To ruin me.’
‘You think he could do that?’
Tanjir Ahmed’s name bounced to the front of Andrew’s mind. ‘Yes… I don’t know… he’s a rich man.’
‘So what? That doesn’t make him God. I’m my own person.’ She dabbed her face with a tea towel and then flung it to the side. ‘Why are you telling me this now?’
‘He came to see me yesterday. He’d found out my mobile number and called, wanting to meet in a pub in the centre.’
‘Of Manchester?’
‘Yes.’
‘He never comes up here.’
‘I know – but he did. He told me I had to break up with you again, else he’d destroy my life. He showed me things…’
Keira was shaking her head slowly. ‘Did he offer you money?’
‘Of course not!’
‘But that didn’t stop you last time.’
‘It’s not like that, it’s the way he says things, he—’
Keira lunged at him, thumping an open palm into his chest. ‘You’re a grown man!’
‘I know.’
She pushed him away. ‘You said he only gave you two options all those years ago but there was always a third – to tell me, trust me. We were married and that’s what you should have done.’
‘I know that now.’
She took a breath, stepping around Andrew and pointing towards the endless view. ‘But you chose money over me.’
‘Yes, but…’
Both had tears in their eyes. Keira picked up her bag from the sofa, her heels clattering across the wooden floor as she headed for the door. She stopped, turning to face him. ‘But what?’
Andrew wished he could think of something to say that might exonerate him, though there was only the truth: ‘But nothing,’ he replied, chin sinking to his chest. ‘Yes – I chose money over you.’
She nodded shortly, turned, and walked through the door, closing it with a quiet click and striding along the corridor, out of his life for a second time.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Thirty-Seven
Wednesday
Professor Geoffrey Steyn was feeding leftover pieces of sandwich to the pigeons when Andrew plonked himself on the bench next to him.
‘Nice spot,’ Andrew said.
Steyn was wearing a chocolate blazer, with matching trousers and a white shirt. He had thinning white hair swept underneath a flat cap, like a country gentleman out for a lunchtime stroll. He glanced quickly at Andrew, before returning his attention to the pigeons.
‘Quite, quite,’ he muttered.
‘Do you come here often?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Whitworth Park – do you come here for lunch often? I suppose the weather’s been a bit rough recently but sometimes that crisp air is nice and cleansing, good for the soul.’
Steyn started to pack up his lunchbox, pegging Andrew as an obvious park nutter.
‘I thought I was going to have to make an appointment to see you,’ Andrew continued. ‘The university website has your biography, but no phone number. When I called the main reception, they could only give me an email address. My friend and I had to ask a few of the students for directions to your office. Most of them didn’t know who you were but we found one eventually. I was going to knock on your door but you need a swipe card to get that far. I was wondering what I should do next when, what do you know, out you pop, flat cap and briefcase, off to go for lunch. It’s almost like fate brought us together.’
Steyn peered at him again, eyes narrowing, brow ruffling into a labyrinth of wrinkles. ‘Should I know you?’
Andrew held out his hand, nodding towards the city centre. ‘Andrew Hunter, I’m a private investigator who works about a mile that way.’
The lunchbox was dispatched back into the briefcase, Andrew’s hand remaining unshaken. ‘I, er, have to get back to the office,’ Steyn said.
Andrew didn’t move. ‘What was it like to be the first person on the scene when Owen Copthorne and Wendy Boyes were killed?’
Steyn stared at him, thumbs pressed on the locks of his case, frozen. ‘Sorry?’
‘It was you who got there first, wasn’t it? You’re the one who said “He shot them both.” Before you knew it, everyone was saying it.’
‘I… who are you again?’
He offered his hand once more. ‘Andrew Hunter.’
Steyn ignored it, clipping his case closed and slipping out leather gloves from his coat pocket. ‘I told you, I have to head back. I think you might have the wrong person.’
Andrew waited for a few moments, watching a tree close to the park boundary, where a grey squirrel was braving the cold, scuttling across the turf and sniffing for food. Pigeons were still around Steyn’s feet, pecking for errant crumbs they’d missed.
‘I met a jeweller last week,’ Andrew said. ‘He owns this little place in town, the type of spot that’s been there for years that you walk past every day because no one’s a regular buyer of jewellery, well, unless you’re Mr T.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s this type of place where you’d go to get something special, like an engagement ring, or your wedding bands. You’d want to go somewhere local where you can trust the guy behind the counter and have a face-to-face conversation, rather than go to a chain where the person serving you is just a glorified cashier. It’s called Sampson’s, between here and my office, not far from the university. Have you heard of it?’
Steyn stared open-mouthed at Andrew for a moment, before spinning on his heels, almost treading on a pigeon. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Sit down, Mr Steyn.’ Andrew glared at him, refusing to let him go, in the way Keira’s father had to him. In the way Braithwaite could. Steyn was so confused that he turned in a circle, before focusing back on Andrew and lowering himself onto the bench.
‘The owner of Sampson’s is, perhaps unsurprisingly, named Sampson – Leyton Sampson,’ Andrew continued. ‘He seems very talented. He was telling me and my friend all about the repairs he can do, plus he seemed very proud of the fact that he has people mining diamonds directly for him in Botswana. I checked and that’s an extremely uncommon thing to happen. Usually, there are middlemen, wholesalers, more middlemen, you name it. It’s like any business – lots of people in a line chip, chip, chipping away at the profits. It sounds like he’s onto a really good thing – he can undercut his rivals, make more money in the process, and provide higher-quality jewels to his customers. It’s incredible and so easy to take at face value. Someone says “Botswana” and you almost blank it out. It’s just a country somewhere else in the world. Africa? Asia? Maybe South America? Somewhere foreign and they mine diamonds. Amazing. I wonder if anyone has ever thought to question it.’
Steyn rubbed his shoe along the gritted path, making the remaining pigeons strut towards the bushes or flutter away into the skies. ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this.’
‘I’m pretty good on a computer but my friend, well, she’s something special. It’s natural to her. Sometimes I wonder if she can type faster than I can think. We were looking into Botswana together and what becomes really clear is that you can’t do much out there unless you know the language. It’s tucked away in southern Africa, wedged between Namibia and Zimbabwe, this huge place. It’s more than twice the size of the UK, but with only two million people living there. There are four times more people than that in London alone. If you put Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham together, that’s your two million people.’
Steyn was perched on the tip of the bench, hands pressed together as if praying.
‘So there’s this enormous country,’ Andrew continued, ‘where the official language is supposed to be English, yet four out of five people speak Setswana. I’ve never heard of that but it’s easy enough to look up. It’s a regi
onal dialect related to the Bantu family of languages, something else I’d never heard of. It’s interesting what you can find out on the Internet, though – when you get past the pornography, there’s all sorts. For instance, when I was on the university’s website, it lists every member of staff, including research fellows, like your good self. Guess what I found under your entry?’
‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘I do, because it’s important you understand exactly why I’m here. Under your interests and specialities, it says that, having grown up in South Africa, you speak a dozen languages, including many dialects of Bantu. That left me wondering, what if Sampson’s contact isn’t some bloke in Botswana on the end of a crackly phone line, what if he’s a few hundred metres down the road in a warm university office?’
Steyn stood again, this time turning his back. Andrew watched him take a step and then there was fury raging through him: Iwan patting him on the head; that runt Kevin Leonard taking Gem’s money and nearly burning her flat down; his former father-in-law ending any hope he had with Keira, even though he’d eventually told her the truth. Too many people were willing to trample on him but he’d made a pledge to a young girl that he was going to keep. He lunged forward, grabbing the scruff of Steyn’s shirt, wrenching him downwards and slamming him back onto the bench.
‘You’re going to sit still and listen to me!’
Steyn tried to stand again but Andrew shoved him hard in the chest, looming over him.
‘Sit still.’
‘I’ll shout for help.’
‘Do that. Shout and shout until the police turn up. Let’s see what they have to say.’ Steyn glared at him, so Andrew leant in closer. ‘Do it!’
Steyn started coughing, making Andrew step back. He fumbled in his pockets, pulling out a small orange tub and unscrewing the lid before popping a white pill into his mouth. He was shaking, flapping a pudgy arm but not making contact.
Andrew sat next to him again, twisting to face the professor, who was loosening his collar.
‘You can’t keep me here,’ Steyn said.
‘So walk away. I’ll head down the road to Longsight police station and have a word with a friend of mine.’
Something Hidden: A totally unputdownable murder mystery novel (Andrew Hunter Book 2) Page 25