Derwent was waiting for me in the corridor when I came out of the interview room where I’d been with Orlando Hawkes, lounging against the wall with his hands in his pockets.
‘Good interview.’
‘It was a good result,’ I said. ‘I didn’t really have to do much. He was very forthcoming once he got started. I think he was so relieved he hadn’t killed Jonah Powell he almost forgot it was worse to admit he’d staged Roddy’s death.’
‘You had him on CCTV, though, at the rental place.’
‘Have you seen the footage? He’s halfway off the screen for most of it and the quality of the recording is dismal. You never get a proper look at him. No one would ever ID him off it.’
‘What about the height?’
‘We pushed the analysts to give us something to work with but they told us not to rely on it because it was such a rough estimate.’
Derwent whistled. ‘And I thought you always played fair.’
‘Well, I was right to say the heights matched, because it was him in the CCTV, so it would have been the same.’ I stretched, trying to ease the ache in my shoulder. ‘Roddy Asquith wasn’t perfect but he didn’t deserve to be rammed into a wall at sixty miles an hour. I wasn’t going to let Orlando Hawkes get away with it.’
‘I heard him blaming you. Don’t let that get to you.’
‘Of course not,’ I lied.
‘Where does that leave Luke?’
‘He wasn’t involved. He was either at work or staying with his mum during this whole period. We’ve got his Oyster card and his mobile phone records and we can see his movements. Unless he has the power of bilocation he was nowhere near the house in Fulham or the brickworks.’
‘He’s a clever kid. He might have worked out how to provide himself with an alibi.’
I shook my head. ‘You don’t have to worry about him any more. There’s nothing to link him to the murder. I even double-checked his alibi for the night Iliana died and he was thousands of miles away, like he said. Besides, there’s no question in my mind that Orlando was acting alone. He wouldn’t have wanted to involve anyone else – that was the whole point. If he’d been able to work out a way back to London without telling Roddy what had happened at the house party, he would have done that. Unfortunately for Roddy, he couldn’t. Roddy was the only person he told, and he regretted it. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.’
‘But he dragged Ashington along when he killed Asquith.’
‘As a warning. I don’t think Peter Ashington had any idea what was going to happen to Roddy. And I suspect Orlando would have ended up killing Peter Ashington too, because he would have wanted to tie up the last loose end. He couldn’t afford to take any chances. I think we’d have found Ashington at the bottom of a cliff somewhere, apparently overwhelmed with guilt about raping the waitress at the club.’
‘Which would have given it away, since he doesn’t give a shit about her.’
‘But a coroner might have believed it was suicide. And then Orlando would be free.’
‘So are you going to talk to Luke now?’
‘I was going to.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Do you want to do it?’
‘No, you can give him the good news.’ Derwent was still standing there, though, as if he was waiting for me to say something.
‘Do you want to come with me?’
‘I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.’ He looked at me helplessly. ‘I don’t know what to do here.’
‘Well, it’s uncharted territory for both of you.’ I sighed. ‘Oh, Josh, I don’t know what to say. It might go really badly but I think you should try to talk to him. You’ll regret it if you don’t.’
‘What if he doesn’t want to talk to me?’
‘I think you have to prepare yourself for that. He wasn’t looking for you – you’ve dropped into his life without warning. And it’s not as if he’s been having a nice time over the last few weeks. His whole life has fallen apart, he’s probably going to have to find somewhere to live and he’s lost two of his best friends because one killed the other. It’s horrible timing.’
Derwent shook his head ruefully. ‘Typical, isn’t it, that I only find out I’ve got a son because he’s a suspect in a murder.’
‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to be but it’s the situation you’ve got to deal with. And it might not be so bad.’
‘Claire won’t have told him anything nice about me.’
‘She was really fond of you – I think she still is, if it comes to that. But Luke belongs to her. Of course she’s going to be protective of him, and she has every right to be.’
‘Yeah, she did all the hard work.’
‘Look, you weren’t there when he was growing up. I think you’d have been a great dad if you’d had the chance, for what it’s worth, but it didn’t happen. That doesn’t mean you can’t get to know him now. But it only works if he wants to get to know you. You have to leave it up to him to decide. He is a grown-up.’
‘Isn’t he, though.’ Derwent managed a lopsided grin. ‘Makes me feel old.’
‘Well …’
‘Oh, come off it, Kerrigan.’
‘You deserved that after the dress comment.’
‘I’m sure I apologised for that already.’
‘And I’m sure you didn’t.’ I tapped on the door of the other interview room and went in before he could reply.
Luke glanced up, his open, hopeful expression changing as Derwent came into the room after me and shut the door behind him.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ I adopted a bright and breezy tone in the hope it would cut through the atmosphere that was building in the room, crackling with electricity like the air before a thunderstorm. Luke was staring at Derwent with an expression that was as close to hostility as anything I had seen from him before.
‘The bad news first, please.’
‘Orlando has confessed to the murder of Roddy Asquith.’
Luke shut his eyes for a moment and winced. ‘Did he do it?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Why, though?’ Luke looked infinitely sad. ‘They were best friends. Roddy loved him. He’d have done anything for him.’
‘That was really the problem. Orlando decided he knew too much about something he’d done in the past. That time he borrowed your car, when you were trekking in Peru, he was helping Orlando out. Orlando mistakenly thought he’d killed someone at a party. He was afraid Roddy would tell us what he knew.’
‘But Roddy wouldn’t have wanted to get him in trouble. Ever.’
‘You said yourself Roddy was indiscreet. He talked to Paige Hargreaves about the club, which was supposed to be a secret. Orlando was afraid he’d give the game away.’
‘That club. What a stupid, pointless, selfish—’ Luke’s voice was rising before he cut himself off. ‘What a mess.’
‘Orlando was very keen to make it clear that you weren’t involved, even though he used your weight to set up the accident.’
‘Nice of him.’
‘The least he could do,’ Derwent said from behind me, his voice as dry as the Sahara. Luke looked at him again, his eyes wary. It wasn’t hostility, I thought with a rush of understanding and sympathy. It was fear. They were both terrified the other one would do the wrong thing.
And I was standing in the middle.
‘So you’re free to go whenever you like,’ I said. ‘You’re off the hook.’
Luke’s mouth curved up at the corners, irresistibly. ‘I’ve heard that before.’
‘As far as I know it’s true this time. But I always say that, so …’ I shrugged.
‘What about Paige Hargreaves? Did he kill her?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘But you’ll find out.’
‘I hope so.’
He stood up, pushed the chair into its place at the table, politely, then stopped. I glanced at Derwent and saw they had both adopted the same stance unconsciously, feet apart, hands jammed in their pockets, heads lowered. The look in Derwent’s eyes made my throat tighten.
‘I’ll just …’ I headed for the door but Derwent reached out to catch my arm as I passed and swung me back. ‘Don’t go.’
‘I’m in the way,’ I protested.
‘No, you aren’t.’ It was Luke who said it. ‘Please, don’t go. There’s something I want to say to both of you.’
Be kind. Say something kind and then you can go. Don’t break his heart …
‘I talked to my mum. About both of you,’ Luke added, and grinned. ‘We had quite a bit to discuss. I heard all about you.’
Derwent, the you in question, cleared his throat. ‘We were very young. And your mum was brilliant, even then, but I was a dickhead.’
‘That’s not exactly what she said. She really liked you.’
‘But not as a father to her baby.’
‘She wanted to do it by herself.’
Derwent nodded, his face remote. There was no suggestion he thought she had been wrong about that. He would never criticise her, I thought, even if Luke did.
‘There were times when it would have been really good to have a dad around, I’m not going to pretend there weren’t. But mostly, I had a good childhood. We were a close family. My grandparents were there for me when Mum couldn’t be. We were happy.’
‘And you did well on it, so she was right,’ Derwent said.
‘I did OK.’
‘Better than OK.’
‘Some things worked out. Others didn’t, so much.’ Luke looked at me. ‘I wanted to say in front of … um, him, I know it wasn’t your fault. Mum told me she made you promise not to tell him. I know what she’s like – she would have gone mental if he’d turned up on the doorstep. She’d never have let me see him. So, you not breaking your promise is probably a good thing.’ He looked at Derwent. ‘You really need to forgive her for that.’
‘I already have,’ Derwent said, with the smooth confidence of someone who had neither said it nor planned to in the future.
Luke took a deep breath. ‘If you’d asked me two or three years ago if I missed having a dad, I’d have said no. If you’d come to see me when I was at university, I’d probably have told you to fuck off. I didn’t have a dad and I didn’t need one. I was proud of growing up on my own and I wouldn’t have wanted to change a thing.’
‘And now?’ His tone was carefully matter-of-fact. There would be no emotional appeal; he would accept whatever Luke wanted, even if it broke his heart, and Luke would never know.
‘I don’t know.’ Luke shrugged. ‘It’s a bit late to start playing football together.’
‘I could buy you a pint.’
The silence seemed endless before Luke nodded. ‘I’d like that. And to be honest, I need a drink after today.’
‘Have a lovely time,’ I said, beaming at the pair of them.
‘Oh, you’re coming too.’ Luke looked at his father. ‘Isn’t she?’
‘If she wants.’ Derwent raised his eyebrows at me. ‘How about it?’
‘I’d get in the way.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’ They said it in unison, and then grinned at one another, and I suddenly saw how it would make everything easier if there was someone else to talk to, someone who wasn’t in the grip of any emotion stronger than joy to see someone I cared about feeling happy for what might have been the first time since I’d known him.
‘Well, maybe for one.’
It was a beautiful evening, warm and clear, and the pub’s customers had overflowed across the pavement. The rumble of conversation rose like the smoke from cigarettes, evaporating into the blue air. Laughter spilled out from the group next to us and I found myself smiling at it instead of minding the noise.
‘Are you all right to stay out here?’ Derwent asked me. ‘Or do you want to find somewhere to sit down inside?’
‘Out here is fine. I’m not feeling as bad as I was. I must be on the mend.’ I found a place where I could lean against the wall while Derwent disappeared into the pub, a tall dark figure cutting through the crowd without difficulty. There was something about him that made people give him space. Luke watched him go.
‘Is he always like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Effective,’ Luke said at last.
‘Pretty much. He’ll get served straight away.’
Luke looked thoughtful, watching the door like a dog that wasn’t sure its owner was coming back. There was a sweetness to his face that I’d never seen on Derwent’s – a lack of cynicism that was touching. Maybe Derwent would have been like that if his life had been less difficult. Maybe he would have gone to Cambridge and got a well-paid job and laid waste to the pretty girls of London if he hadn’t been struggling to make his way in the world on his own.
‘This must be strange for you,’ I said gently. ‘But remember it’s strange for him too.’
That got his attention. ‘How does he feel about it? About … well, about me?’
I hesitated. If I said too much, it might make Luke feel overburdened with Derwent’s need to build a relationship. Too little, and he might think it didn’t matter.
‘I don’t want to speak for him, but he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to be.’
‘You know him well, don’t you?’
‘He’s not easy to know. You have to get past a lot of defences before you find the real him,’ I said carefully. ‘But I can tell you that he has the biggest heart of anyone I know, and for as long as I’ve known him, he’s been looking for something to do with it.’
Luke nodded. ‘I know that feeling. Like there’s something you’ve never had but you miss it all the time.’
‘Exactly.’ I looked around, checking to see he wasn’t in earshot. ‘The main thing is that you can trust him. He’s never let me down.’
He smiled down at me. ‘You look out for him, don’t you?’
‘I don’t want either of you to get hurt.’
‘No. And speaking of being hurt, what happened to you?’
I didn’t have to answer straight away because Derwent returned with two pints of bitter and a gin for me. He had heard the question and I was aware of him watching me to see how I would respond. And in the end, it was easy to tell the truth. I felt safe with the two of them, and I wasn’t afraid of being judged.
‘My ex-boyfriend beat me up.’
‘Shit.’ Luke looked horrified. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I will be.’
‘Are you going to get him locked up?’
‘If I can. Someone told me I should, and he was right. I don’t want him to do it to anyone else.’ I sipped my drink. Derwent was smiling to himself.
‘So he’s now your ex-boyfriend,’ Luke said slowly.
‘Very much so.’
‘And that means you’re single.’
Derwent snorted. ‘Forget it, pal. She’s well out of your league.’
‘It’s worth a try.’ Luke was staring into my eyes. ‘Isn’t it, Maeve?’
‘No, it isn’t.’ Derwent snapped. He looked at me. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘Because there’s no need for a DNA test,’ I said. ‘This is definitely your son.’