11

Chris drums a rhythm on the table in the pub. They come here every Monday night to a quiz. The restaurant skips an evening service. Her mother kept the restaurant open seven days a week, Izzy learnt last night. All that heating, lighting, staff, food, and nobody ever does anything on a Monday.

They have only missed a handful of quizzes in over a decade. Even after Izzy moved out, and in with Nick, who never comes. ‘Nick would absolutely boss this,’ Chris once said during a particularly tricky round. ‘He would find it boring for that exact reason,’ Izzy said back. And it is true: Nick does find the pub boring. ‘I can drink at home,’ he says. ‘With the television.’

Izzy and Chris attended their first quiz a few years after her father was incarcerated. Afterwards, at their house, Izzy ate frankfurter hot dogs when they got in, boiled in a saucepan, stuffed in cheap bread, and Chris laughed and said, ‘Don’t tell the manager.’

Chris picks up a biro now and writes their team name on the sheet. Shazam for Robots. It’s a years-old joke between them. They won, one week, because they identified all of the robots in a picture round. Another team accused them of cheating and Chris said, seamlessly, ‘Oh yeah, we just Shazam’d them,’ while Izzy looked on, unable to stop laughing.

‘Been revising?’ Chris says. He sips his drink – he drinks endless Diet Coke – and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Izzy’s always liked his easy company, his small talk, but tonight, she wants something different. She craves a female friend. Wine, feelings, over-analysis. That’s what she wants. Someone to whom she can say, ‘My father is out of prison and says he didn’t kill my mother.’ Someone unconnected, open-minded. Everybody she has surrounded herself with is male, and most of them are involved: Chris, Tony. Nick wasn’t there, but is a hardened cynic. Izzy has always shied away from having girlfriends. Tears and book clubs and probing questions. Denial is impossible around women. But now, she wants a friend. A true female friend.

‘How’s the love life?’ Izzy says, flashing Chris a tiny grin.

‘Gonna bin her off,’ Chris says, drumming with one hand on the table. He reaches for a beer mat and fiddles with it.

‘No! Why?’

‘She used hashtag blessed on Instagram. Loser.’ He picks up the beer mat and gestures, a kind of what can you do? He chucks it on to the table and it skids across and lands in Izzy’s lap.

‘I think that’s forgivable,’ she says, picking it up.

‘Nope.’ He opens Facebook and begins mindlessly scrolling through it. When they first moved in together, she couldn’t believe how much he used his phone. It was off the charts. He had multiple chargers. Plugs that had five USB ports in them. A charging block so he could still use it in the bath – he loves to tweet from the bath – and long leads that stretched from the plug to his bed. ‘It was that or move the bed,’ he had said.

He slips into his own world now, as she takes the picture round from him. ‘It’s photos of James Bonds,’ she says, passing it back to him. ‘No idea.’

He scribbles a few names into the quiz-sheet boxes. She sips her wine – house white, the cheaper and sweeter the better. When he’s finished, he looks up at her.

‘Take it you’ve heard nothing?’ he says.

‘From Gabe?’

‘Yep.’ He puts his phone down on the table, face up.

‘No,’ she says.

He’s staring closely at her now, but his expression is unreadable, impassive. She looks back down at the table. She has isolated herself by not telling anybody, but the truth is that nobody understands. Nobody is here with her. She is alone with it, the reality of her father being out; she’s forced to be. Chris’s uncle killed his aunt, but her father killed her mother. It is incomparable. Chris doesn’t understand. Nick doesn’t understand. Thea wouldn’t understand. The Instagram family wouldn’t understand. Izzy herself doesn’t: look at her, sleuthing alone in the attic. It is not understandable.

‘Round one,’ the announcer says. ‘Question one.’

‘We were talking last night about his trial. I guess because he’s out. Dad was saying … do you think your dad will look him up?’

Izzy glances across the pub. The doors are open, but no breeze gets through. It’s airless, like the middle of August in May. Two people must be smoking outside: Izzy can only see their long, sunset silhouettes thrown across the paving slabs. They’re passing the cigarette between them. Shadowed hand to shadowed hand.

‘I said, it’s been almost twenty years. I mean …’ Chris says.

‘You said he’d come to see me.’

‘You’re different,’ Chris says.

She feels a flush of pleasure: she’s different. She’s his daughter. It is just like how Thea would do anything for her daughter Molly. Gabe will do anything for her. The thought arrives in her mind, fully formed, but she tries to suppress it. Of course it’s not the same. Gabe doesn’t care about her. Clearly, he doesn’t.

‘Dad’s got in touch with Gabe’s probation officer, anyway. Just in case.’

Izzy blinks. Yes. That friendly woman who, a year ago, had asked if Izzy wished her father to have any conditions attached to his licence regarding her. ‘No, no,’ Izzy had said, not wanting to discuss it, avoiding it, but inadvertently paving the way to this situation they now find themselves in. She had forgotten all about the probation officer until now.

‘Your dad did?’

‘Which country beginning with G …’ the announcer says.

Izzy tries to tune him out. ‘His probation officer?’ she prompts, talking over the announcer.

‘Shh,’ Chris says.

He listens to the rest of the question while Izzy anxiously chews on the skin around her fingernail. Stop it, she tells herself. Usually, she’d change the subject. She’s been playing it cool for eighteen years, after all. She covers up the way seeing families on the street makes her feel. She says, ‘No, it’s fine,’ when people joke about killing someone, their faces falling as they realize who they’re with. She never makes the point that everybody’s problems could be worse: they could be hers.

But everything has changed since her father stopped by the restaurant. She isn’t cool now. She is desperate.

‘Probation officer?’ she prompts, when it’s quiet again.

‘Yes. She keeps an eye on him for the duration of his licence.’

‘How long’s his licence?’

‘Life,’ Chris says. His eyes narrow slightly as he looks at her, his brows lowering into a puzzled frown, like he can’t quite believe she doesn’t know that. Not even Chris knows how deliberately she has avoided this topic. She closed her eyes whenever she saw the newspapers. The less known, the better. Until now.

Izzy stands up, needing to think. Needing to think somewhere he can’t see her facial expressions. ‘I’ll get you another,’ she says, tapping the side of his full glass as she gets up.

She stands at the bar. It’s too warm in the pub. Her hair feels heavy against her neck. Her mother’s hair. The exact same shade of red. Unmissable.

She can’t believe she had forgotten that call she’d taken. That there is a system that governs her father’s actions, his movements; something bigger than just father and daughter on the telephone. Something bigger than just her own private thoughts about it. She swallows as she orders a lemonade. Is he allowed to be contacting her? What does his probation officer think? Is he considered dangerous? Worthy of keeping an eye on, as Chris said? After all, Gabe has come to see her, and only her. ‘He’ll come for you,’ her grandmother had said, and she wasn’t wrong.

She puts Chris’s Diet Coke on the table in front of him.

‘Should keep me going,’ he says, eyeing both glasses. ‘Question four was about eggplants – easy peasy,’ he adds.

‘How did your dad contact the probation officer?’

‘He rang the probation service.’

Chris shakes his head just slightly as question five is announced. Izzy looks at him closely. Something is off about his expression. ‘Don’t think on it,’ he says to her. ‘Everything’s fine. You’re fine.’

‘Is your dad seriously just never going to see him again?’

‘What … are you going to?’

‘Well, it’s a small island.’

Izzy thinks about how often she runs into people she knows. Almost every day. Everybody knows everybody. They won’t be able to avoid him forever.

Chris frowns. ‘What?’ he says. ‘What do you think … we’re all going to go out to dinner together?’

‘I just wondered what your dad really thought he was going to do. He could … I don’t know. He could help him.’

‘He’s done your dad enough favours.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ Chris’s forehead has turned red. He draws a deliberate circle on the answer sheet, not looking at her.

‘What favours has he done?’

Chris shakes his head just slightly, infinitesimally. ‘Izzy.’

‘But what … I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Alright,’ he says, putting the pen down. ‘He said last night that he considered testifying for the prosecution and then didn’t.’

‘What? Why?’ It feels as though the blood in Izzy’s veins has slowed down. The pub seems silent around them. All she can hear and see is Chris.

He taps the pen on the edge of the table.

‘What?’ Izzy says again. It comes out shrilly, and Chris moves his head away from hers, rubbing at his ear irritably.

‘Izzy, it’s … Jesus, I don’t know what the evidence was: I didn’t ask. He clearly didn’t want to discuss it. He’s still … he’s still massively hurt by it all. I don’t know why you’re … going on. You never usually want to discuss it. We’ve tried so many times with you and –’

‘That’s fair, isn’t it?’ she says. Her voice is raised and he’s wincing, but she doesn’t care. She tries to calm herself down. Temper, Izzy. Don’t get angry. You’ll only worry about it later. ‘That I wouldn’t want to discuss it?’ she adds, more quietly this time.

‘But why do you want to now?’ he says.

She can’t answer that. Not without revealing herself.

‘Izzy, I mean … it was nearly twenty years ago. God. Let’s just – can we please just let sleeping dogs lie?’

The quiz announcer says, ‘What was the name of the actress who played Erica in Friends, who gave birth to Monica and Chandler’s twins?’

‘Well?’ Chris says. ‘You’re the Friends fanatic.’

‘I don’t know,’ she says tightly. How can he treat her so callously? Just drop that information into conversation, and refuse to elaborate? Is it just because it’s history? She tries to look at it from her perspective, and then from his. He doesn’t know she’s seen Gabe. He doesn’t know about her doubt. How adamant her father is. How convincing. How persistent he was with his daily letters, sent until she gave in. Chris is still where she was: ostensibly fully recovered from a long-ago tragedy. It has no part in his life now.

Chris is staring at her. His phone lights up, on the table, but his gaze doesn’t stray.

‘Anna Faris,’ Izzy says. Then, ‘Did you say it was for the prosecution? Not the defence?’

‘Let’s just do the quiz,’ Chris says. She has annoyed him, which hardly ever happens. ‘This is a twenty-year-old argument you’re having with the wrong person,’ he says, but not nastily. He says it gently, factually. And then he unlocks his phone, and begins scrolling anew, despite the signs up saying that phones aren’t allowed at the quiz. Conversation over.

Izzy watches him, trying not to look like she’s reeling. Wondering what her uncle’s evidence was. Wondering how she will find out. And wondering why Chris is so bothered, so closed, so determined to shut the conversation down and move on. A blush stains his cheeks, above his beard. It takes several minutes to drain away.

She calls Nick once she’s in her car. It’s after eleven thirty. She often picks him up on the way home on Mondays if he’s on lates. He answers immediately, on the first ring. ‘Shall I come?’ she says.

‘Sure. Be done in half an hour.’

She opens her mouth to say something about Chris, but what can she say? Nothing Nick will understand. Not unless she tells him everything.

She drives along the coast. The Shanklin beach huts catch the moonlight and she opens the window to let in the warm, soft air. A hotel stands tall against the sea, bright white, lit with old-fashioned lanterns. Several of its windows are illuminated already. Here they come: the tourists. Ready to invade the beaches and the shops and Alexandra’s.

Izzy gets to the police station at quarter to midnight. The conversation with Chris is swirling around in her mind. She wants to be closer to it all, somehow. Closer to the evidence. Closer to the authorities. She wants to call up his probation officer. Find each and every member of the jury. Go in and look at the police, doing their jobs diligently, day and night, and hope they got it right.

And maybe, by chance, see Nick’s boss, who arrested her father nineteen years ago.