65

Izzy collects her father from his bail hostel – he’s waiting outside – and brings him back to their house. She has explained briefly already, on the phone on the way over, but her hands are shaking as she shows him the Word document. Nick. Nick. Nick. Her mind thrums with his name. What was he doing? He was collecting information in support of her father’s innocence. And trying to find out who else might have done it. Just as she was.

But he was telling her the opposite. Why?

Her mind is spinning with it, trying to work it out, her stomach clenched. No David Smiths traced. Her father crying in his cell. Nick’s betrayal, Nick’s betrayal, Nick’s betrayal.

And … her mother. Her mother who seemed so smart, so together and vibrant, wrapped up in stuff that was so sordid. An affair. Sex with her brother-in-law. And now – separate from Tony, it seems to Izzy – drugs.

‘So,’ she says, ‘Pip’s father gave evidence in this – whatever this was – this investigation, that there were drugs moving through the restaurant.’

‘Why would he know?’ her father says, still standing, his coat folded over his forearms, a puzzled expression on his face.

‘Oliver. The brother. He died. We thought it was diabetes but it was actually heroin.’ She traces a finger over Nick’s notes. ‘But listen: he said he never went to the restaurant. But he did. We had a whole meal there. Mum served us. Remember?’

Her father swallows, his eyes wide. He seems rattled, distracted. He met her on the steps of his bail hostel, kept looking over his shoulder up at the house. ‘So he lied to the police.’

‘Exactly. And why do people do that?’

‘Generally,’ he says, an eyebrow raised, ‘because they’re guilty.’

‘But not always,’ she says.

Her father hides a smile.

‘I don’t understand this,’ she says. ‘I don’t understand why these people were asked. How the police knew to ask Pip’s father. Why they didn’t look at your case again.’

‘This all happened in 2002,’ he says. ‘My appeal was in 2000.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘It’s a covert operation,’ her father says quietly, almost to himself. He puts his coat down on her kitchen table – her heart turns over at such a familial gesture, like he’s just here for a chat – and puts a hand to his chin. ‘The lads inside were often caught on these things.’ His voice is tight, his brow lowered. ‘It’s ring-fenced. Because there would have been a lot of convictions at stake – every dealer, every supplier – they open a secret file.’ He taps the screen. ‘Looks like your husband got the details on the restaurant from a colleague involved in it. It’s historic, so I guess it was easy.’

‘Start at the beginning. Explain this to me,’ Izzy says, looking up at her father.

‘Okay. A dealer blows the whistle on an operation. On a drugs chain. Marcus was selling, with Mum – apparently – and then with others, in different locations. Then it’s distributed to smaller dealers who sell to consumers. They start to investigate, maybe watch the dealers involved, interview people, like Steve, who might have some evidence. They were trying to get as much evidence – covertly – as possible, but it collapsed. Somebody must have alerted the dealers, and so, by the time they arrested them, the evidence was destroyed.’

‘Right. But why hasn’t it affected your case?’

‘That’s covert ops for you. The information will never, until Nick took an interest, have crossed over on to my file. No officer who investigated my murder would have any idea about this stuff. Chinese walls. And it happened so long after I was sent down.’

‘But … it’s so unfair.’

‘Well, the restaurant’s involvement was historic. And my case isn’t open. And it’s not cold. I was convicted. The police trust the justice system above anything else.’

He walks to the sink and helps himself to a glass of water. His forehead catches the light from the kitchen window; he’s sweating.

She continues to look at him while she thinks about Tony. So he wasn’t involved with the drugs. The police would surely have found out if he was. His affair with her mother was incidental. Just an unrelated thing, discovered because she had died. What would they find if Izzy died? A bunch of liked Instagram posts of a family none of them had heard of. Nobody would know what that family meant to her, because they are a private obsession.

Her father is gulping his water. She appraises his slim frame, his prematurely white hair, his prisoner’s pallor, and thinks: he’s lost enough. She won’t tell him about Tony. It’s kinder not to.

‘Are you annoyed?’ she asks.

‘No.’

‘I am. It seems so unfair.’

‘There’s only so much injustice you can take before you stop caring,’ her father says. ‘This doesn’t surprise me at all. I don’t give a shit.’

‘I can’t believe Mum was wrapped up in all this,’ Izzy says eventually. She blinks. Her mother isn’t Thea. And she isn’t like the Instagram family, either. She’s herself. Her flawed self. But perhaps she was trying to do the best for Izzy. To get them out of debt and to help her off to ballet school.

‘I know,’ he says, his tone softer now. ‘I know. But … I get it.’

‘Do you?’

‘She was always a misguided businesswoman. Wasn’t she?’

Izzy thinks of the cheap wine, sold on at extortionate prices. At how amateurish her mother was at running a restaurant, but how swiftly she’d thrown herself into it, getting everyone into debt before she even knew it would work.

‘I don’t understand why the debts remained, though.’

‘You have to launder money slowly,’ her father says. ‘The cash was sitting there and, month on month, she’d launder it through the restaurant. And then, when I was inside, the house was seized to pay off the creditors.’

‘Oh,’ Izzy says. ‘Do you think …’

‘What?’

‘Do you think she did it – this – because … because of how much she loved us? Because she wanted to do the best for us?’

‘Without a doubt,’ her father says quickly. ‘She loved you so fucking much, Iz. I guarantee it.’

‘And you,’ Izzy says simply.

‘And me. But, you know, relationships are … She was reckless. Wild, at times. And so she forced me to be the safe one. I loved her, but that wasn’t always easy.’

‘I get that,’ Izzy says, thinking how the exact opposite occurs in her relationship. ‘So …’

‘It seems to me that Steve is at the centre of all of this.’

‘Yes,’ Izzy says, thinking of the way he looked at her across the petrol station forecourt. ‘I think so.’

‘Then it’s time to speak to him. Isn’t it?’

Steve hasn’t moved since Izzy used to visit Pip.

‘Everything’s so easy, these days, isn’t it?’ her father says when Izzy types the postcode into her phone to navigate them there. ‘That little thing can do everything.’

Steve’s house is a Victorian terrace with a blue door which has no knocker or bell. Izzy stands on the steps, her father just behind her, waiting. Wondering if they are being foolish, to do this alone. Wondering if it’s all a mistake. Wondering at his precise involvement in her mother’s death. Will he lead them to what happened to her? Does he even know himself?

Izzy knocks softly on the wooden door. Steve answers after a few minutes, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, one brightly-coloured flip-flop on, one in his hand. He looks harassed.

‘Steve,’ she says to him, not knowing what else to say.

He stares at them both, saying nothing, his eyes moving from her to Gabe and back again.

She is just wondering how they ought to play it when her father speaks.

‘We’ve seen the police report about your statement from the restaurant. We know how Oliver died. I think we had better come in.’

His face drains of colour.

She’s read about that happening many times, but she’s never seen it before. His cheeks lose their redness. His eyes go dark, becoming red-rimmed against his white skin. Little dots of sweat appear on his upper lip, which he wipes away. His lips turn a whitish blue.

He steps aside, both hands dropping to his sides. The green flip-flop falls to the floor. Izzy stares at him. He’s not acting like somebody who has information. He’s acting like somebody who’s done something. Who has something to hide.

As soon as they are inside, the door shut behind them, her father, always two steps ahead of everyone, says it. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

Steve stares at them, in the darkness of his hallway. And then he speaks, his voice hoarse and cracked. ‘How did you know?’