68

Izzy looks across at her father. His face is wet with tears.

It wasn’t him. The truth hits her right in the stomach. The doubt. The reasonable doubt. Eradicated.

Izzy can’t observe the scale of it. It’s as though she’s arrived at the edge of the world, and she’s peering over into blackness. Infinite blackness. Steve murdered her mother. Then let her father serve time for it. Framed her father, really. Here he is. The man who robbed her of a mother. The man who couldn’t control his temper. The man towards whom all of her malicious, angry, guilty, sad, remorseful thoughts should have been directed over the years.

‘I couldn’t believe myself,’ Steve says. ‘I couldn’t believe that I had killed somebody. I was living in one world and then … quite another,’ he says, rubbing at his forehead. ‘I’ve never even had a temper. It was so shocking to me. Like an episode, or something. Like a breakdown.

‘I went home and tried to pretend. But after three days, I hadn’t eaten or slept … my wife begged me to tell her the problem, so I did. By then, Alex had been found. We decided to tell Pip. Otherwise he would’ve carried on seeing Izzy. We had to keep it secret forever, between us. She agreed to give me an alibi if it came to that. But it never did.’

Izzy closes her eyes. That’s why. Pip. Three days after her mother’s death. He had no choice. It was a family secret. Just as her family’s secrets were cracked open in the courtroom, Pip was forced to keep his hidden, against his will. But how could he do that to her? Would she have done it to him? She really doesn’t think she would have. She thinks of the way his eyes met hers when he was leaving the petrol station, and the betrayal seems to rise up through her.

He let her believe he didn’t want to be with her any more, despite how much they loved each other. Despite all of their promises.

He let her believe her father murdered her mother.

But how could he have done anything different? He couldn’t tell her: she would’ve told the police. And then his father would have gone to prison. And wouldn’t Izzy protect Gabe in just the same way?

Izzy looks at Steve, her eyes glazed over in shock. How can he feel sorry for himself, when he has taken everything from her? He was robbed of his child, so he took her parent. It is a cruel kind of vigilante justice he has imparted, for no logical reason.

‘Why her?’ Gabe says.

Outside, the rain begins. It’s so sudden and so strong that it sounds like hail on the roof. Izzy looks out into Steve’s tiny garden. Rain begins bouncing off the crooked paving slabs.

‘I was just going to talk to her,’ he says. ‘Confront her. And then I was going to get proof and shop the others – maybe her, too, I don’t know. But then: she knew. She knew about Ollie and was still dealing the same stuff. God, I just lost it. And then I had to hide – obviously. I’d killed somebody. I went totally dark on the whole thing. Until the police knocked on my door a couple of years later and asked me if I knew anybody who had dealt Ollie heroin. I had to give a statement. Otherwise they might’ve suspected.’

‘So you lied again. Said you’d never been to the restaurant.’

Steve blinks, looking surprised at how much they know. ‘Yes,’ he says.

‘Did Pip ever … want to tell me?’ Izzy says tentatively.

‘Yes. Oh, yes,’ he says earnestly. ‘I’ve lived in fear of it for twenty years. I’ve lost everything over it. My wife left. Pip is often withdrawn now. Will only see me on his terms. They kept my secret for me – but at the cost of everything.’ His shoulders shake, as though his body is still crying when his eyes have stopped, and looks at Gabe. ‘What’re you going to do?’ he says.

Her father says nothing, fiddling with the cuff of his coat. He doesn’t seem angry like she thought he’d be. He seems listless, melancholy.

Izzy is studying Steve. So her mother wasn’t killed by somebody involved with drugs. Or a man with whom she’d had an affair. But instead … by somebody who, like herself, was grieving. And grief isn’t logical. Izzy started to run a restaurant that she hated, gave up ballet. She did things which didn’t make any sense, too. They were just self-destructive: internal not external.

‘I guess you’ll tell the police,’ Steve says.

Izzy swallows. The police. Nick. He has betrayed her. He’d solved most of the case, he was only missing one piece: the knowledge that Steve had lied, but even without that he suspected her father’s innocence. But can Izzy betray him? If they tell the police the truth – unless Steve confesses everything – Nick will lose his job, or worse.

Steve pushes his fists into his eye sockets and sucks in a ragged breath. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I wanted him back. I thought it’d bring him back. If I punished her. But instead, I just took her from you.’

‘Yes,’ Gabe says.

Steve wipes his eyes and looks at Gabe. ‘If I could go back … I’d never do it. I’d stop myself. I wish I could go back.’