Something Hidden (33 page)

‘And you hate him?’

‘I know it’s a strong word. You’ve been through a lot and dealt with it but you’re still young. Young people throw around words like hate all the time. “I hate
you”, “If you don’t get down here this minute, then I’m going to kill you”. The meaning of the words gets lost to such a degree that you can tell someone you’re
going to kill them, and it’s like saying you’ve eaten the last chocolate biscuit. You shrug it off and life goes on.’

‘Me and my old friends used to say we hated each other all the time. We’d fall out and then be mates again a week later.’

‘Exactly, because
really
hating someone is much more than saying the word. I know he hates me too but that’s a large part of what’s kept me going for the past eight or
nine years. It could have been negative but it wasn’t at all. It was what kept me getting up every day. He gave me money to leave his daughter alone, so, because I couldn’t have her, I
had to force myself to do something worthwhile with the money instead. I enjoyed that seething rage every morning.’

Fiona didn’t reply instantly. Andrew didn’t know if what he’d said had scared her off, it probably should have done, but she was a tough girl. Sometimes it was easier to tell
truths to a stranger.

‘Does this mean you don’t feel hate any longer?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know what I feel now . . . but it’s different. I had my second chance and it’s gone again. I think I’ve been spending all these years hoping that
opportunity would come along and, now it’s passed, I can try to move on with my life.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know yet. My point is that I don’t want you spending the next however many years hating some person you don’t even know, just because I’ve given you a
name. It might drive you, motivate you, make you want to get up, but it’ll get you in the end – just like all those happy-clappy hippy types always say it will.’

Fiona took a deep breath through her nose and blew it out through her mouth. ‘Does that mean the person is going to get away with it?’

‘It’s been dealt with.’

‘How? Who by?’

‘You’re going to have to trust me.’

Andrew reached around the stone and put a hand on Fiona’s arm. Even through the material of his coat, she felt so frail. With no parents to look after her, she was a young girl who had to
fight the world all by herself. ‘Even if I trust you,’ she said, ‘it’s not going to bring him back.’

‘No it won’t.’

He sat next to her for a while, absorbing the tranquillity, not moving until Fiona was ready to leave. Andrew walked her to the gate that led towards the main road. He offered her a lift home
but she insisted she’d walk, so he refused to take his jacket. It was too big for her but, if nothing else, it’d keep her warm on the way back to the city centre. He told her to call
him if she ever had a problem, knowing she wouldn’t. Fiona was going to create a better life for herself, still believing her father was innocent, even though nobody would ever be able to
tell her that for sure. Sometimes a person’s truth was more powerful than the actuality. If they believed it enough, then it was true for them, so who cared what anyone else thought.

Andrew watched her walk away and then headed back to the car, slotting into the driver’s seat as Jenny put down a copy of the
Manchester Morning Herald
.

‘Sorry for being a while,’ he said.

‘Did she take it okay?’

‘Relatively speaking. She’ll be fine.’

‘Did you tell her the truth about Sampson and Steyn?’

‘Sometimes the truth is best forgotten, like with Edie Watkins. Not everyone gets a happy ending.’

‘So you’re not going to tell Edie’s mum where the cats went?’

‘No.’

Jenny passed the paper to Andrew, with the front page uppermost that he’d already spent the morning poring over. ‘Good.’

‘You were right about Owen and Wendy reminding me of myself and Keira,’ Andrew said. ‘Ever since it happened, it had been at the back of my mind that they were a couple wanting
to get married when they were young. Every time I saw their names on the news, I replaced them with ours.’

She pointed to the front page. ‘Are you ever going to tell me what you did?’

‘Perhaps it’s just karma or a massive coincidence.’

Jenny picked up the paper, holding it up for him to see the front page. ‘“Uni professor and local jeweller in child porn arrest”?
That’s
a coincidence?’

‘What do you think I did? Planted it on their hard drives myself?’

Jenny didn’t respond. The truth was something he had no plans to share. He had his own demons and, somewhere in her past, she had hers.

‘
I’m not a psycho
.’

Perhaps they’d be honest with each other in the future.

Before she could say anything further, Andrew’s phone started to ring – Aunt Gem. This time, there were no jokes or threats to ignore.

‘Hello,’ he said, knowing straight away from her tone that she was in full gossip mode. He mouthed the word ‘Gem’ to Jenny.

‘I’m not disturbing you, am I, darling?’

‘No, I’m okay for a bit.’

‘I’ve only just heard the news. It’s so awful, dear. I wanted to call to hear your voice.’

‘The front page of the
Herald
?’

‘No, it’s Reg from bingo. He just called, properly shaken up.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘It’s his friend’s son. You remember that Kevin lad who came round to look at my ‘lectrics?’

She mentioned it as if he was an old friend who’d done her a favour.

‘I remember.’

‘It’s just terrible. His father’s devastated, so he was on to Reg, then Reg is an old softie at heart, so he got himself all worked up and called me, now I’m calling you.
I know I shouldn’t have, but . . .’

‘Gem, it’s fine. I don’t mind you calling me. What happened?’

‘No one knows. The men are there now trying to figure it all out. Reg heard it was an electrical fire, so maybe you were right about him after all.’

Andrew’s ears prickled with danger. ‘There was a fire?’

‘That’s why Reg was so shaken up – he was going on about how it could happen to anyone. One minute you’re asleep in your bed, the next, whoosh!, you’re off to meet
your maker. Poor Kevin. It was only the other day he was round here admiring my teapots, now . . . well . . . I just feel for his father.’

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz-Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz-Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Andrew pressed the button attached to the gatepost at the front of Thomas Braithwaite’s house. There’d been a pile-up on the M60 and he’d spent more than four hours driving
from Manchester, not knowing if he was doing the sensible thing. By the time he’d arrived, it was dark and cold again, with the moon dousing everything in an unnerving white-blue glow.

The gate didn’t open but Andrew could hear footsteps bounding along the path. Iwan was swaggering towards him, shoes still shining, suit still clinging. He stopped on the other side of the
gate, accent more pronounced than Andrew had ever heard it, toying with him.

‘Who is it?’ Iwan said.

‘You know who it is, let me in.’

‘Mr Braithwaite’s having dinner with his family. He’d like to be left alone.’

‘Open the gates.’

‘Believe it or not, I don’t answer to you.’

‘I’ll climb if I have to.’

‘Go for it. Watch out for the spikes on top.’

Andrew peered up, knowing he had no chance. There were no horizontal bars for him to haul himself up on and he’d never been a good climber anyway. Even if he did get near the top, he still
had the spikes to negotiate.

Iwan started to walk away, knees slightly bent, legs wide. He was laughing loudly until Andrew bellowed his name for the third time. He ambled back towards the gate, standing a metre away from
Andrew, the thick vertical metal posts between them.

‘You shouldn’t have come here in the first place. I could see it in you when you buzzed the first time: a wet, pathetic drip of a man.’

‘Was it you who did it?’

‘Did what?’

‘Kevin Leonard.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘I want to speak to Braithwaite.’

‘That’s
Mr
Braithwaite – and nobody comes around here making demands. Nobody. Now piss off before I come out there and make you.’

‘Come on then.’

Iwan grinned, scratching his head where there was still a hint of a scrape from where Jenny had sent him sprawling into the gutter. ‘Are you being serious? You don’t even have your
girlfriend around to save you this time.’

‘So what’s stopping you then? Open the gate – I’m right here.’ Iwan glanced over his shoulder towards the house. ‘Come on,’ Andrew added. ‘You
don’t need to ask his permission for everything. “Please, Sir, can I take a piss?”, “Please, Sir, can I shine your shoes?”’

The hulk of a man twisted back to the gate, mind made up. He pressed something in his pocket and the gates started to hum, opening slowly. Andrew stepped back until he was on the edge of the
kerb, standing in the glow of the moon, waiting.

Iwan didn’t move until the gates were all the way open. He walked slowly, hunched forward, grinning and cracking his knuckles.

Andrew’s heart was thundering but that was something he was becoming used to. He waited until Iwan was close enough, reached into the back of his jeans and then pulled out the tyre iron
that had been in his boot. Iwan had no chance: he tried to avoid the swinging clump of metal but even the glancing blow sent him slumping to the pavement in a pool of his own blood. Andrew took a
moment to check the other man’s prone form, making sure his chest was still rising and falling. All those times, he’d allowed himself to be beaten because he’d played fair but
Keira’s father had taught him that only fools abided by the rules. Iwan had turned up to a fight with just his fists – more fool him.

Andrew wiped the weapon on Iwan’s shirt jacket and slipped it into the back of his jeans, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it again.

Braithwaite answered the front door a moment before Andrew got there, face creased into a frown as he peered past Andrew towards the open gates. ‘Where’s—’

‘Your monkey’s going to be fine, he’ll just have a headache in the morning.’

Braithwaite pulled the door closed behind him, stepping onto the driveway, still looking towards the gate. ‘I’m having dinner with my family, Mr Hunter, and don’t like being
interrupted. What do you want?’

‘Was it you?’

‘Was what me?’

‘Kevin Leonard. That’s why you wanted his name – it was nothing to do with blacklisting him as an electrician so he never worked for you, it was because you were going to do .
. .
this
.’

Braithwaite scratched his chin. His eyes were even bluer in the moonlight, more dangerous. ‘Oh, Mr Hunter, what’s it like in that apartment of yours? Good views? What’s your
office like? Your assistant? What did you think was going to happen when you came to me?’

‘That was about dealing with Steyn and Sampson.’

‘Exactly, so you should consider Leonard a favour.’

‘A
favour
? I didn’t want this.’

‘You said he was a cowboy, that he could have set your aunt’s flat on fire.’

‘That’s not a reason to burn his house down with him inside.’

‘If that were true, then why give me his name?’

Andrew was shouting. ‘Because you asked!’

Braithwaite remained perfectly calm. ‘Come now, Mr Hunter, you knew what you were doing in the same way you knew what the score was when you told me there was a professor involved. I was
only interested in Sampson.’

Andrew tried to reply but there were no words. He rocked onto his heels and screamed at the sky, snorting through his nose as he faced Braithwaite, one hand reaching for the back of his
trousers. The other man noticed, eyes darting to Andrew’s side and back again.

‘Don’t be silly, Mr Hunter. Some things cannot be taken back.’

‘Like house fires.’

‘Precisely. I did you a favour. If you changed your mind about what you wanted, that can’t be blamed on me. I helped you and you owe me one.’

‘I don’t owe you anything.’ Braithwaite continued to smile narrowly. ‘What do you want?’ Andrew asked.

Braithwaite pursed his lips together. ‘I’m not sure yet. You’ll be the first to know when I do.’

Andrew’s fingers looped around the tyre iron. ‘What if I don’t do what you want?’

Braithwaite’s eyes twinkled in the light. ‘We’re all friends – why wouldn’t you? I’ll have a word with Iwan. I’m sure he’s not the type to hold
grudges. Now, why don’t you let go of whatever you have in the back of your trousers, return to your car, and head home to that lovely flat of yours.’

Andrew’s grasp tightened. It wasn’t Thomas Braithwaite standing in front of him, it was his former father-in-law. He must have been lying when he’d been talking to Fiona about
hate. It was only now he realised it.

‘Mr Hunter.’

‘What?’

‘It’s amazing what a person can leave behind. Look at you, all riled up, ready to fight. There’ll be sweat dripping from you right now. Hairs that were stuck to your clothes
falling onto the floor. Imagine what you left around my kitchen: hairs, fingerprints, all sorts. Imagine what might happen if they ended up at the scene of a house fire . . .’

The air was cold, biting Andrew’s throat. ‘You haven’t . . .’

It took an age for Braithwaite to shake his head. ‘No, I haven’t. As I said, we’re all friends here. I’d far rather we kept it that way.’

Andrew’s grip finally loosened. He was locked into a stare-off with Braithwaite again and there was no way he could win.

‘Was it you that Sampson called?’

‘When?’

‘When he realised the movie premiere necklace was coming in, he needed someone who could work quickly. It was the Evans brothers who ended up raiding the shop but I’ve not found a
single thing that shows he knew them.’

Braithwaite showed off his teeth. ‘Why didn’t you ask me that in the first place?’

Andrew shrugged, defeated.

‘Of course it was me he called. Who else was it going to be?’

‘So if you were in it with Sampson – if you sorted out the robbery between you – why were you so happy to tell me who he was?’