Another joke cracked to stave off the inevitable. To make sure the elephant in the room keeps its back to us, at least.
Fearing we’ll still be here at Christmas if someone doesn’t bring it up, I bite the bullet.
‘Did you ever suspect she was involved, sir? With any of it?’
If the question catches him off-guard, he doesn’t show it. Years of interviewing, I guess. The ability to change tack, field curveballs, deal with anything that’s thrown your way, doesn’t dwindle just because your cells are mutating the wrong way.
‘Not for one second. I’d have sooner believed that Elvis himself had come back and killed that girl before I’d have believed Tess Dyer could be capable of . . .’ He breaks off. I look at Steele, wondering if we should drop it, but then he rallies again. ‘I still can’t believe it. I mean, I do believe it, o’course. I’ve no choice, she admitted it. But still . . .’ He stares down at his hands. ‘I don’t know why she didn’t come to me back then. I’d have given her the money to pay that girl off once and for all, she should have known that. She knew she was more than a colleague to me. I’m Ewan’s godfather, for crying out loud. She was always more like a . . .’ He halts again.
‘A daughter?’ I say. It seems the logical answer.
He hesitates, his face pinched. ‘A few weeks ago, I’d have said yes. But the fact I can hardly say her name, hardly bring myself to think about her . . . you know, I’m almost glad I’m ill, because it gives me the excuse to stay well away, to never have to look at her again.’ Another pause. ‘And I think the parent-child bond is a bit hardier than that. Unconditional, they say.’
And suffocating, in my experience. A bond so tight it makes a move across the other side of the Atlantic seem almost unimaginable, because of the base and desperate need to be near to the one person who knows you better than you know yourself.
The bad you.
The good and bad you.
The real you, not just the edited highlights.
‘She said she regretted getting you involved, for what it’s worth,’ I say.
‘And she said you had a bright future, for what that’s worth.’
Steele jumps in. ‘I think in her own warped way, you meant a lot to her, Olly.’
Cairns sees right through us. ‘Ah, you don’t have to dress it up, Kate. I had a soft spot for you, but I had a blind spot for her. She knew that and she played me brilliantly. She knew I was dying and that I’d always felt guilty about giving her that case. She should have been on leave, or at least on reduced hours, while Paul was bad, but she was adamant she was fine and I wanted to show faith in her. It was a stupid decision. My loyalty was supposed to be to the victims, not to her, but like I said – blind spot.’ He swallows. ‘So I lied to you. I said I’d micro-managed her so you’d shift the blame for any mistakes in the investigation onto me. Truth is, I wasn’t managing her enough. I was giving her free rein, trying to show I trusted her. And in doing that, I literally let her get away with murder. I could have gone to my grave without knowing that, I tell you.’
‘What she did wasn’t your fault, Olly. In her mind, Holly Kemp had to be stopped and she’d have found a way – any way – to do it.’ Steele gets up off the sofa, moves to a chair next to the bed, next to me. ‘You shouldn’t have agreed to take the blame for her, though. Your reputation, your legacy, all your cases, for pity’s sake, could have been called into question if this had gone much further.’
‘She was desperate,’ he says simply. ‘She said you were looking into the case again and she knew you were going to find gaps. And she was good, Kate, convincing. She admitted she’d fucked up. Said her head was so full of Paul and the boys and what was going to happen to them all that she hadn’t explored every avenue when it came to Holly Kemp and it was going to come back to bite her, wreck her career.’ He runs a hand through his white hair, his face pained, almost reliving the conversation. ‘Lord, I felt guilty. So guilty. I blamed myself for not keeping a close enough eye on her. So when she asked me, begged me, to say that she’d told me about other theories but that I’d ordered her to focus on Masters, I couldn’t say no. And more importantly, I believed what she told me. I had no reason not to. Even when it came out about the bank records, I still believed she’d done it for the right reasons – because she genuinely believed Masters killed Holly and she didn’t want the case railroaded.’ He shakes his head, staring out the window. ‘Do you know what she actually said? “You’re retired now, you don’t need the pension, what can they do to you?” She might as well have said, “You’ll be dead by Christmas, take one for the team, boss.” Thing is, though, she had a point. I’ve plenty of money. I’m pretty much untouchable – that’s one perk of dying. Whereas there she was, at the peak of her career, a whole load to lose, and two lads who’ve already lost their father. Tell me, Kate, what would you have done?’
Steele’s saved from answering by the sound of her phone ringing. ‘Blake.’ She stands and walks into the corridor, leaving me and Cairns smiling awkwardly at each other.
‘It’s been one hell of a month,’ I say, just for something to say. I think by now I’ve complimented every single feature of the room, and in any case, it feels weird to be quite so enthusiastic about a place he clearly wishes he never laid eyes on.
‘It has indeed, Cat, but to hell with it. Enough of this doom and fecking gloom. Tell me something happy, would you? Didn’t you have a date the other week? The first night you came around to mine with Kate.’
Two Thursdays ago. Aiden and the Americans. The conversation we still haven’t quite had. Not conclusively, anyway.
‘Oh yeah, right. Well, it wasn’t a date exactly. I was meeting my boyfriend’s work colleagues.’
‘Nice crowd?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, they were.’
‘And your boyfriend’s a nice fella?’ He laughs at himself. ‘Lord God, would you listen to me? “Is he a nice fella?” As if he’d be your boyfriend if he wasn’t a nice fella. You lose the art of small talk when you live on your own.’
‘He is a nice fella, yeah. He’s Irish,’ I add.
‘Is he now?’ This seems to please him. ‘And what part of the motherland does he hail from?’
‘Mayo.’
‘A Mayo man. Well, then he would be a nice fella. Hang onto him.’
‘I’ll try.’
I smile, but Cairns senses something beneath the surface. Dad swears blind that Grandad Pat went like this in his last few months – beady-eyed and perceptive, like a medieval witch.
‘You’re not sure about him, no?’
‘Oh yeah, I am, but . . .’ I rack my brains for something bland. ‘It’s complicated, that’s all.’
‘No, it’s not.’ He smiles, sinking down into the pillows a little; our visit has taken it out of him. ‘You know, I promised myself I wouldn’t become one of those “things only the dying know” bores, but I will tell you something, Cat. At the end of it all; jobs, careers, nice houses, flash cars . . .’ He grins at my bag, at the haul of goodies poking out the top, ‘. . . fancy shower gels . . . They don’t mean anything. All you have are relationships. And relationships are never complicated. They either work or they don’t. They make you happy or they don’t. Look at me and Moira. When the fun stopped, we stopped. Life doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.’