Janet stared at her plate and felt her appetite drain away. She’d eaten half of it. That would have to do.
‘You coming?’ she said to Rachel, who had polished off her meal.
‘Well, I’m not staying here, am I?’ Rachel snapped, her bolshie side showing again.
Dave had found a place in a rehab clinic. He could use some of his private health insurance to pay for it, and didn’t have to wait. Gill had arranged to drive him there because she didn’t quite trust him to go.
She asked Janet to keep an eye on things at work and if anyone asked to just tell them she had a hospital appointment. Noel and Neil Perry were awaiting transfer to prison. The vans did their rounds at the beginning and end of the day, delivering suspects to court, bringing defendants back to prison after their time in the dock. If further investigation led the police back to either of the Perrys in relation to Victor and Lydia, the police could apply to the prison to have them produced for interview. Gill thought there was little chance of this happening. They hadn’t been involved in the double murder, she was sure of it.
The chief superintendent was happy to give them a twelve-hour extension to continue questioning Greg Tandy, given that the evidence now pointed to his possible involvement in those killings.
‘Or I could ask Lee,’ Gill said to Janet, ‘in case Elise wants-’
‘It’ll be fine but if I am needed I’ll hand things over to Lee. You won’t be all that long, will you, anyway?’
‘You’re right.’ Gill shuddered, wishing it could all be over.
She picked him up from his mother’s. His mother answered the door and didn’t seem to know what to say. Gill had no idea whether Dave had spoken to her in any detail about it all. Anyway his mother settled for, ‘It’s very good of you. He just needs a bit of breathing space.’ It must have been a nightmare for her, her middle-aged son suddenly going into a 40 per cent proof meltdown in her spare room, after years of independence.
Dave came downstairs carrying a suitcase, said hello with no warmth, flat and resigned. He gave his mother a brief hug then took his case outside. Gill followed, popped the boot. Once he’d stowed it away, he got in beside her.
The first part of the journey was in silence, the atmosphere strained.
‘My car,’ he said, as she reached the motorway heading south.
‘Don’t worry, I put it in the garage. It can stay there for now.’
‘Emma…’
The whore.
‘I’d rather she didn’t know I was-’ He nodded in their direction of travel.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Gill said. She’d no idea where things were up to with Dave and the whore. Had presumed that with his drinking and general fuckwittery he had queered his pitch and burned his bridges and hence the move back to his mother’s. Did Dave really imagine there might be life in that relationship? If he was hiding his treatment from the woman then it really didn’t sound like a match made in heaven. In sickness and in health. And what was all the bollocks about starting again with Gill? She didn’t care any more. They could fuck off into the sunset together if that’s what they wanted.