She stared at him in disbelief. Only the final five words had reminded her of the man she’d known as her father and she couldn’t quite work out how Lucas had slipped them in, how they’d seemed to him like a fitting conclusion to all the sleaziness he’d just described.
It couldn’t be right anyway. How could her family have had secrets like that at its core without her ever knowing or even suspecting? Surely her mother had known, and yet there’d never been any sense of disquiet or concern, never any attention from the police, never any fears about security.
Lucas had to be wrong or it was like her whole life had been a lie, her parents recast as strangers, her memories false. Only Ben remained true because he’d been kept as ignorant as she had, and now he was dead and would never have the slightest idea why.
She started to imagine how it might have been, whether the killers had gathered them all together first, or killed them wherever they’d found them in the house, whether Ben had had time to be scared. She backed off, though, the thoughts too precipitous.
It took an effort to block it out again but then she said, ‘You’re mistaken. If my dad told you all that stuff, he was probably just trying to impress you or something.’
‘What makes you think that would impress me?’ Lucas looked momentarily offended but appeared to soften again and said, ‘He filled in the details and the backstory. The rest was out there—he was a player.’ She put together what he was saying with all that had happened but as if reading her mind, he said, ‘Don’t jump to conclusions. To me, this smacks of payback from long ago. You know, in a business where people disappear for fifteen-, twenty-year stretches, you can never completely forget about the enemies you made in the past. Someone who orchestrates the death of an entire family strikes me as someone who’s had a long time to think about things.’
She looked at Chris, wanting an expression from him of sharing her incredulity. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes, though; there was a look on his face like his thoughts were tumbling as fast as hers but in a different direction. She wanted at least some communication with someone who’d make her feel less alone in this, but all she had was Lucas, redrawing the map of her world.
‘I’m sure you’ll understand that it’s quite difficult for me to take all this on board.’
‘What’s to take on board? Your dad was okay. He had a good run in a risky business. Now he’s dead.’ Then he added, like an afterthought, ‘And of course, you’re now a very wealthy young woman.’
She laughed in shock, wanting to distance herself from everything he’d been saying, wanting Chris to see that she was distancing herself from it.
‘I don’t want that kind of money.’
‘Trust me, there’s only one kind of money. And if you think otherwise, if you think the interest on your savings is clean, then you really do have a lot to take on board.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Chris, suddenly animated. ‘You’re honestly trying to suggest there are no ethical ways of making money?’
Lucas said only, ‘We’re here. Get your bags together.’ He stood up and she noticed the train was slowing.
They had to be safe here, wherever they were, but even now Lucas hurried them through the station. She searched for a name board but couldn’t see one and a moment later they were standing next to a sleek black Mercedes.
He opened the trunk for the bags and Ella said, ‘Do you mind if I sit in the front this time?’
‘Feel free.’
They got in and drove off, climbing steadily away from the town. It was just before six by the clock on the dash, still too early for sunset, but the cloud cover had sewn dusk into the fabric, and after a few minutes of driving, a fine drizzle added to the sense that they were losing themselves in a dark landscape.
Lucas pointed and said, ‘There are CDs in there. Why don’t you choose something to put on?’ She opened the glove compartment and took the CD off the top.
‘I love Nick Drake,’ she said. ‘My dad has the original record of this.’
‘I’ve only been into him for a couple of years.’
‘Did my dad recommend him? He’s always banging on about music from the sixties.’ She wondered if that was how he’d come to deal drugs, not as a criminal but as a youthful idealist.
Lucas smiled and said, ‘Your dad and me, we were never . . . Well, we never discussed music. Amazon recommended it to me.’ Ella smiled too, amused somehow because nearly every song she loved was associated with a moment, a person, an event, and yet here was Lucas, taking his cues from an algorithm.