“Still not helping round here?”
“Hell no. They might actually have to get off their bums.” Will had been using a pitchfork to work the soil?which didn’t look to Cadan the best way to go about it, considering the size of the plants, but he said nothing?and Will tossed the tool aside. He took up a cup of something sitting on a ledge, and he quaffed the rest of whatever was in it. It was warm in the greenhouse, as it was supposed to be despite the hour of the day, and he was sweating, which made his wispy hair cling to his skull. He was going to be bald by the time he was thirty, Cadan decided, and he gave silent thanks for his own thick locks.
“I owe you,” Cadan told Will by way of prefatory remarks. “I came by to tell you that.”
Will looked confused. He reached for his pitchfork and resumed his digging. “You owe me what, exactly?”
“An apology. For what I said.”
Will straightened again. He wiped his arm across his forehead. He was wearing a flannel shirt, partially unbuttoned. He had on his usual black T-shirt beneath it. “What did you say?”
“That bit about Madlyn. The other day. You know. When you stopped by.” Cadan thought that the less said about Madlyn the better life would be for them both, but he did want to make sure Will knew what he was talking about. “Thing is, man, how the hell do I know who has a chance with my sister and who hasn’t?”
“Oh, I expect you’d know well enough. As you’re her brother.”
“Not as things turn out,” Cadan told him. “She was talking about you this morning at breakfast, as it happens. I heard that and I realised…Listen, man, I was dead wrong and I want you to know it.” He was lying, of course, but he reckoned he could be forgiven for that. A greater good was involved here: He didn’t actually know his sister’s mind on the subject of romantic entanglements, did he??aside from how she felt about Santo Kerne at the moment and he wasn’t altogether sure of that, either?and, besides that, he needed Will Mendick just now. So if a small prevarication was going to get Will to open a bottle with him, that certainly could be forgiven. “What I’m saying’s that you shouldn’t write her off. She’s been in a bad way for a bit, and I reckon she needs you, even if she doesn’t know that yet.”
Will went to the far end of the greenhouse where supplies were kept and fetched down a box of fertiliser from a shelf. Cadan followed him.
“So I reckoned we could hoist a brew”?Cadan cringed internally at the bizarre expression; he sounded like someone on American telly?“and let bygones be bygones. What d’you say?”
“Can’t,” Will said. “I can’t leave at the moment.”
“That’s where you’re lucky. I wasn’t actually talking about leaving,” Cadan told him frankly. “I reckoned we could booze up here.”
Will shook his head. He returned to his vines and his pitchfork. Cadan had the distinct impression that something was eating at his friend’s peace of mind.
“Can’t. Sorry.” Will picked up the pace of his work and clarified his situation by adding tersely, “Cops were at the grocery, Cade. They gave me a grilling.”
“What about?”
“What the hell d’you think it was about?”
“Santo Kerne?”
“Yeah, Santo Kerne. Is there another subject?”
“Why you, for God’s sake?”
“The hell I know. They’ve been talking to everyone. How’d you escape?” Will dug furiously once again.
Cadan said nothing. He felt ill at ease all at once. Speculatively, he looked at Will. The fact that the cops had sought him out suggested things Cadan didn’t want to begin to consider.
“Well,” he said in the expansive tone that always indicates an end to a conversation.
“Yeah,” Will said grimly. “Well.”