‘Do you know where you’ll go next?’ As I speak, Tony sends me a warning look. Don’t get too personal. We’ve done our job.
‘To a hotel, I suppose. Or a bed and breakfast. It’s not as though I’ve got a home to go to tonight.’
Once more, I am struck by the literal way in which he perceives my question.
‘What about the future, in general?’ I ask gently.
‘I’m still thinking about it.’ Joe’s eyes are steady, looking into mine. ‘Any suggestions?’
My throat is tight. ‘If it was me, I would probably go and live abroad. Italy maybe.’ Goodness knows why my honeymoon location comes into my head.
Joe wipes his mouth clear of the froth with his sleeve. ‘Wouldn’t that look as if I was running away?’
Tony rises to his feet. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m doing the same, but I’ve got to be somewhere.’ He shakes my hand. ‘It’s been good working with you, Lily. You’ll go far.’ Then he looks at Joe and seems to hesitate. I hold my breath.
At times, I wonder if Tony actually believes Joe is innocent. Or whether it matters to him.
It’s the kudos he wants. The winning of an important case which hits the headlines. I saw the pleasure on his face in front of those cameras when we left the court. And I am sharing it. We’ve made history. It feels wonderful.
‘Good luck for the future.’
Inwardly, I breathe out a sigh of relief as Tony finally shakes Joe’s hand then walks away. But our client has noticed the delay.
‘He doesn’t like me.’ Joe states it as a fact rather than in expectation of denial.
I stay silent.
‘But you understand me.’ Joe looks at me again before glancing down at the bag of possessions he’s been given – his belongings from prison. I wonder if they contain Daniel’s sticker albums. I don’t want them back. Too many memories.
Maybe it’s the double gin and tonic Tony bought me, despite my asking for a single. Maybe it’s the relief that we’ve won. Maybe it’s because Joe reminds me so much of Daniel. Whatever it is, I find myself talking. ‘I had a brother once.’ My eyes wander out over the street – did I mention we are sitting outside? Even though it’s late afternoon, the weather is remarkably mild. Besides, by unspoken agreement we all needed some air after the courtroom. A couple walk past, arm in arm, and I can smell the woman’s expensive perfume. But then it turns to a different smell in my head. The smell of straw. And death.
I discovered Daniel was doing drugs when my mother sent me into his room to get him down for dinner, the week before his seventeenth birthday. He was chopping up white stuff with a kitchen knife.
‘That’s dangerous!’ I’d seen some of the sixth-form girls do something similar in the loos at school, though I’d never done drugs myself.
‘So what?’
‘What’s dangerous?’ Dad was behind us.
Swiftly Daniel shoved the evidence into his jeans pocket. Don’t say, his eyes pleaded. Don’t say.
‘Doing fifty miles per hour when you should be doing forty.’ I picked up the Learner Driver Handbook from the desk.
‘Of course you can’t, son. If you don’t understand that, you’ll never pass your driving test. Although frankly, I don’t think you should be taking it at all.’
‘Why not?’ Daniel’s dark eyes were glaring.
‘Because, as your instructor says, you drive too fast.’
‘At least I’m not doing what you are.’
A beat of silence. ‘What do you mean?’
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know what I mean. I’ve heard you on the extension. More than once, in fact. And I’m going to tell Mum.’
Dad went very still. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Nor did I.
‘It’s nothing,’ said my brother when I questioned him.
One of Daniel’s lies, I told myself, to cover his own behaviour and move the spotlight on to someone else. It had happened enough before.
That night, Daniel refused to come down to dinner. Instead, he stayed in his room, playing loud music that reverberated through the ceiling and made our heads ring.
‘Turn that down!’ yelled Dad, hammering at the door.
Daniel didn’t bother to reply. As usual, he’d put the bed against the door so no one could get in.
Later, as I passed my parents’ closed bedroom door, I heard them having an almighty row. There’d been others of course. All about Daniel. What is wrong with that boy? How can we cope any more? That sort of thing.
But this one was different. This one sent a chill down my bones.
‘I heard Daniel. Who were you on the phone to? Who is she?’
This was my mother.
‘No one.’
‘You swear? On the children’s lives?’
There was a silence. Then a low voice, which meant I had to press my head against the door to hear the rest. ‘… your fault. Don’t you realize? … lavished all your attention on Daniel … looked elsewhere.’
Mum’s distressed voice was all too clear. ‘So it’s the truth? How could you? Do you love her? Are you going to leave us?’
I couldn’t hear the reply. Only the desperate sound of weeping. On the other side of the door, I was bent double. Almost sick. Dad had been having an affair?
Then I saw him. Daniel walking up the stairs. Daniel grinning as though there was nothing wrong. Daniel with huge black pupils.
I rushed up after him to the bedroom. ‘Mum and Dad are splitting up. And it’s all your fault.’
He shrugged. ‘She needed to know.’
His lack of concern made me boil. ‘If you weren’t so horrible, Mum and Dad would be all right.’
Daniel looked shocked, as well he might. Hadn’t I always protected him? Loved him. Looked after him, just as I’d been instructed from the day he entered our lives. Even though he tested us to the limits.
But the shock of my father’s affair had made me see red. And that’s when I said something else.
‘We should never have adopted you. Then you couldn’t have hurt me too. I hate you.’
Daniel’s face crumpled. Instantly I knew I’d hurt him. No. I’d destroyed him.
I put out my hand to try to make up with him. He threw it off. Then he seemed to change his mind. He took my hand and squeezed it, crunching my knuckles with his fingers. The pain made me cry out. Then he pulled me towards him so that his eyes – mad with blackness – looked down on me.
I could smell his breath.
My heart pulsed in my throat. Words lay on the edge of my tongue, ready to be spoken. Words that would change our lives for ever.
‘You’re a bad person, Daniel. Everyone else says it, and they’re right. Really bad.’
Then he laughed. And I knew what that laugh meant.
I slapped him. Hard. First one cheek. Then the other.
‘You know what? I wish you had never been born.’
‘What happened then?’
Joe’s hand is on mine. Our heads are bowed together. Mine with grief. His with empathy. I can feel the same electric shock that passed through me in the prison when I gave him the sticker albums.
I’m certain he can feel it too.
That’s the thing about people like Joe and, up to a point, Daniel. They might not seem to show the ‘right’ kind of emotion at the appropriate time. But if you push them far enough, they bleed. Even cry. Just like the rest of us.
‘I went out,’ I mumble.
‘Where?’
‘I … don’t want to say.’
He nods. ‘OK.’
‘When I got back, Mum was frantic. Daniel had left a note just saying “Gone”. We searched everywhere. But it’s … well, it’s a big house. We have a few acres. And … and we have stables. That’s where I found him. He often went there. We often went there … But this time he was … hanging. From a rope wound round a beam.’
Joe’s hand tightens on mine.
My words are blurting out now along with the tears. ‘I tipped him over. He wasn’t well …’
Joe’s voice is gentle. ‘What exactly was wrong with him?’
I shake my head. ‘What they used to call “wilful disobedience”, possibly brought on by a difficult childhood. That’s what the so-called experts said.’ I laugh hoarsely. ‘He was never officially diagnosed, but sometimes I do wonder if …’
I stop, not wanting to cause offence.