Boring. As the word landed, Aaron felt like Luke had hit him. He stared at his friend in disbelief, then grabbed the front of his shirt and pushed him away so hard Luke’s head hit the ground with a smack. He rolled away from Luke, his breathing ragged, not trusting himself to look over.
Ellie stared down at Luke sprawled in the dust, her face showing something worse than anger. Pity. All around, everything seemed still.
“That’s what you think?” She stood over him. “You think your friends are boring because they’re loyal to you? Because they show some sense once in a while? The only joke round here is you, Luke. The fact you think it’s OK to use people for your own amusement.”
“Get stuffed. I don’t.”
“You do,” Ellie went on. “You do it to all of us. Me. Aaron. Your girlfriend over there. You think it’s normal to frighten the people who care about you? To play people off against each other?” She shook her head. “And to you it’s all just a big game. That’s the scariest thing about you.”
No one said anything for a long moment. The words hung between them in the air like mist as each of the four avoided looking at the others. Ellie moved first, turning sharply, and without a second glance, she walked off. Luke and Aaron stared after her from the ground, then clambered to their feet. Aaron still couldn’t bring himself to look at Luke.
“Bitch,” he heard Luke mutter at Ellie’s back.
“Hey. Don’t you call her that,” Aaron said, his voice sharp.
Ahead, Ellie gave no sign whether she’d heard either of them and continued walking at a steady pace. Luke turned and flung his arm around Gretchen, whose sobs had been stunned into silence.
“I’m sorry if I gave you a bit of a scare, babe. You knew it was meant to be a bit of fun, didn’t you?” He bent his head and pushed his lips against her cheek. His face shone with sweat and was an angry red. “But fair enough. Maybe things went a bit far. Said a couple of things I shouldn’t have. Maybe I owe you guys an apology.” He sounded like he’d never meant anything less.
“You certainly owe them something.” Ellie’s voice drifted back in the night air.
None of them had mentioned the argument again, but it had clung to them like the heat. Ellie spoke to Luke only when she had to, and always with the same polite but distant tone. Aaron, embarrassed around Ellie and pissed off with Luke, kept to himself a little more. Gretchen found herself cast in the role of middleman, and Luke simply pretended not to notice anything had changed.
It would probably all blow over, Aaron told himself, but in reality he wasn’t sure. The cracks had been exposed, and they were deeper than he’d realized. He never found out whether he was right or not. Ellie had only another two weeks to live.
Gretchen reached out across the scarred table and touched the edge of Falk’s fingers. The noise of the pub faded a little into the background. She had hardworking hands. Her nails were bare and clean, and the pads of her fingertips were rough against his own office-blanched skin.
Ellie had been wrong about her, Falk knew. Gretchen was never an airhead. She was made of much sterner stuff than that. She had stayed and faced the music. She’d built a life in a community that had got the better of others, not least himself and possibly now Luke Hadler. Gretchen was tough. She was a fighter. And she was smiling at him.
“I know it wasn’t easy for you to come back here, but it really is good to see you,” she said. “You were always the only one of us who had any sense. I wish—”
She paused. Shrugged. One tanned shoulder lifted against the strap of her dress. “I wish you’d been able to stay. Maybe then everything would have been different.”
They looked at each other until Falk felt heat creep up his chest and neck. He cleared his throat and was still thinking of a response when a figure stepped in front of him.
17
Grant Dow placed a half-empty beer glass firmly on the table between them with a bang. He was wearing the same shorts and Balinese beer T-shirt as the day before. Falk groaned.
“I thought you were barred,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral as he could.
“I generally find that’s more of a suggestion round here.”
Falk looked past Dow to where the barman was watching with a resigned look. Falk raised his eyebrows, but the barman just shrugged. What can you do? Across the table, Gretchen caught Falk’s eye. She gave a tiny shake of her head. When she spoke, her voice was light.
“What do you want, Grant?”
“I’ll tell you what you want, Gretch. You want to be more careful who you choose for your boyfriends.” Dow had some of Mal Deacon’s arrogance, Falk noticed, but while his uncle’s mean streak was reptile cold, Dow was definitely hot-blooded. Up close, his face was a flushed mess of broken veins and high blood pressure. “Girls who hang around this bloke tend to end up dead.”
Behind him, his mates sniggered, their reaction a fraction late. Falk wasn’t sure if they were the same gang Dow had been with the previous night. They looked wholly interchangeable. The barman had stopped serving as he watched the exchange.
“Thanks, Grant. But I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions,” Gretchen said. “So if you’ve said your piece, why don’t you get on with your night and leave us to get on with ours.”
Dow’s laugh exposed a mouthful of neglected teeth. His beery breath wafted toward Falk.
“I’ll bet you will, Gretch,” he said, giving her a wink. “You’re looking particularly fancy tonight, if I may say so. We don’t normally see you all frocked up round here.” He looked at Falk. “That dress must be all for you, you dickhead. Hope you appreciate it.”
Gretchen’s cheeks colored, and she avoided Falk’s eye. Falk stood up and took a single step closer to Dow. He was gambling that Dow’s desire to avoid the hassle of arrest would outweigh the temptation to throw a punch. He hoped he was right. Falk knew he was a man of some skills, but pub fighting was not among them.
“What is it you want, Grant?” Falk said calmly.
“As it happens,” Dow said, “I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. So I’ve come to give you a chance to make amends.”
“For what?”
“You know what.”
They looked at each other. Grant Dow had always been older, bigger, stronger. Constantly hovering on the cusp of anger, he sent people scurrying to the other side of the street as he approached. Now older, fatter, and with the faint whiff of chronic ill health on the horizon, the bitterness seemed to seep from his pores.
“Is that all?” Falk said.
“No, that’s not bloody all. Take my advice. Take my uncle’s advice. For what it’s worth these days. Leave.” Dow’s voice was low. “That sack of shit Hadler’s not worth the trouble you’re going to find yourself in, mark my words.”
Dow glanced over his shoulder at his cronies. Out of the pub window was nothing but night. Falk knew beyond the main street, the town was all but deserted. Out here, those badges don’t mean as much as they should. Maybe so, but they still meant something.
“I’ll be leaving when we’ve got some clarity about the Hadlers’ deaths,” Falk said. “Not before.”