He had thought Mam would have objected to his going. She might pretend she didn’t suspect Mungo, but Col knew she was just as aware as he was of Mungo’s guilt.
Of course he soon found out why. Mungo hadn’t been in all day. He didn’t know a thing about it.
‘And there’s no need to tell him where you’ve been,’ she said, as she stood ironing Col’s shirt.
‘I did try to say no, Mam,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I know, son. It’s awful hard to say no to that wee Dominic.’
Col took a bus into town, but even on the short dash to the restaurant, he was soaked by the time he got there.
Dominic was waiting for him in the doorway. ‘We should have picked you up.’ He dragged him in out of the rain. ‘We’ve got a great table. Come on.’
This was the part he’d been dreading. Walking towards that table to face Mrs Sampson. Yet already she was standing, moving forward to greet him. Already she was smiling.
How could she do that?
She must know Mungo was the main suspect. The police would have told her that.
The answer was tugging at Col’s sleeve. Dominic.
‘Come and sit by me, Col,’ she said. ‘Take off that wet jacket.’
She called a waiter over and asked him to hang the jacket somewhere so it would dry.
‘How are you, Mrs Sampson?’
She didn’t get a chance to answer Col’s question. Ella did that. ‘Oh, she’s just wonderful. Half her furniture’s destroyed, and the other half’s been stolen. She’s just wonderful.’ Then she sneered at him. ‘Moron!’
‘Ella!’ her mother warned. ‘Be quiet!’
Ella wanted to say more. Spit out all the venom she’d been building up since the burglary, but her mother wouldn’t let her.
‘This is my birthday. I want to forget for a while. Have a nice meal. Just enjoy ourselves.’
It was the hardest two hours of Col’s life. They couldn’t talk about London. (London, a million years away now.) It reminded everyone of what they’d come home to.
I shouldn’t have come, Col thought, again and again. Yet, if they were willing to sit through this, how could he have refused? They wanted to show the world they trusted him.
If he could force Mungo to give everything back, he would. But even giving everything back wouldn’t make a difference. Too much had been destroyed.
Ella got her chance to confront him when her mother went off to the ladies room and Mr Sampson was paying the bill. ‘I don’t know how you had the nerve to come here, Col McCann. After what you did.’
‘Col didn’t do anything,’ Dominic almost shouted. ‘I’m going to tell Dad you said that!’
‘Shut up!’ Ella said it so fiercely, Dominic did just that. ‘I won’t get a chance to talk to you again. I hope I never set eyes on you, but I just want you to know how much I hate you. Why can’t you admit it was your brother? How could he do those things? We’ve only ever been nice to you – and your horrible family.’
‘It wasn’t Mungo—’ Col didn’t sound convincing, even to himself.
‘You know it was him. Just admit that. That’s all I’m asking, and maybe then I wouldn’t hate you so much.’
She glared at him, her teeth clenched tight. ‘Just say it!’ There were tears in her eyes. Tears of anger.
Col couldn’t hold that tearful, angry gaze. ‘It wasn’t him,’ was all he could say.
She pushed her chair back, threw her napkin on the table and stormed off.
‘She doesn’t like you, Col,’ Dominic said it so innocently that Col almost smiled. ‘But she’s the only one. My mum and dad think you’re brilliant. And you’re still my hero.’
He wasn’t anybody’s hero, Col thought bitterly. Maybe he never had been.
Mr Sampson got him a taxi home, and as he watched them through the driving rain he wondered if this really was the last time he would see them.
The storm was growing worse by the minute. Rain bounced off the pavements, and every few minutes the sky was lit up by the lightning. The wildest storm he had seen in a long time.
But there was even more of a storm waiting for him when he got home.
Chapter Nineteen
Mungo stood in front of the roaring fire, his hands on his hips, legs apart, looking fierce. He reminded Col of a photo of the Colossus of Rhodes he’d once seen in a school text book.
Col stood at the living-room door, staring right back at his brother. It was clear that somehow he had found out where Col had been.
It was Mungo who broke the silence. ‘Did you tell them anythin’?’
‘You mean like, “My brother had a great time at your place the other night. He really hopes you liked his redecorations.”?’