‘I doubt it,’ says Vesta. ‘When people get caught up in these sorts of things, it doesn’t usually end well for them. I lived through the sixties, love. I know. They’re not cheeky-chappie loves-his-old-mum types, these people, whatever they like to say.’
‘I thought if I… you know, disappeared… you know, when I saw Malik outside my flat… He actually got there before I did. Christ knows how. And it’s not just the witness thing, is it? It’s the money. I can’t believe I took it. I sort of forgot I had it till I suddenly noticed it on the passenger seat of the car. And then it was too late. I wasn’t going to go back, was I?’
‘No, no, I can see that. But yes. And really, the police…?’
Collette shakes her head, vehemently. ‘There were police in that club all the time. Getting free drinks. Backslapping. I know, because I was the one who had to make sure the drinks kept coming. I don’t think I’d last a week, if I handed myself in. I might as well just turn up at Tony’s house direct. That DI Cheyne – she’s no bloody idea.’ Collette drinks a large gulp of brandy. It burns, but it’s good. ‘What I don’t get is how they’ve been getting the numbers. It must be the home. It has to be. I’ve only given it to them. I mean, I always gave it to Janine, in case, you know… but she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have.’
‘Well,’ says Vesta, ‘the police have been getting hold of it, and frankly, if the police know something then everyone in the country can find it out for a couple of bob. But that man Stott clearly doesn’t know where you are and nor do the police.’
‘So do you think I should…?’
‘No. Oh, no, no, no!’
She’s surprised. Vesta has struck her as a backbone-of-society type until today. The sort of person who thinks it’s her duty to vote, who always trusts the authorities, no matter how many times they let her down. ‘I’ve seen far too many of my neighbours’ kids get sent down on stop-and-searches to think that,’ she says. ‘The police are just as dodgy as anybody else. Just as many prejudices, same proportion of people only out for themselves, probably more, maybe. It takes a certain type of person to want to be a copper in the first place. You don’t want to be a copper if you don’t want to tell other people what to do, do you? Only they’ve got power. Actual power, not made-up power, and everybody wants to think they’re on the side of the angels, so it’s really hard to persuade them that they’re not. I’d be very careful of the police. The law’s not set up for people like us.’
People like us? Funny how all those years I thought I was working my way up the ladder to be People Like Them. ‘So what should I do?’
Vesta bites the inside of her lip. ‘Search me,’ she says. ‘I could ask Hossein, if you like. He knows everything.’
‘No! God, no! Are you kidding?’
Vesta pats her arm. ‘Okay. It’s okay. It’s just… you know he had to leave home in a hurry himself, don’t you? He knows a lot about a lot of things. He’s been dodging the Iranian secret service for years.’
‘No,’ she says, again. ‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you. It was wrong of me. You don’t need to get caught up in this.’
‘Well, I am, now,’ says Vesta. ‘Not much we can do about that. We’ll have to think. I daresay you’re reasonably safe here for the time being. Presumably he’s got you paying cash so he doesn’t have to make a record, isn’t he?’
Collette is not sure who she means for a moment, then realises that she means the Landlord. She nods. ‘Yes.’
‘Well…’ Vesta sips at her brandy and stares at the door. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing. By your mum. It’s the right thing, poor soul. We’ll see you through that, and then you can decide what happens next.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Down at the bottom of the garden, there’s a shed. As far as he knows, no one has been in it for thirty years. It’s built of the same concrete sleepers as the railway line – sleepers that were probably originally intended for the railway line, for all he knows – strapped together with metal bands, and topped with a roof of corrugated asbestos. He knows it’s asbestos, because someone, a long time ago, if the fading of the letters and the advance of the lichen across it are anything to go by, has printed off and laminated a sign that reads DANGER NO ENTRY ASBESTOS and thumbtacked it to the door. It works beautifully. None of the other tenants, not even Vesta, ventures more than halfway down the long garden, as though even looking at the sign will give them fatal lung disease. So only the Lover knows that, behind it, the fence has long since disintegrated and there is a straight path into no man’s land.