‘Nothing. She didn’t have anything she wanted him to do. It was just a…a plan. Something to be held in reserve.’ Ellie shakes her head. ‘And she actually ran this past me, to check this was cool. And to show me how clever she was, of course. Little bitch.’
‘You didn’t think it was cool.’
‘I thought it was fucking obscene. I told her if she ever tried anything like that I’d tell Mum, Dad, everybody about what she’d just said.’ Ellie shakes her head again. ‘She was drunk as a skunk and slurring her words, and she’d never been drunk in her life before, far as I know, anyway — threw up spectacularly later — but you could see her change tack almost instantly, even that far gone. Just flicked into this other mode, all jokey and faking laughter and saying, Jeez, I hadn’t been taking her
I shake my head. ‘Your family never ceases to amaze.’
‘But can you see why I hope Dad never retires?’ Ellie says. ‘Never gives up the business? The illegal part, anyway; the haulage, property and building side runs itself: just hire decent managers. The illegal stuff…it doesn’t work that way. Can you imagine the boys running it, seriously? Even Murdo. He’s the smartest of the three, but…by God, that’s a relative compliment.’ She smiles. ‘In more senses, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
She takes a breath like she’s about to say something, then doesn’t, but digs her mobile out of her fleece pocket, switches it off with some deliberation and puts it back.
‘Mind switching your phone off?’ she asks.
‘I really am not having much luck with phones around you guys, am I?’ I say, shaking my head but taking the rubbish temporary phone out.
‘Fully off,’ she tells me. ‘Actually, battery out is best.’
‘Don’t know why I bother,’ I say, taking the battery out.
Meanwhile Ellie’s fiddling with the Mini’s information screen, menuing down to the comms set-up and turning Bluetooth off. I want to ask her whether she might be acting a bit paranoid and we’re going a little overboard here, but I can’t think how to put it without it sounding snide or hurtful.
And — and this kind of astounds me too — there’s just a trace of fear jangling inside me. Because how do I know Ellie isn’t somehow back in the familial fold, despite everything? Could I be getting set up here? Could she have changed that much over the last five years? She wouldn’t be going to deliver me into the hands of her insane brothers, would she? I can’t believe she’d do that — and anyway, even if she did wish me harm she surely wouldn’t have picked me up from under the noses of my mum and dad, would she? No, I’m being crazy. She’s Ellie. She wouldn’t, couldn’t. Still, there’s that tiny, nagging sense of danger tingling in my guts.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Also, I kind of need your word on this, Stewart. I mean seriously, properly.’
‘It’ll go no further, if that’s what you—’
‘Well, it can’t. That’s why—’
‘It’s yours.’
‘Word?’
‘Yup. My word on it.’
She shoots me a frowning look, like she’s really having to think about this. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘You never were a blabber, were you?’
‘Oh, just…just stop now, okay?’ she says. ‘Honestly. We’re through all that.’
‘I’m sorry, I guess—’
‘Doesn’t lessen what you—’
‘Yeah, sounds like I’m trivialising…Anyway.’
‘Yeah. Anyway.’ She shakes her head. ‘Okay, here it is: Dad — Don — has actually suggested maybe I should take over.’ She looks at me long enough for a mid-straight correction to be required. She shakes her head again. ‘Seriously. The whole business. Everything. In fact, particularly the illegal side.’
‘Fuck.’
Ellie nods. ‘My first thought too.’
‘Jeez, you’re not even thinking of—’
‘Stewart, are you remembering what I do these days?’
‘Oh, yeah: drug counselling, rehab, whatever. Hmm. Some people would think that’d be great…cover.’
