“Mart’d tell Johnny his big idea was tanked and there was no point sticking around. Maybe a few of them would give him a beat-down, I dunno. I was just trying to get the kid out of this mess. Not get her set on
He’s ready to speed up the mountain and rip Trey away from that house, by force if needed. “They won’t be burned out,” Lena says. “Not when they’re at home, anyhow. The lads’d be careful about that.”
“Jesus Christ,” Cal says. “The hell am I doing in this fucking place?”
“Johnny was panicking, last night,” Lena says. “That’s all. He didn’t think this through, he got in deeper than he expected, and he lost the head. He could only ever handle things when they went his way.”
“Right,” Cal says. He shakes off the shot of fear and makes himself go back to his carrots. “What’d he want you to do about it?”
“Talk to people. You. Noreen. Get the dogs called off.”
“What the hell,” Cal says. “Why you?”
Lena raises an eyebrow at him. “You don’t reckon I’ve the diplomatic skills for it?”
She doesn’t get a grin. “You don’t get mixed up in townland business. Johnny’s not a moron, he has to know that. Why’d he go hassling you?”
Lena shrugs. “I’d say that’s why. He reckoned I wouldn’t care what he was trying to put over on this place. He started off with old times’ sake—you know I don’t deserve this, I’m no angel but you know I’m not as bad as I’m painted, you’re the only one that ever gave me a chance, all that jazz. He’s awful charming when he wants to be, is Johnny, and he wanted to last night. He was scared, all right.”
“Gee,” Cal says. “Sure sounds charming. ‘Hey, I got myself in trouble by being a shitheel and not even being smart about it, could you be a doll and pull me out?’ ”
“That’s what I said to him, more or less: his poor misunderstood self wasn’t my problem. He switched tack then: if I wouldn’t help him for his own sake, I had to do it for Trey’s.”
“Surprise,” Cal says. If Lena didn’t know him so well, she wouldn’t have caught the flash of anger.
“Yeah. He said he owed Rushborough money—did you know that?”
“Yeah.”
“And he had to make this work, or else Trey would end up either bet up or burnt, and did I want to see that happen. I’d had my fill of him by then. I told him if he gave a shite about Trey, he’d fuck off back to London and take his mess with him. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”
Cal’s eyebrows draw down. “He give you any hassle?”
Lena blows out a contemptuous puff of air. “God, no. He threw some kinda tantrum, but I don’t know the details, ’cause I shut the door on him. In the end he flounced off.”
Cal goes silent, and Lena watches his face while he thinks. The knot between his eyebrows loosens, leaving him intent and closed. “What time was he at your place?”
“Eight o’clock, maybe. Mighta been a bit after.”
“He stay long?”
“Half an hour, about. It took him a while to work round to what he was after; he had to go on about the view first, and a lovely wee pair of lambs he saw on his way over. That fella can’t go at anything straight.”
Lena was wondering whether Cal would react like this, like a cop. He got there in the end, but it came last.
“A tantrum,” Cal says. “What kind? Like sobbing and begging, or like yelling and banging on the door?”
“In between. I went in the kitchen and turned on a bitta music for myself, so I didn’t catch the whole thing, but there was drama. Loads of shouting about how it’d be my fault if the lotta them ended up burnt to death, and would I be able to live with myself. I didn’t pay him any notice.”
“You see which way he went?”
“I wasn’t looking out the window. If that little fecker’s face popped up, I didn’t want to see it.”
“Anyone else he mighta gone to, asked them to call off the dogs?”
Lena considers this and shakes her head. “No one I can think of. Most people had no time for him before this. And everyone got awful caught up in that gold: if they found out it was all a load of bollox, they’d reckon he deserved to be burnt out. There might be a woman somewhere that’s got a soft spot left over for him, but if there was, he’da gone to her before he came to me.”
“He could’ve killed Rushborough,” Cal says. “You said he was panicking. When he realized you weren’t gonna pull him out of his mess, he could’ve been desperate. Had a few drinks to console himself, maybe, enough to get dumb. Then called Rushborough, gave him some reason why they had to meet.”
Lena watches him, seeing the detective still working in him, fitting together scenarios and turning them over for examination, giving them a tap to see if they hold.
“Would he do it?” Cal asks her. “Best guess.”
Lena thinks over Johnny. She remembers him all the way back to a cheeky, angel-faced child sharing robbed sweets. The memories overlay themselves too easily on the man; he hasn’t changed, not the way he should have. For a moment she sees the full strangeness of where she is now, sitting at a foreigner’s table, considering whether he makes a suitable murderer.
