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‘You’re right. She was torn up about Brownstone. But it wasn’t because she was upset I was a part of it, it was because she was furious about what I’d done. I slipped up, telling that geebag in Kilburn I was a bereavement counsellor. Cocky, your mother warned me. Pride comes before a fall.
‘My addiction was getting out of control. I realised I needed to get away, let the dust settle a bit. I thought Brownstone would be a sleepy enough place I could dial things back, but that force just kept building inside me.
‘I couldn’t contain it, and in the end it got the better of me. Your mother was mad. She felt there was nothing sacrificial about that murder. The girl didn’t even have curly hair, she said.
‘She liked me stopping that woman about the cardigan though, figured it was a great joke how someone so strongly matching my victim type was thanking me for helping them out. Things were a little better between us after that. It still worried her though, all the details coming to light. The fact I’d gone rogue, as she put it.’
I massage the base of my throat, trying to ease the building sickness.
‘Bullshit,’ I tell him.
He’s not listening though, on a roll.
‘Brownstone is why she shopped me. She thought I was out of control. Or perhaps she just decided it was her turn to end a life. Better to live a moment as a lion than a lifetime as a lamb, she used to say. It’s why I insisted she pay for my defence. Amelia owed me, and she knew it.’
I shake my head, I won’t listen to any more of his lies.
‘She kept looking for connections between you and the killer, agonising about them. Discussing them with Linda, my grandparents. Why would she have done that if what you’re saying is true? Why would she have drawn attention to you like that?’
Again he responds without hesitation.
‘To test what other people thought, I expect. To work out how badly I’d tripped up, if I’d implicated her somehow. Which is another reason she went to the police, I imagine. She was saving her own neck. Your mother was nothing if not a survivor. And of course, she always did have a jealous edge. I’d say ask Jame Brennan, but I guess you can’t really do that now, can you?’
I look at this man I once loved and now hate. He wants to stick the knife in one more time before he dies. But I won’t let him stick it in me.
I meet his eyes, angle the phone away from my mouth so he can read my lips.
‘My mother didn’t go to the police,’ I tell him. ‘I did.’
I take in the pall that passes across his face, the surprise slackening his features. And then I buzz for the guard.
‘We’re finished here,’ I say.
