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‘Why?’
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘What about?’
Patrick shakes his head; he doesn’t want to say unless Olly comes out. Olly feels his curiosity get the better of him. Perhaps Patrick will tell him something that will be useful in terms of Nicole. He slips out of his study and hurries down the corridor to a door that leads directly into the orchard. It’s low and set into the deep stone walls and opens into a small porch. Patrick joins him there. They sit on either side of the porch on narrow stone benches, facing one another.
Patrick looks dishevelled, his nice shirt crumpled, and his chinos dirt-stained. ‘Are you sleeping rough?’ Olly asks. Patrick ignores the question.
‘I saw you last night,’ he says. ‘In the woods. You buried something.’
Olly feels his blood run cold. ‘You saw no such thing,’ he says.
‘It looked like a body,’ Patrick says. ‘Was it? No. Don’t deny it. I know what it was, and I know where it is. I could tell the police.’
Blackmail, Olly thinks. Of course, Patrick would be this crude. He’s a chancer.
‘What do you want?’ he asks.
‘Ten thousand quid.’
‘That’s a lot of money.’ Olly doesn’t have access to anything like that amount and, even if he did, he wouldn’t give it to Patrick. Stalling Patrick is his only option. Then he and Sasha can work out what to do, because this is a problem.
‘You need to come back,’ he says. ‘I can’t lay my hands on that kind of money quickly.’
‘I need it soon,’ Patrick says. ‘Or I’ll tell the police.’
‘I understand. But I need time.’
‘How much?’
‘Two days,’ Olly says. ‘At least.’
‘You have until tonight.’
56
FRIDAY
Anna
Anna puts the memory card into her TV in the Coach House and looks at the footage from the camera. She needs to get back to the Barn so Nicole doesn’t miss her, but she must do this first. She can’t go a whole day without knowing. She feels a small, hopeful thrill that she’s been able to manage this, at all.
On the footage, the area at the back of the chapel shows up as a patchwork of grainy greys and blacks. A hare bounds across the screen, quick as a flash. The next clip shows a badger, ambling, taking its time to explore nooks and crannies for something to eat. She’s startled by the size of it and its muscularity. She tries to remember if the positioning of the fallen branches at the start of the tape looks the same as when she collected the memory card.
It’s not clear what triggered the next clip, because the scene looks still. Perhaps a branch moved in the breeze. Anna staresdeep into the shadows. Her excitement quickens. If she sees either Olly or Sasha – and it could well be both – she’ll be elated. It’s the best revenge. She’ll walk out of here, get into the car and drive so fast to the police station that she’ll have handed this over before Sasha and Olly have even noticed that they must fix their own breakfast.
But after that little clip, there’s nothing more on the card. Anna rewinds the footage and rewatches it. If Olly and Sasha visited the grave site, they haven’t been recorded. Nothing happened there last night. Her stomach sinks. But surely, they moved the body.Surely. If she was them, she would have done it right away. And that’s what they’re like: brutally efficient.
Disappointment bites hard and is followed by a wave of uncertainty. Clearly, she’s either wrong or she’s been stupid and isn’t capable of outwitting them. After all, they’ve been leading her up the garden path for years. Maybe they’re still one step ahead.
She works hard to calm herself down and to retain the crispness of her thinking. Perhaps, she forces herself to consider, I’m not wrong. Perhaps I just need to be patient and they’ll do it tonight, or tomorrow. Because they must do it if they think I know, mustn’t they? It’s too much of a risk otherwise.
Maybe they need some equipment, or they’re waiting for some other reason, though she can’t imagine what that might be. There will be a reason, though. They must both be determined to hold onto what they’ve got at all costs. If they need to move that body, they’ll do it soon.
Unless they didn’t kill Kitty, and she’s got it wrong. But sheknowsthey did. She knows what she saw in the Coach Housewhen she found Sasha cleaning there and she discovered Kitty’s insulin. And she’s certain she saw a grave beside the chapel.
She fingers the security pin that Nicole gave her. Staying at the Barn will give her some protection, as will the police presence, but she doesn’t underestimate what Olly and Sasha are capable of. She needs proof of what they did, and she needs it fast, before they move against her.
