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‘What?’ Patrick says. He looks at Sasha.
‘Humour him,’ she says.
She’s wearing make-up and dressed in skinny jeans and a loose white shirt that’s showing off beautifully tanned skin and cleavage. Olly notes that Patrick can’t help checking her out. She’s always an asset.
‘So, in the Stanford experiment, researchers gave a group of children a choice: have one small treat – a marshmallow – immediately or wait fifteen minutes and get two small marshmallows. They left the children alone in a room with the one marshmallow to see how many of them would be able to resist that instant gratification—’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Patrick interrupts. ‘What are you talking about?’
Olly feels irritated. He hates to be interrupted and he’s tempted to snap at Patrick, but Sasha lays a hand on his thigh and leans forward, towards Patrick. ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘Let’s not waste time. We have a proposition for you. Take ten K now or wait for six months and we’ll give you more than that. Much more.’
‘How?’ he says. ‘And how much?’
‘You’ll have to trust us.’
‘That’s ridiculous. I don’t know you.’
‘You know what we did. You could go to the police at any time. It’s not in our interests to lie to you.’
‘And what if I can’t afford to wait?’ Patrick’s tone is aggressive; he sounds as if he’s running out of patience and Olly suddenly has a very bad feeling about this.
Sasha doesn’t seem to pick up on it. She persists in talking to him in a reasonable tone, reassuring him that if he can wait, it would be a very smart investment, that it makes sense for him,that she and Olly are clearly successful people, but Olly has the sense that this isn’t going to work. Patrick’s too desperate and too emotional.
Olly interrupts her. ‘Listen, as a gesture of how much we’d like you to trust us, we’d like to offer you a bed here in the Manor tonight, while you think about this. You can’t stay in the house because our housekeeper will be here in the morning, but we can put you up in the old stables. There’s a small apartment there, with a shower room. If the police come, we’ll deny that we’ve seen you because I don’t think they’ll be happy to hear that you haven’t left Lancaut. Would that work for you? I get the feeling you don’t have anywhere else to go tonight, am I right?’ He doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘In return for our hospitality overnight all we ask is that you think about this offer, and we can talk again in the morning. Whatever you decide then, we’ll accept it and we’ll help you get off the peninsula without being seen.’
He can sense Sasha’s frustration that they haven’t discussed this. He avoids looking at her and focuses on Patrick. ‘You need a place to stay tonight, don’t you?’
‘But what’s going to be different in six months? How will you get me more money then?’ Patrick asks.
Sasha draws breath to answer but Olly cuts in again. ‘That’s for us to worry about, not you. We’re just asking you for time. You can go to the police whenever you want so it’s not a bluff. It can’t be. You hold the power here. So, what do you say? Do you need a place for the night?’
Patrick looks from one to the other of them. He’s tempted, Olly can tell. ‘Yes. And food.’
‘We can get you food. Sasha, why don’t you rustle something up and I’ll show Patrick where he’s staying.’
She glares at him, and he knows she’s trying to tell him that she had this, and that he shouldn’t have gone off piste, but he ignores her. Olly can tell that Patrick isn’t going to go for their offer. He has an air of desperation hanging about him like a bad stink.
Olly leads him out of the study. In the hall he pauses to tell Patrick a little about the house, as if he was a regular guest. Patrick seems to relax.
‘Do you ever get used to those old dudes staring at you?’ he asks, gesturing to the portraits.
Olly forces a laugh. ‘Would you like to see the Great Hall?’ he asks.
Patrick shrugs. ‘Sure.’
‘It’s the finest and oldest room in the house. I’m sure you’ll appreciate it.’
He opens the door to the Hall. Patrick enters and Olly steps in behind him. ‘Wow,’ Patrick says, taking in the huge stone fireplace with its heraldic carvings, the thickly beamed roof, the ancient staircase leading up to a balcony on the wall opposite the fireplace. ‘It’s old,’ he says.
‘Very,’ Olly agrees. ‘Isn’t it spectacular? Sasha uses it to teach yoga now.’
Patrick is drawn to a large tapestry, hanging on one wall. He stands in front of it, his back to Olly. Olly picks up one of the yoga belts that Sasha keeps neatly rolled on a shelf.
‘This is incredible,’ Patrick says.
‘It’s a rare depiction of a hunting scene,’ Olly says. He unrolls the yoga belt and wraps the ends around his wrists. ‘Though obviously it’s just a fragment. If it was complete, it would probably be best kept in a museum. You see the hunting dogs? I guess the missing fragment shows a dead stag. You can imagine it, can’t you? Collapsed and bleeding.’
He steps behind Patrick, so he’s within touching distance. ‘It’s probably a blessing that that bit is missing,’ he says. ‘I doubt Sasha’s yoga students would want to look at such a gory scene.’
