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‘Meet me for lunch, then? How about Coppa Club?’
‘Okay. Give me half an hour.’
Taylor makes it through the door just as Cole appears.
‘I’ll take over if you want your lunch now, Hannah,’ he says, smiling.
‘Yeah, I think I’ll pop out for a bit. Clear my head.’ I turn back to him. ‘We really do need to get someone in to replace Katy. Any news from your niece?’
‘Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. Ella can come and see you this evening.’ He smiles. ‘Let’s hope she does a better job at turning up than Katy.’
Taylor’s already seated at a table when I get to the restaurant. I’ve been to Coppa Club before, with Max and Poppy on Max’s birthday last year. Our food order had taken an especially long time, so Max had spent the whole of the wait playing noughts and crosses with Poppy. I could tell he needed a break, and I’d tried to take over, but Poppy had insisted that she had to play with Daddy. It was his birthday, after all.
I force this memory from my mind as I join Taylor. ‘Did he see me?’ he asks. ‘Your colleague. Cole, is it?’
‘Yeah. And no, he didn’t. At least he didn’t mention anything. Which is unlike him, so I’m assuming he didn’t.’
A waiter comes over to take our order, and I’m surprised at how hungry I suddenly feel. I’ve barely eaten for days and it’s bound to have caught up with me, no matter what stress I’m under. I order a Caesar salad and fries, and Taylor opts for a burger.
‘You asked me whether I trusted Alice,’ he says, when the waitress disappears to get our drinks. ‘The truth is, I don’t think I did. Not at the end. I think I’ve been struggling to admit that to myself.’ He pauses. ‘When someone dies, it’s like you don’t want to see any bad in them. And none of us are saints, are we? We paint the dead as these angelic flawless people who did nowrong. But the truth is, I don’t know what Alice was capable of at the end. She’d changed beyond recognition.’
‘Do you still believe she was leaving Max? And that she wanted no part in what he was planning? That he wanted me dead so he could have Poppy?’
‘Alice wouldn’t hurt anyone. She was just troubled. I just don’t know what she did to make him want to kill her.’
‘Those photos of me, though. Why did she have those?’
‘I wish I could tell you,’ Taylor says. ‘Sometimes Alice was hard to fathom.’
The waitress brings our drinks over. I’m only having apple juice – I need my senses on high alert.
‘Please don’t take it personally if I find the whole trust thing hard,’ Taylor says.
‘I won’t. And I still don’t trust you.’ Even as I say this, I wonder if I mean it, or if somehow something has changed. It’s hard to spend so much time with someone – under challenging circumstances – and not form a bond with them.
Taylor reaches for my hand, and for a moment I let him, because it feels good to feel something other than pain. And fear.
‘One day we’ll be able to look back on this with perspective, and everything will look a whole lot different,’ he says.
I pull my hand away. This feels too intimate, and I’m not ready for it. I’m not sure I ever will be. I ask Taylor if he’s heard from Molly Hughes, and our conversation resumes on safer ground.
‘She’s just frustrated that the police don’t seem to be getting anywhere. They have DNA evidence apparently, but no one to link it to. Fingerprints from the room. But there are all the people who have stayed in that room before. It must be a nightmare for the police. Who knows how thoroughly hotel rooms get cleaned. And it’s not exactly a five-star hotel.’
My heart beats faster. ‘And here we are, sitting on information about Max. A possible suspect.’ I tell Taylor what I’ve only just decided in the last few minutes. ‘When I meet up with that man and hand him the money – I’ll record our conversation.’
Taylor’s eyes widen. ‘That’s risky, Hannah.’
‘I know, but it will be enough to go to the police with. And maybe Max’s fingerprints are all over the hotel room.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Taylor says. ‘But I don’t think we have any choice.’
When our food arrives, I try to change the subject, but Taylor just pushes food around his plate. This is getting to him.
We’ve just paid the bill when I glance up and see a man standing by the bar, his back to us. Instantly I recognise him. The bulky body beneath a blue hooded top, the dark salt-and-pepper hair. Away from his car, he looks out of context.
Adrenalin courses through me. And nausea. ‘Taylor. He’s there. By the bar. He must have been following us.’
Taylor turns around, frowning. ‘The man in the Golf?’
