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Joseph tried to hide his shock. “She cost me my job. She had no right to interfere.”
“She had every right to interfere. She was head of pastoral care. A student was worried about her friend, who was in love with you, a teenage girl to whom you had given your personal number and who you had promised to show around Bangkok.”
“It was completely innocent!”
“You need to grow up. You shouldn’t be allowed around young people. What you said to Charlie was unbelievably cruel. It wasn’t just what you told him about his mum having an affair with his chemistry teacher. What really did the harm was you telling him that everyone knew about the affair, and were laughing at him behind his back.”
“How do you know?” Joseph asked, stunned.
“I was with Charlie before he died, remember?”
“He told you?” Gabriel kept silent. “I shouldn’t have said it, I know that, I shouldn’t have told him that everyone was laughing at him. I regretted it afterward.”
“Especially as it wasn’t true. Nobody knew about the affair because his mum and the chemistry teacher had been ultra-discreet. Not even their colleagues knew. Charlie’s father did, and he had no problem with it, because he and Maggie had agreed years ago that although their marriage was over, they would stay together until Charlie left St. Cuthbert’s. Then they would tell him, and introduce him to their respective partners. That was going to happen this summer. But you got their first, with your lies and cruelty. How could you? How could you have said those things to Charlie?”
“I was drunk.”
“Yes, you were, and a few days later you crashed your car while drunk and pretended to Esme and Hugh that it was why you lost your job. But you had already been sacked. You’re a liar, and a coward.”
Joseph dropped his head and stared at the table. “If it’s any consolation, I came off the road because when I heard that Charlie had died, I felt in some way responsible. I thought that if I hadn’t said those things to him, he might have been riding more carefully.”
“It’s not any consolation at all. You came off the road because youwere drunk. And please don’t feel ‘in some way responsible’ for Charlie’s death. You are one hundred percent responsible.”
Joseph’s head jerked up. “What do you mean?”
“I lied, Joseph. I lied about Charlie’s last message. He didn’t ask me to tell his mum he loved her. What he actually said was, ‘Tell Mum I’ll never forgive her. This is her fault. She shouldn’t have done what she did.’” Gabriel paused to let Charlie’s words sink in. “And then he said, ‘He shouldn’t have told me.’ To me, that sounds like Charlie rode off the edge of the quarry on purpose because of what you told him.”
He watched impassively as the blood drained from Joseph’s face. And then he left to collect the takeaway that he and Iris and Beth were having that evening.
64
Iris woke with a rumbling stomach, and dashed to the bathroom.
“You okay?” Gabriel asked, as she climbed back into bed. “You don’t look too good.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll have to be. It’s the christening today.”
He pulled a face. “Don’t remind me.”
“What did you say to Joseph yesterday?” Iris asked, sinking back against the pillows and pulling the covers under her chin. Although he’d tried to hide it, his anger had been simmering below the surface all evening. He’d barely touched the takeaway they’d ordered, or concentrated on the film, and she had left him alone, afraid that his anger was directed at her, that Joseph had told him she’d gone into his house uninvited.
“I just thanked him for his hard work,” he said, and some of her fear dissipated.
“Did he tell you what his plans are, where’s he’s going? He’s meant to be leaving tomorrow.”
“I didn’t ask,” he said, his voice curt. “The sooner he’s gone, the better. He’s a dangerous predator.”
A wave of pain had her clutching her stomach. Throwing back the covers, she ran to the bathroom again.
“I think it might have been that curry last night,” she said, when she finally made it out. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes, but I didn’t have the same as you.” Gabriel paused. “Beth did, though. She had prawns like you.”
Iris moved to the door. “I’d better check that she’s okay.”
She padded woozily down the landing and tapped on Beth’s door.
“Mum?” The word, accompanied by a moan, told Iris that Beth wasn’t feeling great. She went in, and found Beth in a worse state than her. Her face was as pale as her bedsheet, and gleamed with sweat.
