she and my da got together. By rights he should have left it to me when he died.’ He took some deep breaths, calming himself. This was an argument he’d had in his own head many times. ‘But I could understand he wanted to make sure Norma was comfortable,’ he said, forcing his tone back to reasonable. ‘But the deal was that Norma would leave the money to me when she died. She had no right to change her mind and alter the will so that her daughter got everything, and to do it without even having the decency of talking to me about it. Karen knew it was wrong.’
He waited, willing me to engage. When I didn’t, he sighed and picked it up again where he’d left off.
‘So Karen was going to keep enough money to get herself to the commune and I was in total agreement with her putting some funds in a trust for Sunny, and that’s the truth. I’m not a greedy man.’ He threw a glance in my direction, hoping for confirmation of that statement, I think. He gave up pretty quickly when I didn’t respond. ‘But I’d waited a long time for my inheritance. Dad died over two years ago and I’m coming up to thirty-five, for heaven’s sake. Norma was dead. I wanted what was rightfully mine. Karen accepted that. It was all very …’ He hunted for the right word. ‘It was all very civilised,’ he concluded.
‘Until you killed her, that is. That wasn’t terribly civilised.’
He stared out the window at the mottled rain clouds threatening to drop their load. He looked at them for a long time without answering. He seemed tired now, bored with having to explain himself. He transferred his look to me. I stared right back at him. Finally he spoke.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said. ‘I trusted Karen would do as she promised and gift the bulk of the inheritance to me. That’s why I waited until she got out of prison. I wanted to give her a chance to sort out her affairs. I believed her. She was a born-again Christian, for fuck’s sake. That’s why I was so shocked when she suddenly up and changed her mind. Just like her mother did.’
The first pellets of rain skittered against the window like gravel. We both startled. It reminded me that Sunny and Neo were due to return. The sudden rainstorm would hurry them back. I didn’t want them walking in on Ned’s confession. Ned was following his own thoughts.
‘Karen told me she’d hired you. She was wanting to get things sorted with Sunny before she left the country.’ His tone was flat. ‘That was all fine. It was nothing to do with me.’
‘What was Karen afraid of? For Sunny, I mean. Did she tell you?’ It was worth breaking my silence if he could answer this.
Ned’s shoulder’s relaxed, relieved that I’d spoken. I’m sure that, in his mind, my question made this more like a two-way conversation and less like a confession.
‘Well, it’s pretty obvious now, isn’t it?’ he said, amiably. ‘Justin was the danger. I had no idea about any of that, and that’s the honest to God truth. Maybe he did something to Sunny when she was a wee girl. Or maybe Karen had caught him with some other young girl when they were together. I don’t know. I never liked the man at all, to tell you the truth, but God help me, I had no idea he was like that.’
His answer was plausible, but I still wasn’t convinced Justin was the danger Karen had been so concerned about. ‘So Karen gets out of prison,’ I said, pulling him back to his story. I wanted it over with now. Wanted to be somewhere clean and fresh and clear. Somewhere away from him.
‘So Karen gets out of prison,’ he repeated. ‘She’s sticking to the plan of selling everything up, cashing it all in before she goes away. That was what we’d agreed on and that’s all I cared about.’ He was quite animated now, pacing up and down, confident, I think, of his ability to convince me. ‘I never doubted Karen would do as she promised and once she’d got everything settled, I’d get my money. But then things went to shite. Suddenly she’s decided to keep the inheritance. I couldn’t believe it! That money was mine. I’d trusted Norma and she screwed me. Then I trusted Karen and she was about to screw