was never going to make it. “They waited on purpose till they knew I was home. And then they broke in and took a bunch of my stuff which, you know what, that didn’t seem like a huge deal at the time, compared to the rest, although now I’m starting to wonder, you know? But they also beat the living shite out of me. No”—at a movement from Leon—“shut up, Leon. You have no idea. Whatever you’re imagining, whatever, it was a shit-ton worse than that. So just shut up.”
Leon curled in on himself, chewing on a thumbnail and breathing too fast. It made me even more positive: guilty conscience, he couldn’t even look at me, at last I was on the right track— “The detective who’s looking into it,” I said, leaning closer, “you know what he told me? He said if it was a random thing, if it was just your basic skanger burglars who fancied my car, right? He would’ve had an idea who they were, straightaway. He knows all the regulars. But he didn’t have a clue. Because shut the fuck up Leon”—my voice exploding in a roar, going to wake Melissa, Hugo, the neighbors, I didn’t care—“because this was personal. Not random. This was some little shit who had a grudge against me and he wanted me fucked up, and Jesus Christ he got what he wanted, didn’t he? And what I’ve been trying to explain to you is that people don’t have grudges against me, because I don’t do shitty things to people who actually care about me. But you do.”
“I hate this,” Leon said—it was almost a wail. “Can we stop this? Please?”
“You started it. All that shite about I didn’t take good enough care of you, like the whole thing was my problem, like you had no responsibility to look after your fucking self—” This wasn’t what I had planned at all, I had meant to coax and charm it out of him, browbeating had never crossed my mind but it felt good and I wasn’t sure I could stop even if I wanted to— “At least I’ve finally found the one person who’s got a grudge against me—”
“Toby,” Susanna said sharply. “Stop it.”
“The only person who—look at me you little shit—the only person who hates me enough to send in a pair of scumbags to beat me half to death. Was that supposed to be, to, to be karma? Because I didn’t stop Dominic beating you up?”
“I didn’t! Toby, what are you talking about, I don’t hate you, stop—”
“And now you’re telling Rafferty this bullshit—” I got him by a clumsy fistful of jumper, jerking at him, trying to make him look at me but my hand was weak as a kid’s and he wouldn’t, he just curled tighter. “You didn’t fuck up my life enough the first time, now you’re trying to get me arrested? What are you, what have you, what the hell have you done to me—”
I was about to hit him. I was pulling back my fist, I could already feel the ecstatic smack of it into his face, when Susanna caught my arm. She said, close to my ear, “Where were you?”
I spun round ready to shout her off, but the sight of her stopped me. Her hair was straggling in her face, clips hanging loose; her eyes were dark and dilated, unfocused.
“What?” I said.
“That night. Toby. Where did you go?”
That night. I thought she meant the gap, the hole in my mind between the pub and my living room. “I don’t know,” I said. My head felt like it was rocking dangerously on my neck. “I’ve been trying and trying. It’s gone.”
She stared at me, swaying a little, gripping my arm for balance.
“Why?” The paranoia was rising again. “Do you know? How do you—”
“I went to your room.”
This made no sense at all. “What?”
“When I got that text from Dominic. It freaked me out. I didn’t understand what was going on. I wanted someone else. I went to Leon’s room, but he was out cold; when I tried to wake him up he just went ‘Fuck off’ and pulled the sheet over his head. So I went to your room. And you weren’t there.”
“No,” I said. I had let go of Leon; he was snuffling somewhere. “What? That’s not what I meant.”
“I sat on my bed for ages, listening for you to come back. Hours. I was scared, I thought maybe Dominic had done something