at Susie’s with the locksmith as soon as he’d got out of the airport transfer from Heathrow.
‘Did you take personal effects from her room?’
My skin prickles.
‘A box of personal mementoes, nothing of financial value whatsoever.’
‘Can I decide if they’re of value? What things, specifically?’
I have no idea whether I should dissemble and I don’t quite dare stonewall him.
‘A box of letters and diaries.’
‘Right. Can I have that back, please?’
‘No, they’re private.’ I had not, for a single moment, thought her brother would either know these things existed or identify their absence, and I’ve been caught fully on the hop.
‘They were private, to Susie? They’re not yours.’
‘I’m keeping them private for her.’
‘But not private from yourself.’
‘Yes, actually. I’m not going to read them.’
Fin does a double-take.
‘You’ve got something you say I can’t have, that you’re not going to look at?’
‘Yes. It’s about protecting Susie.’
‘Er, OK, noble as that is, you don’t get to appoint yourself guardian of her possessions without asking me.’
‘Why do you want her diaries?’ I say. ‘You were hardly close.’
‘I don’t have to justify my motives. How do you justify doing a smash and grab?’
‘As her best friend, who knows the last thing she’d want is her brother’ – I vainly try to be more diplomatic, ‘or anyone, reading her old diaries.’
‘It’s not for you to decide.’
Pretending to get along with Finlay Hart, I’ve decided, is a jig that is up.
‘Actually, it is. As I have the box, and that’s the end of that.’
‘Do you want this to turn ugly? Do you want me to lawyer up? Because trust me, I will.’
‘Knock yourself out,’ I say, panicking that if he does this, I have no idea what his rights might be. As he pushes and I panic, the more defensive I feel. Should I burn them? Is there a destruction of property case he could then wield against me?
‘… Are you pretending that you and Susie got along?’
Fin’s face contorts into restrained contempt: ‘I didn’t say anything about us getting along. I said that’s irrelevant to you effectively thieving, because you’ve decided her things belong to you. They don’t.’
I could tell Fin he was filed in her phone under a stinging insult but, in the teeth of his loss, in his old family home, and with his diminished dad in the next room, I don’t have the stomach to be that unkind. Nevertheless, I’m absolutely sure if he had the same on me, he’d use it.
Mr Hart reappears, bearing a cup of tea for Fin, and the doorbell’s ringing again.
‘I’m ever so sorry,’ he says. ‘I meant to say, my cleaner’s due tonight. I hope you two lovebirds can entertain each other.’
The door closes again and we hear a female voice. She’s speaking in that pointedly upbeat, firm sort of way that suggests she’s well aware of Mr Hart’s challenges.
‘I fly back the day after the funeral,’ Fin says. ‘Return Susie’s things to me by then or expect a nasty letter.’
‘You don’t have any qualms about disrespecting her wishes, do you?’ I say.
‘You don’t have any qualms about using her speculative wishes to do whatever suits you.’
‘Suits me?’ I hiss. ‘You think I’m doing this because I’m enjoying it?’
‘I said it suits you. Only you know why that is.’
We blaze at each other, at an impasse, and I don’t want to have this fight when it might upset a newly bereaved dementia patient. (Are you still bereaved when you’re unaware you’re bereaved?)
I drain my tea, head to the downstairs loo for both urination and reconnaissance, and find it pristine.
As I leave, receiving a cheery farewell from Mr Hart, I see Fin has ducked into the front room to talk to the cleaner.
I wilt at leaving a vulnerable senior citizen with an enemy combatant in the house, but what else can I do?
17
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first thing I do when I get home is check the box is still there.
Do you want this to turn ugly? Do you want me to lawyer up? Because trust me, I will.
Finlay Hart isn’t just dislikeable, he’s frightening.
I hammer up the stairs, drag the box from under my bed, lift the lid and check everything’s still there. Perhaps I should move it from here? It’s a very standard hiding place and I feel like Finlay Hart is capable of breaking and entering. In a balaclava and bright white sneakers, clambering out of a window as he hears my key scraping in the lock, Roger mewing his confusion. These are febrile imaginings but I’m