No More Borrowed Truths

Sam wanted to go to Birch Road.

He did not say it immediately. He stood at the kitchen counter while Mum read the messages, then asked whether Finn's grandmother had given anybody permission to collect the centre equipment.

Mum looked up.

“No.”

“I haven't asked anything yet.”

“You've asked it sideways.”

“He's got the cards. Bea needs the cards. We know where he was keeping things.”

“And the police know,” Mum said. “That is the useful part of this conversation.”

Sam folded his arms.

“He's messing her about.”

“Yes,” she said. “He is.”

The agreement seemed to take some force out of him. He had been preparing to persuade us that there was a problem, not to deal with our knowing it already.

“I could just ask him,” he said.

“You could also get into an argument at an empty house about evidence in a death investigation,” Mum said. “We're not choosing that.”

He looked at me.

I knew what he wanted. A small signal that we understood each other better than Mum understood either of us. The old arrangement: she would be sensible, and we would quietly do the thing that needed doing.

“No,” I said.

He dropped his eyes.

“I wasn't asking you to lie.”

“I know. But I don't want another thing we're keeping between us because we think it protects someone.”

Mum put the phone down.

“We're all frightened,” she said. “That doesn't give any of us special permission.”

The kitchen was warm. A pan of potatoes had begun to hiss because nobody was watching it. Sam turned down the heat without speaking.

Adebayo called at six.

Mum stayed beside me while I explained the messages again. The detective asked which number Finn usually used, whether he had said precisely where he was, and whether I had agreed to receive the wallet.

“No,” I said. “I told him to take it to you.”

“Keep doing that. Don't go looking for him or the equipment.”

“He knows I'm at college tomorrow.”

“What for?”

I explained the portfolio appointment. She asked for the time and the name of the staff member. She said she would speak to the college. She did not ask me to lure him there, keep him talking, or make any arrangement on their behalf.

“If he contacts you again, send it through,” she said. “If he arrives somewhere unexpectedly, don't try to stop him or take anything by force. Find an adult member of staff or an officer.”

“All right.”

“Has he threatened you?”

I thought about the deleted message after the interview, the way he had asked whether I was alone, the pressure in his voice. None of it was a direct threat.

“No. He's asking me to hear him before he returns things.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Like he thinks I owe him.”

She waited.

“I don't want to be alone with him,” I said.

“Then you won't be.”

After the call, Mum spoke to Ms Delaney. They agreed I could still attend the appointment with Mum, entering through the main reception and remaining with staff. The college would manage its visitors. I was not to make contact with Finn to tell him where I would be sitting or when I would leave.

It was practical, unglamorous and exactly what I needed.

Then Finn called from his usual number.

I let it go to voicemail.

The recording lasted forty-two seconds. For the first five, he said nothing. I could hear wind against the microphone.

“Bea. I don't want this to get worse. I know you think I'm making excuses. I'm not. There are things I should have told you. But if I give them the card without explaining, they'll take one bit and make it mean something it doesn't. You know that happens. You've done enough editing to know. Just let me talk to you. Not everyone else. You.”

He stopped, then added, more quietly, “Please.”

I listened once. Mum asked whether I wanted to listen again. I said no.

Sam had come back into the kitchen. He stood in the doorway with a dishcloth in one hand.

“He sounds scared,” he said.

“He does,” Mum agreed.

“What if he really did just move the wallet?”

The question hung between us. It was one I had asked myself so often that it had worn a groove. What if I was taking his shame about the application and using it to explain something far worse? What if all the separate small lies were only separate small lies?

“Then returning it helps him,” Mum said.

Sam looked at the phone.

“I suppose.”

I saved the voicemail and sent it with the other messages. Then I replied by text.

You can explain to the police. Please don't contact me about meeting alone. Return the wallet and the bag without changing anything.

I read it twice before sending. There was no cleverness in it. No line that would make him understand how frightened or angry I was. It simply told him what I would and would not do.

He answered twenty minutes later.

I thought you of all people would understand needing someone on your side.

I put the phone face down.

Mum was peeling a damaged bit from a potato.

“You don't have to answer every sentence,” she said.

“I know.”

I left it unanswered.

After dinner, Sam knocked on my door. He had brought the old tripod from the cupboard because one leg had been sticking when I packed it on Friday. Gideon had noticed. Apparently Imani had mentioned it to him, and he had told Sam in a message about returning another borrowed lead.

“It's not complicated,” Sam said. “There's grit in the catch.”

I watched him work at my desk. He laid each small screw on a folded towel instead of scattering them across the surface. When he did not know which way a part fitted, he took a photograph before removing it.

“You don't have to fix things for me to be all right with you,” I said.

He kept looking at the catch.

“Are you all right with me?”

“Sometimes. Not all the time.”

He nodded.

“That's probably fair.”

He cleaned the mechanism with a soft brush and put it back together. The leg slid properly.

“Try it,” he said.

I did.

“Thank you.”

He shrugged, then picked up the screws he had not used and counted them with sudden alarm.

“Those are from the drawer,” I said. “Not the tripod.”

“Oh. Good.”

For the first time that evening, we both laughed.

At the door, he stopped.

“I wanted to go because it would be something I could do,” he said. “Not because I thought I knew better than everyone.”

“I know.”

“Maybe a bit because I thought I knew better.”

“I know that too.”

He smiled without looking pleased with himself.

When he had gone, I packed my portfolio drive, the repaired tripod and a notebook for the morning. I put the phone on the far side of the room. It lit twice before I slept, but neither message was from Finn.