“What, no, I don’t care about that. I want you here. And that’s fine, but we fucked all night two weeks ago, and then I basically can’t get a word out of you, and now you turn up in London, what the hell?”
“Could you keep your voice down?”
He gave me a look. “Who is Simon? Why don’t you want him to know?”
“Because his fiancé just got murdered, so stop talking about people fucking,” I said, scrambling for a reason.
“Is that why you’ve disappeared? I have debated getting in the car and driving down to you every night since I came back. I was sure we could have a chance. I was thinking you’d be upset, but instead, you’ve thrown yourself into this shit again, honestly, Arden, just because of what happened doesn’t mean you have to get involved every time!”
“Get involved? What— oh. Oh, yeah, that’s what happened.”
He glared. “What do you mean?”
I grimaced. “I found Riz’s body. I’ve been involved – inadvertently – since the beginning.”
Ollie’s face fell. “Oh, Jesus, Ard. Fucking hell, that’s heavy. Are you okay?” He came up to me and hugged me. “Why didn’t you say? Bloody hell, I knew I should have come down to see you. You could’ve told me; I would have dropped everything.”
“It’s fine, it’sfine. I’m fine, the cops were fine, everything was fine.”
He was giving me another look. “Why were the cops ‘fine’?” He sighed. “Oh, God, what have you got yourself mixed up in?”
I played for time, but Ollie was giving me his best barrister look, and I was crumbling. “I … I have history with the cops who are running the case; it is the same team who investigated Arabella’s murder.”
“So, they hate you.”
“No! Well, actually, yes.”
“And why do they think you’re involved?”
“They don’t, well, they did, a little bit, but I have an alibi and everything for who I was with at the time of the murder.”
“Which was?”
I didn’t answer. Ollie’s nostrils flared. “Him?” he yelled. “Simon?”
“What, no!” I stumbled for words. “No, anyway, that isn’t the point. The point is, we found something, and it involves you.”
“What?” He was going red. “Who was he then?”
I groaned. Why? Why was this my life? “Some guy. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we think you might be connected to someone who orchestrated this, and we need to know if they contacted you on purpose.”
“Who was the man you were with? Not Guy? Because we’ve all seen what he’s packing.” He sniffed. “I’m bigger.”
“Oh my God – fine, it was a guy called Errol! He worked on the campaign, okay? He seemed nice enough at the time, but it was nothing special.”
Ollie went quiet for a second. Then his face darkened. “Wait, you were with him the night Riz was killed. The Saturday night? So, two nights after we slept together? Wow, Arden, classy. You just jump from man to man now.” He paced the room.
“Ollie …”
“I thought that night meant something!” he yelled.
“Of course it did!”
“But you went and found someone else five minutes later.”
“Excuse me? You’re one to talk. And for your information, I slept with Errol because he … kind of saved me from a bunch of reporters when that article about my brother came out. I was upset, Ollie. He stayed with me and stopped me from making a huge mess of things, and one thing led to another,” my voice choked. “Like I said, I was upset, and I wanted to forget about everything.”
Ollie was looking everywhere else but me. After several moments of silence, he spoke again. “If you were upset, then I’m right here. I was ringing you all night. But you never answered.”
