They’ve come outside without coats. Ash, who doesn’t usually feel the cold, is shivering. But he’s in no hurry to go back inside. The atmosphere in the house is understandably oppressive. Roly doesn’t seem to be in any rush either.
‘You can take off, if you like,’ Ash says. ‘Not much more we can do tonight.’
‘I’ll wait for Jo,’ Roly says. ‘I mean, we’ve come in separate cars, but I’ll wait for her.’
‘I never liked the bloke,’ Ash says, speaking his thoughts out loud, ‘but this is awful. I wouldn’t have wished this on him. Not ever.’
Daniel sank further in Ash’s estimation the day he rang Roly on the pretext of thanking him for his help finding Margo. Roly didn’t actually do anything in the end – Margo had been located. And Ash knows the real reason for the call. Daniel was going to shop Iris. Daniel was convinced – as was Carla – that Iris had killed Joshua Knoll. Daniel’s betrayal is unforgivable, but he didn’t deserve to die for it.
‘I wasn’t fond of him either,’ Roly admits.
‘Poor Carla. Poor Margo,’ Ash says.
‘Poor wee mite,’ Roly agrees. ‘First her mother, then her father.’
When they go back inside, Iris tells Ash that Carla has gone to bed. Iris clears up the mugs in the living room while Olly gets an umbrella to take the dog out for a wee. Jo and Roly get ready to leave.
‘We’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning,’ Jo says as she pushes her feet into her shoes and puts on her coat in the hallway.
Ash follows Iris from the living room into the kitchen, where she loads the mugs into the dishwasher. It strikes him as incongruous, what she’s doing, as if it’s too soon for life to go on after such a big shock. He admires her ability to take charge, even of such a mundane task. His daughter is more than capable of keeping the household going until Carla can cope.
‘Are you all right?’ Ash asks Iris.
‘Yeah. I’m in shock, like everyone else, but—’ she looks around her and lowers her voice ‘—I’m so relieved it wasn’t Olly.’ She lowers her head, too, almost as though she has said something wrong. Ash nods. He couldn’t agree more. ‘Night, Dad.’ She pecks him on the cheek.
‘Goodnight, darling,’ Ash says, enveloping her in a big hug.
Ash is the only one left downstairs. He waits for Olly to come back in with Cheddar. He’ll check everything is locked up before he tries to make himself comfortable on the sofa. There’s a guest room upstairs, but he doesn’t suppose the bed is made up and he doesn’t want to trouble anyone.
Ash hears the front door open and close, then Cheddar comes into the kitchen, his claws click-clacking on the tiles. Cheddar turns round and round, nose to tail, several times in his bed before dropping down onto it. He looks up at Ash with large brown eyes, his head on his paws, and sighs.
‘Know how you feel, Cheddar,’ Ash says, bending down to stroke the dog.
‘Dad?’
Ash didn’t hear Olly come into the kitchen in his socks. Straightening up, Ash turns to face his son.
‘About what we were discussing earlier. You know, when I asked you to call Ian?’
Ash waits, but it’s apparently his turn to speak. ‘I rang Roly,’ he says, ‘and left him a message. We haven’t discussed the … matter any further.’
What he’s doing is illegal; Ash is well aware of that. He has covered for his son all this time. He has actively dissuaded him from going to the police. Olly wanted to do the right thing; Ash is preventing him from doing that. He can’t really see what’s right and what’s wrong anymore. All he knows is, he has to hold his family together at all costs.
‘Listen, Olly, your mum has just lost her partner,’ Ash continues. ‘She can’t possibly lose her son right now. You can’t give yourself in.’ Ash doesn’t add what he’s thinking.Especially if Daniel has died because Yvonne somehow caused the crash.
‘Yeah,’ Olly says. ‘That’s what I thought. I did something bad, though. And I want to do something good. You know, to make up for that. Sort of … atone.’
‘I think that’s …’
Ash breaks off, catching sight of Iris, standing in the doorway. How much of the conversation has she overheard? Enough to grasp what they’re talking about?
‘Er … Dad, I just came down to tell you that I’ll sleep in Margo’s bed and you can have mine. I’ve changed the sheets for you.’
‘Oh. Thank you, Iris. That’s very kind of you,’ Ash says.
Iris comes closer to Olly and Ash. To Olly she says, ‘I can’t lose you either, bro. And Margo needs her big brother, too. Now more than ever.’
That night, Ash lies wide awake in Iris’s bed. He’s exhausted and he’s comfortable, but sleep eludes him. He can’t get the day’s events out of his mind. The confused phone call from Carla, the fear and devastation when they thought they’d lost Olly, the shock of Daniel’s death. All the emotions of the past few hours are still whirring round inside him, tangled and chaotic. Sleep, when it does come, is sporadic and turbulent.
