Page 139 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘But I told you the truth about kicking the cocaine habit, Garland. I mean, it was just a recreational thing we all did at the time.’
‘I don’t think that was quite the whole truth,’ said Thom, a steely note in his voice I’d never heard before. ‘I knew you were dealing cocaine to your friends years ago and that’s where Leo got it from.’
‘I wasn’t really dealing, just doing a favour for friends,’ Marco said quickly.
Thom ignored that. ‘After Leo died, I discovered there was over an hour not accounted for, between him trying to see me at the theatre and going back to my house, when he must have got hold of the drugs that killed him.’
‘Well, what about it?’ said Marco, but suddenly he was looking wary.
‘His phone was missing, but when my house was packed up, it was found behind the spare room bed, the battery dead. I charged it up – and guess who his last messages were exchanged with?’
‘Not – Marco?’ I said, aghast.
‘I’m afraid so. And Marco’s replies made it plain he was willing to supply the drugs Leo wanted.’
Marco began backing away a little now. ‘You can’t prove that!’
‘I’ve still got the phone and the messages are damning. It was only for Garland’s sake I didn’t give it to the police. I hoped, also for her sake, that Leo’s death would give you a scare and stop you dealing too. You can’t have needed the money, after all.’
‘I wasn’t dealing by then!’ Marco exclaimed revealingly. ‘OK, I might have done when I was younger, because my mother kept me short of money,’ he said, as if this was perfectly reasonable. ‘But once I came into my inheritance I didn’t need to. The stuff I gave Leo was just for my own personal use.’
I stared at him: he was so not the person I’d thought he was at all. How could I ever have been so fooled by him?
‘All those times when you wouldn’t take your dark glasses off and I thought you’d drunk too much, you’d really been shoving fairy dust up your nose?’ I said with distaste.
‘It’s nothing – everyone does it for fun.’
‘It wasn’t fun for Leo!’
‘But I couldn’t have known he’d take the whole lot at once, could I?’
‘You must have seen what state he was in when he collected it, and you knew he was always emotionally volatile,’ said Thom.
‘Youdisgustme, Marco,’ I said, which seemed to sting him to anger again.
‘Perhaps this wasn’t entirely a wasted journey, because I imagine a lot of people will be interested in Ivo Gryffyn’s whereabouts!’
‘I doubt it, but you go ahead and tell them. And then I’ll have a little talk with the police about that phone,’ Thom said. ‘Unless you’d rather that didn’t come out? It would hardly do your career much good, would it?’
Marco blanched and stared speechlessly at him for a moment, then swung round to make for the door – and almost fell over a blue-grey shape that blocked it.
Golightly hadalwaysloathed Marco and now, clearly, his invasion of a place he felt was his own made him furious.
With a banshee scream, he threw himself at the intruder in a whirl of teeth and claws, and Marco fled, one trouser leg shredded, slipping and stumbling over the cobbles.
Golightly sat down and began calmly washing himself, as if nothing had happened.
Jester sidled in, discretion obviously being the better part of valour, as far as he was concerned.
‘Some guard dog you are,’ Thom told him. ‘You’d let anyone in.’
‘You don’t need a guard dog when you’ve got Golightly,’ I said, bending to stroke him.
The room filled with a rumbling intermittent noise, like a faulty engine.
Golightly was purring.
‘I really do think he needs a new gasket,’ said Thom, amused. Then he took me in his arms again. ‘Now, where were we …?’
