Page 87 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
Right at the wrong moment—just as they were loading a handcuffed Alex into one of the police cars—Vi rolled up in a racy little bright-purple Lexus I couldn’t remember ever having seen before. Then again, if I had a car that expensive, I’d probably keep it locked up snug in a garage when I wasn’t using it. Her worries about leaving it parked on my street didn’t seem so unreasonable now.
Her eyes wide, she pulled on the handbrake, jumped out, and ran over just in time to see Daddy being driven off. I’d thought the plod might have taken pity on her and stopped to let Alex say a few words to his only child, but apparently compassion was in short supply today. Must be the budget cuts. They zoomed off down the drive, leaving Vi standing there, her fists clenched in frustration.
Me and Phil having already been locked out by the plod, we were in prime position to get the full blast of Vi’s impotent rage, and she gave it to us with both barrels. “What’s going on here? Where are they taking Daddy? What have you done?”
Phil was unmoved. “Your father’s confessed to killing your stepmother and attempting to kill Tom.”
“Why the hell would he do that?” she snapped.
Kill people? Or confess to it? I guessed she’d probably like an answer to both questions.
Phil confined himself to answering the first. “He said he realised marrying her was a mistake and he was worried Tom would give the police a message from her saying he’d done it.”
As he said it, I tried to remember if old Alex had ever given any sign of (a) being anything other than devoted to the missus and (b) believing I spoke to dead people.
“But it’s all a load of absolute balls,” Vi insisted. “He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t.”
I was pretty sure I agreed. I could remember how he’d looked when he’d come home to find me half-dead—that’d been genuine shock, that had. I’d stake my life on it.
Um. Probably not literally.
She rounded on me. “Tom? You’re the psychic. You have to go to the police and tell them Daddy didn’t do it. Tell them Amelia said so. Or . . . or tell them you’ve remembered something and it couldn’t have been Daddy who attacked you.”
“Look,” I said, and cleared my throat. “I’m not making stuff up.”
“But he didn’t do it.”
“Then it’s likely there won’t be enough evidence to charge him,” Phil said flatly.
“But if he’s confessed? I don’t . . . Why would he even do that?” The anger was slowly turning to tears.
Phil looked a bit unnerved at the prospect.
I put a hand on her arm. “Look, love, got anyone you can go to?” It’s not easy making a death-rattle sound comforting and sympathetic, which might have been why Vi shook me off.
She leaned against the wall of the house and put her head in her hands. Then she looked up, her tears drying, and she nodded. Without so much as a glance back at either of us, she half ran over to her little sports car, got in, and drove away.
Christ. I hoped she wasn’t going to cause an accident.
Me and Phil got back in his Golf in a lot more leisurely fashion. “Think he did it?” I croaked as we set off.
“If he didn’t do it, then he’s protecting someone.” Phil’s jaw set. “Who do you reckon Alex Majors is willing to go to prison for out of that little lot?”
I stared at him. “Vi? But . . . No. Christ, no. Not her.”
It made a horrible kind of sense, though. I mean, Alex had been floored by Amelia’s death. He’d looked ill every time I’d seen him since.
What better to do that than knowing your only kid had killed the woman you loved?
But then why would Vi be so adamant he hadn’t done it—surely it had to be in her best interest to let someone else go down for the crime?
Guilty conscience, because she’d never intended Daddy to take the rap? Or smokescreen, because it’d make people think she couldn’t be guilty? Christ, this was doing my head in. “Who do you think she’s gone to? Uncle Arlo?”
“You’re talking too much. And maybe. My money’s on not, though.”
Yeah, I didn’t reckon that wife of his would be any too welcoming. Who, then? “Lance? No, wait, he thinks she’s a waste of space. Toby?” Christ, I could murder a warm drink.
“Might find out soon.”
