Page 134 of Fighting Mr. Knight

“JackKnight? How the hell do you know that?”

“I’m dating him. He’s my boyfriend.”

His eyes widen. Now his face is as white as someone who has been dead for a few days.

“Tell me the truth, Dad.” I’m trying hard to keep my voice steady but I’m shaking. “Because from where I’m standing, I’m jumping to a lot of scary conclusions.”

I don’t know how long we stare at each other. It feels like a lifetime.

The silence is unbearable.

“Get in the bloody house,” he growls through clenched teeth. “The neighbours will hear.”

My pulse flatlines. I already have my answer.

I step into the kitchen.

“Sit down.”

“No,” I say, unable to hide the tremble in my voice. “You were there.”

He reaches for the opened bottle of whiskey beside the sink. The smell of it makes the single Tequila I had rise in my throat. I force it back.

I gaze around the open-plan kitchen and living room trying to calm myself down. Everything is in boxes. The only things that remain are the pictures of me on my graduation day on the wall.

He’s ready to move into a nicer flat and start a new life.

When he finally speaks his voice is so quiet, I strain to hear. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He stares into the glass as he pours as if it holds all the answers.

I take a seat at the table because my legs are too weak to stand. I decide if I transfix on a spot of chipped wood on the corner of the table I’ll be okay.

“I was struggling to get back on my feet,” he continues quietly. “I was days away from losing the house. I remortgaged it to pay for . . .”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

To pay for my university fees.

“It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t excuse anything.” He swirls the glass in his hand and takes a large sip. It goes down without a hint that it’s hard liquor. Still staring at the glass, he says, “We’d done it once before. Back then it wasn’t thiscashlesssociety we have today. It happened so quickly, and the guy just handed over his wallet. Gleeson took the lead. All I had to do was stick on a balaclava and stand there beside Gleeson. It was a simple case of two against one. We hardly threatened the guy. He didn’t even seem that bothered.”

I sit very still watching his nostrils flare in and out as he takes deep breaths.

He drains the last of his glass. “I wasn’t proud of it, but I figured we were choosing guys that had enough cash that it wouldn’t matter to them. Guys around the East End that liked to show how well they were doing by draping themselves in gold and fucking expensive watches.”

“Like rich dentists,” I say faintly.

I remember that night. I was still living at home as I hadn’t started university. Phil didn’t even tell the police.

Maybe if he had, they would have caught Jack’s father’s killers.

Killers.

My chest tightens. Did I think that as plural?

Is that what I believe?

For the first time he looks me in the eye and when he speaks, this time his voice is firm. Confident. “He took something much worse from me, Bonnie. You. Your mother.”

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