He seemed to straighten himself up in his seat on hearing her words. Then he nodded. ‘OK… What is it?’

‘He told me something on Friday, and it changes everything.’

She paused again, watching the changing expressions on Peter’s face: from affability, to curiosity, to apprehension.

‘You knew what he did to Sam, didn’t you?’ she asked. Her voice had now taken on an accusatory tone and Peter’s facial expression changed once more, to one of alarm.

‘I-I…’

‘Just fuckin’ admit it, Peter!’ she shrieked. ‘You sent him to kill Sam. You sent him to torture and maim that poor man…’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Peter interrupted, leaning forward in his chair. ‘I didn’t know they were gonna go that far.’

‘So there was more than one of them?’

‘Yeah. Glynn and another one,’ he said, disinclined to reveal Mike’s name.

‘What exactly did you think they were gonna fuckin’ do? Did you tell them to kill him?’

‘I… not really, no.’

‘Then what the hell did you tell them to do, because Glynn told me he’d killed Sam for betraying you?’

‘He did betray me.’

‘But that’s no reason to kill someone!’

‘Look, Adele, just stay out of this, will you? You’ve no idea what’s gone on.’

‘Then why don’t you fuckin’ enlighten me?’

‘You don’t need to know.’

‘I do need to know!’ she yelled, standing up and plunging towards him. ‘You let me go out with him. You knew what he was and yet you never tried to warn me. You let me go out with a fuckin’ killer!’

Then she noticed the look on his face as she said the last word. There was a jolt of recognition and he visibly flinched. It hit her, too. Was that why Peter hadn’t warned her about Glynn? Because she was a killer, too.

Peter seemed to take some seconds to recover before he spoke. ‘I did warn you about him,’ he said. ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’

‘Well, you didn’t fuckin’ warn me enough!’ she said, turning on her heel and stomping out of his office.

She dashed down the corridor and into her own office where she slung her personal belongings haphazardly into a plastic carrier bag. Thoughts raced around in her head. There was still so much she didn’t know. How had Sam betrayed Peter? And just what sort of business was her brother in where people tortured and maimed someone as punishment?

But she’d been too angry to find the answers. And the way Peter had flinched had inflamed her even more. She saw now that no matter how much Peter had supported her in the past, it didn’t change his perception of her. And his true feelings had all come out in his reaction to that one word. Killer!

*