“What’s this, mate? You running a scam?”

“No. I think your grandmother might have some information about my wife. My dead wife. She was having an affair and your grandmother saw them.”

He felt conscious of oversharing, but what option did he have other than the truth?

“Hmm. All right. Let’s say I believe that.” He moved closer. “The thing is, Nan gets a bit upset when you ask her to remember stuff. Her brain’s knackered. And she doesn’t exactly like being reminded of that, got it?”

“I wasn’t trying to upset her–”

“So how about we keep this simple?” Even closer, and Scott could smell sweat and cigarette smoke. “You get out of my face right this second, and I forget you were bothering my nan. That woman basically raised me. I won’t see her taken advantage of.”

“I wasn’t–”

“If you’re not up to walking, I reckon we can find another way to make you fuck off. What’s it going to be?”

Scott walked across the street and climbed into his car, remembering what Tess had said. It could be and it couldn’t be. Which meant he had no more information than when he’d arrived. He had nothing.

30

SCOTT

As Scott drove away, he wondered if he’d have the guts to do it.

He never usually thought of suicide like that. Guts. It wasn’t guts. It was depression and isolation and terror. But now he wondered. How had Natalie done it, gone through each step, arranging the car and the garage just so? Had she paused at any point, asking herself if she was making the right decision?

Or had she rushed through it all, keen to get it over with?

He remembered an interview with a man who’d survived jumping off a bridge. The man’s first reflexive reaction had been regret. He didn’t want to die, he realised in those final moments, and then it was too late. The water crashed into him. Lights out. Until he’d miraculously survived, living to carry his message into the world.

Scott had agonised over that interview, desperate to know if Natalie had felt the same instant regret. Or maybe she was smiling, ready to meet her lover at the hangman’s broken tree.

It didn’t matter. Guts or guilt or terror, Scott could never do it. He couldn’t realistically think about it.

He didn’t want to die; he just wanted this to end.

The day passed far too quickly; he spent it in a café, off the High Street, paranoid Casey would somehow spot him and realise he wasn’t at school. Soon it was time to drive back to Bristol. He gave himself plenty of time. It wasn’t like he could tell Casey if there was trouble on the motorway.

He parked down the street with half an hour to spare.

Picking up his phone, he navigated to Facebook, to Markus’s profile. Casey’s ex-husband who Scott hadn’t even bothered to find out about until now. But if a charming, clever, funny, kind, beautiful woman tells him something, why should he instantly doubt it?