“If Jacob obviously didn’t know what was going on, why did you tell people he was involved?”
“I never!”
“Yes you did,” I said firmly. “At the wake.”
“I never!” she protested again, indignant. “Who told you that?”
“Someone I trust,” I said, crushing her. “You said he was ‘on board’. On board with what?”
She frowned, screwing her eyes up with the effort of recall. “Jacob, Jacob,” she murmured, as though that was going to help. “Wait a minute . . . Jamie,” she said. “Gnasher. I said Gnasher was on board. Jamie, not Jacob.”
“Gnasher?” I repeated. Where had I heard him called that before? Gleet. That was it, outside the hospital. I tried to work out if that’s what Sam could have overheard at the wake or if Tess was spinning me yet another line. He certainly didn’t seem to know Jamie – not well enough to realise the relationship between him and Jacob.
“Yeah,” Tess said, happier now she could stop the thinking that was making her vodka-addled brain hurt. “I told Slick he was a bad idea, though, that kid. Hadn’t got the cash for it until a few weeks ago. Don’t know where he got it. Don’t want to know, either.”
“A few weeks ago?” I said sharply, thinking of the withdrawal slip Sean and I had found in Jacob and Clare’s safe. It was dated days ago, not weeks.
Tess nodded, the action unbalancing her so I had to grab her arm and prop her upright again. “Tha’s right,” she said.
Her eyelids started to droop. She popped them open again only with tremendous effort, wagging a strangely naked finger in my direction. “And the sort of people his family’s tied up with,” she mumbled conspiratorially, “you don’t wanna know where he might’ve got it, huh?”
Her eyes were closing again. I shook her shoulder, none too gently.
“No you don’t, Tess,” I said. “No sleeping here. Back to your own room. Come on, up!”
She allowed me to drag her to her feet and waltz her, unresisting, towards the door. I’d just got it open when she suddenly snapped awake.
“My rings!”
I used her as a doorstop against the heavy self-closing mechanism while I retrieved the saucerful of jewellery, tipping the contents into her cupped hands. I was intending to just shut the door behind her but, by the dazed way she was looking round, I reckoned she wouldn’t find her way back to her own room. I checked my key was still in my pocket and stepped out into the corridor with her. She instantly half-collapsed onto me.
“Need a hand?” I looked, finding, to my surprise, that Jamie was walking towards us from the direction of the stairs.
“Good timing,” he said. He held up a key. “Daz sent me up with this so you can tuck her in. How is she?”
“I’m not deaf, y’know,” Tess grumbled, lifting her head from my shoulder.
“Well you obviously didn’t hear them say ‘you’ve had enough’, did you?” I muttered under my breath.
Jamie grinned at me and slipped an arm around Tess, taking the weight. “You go ahead – number twelve,” he said. “I’ve got her.”
Still clutching her fistful of rings, Tess threw her arms round his neck and held on like it was the last slow dance, grinding her hips against him, head buried against his chest. Jamie didn’t necessarily look like he was upset by the experience.
By the time I’d found the right door, opened it and turned back, his hands had dropped to her skinny rump.
“Leave her alone.”
He looked up, eyebrows climbing at the stone-cold note in my voice. “Come on, Charlie, lighten up.”
“She’s drunk and she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I said, frozen. Not an argument that works every time. I discarded it and tried another. “And I hardly think Daz is going to be overjoyed to find you doing the nasty with Tess when she’s supposed to be with him.”
“He don’t want me,” Tess said, muffled and mournful into the front of Jamie’s shirt. She lifted her head and gazed, sniffing, into his eyes. “You want me, don’t you, Gnasher?”
“No he doesn’t,” I said grimly, disengaging the pair of them and almost shoving her into the right room. She paddled backwards and sat down on the nearest of the two beds with a thump.
“Tha’s not fair,” she wailed. “You’ve got Sean an’ he’s gorgeous an’ now you want Gnasher as well, an’ I ‘aven’t got nobody.”
“That’s right, Tess. Goodnight,” I said cheerfully, and shut the door on her.
I turned to find Jamie was still grinning. “I really feel I should stay with her,” he said, “just to, erm, make sure she’s all right.”
“Leave her alone,” I repeated, knowing he was baiting me and rising to it anyway. “Because if she regrets what she’s done in the morning, I’ll be the first to back her up on it, understand?”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, OK, I’m sorry. I was only joking,” he said. “I didn’t think you even liked Tess.”
I rubbed a hand across my face, suddenly tired and flash-tempered. “What the fuck has that got to do with it?”
