‘Who?’
‘Me and Aid’
‘So how did you and Aid come up with this?’
‘From the letters’
'Wait. Run this by me again. How did this all come out?'
'Aid. The parcel he got. It had letters in it. Lots of letters. Letters he had been holding back. Ingram has it all worked out. He thinks. We thought maybe it was just the scribblings of a mad man. But there is a timeline. There is a knowledge. There is reason behind it.’
Bob walks away from Marie, pushing his hand through his short tufts of hair. She sits in silence as though waiting for a sick punchline.
‘Ingram thinks he knows who killed his daughter and Dev’
These words held in the air. Ingram, the guilty man, was putting it out there that one of them was guilty.
'So who does he think did it? '
The doorbell went.
Pam laid Spiv's phone back down on the bedside table. She needed to speak to him. She glanced at herself in the mirror and fixed her early morning hair quickly.
'Who was that?' Spiv shouted through from the en suite.
Pam failed to answer and rubbed her hand over the crown of her head until she was happy that she was presentable. Spiv entered.
'It was Bob'. She perched herself on the bed, looking up into his eyes.
'What did he want?' As Spiv dried his armpits with a tiny towel, Pam looked at his crotch which was in full view. She smirked, before getting back to the matter at hand.
'He thinks you are in trouble. Aid got another letter. Ingram thinks you were the last man to see Ollie alive'.
'What? That’s ridiculous.'
'It says you took her to Olive Island. That you were there with her.'
Spiv tried to find words. He had thought – hoped – that this would never come out.
‘Shite. It’s obvious he is trying to get an appeal, an early release’.
‘Maybe. But Bob says Ingram has evidence. A scarf.'
'A scarf?'
'Your Pars scarf?' Pam threw the question at him knowingly and with little sympathy. It was just fact. The silence was short lived, as there was no more thinking to do.
'I never killed her. She was fine when I left her. I’m sorry Pam. I never wanted to hurt you. I love you, I do, really. But I was stupid.’
Spiv paced the floor, genuinely vexed.
‘Then I didn't know what to do when she went missin. I thought she must've wandered off. I never told nobody this though, so how the fuck does Ingram know?'. Spiv continued to wander the bedroom aimlessly, as if looking for something to make all this better.
'I'm sorry Pam, I'm really sorry. This is a mess, a real mess.'
Pam comforted him with her hand across his naked shoulder and then kissed his cheek.
‘We'll get through this. I'll help you.' She turned his face to hers.
'I love you.'
There was a moment. A moment that made it all better. That made all his worries ease. But it was only a moment, as Spiv slumped back onto the bed.
'Shit! What am I going to do? He’s probably got the police onto me already.' Panicking, eyes glancing around the room, Spiv got up and frantically searched for the clothes he had strewn down the night before, wallet, keys and phone.
' I knew this would come out, and I look so fuckin guilty… but I’m not. I’m not. I promise you. Shit!' He poked wallet into one pocket, keys into the other. He slumped down onto the bed again.
'Simon, it's OK. Stop worrying. If you listen to me, I will get this whole thing sorted out. I promise.'
Spiv breathed out a huge sigh and stopped to listen.
'How can you help me?'
She took his hand and removed his mobile phone from it. Once again they eyeballed each other, this time with Pam squatting down in front of him as he sat on the bed.
’Just listen to me and do what I ask you to do’.
‘Alright, Bob’
Tom stood in last night’s clothes, sticking out like a sore thumb with his corduroy green jacket and laced
