The laptop was still open on the table, and Suzie hurriedly closed the lid on it before taking another glass out of the cupboard and filling it for Rob before topping up her own.
‘Hiding something?’ Rob teased, nodding at the laptop as he took a seat. ‘Don’t tell me . . . you’ve been ogling naked men on the Net again, haven’t you?’
‘Behave!’ Suzie tutted.
‘Well, you closed that pretty fast, so there must be something on it that you didn’t want me to see,’ Rob persisted. ‘I thought we were going to be honest with each other from now on – or does that only apply to me?’
He was smiling when Suzie looked at him, and there was no anger in his eyes, only curiosity. She knew Holly didn’t want her to tell him anything, but it would be good to get his opinion on her theory about Josie’s connection to the murdered couple.
‘OK, I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘But you’ve got to promise you won’t mention it to Holly.’
‘My lips are sealed,’ Rob said, pulling his chair up beside hers when she sat down and opened the laptop.
Suzie showed him the article she’d been looking at before he arrived. After quickly reading it, he said, ‘I thought you said it was about Holly, but there’s no mention of her.’
‘It’s not about her, but we think it involves her,’ Suzie said, taking a swig of wine before lighting a cigarette.
Rob did the same, and then settled back in his seat as Suzie outlined the events of the previous night, starting when she and Holly had been in Josie’s room packing a bag to take to the hospital and had come across the biscuit tin.
‘Holly didn’t recognize their names and was curious to know why her mum had kept the newspaper clipping,’ she went on. ‘Like I told you earlier, Josie’s really secretive and won’t tell her anything about her family, so I think she was hoping they might turn out to be relatives. Anyway, I was about to google their names when Josie turned up. She’d discharged herself from hospital and looked terrible, and I was trying to get her to sit down before she fell down, but she as good as kicked me out. I came home, but I hadn’t been here long when Holly ran over in tears, saying her mum had collapsed. She said Josie had gone mad at her for letting me into the flat, and that she’d ordered Holly to start packing ’cos they had to leave before someone came and killed them.’
‘Eh?’ Rob’s eyebrows crept together. ‘Who?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think it relates to this.’ Suzie pointed at the article on the screen. ‘But I’ll get to that in a minute . . .’
She picked up the story where she and Holly had gone back to the flat and found Josie in bed, and how she had told Holly to call her if anything else happened.
‘You came round not long after I got home,’ she went on. ‘And I didn’t hear from Holly again until she turned up in tears again this morning after you went out to get the cigs and wine. She was telling me what had happened when you came back and Josie tried to force her way in. Anyway, after Josie left and you walked out, Holly went for a lie-down and I went over to the flat to try and talk to Josie. But she wasn’t there, and . . .’ She paused and glanced at the door before whispering, ‘I haven’t told Holly this, but some of her clothes were missing.’
‘She might have gone to the launderette,’ Rob suggested.
‘No, she’d gone,’ Suzie said with certainty. ‘You don’t empty your underwear drawer for a trip to the launderette, do you? And the biscuit tin wasn’t where Holly told me she’d left it.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I left a note asking Josie to ring me when she got home. But I haven’t heard from her, and she hasn’t turned any lights on all day, so I’m guessing she hasn’t come back yet.’
She paused and took a drag on her cigarette, then shook her head, saying, ‘How can any woman do that to their own child? Holly’s upset now, but can you imagine how she’s going to feel when she finds out her mum’s abandoned her?’
‘Do you think that’s what she’s done?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’ Suzie shrugged. ‘I hope not, because I can’t keep Holly here forever. She’ll have to go back to school soon or they’re likely to send the welfare officer round. And if they find out Josie’s gone and left Holly with me . . .’ She tailed off and shook her head again. ‘It could get really messy, Rob.’
‘I don’t want to say I told you so, but I did try to warn you not to get involved,’ Rob said softly. ‘If it was me, I’d call the police and let them handle it.’
‘I know I’ll probably have to do that eventually, but I want to give Josie a chance. You saw the state she was in earlier. She’s traumatized, and she can’t be thinking straight. But she’ll have to snap out of it at some point.’
‘And what if she doesn’t?’
‘She will,’ Suzie said, as much to convince herself as Rob. ‘She’s already gone to extreme lengths to protect Holly, so there’s no way she’d leave her if she genuinely thinks she’s in danger. That’s where the dead couple come in . . .’
She told Rob her theory about Holly’s nightmares stemming from repressed memories of her childhood; how the father she believed she had never met might actually have been abusive towards her mum, and Josie had fled with her in fear of their lives after finding out that he’d murdered the couple.
‘That’s some twisted shit you’ve dreamed up there,’ Rob said bemusedly when she’d finished. ‘Ever thought about writing a book?’
‘Don’t take the mick,’ Suzie chided. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all night and it’s the only
