‘And you?’
He didn’t answer for a while. He was buttering toast. Then he concentrated on tipping out the eggs. Even from where I stood, I could tell they were perfectly cooked, golden and creamy, the curd just firm. He handed me a plate and cutlery and followed me through to the living room. We sat on easy chairs each side of the mantelpiece, the plates perched on our knees. I wondered if he and Thomas had sat like this to eat.
‘For me it was just a job,’ he said. ‘I wanted a year doing something practical. My degree’s in business administration. My father spoke to someone, fixed it up. He’s good at that. And it was useful experience, a year in an office, pretty well running it, in charge of fund-raising at the end.’
‘And what was it for Thomas?’ I asked.
‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘For Thomas it was a crusade.’
‘I don’t get that. I wouldn’t have thought it would be his thing. I mean, he was brought up in the town. Wasn’t he into music, clubs, shops?’
‘Sure. All of those. But he liked the idea of the countryside, the fantasy. England’s green and pleasant land. You know. I told him the reality wasn’t like that, but he had this dream of living in the hills, self-sufficiency, not being bugged by his mother or anyone else.’
I thought it sounded ludicrous, but there was something chilling in Marcus’s description of the dream too. There was a touch of the wild American survivalism in there as well as The Good Life. Patriots and shotguns along with the organic carrots. But perhaps I’d got it all wrong. Perhaps a love of the country-side was in Thomas’s blood, inherited from Philip. That thought moved me naturally to Joanna. I meant to ask if she was one of the Consortium’s supporters, but Marcus got in with a question of his own.
‘Why did you come here? The day you found Thomas’s body, I mean. What brought you to the house?’
‘His family was concerned. They didn’t know where he was living. I’m a social worker. They asked me to trace him. No fuss. Unofficially.’
He accepted my explanation but he said, ‘Ronnie knew.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Ronnie knew that Thomas had moved in to help with the rent. I told him. Not long before Thomas died. I felt really bad about it afterwards, because Thomas hadn’t wanted anyone to know he was here. It was a big thing for him. He’d almost sworn me to secrecy. The typical grand gesture that he really liked.’
‘What happened?’
‘There was a CC pro-hunting rally in town. By the Monument. I wasn’t taking part. I don’t actually believe in hunting. I went out with my stepmother a couple of times and couldn’t see the point. And now I’m not working for them… But I was in town anyway and I watched from the pavement with everyone else. Ronnie was in there, taking it all really seriously. I mean he was marching, head up, not shuffling along like the rest of them. He saw me, recognized me as a mate of Thomas’s. He came over and asked if I’d seen anything of him lately. I told him I’d asked Thomas to move in.’
‘Why did you tell him? If Thomas had told you not to?’ I can’t stand a grass.
Marcus looked awkward. ‘It’s hard to say no to Ronnie Laing.’ I thought that was just an excuse but I didn’t say anything.
‘When was that? Exactly?’
‘I don’t know. A week or so before Thomas died.’
‘Ronnie didn’t say anything to Thomas’s mother.’ I remembered how Kay had looked when she scribbled her work number on a scrap of paper, asking me to let her have news of her son. And she’d given me the hostel address. She hadn’t known he’d moved on. I told myself that Ronnie was trying to protect his wife from anxiety. She’d think Thomas was safe if he was in Absalom House.
‘He didn’t like having Thomas around,’ Marcus said. ‘I can understand it in a way. He could be a pain and Ronnie likes a quiet life. You know, needs his own space.’ Suddenly it seemed Marcus knew more about Ronnie than he’d originally let on.
‘Why’s that?’
But Marcus just shrugged. He wasn’t going to give anything more away about Ronnie.
‘Tell me about Thomas.’
‘He tried too hard. It was like he could never relax. He had to be entertaining, playing to the crowd, making sure people liked him.’
‘Exhausting,’ I said.
‘Yeah, for him and for us. I think that’s why Nell dumped him. He wore her out.’
‘How did he take that?’
‘He was absolutely sure he’d get her back.’
We looked at each other. We both understood the folly of his certainty, both felt sad that we’d never get a chance to be proved wrong.
‘What were you doing at Wintrylaw that weekend? Why help the Consortium if you don’t believe in what it stands for and you don’t work for them any more?’
‘I believe some of it.’ He was defensive. ‘Anyway, they were paying. A percentage for every member I joined up.’
‘That’s why you were so keen to recruit me?’
‘Of course.’ He gave a smile which was arrogant and disarming all at once. ‘Why else?’ He stood up. I watched him carry the plates into the kitchen and stack them neatly beside the sink. He called through the open door, ‘Coffee?’
‘Why not?’ I thought perhaps I should offer to wash up, but I still wasn’t sure I could stand without the dizziness coming back. And he’d brought me here, hadn’t he? I was his guest. He filled a machine with water, spooned coffee into a filter paper and switched it on. The smell of coffee dripping into the jug helped clear my head.
I asked, ‘Did Thomas ever talk about his work at the haulage yard?’
‘Not much. It wasn’t like a vocation, was it? He was there for the pay cheque, like me at the Consortium.’
‘Did he seem worried by anything that was going on there?’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘I’m not sure. Health and safety issues? Drivers working too long without a break? Lorries not being properly serviced?’ Red diesel? Green diesel?
What else would have made him talk to Shona Murray about whistle-blowing?
‘There’d been something going on between him and his boss.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘I don’t know. A row. A misunderstanding. At one point Thomas talked about leaving. I told you he was a dreamer. He was going on about setting up in business on his own. Then it all seemed to blow over.’
‘You’ve really no idea what it was about?’
Marcus didn’t answer. ‘What’s going on here?’ he said. He brought in the Pyrex coffee jug and two mugs and put them on the carpet between us. ‘I mean, what has it got to do with you?’
He seemed very young and unformed standing there, looking down at me. He’d experienced so little I thought there was nothing for me to get to know. A pretty face. Perhaps that’s why I was tempted to confide in him. He couldn’t understand what I’d been through, so it didn’t matter. It was almost like talking to myself.
‘I’m interested,’ I said. ‘I try not to be, but I can’t help it. The police had me down as the killer for a few days. They almost had me convinced I’d done it. I suppose I think I’ve got a right to know what happened.’
‘You should let it go,’ he said roughly.
‘What do you know about it?’
‘Nothing. But if you don’t it’ll become an obsession. No one can live like that.’
I thought, What can you know about obsession? What can you know about anything with your sheltered life, and your riding, and your daddy who has enough money to buy you a house and clean away the remains of your murdered friend?
Then I thought I was being unfair. I stretched out and poured the coffee. He took a mug and sat down. The question I’d failed to ask earlier came into my mind. ‘Is Joanna Samson one of the Consortium’s supporters?’