Page 67 of The Unforgiven

Words he’d once said, words I hadn’t even believed back then. Not even of him.

Which was why I was sorry I’d told him so much.

Chapter Thirty

The first unusual thing that happened that morning was a phone call from my half-brother at half-five, asking me for a lift to work if he provided me with breakfast.

I was already awake because I’d talked myself into going to bed early to avoid giving Cavan a nine pm booty call, and I was still sleeping well. I had been debating a run, but curiosity and the desire to get to know the only blood relative I was in contact with won over.

The house was a building site apart from the kitchen, Nate waiting for me at the front door and walking me around the side of the house to the bifold doors at the back. “It’s a war zone in there.”

“It looks like there’s a lot going on. Shouldn’t you have some TV production filming it?”

He looked uncomfortable at just the suggestion.

“No. Not at all. Never suggest that again.” He carried on walking, skirting around bags of rubble and scaffolding poles. “Thanks for picking me up. I have a ton of crap I need to take to work – textbooks and stuff that I don’t want to keep here.”

“Good job I came in my car and not my bike then, isn’t it?”

He looked at me in horror. “You have a bike?”

“No, but that wasn’t my point. You didn’t give me much information and I’m not telepathic.” There was more anger in there that wasn’t just about the scarcity of the information he’d given me now. There was four years’ worth of hurt that he hadn’t bothered to keep in touch.

He followed me up the steps of the decking into the kitchen, which looked even grander now it was light. I opened the door with a hand that felt too sweaty.

“Ask whatever questions you have, Mia. There’s no point keeping things bottled up.”

He was right at the same time as being completely wrong. Opening the wardrobe where the bodies were buried led to postmortems and murder charges in my experience.

“How’ve you afforded this?” Anger boiled in every word.

“A bond matured, like I said. It was set up by the directors of Lucent Financial Services. Ian Kilpatrick contacted me to let me know. I used a chunk of it for the deposit, took out a mortgage for the rest, and then another chunk of it’s for the renovations. I’ll have a decent sum left over for rainy days which I’ll invest.”

“Using Lucent Financial Services?” Which was the legitimate business front owned by Stan, although technically he had nothing to do with it anymore, so those assets hadn’t been frozen. Stan was the money man, had a nose for an investment, and needed a front to wash clean his cash. He’d also made a legitimate income from it, although I’d no doubt he’d ripped off a few old widows in the process.

“Maybe.” Nate clicked on his coffee machine. I noticed it was the same brand as Daniel’s new one in his office.

“Why didn’t you buy somewhere closer to your gran?”

He turned his back to me while he heated the milk. “Gran’s in a nursing home. She has rapid onset dementia and has no idea who I am anymore, but when I go and see her, it distresses herbecause she can’t remember who I am. The care’s she’s getting is phenomenal - ”

“Is Stan paying for that?” I interrupted, wanting to pull the words back as soon as I’d spat them out.

“Lucent is.”

“You’ve changed your tune accepting all of this. Why?”

“Because he owed me, Mia. Look, I don’t want to fight with you about his because I’ve fought enough with myself. My gran did everything she could for me; she worked two jobs, she went without so I could have, she made sure I didn’t miss out on anything. Things got easier when I was at secondary school – she told me three years ago it was because she finally accepted money from Stan. I was angry at first, but then she asked me why we shouldn’t let him make it easier, why should we suffer because of our pride and miss out on things. He’d paid for my education – I was okay with that because I was putting something right by becoming a doctor.” He topped both coffees up with milk and handed one to me. “There’s a saying, Mia, don’t bite your nose off to spite your face. The bond is from legitimate income. Stan knows stock markets.”

“I’m sorry for snapping.” I genuinely was. “I’m finding you being back harder than I thought.”

“Partly my fault, I should’ve stayed in touch. I definitely should’ve given you the head’s up I was moving here.” He opened the fridge. “Omelette?”

“What’s going in it?”

“Ham, peppers, onions, cheese.”

“Sounds good.” It did. I sat down at the kitchen island, nursing the coffee. It was only half past six yet felt later already. “I’m not used to having a family in Manchester.”