Page 79 of The Other Side of Green

“So tell us again what happened?”

I’m pretty sure Phillipe had aged since we’d been in the interview room.

“I told you. I don’t know.” I hated making myself sound dumb, it wasn’t my style, but what else could I do?

“You didn’t find it?” His blue eyes practically drilled into my brain.

I shook my head, lips pressed tight together.

“You must have been pissed with your dad for the way he treated your mom.” The statement didn’t come from Lufette, but rather Rogers, the other half of the interrogation team. I could see the moment Philippe had walked in with him that the dynamic had changed.

Phillipe himself seemed almost scared.

“If you’re asking me whether I’m pleased he’s now in jail, I think the answer is obvious.”

“Like father like son though. Isn’t that right, Jack? You were fighting just the other day?”

“That was with my best friend. We had old scores to settle. It’s a different situation completely.”

“What old scores?” Rogers fired off without a beat.

“Just an old difference of opinion is all.”

“But you haven’t been home for four years, is that right? That’s a long time to keep an argument going.”

Phillipe rubbed his temple.

“So let’s talk about what happened the night you left.”

I clamped my lips shut again.

An hour later the pretty officer from my first day back home came into the room and whispered into Phillipe’s ear. He glanced over at me and then spoke to Rogers, his voice a practiced low pitch I couldn’t quite hear from the other side of the desk. “Okay, we are going take a break. Would you like a drink? Coffee?”

I shook my head, but he widened his eyes, so I quickly changed tack and agreed to a shitty coffee.

The three of them left me to drum my fingers against the desk while I waited for whatever was happening on the outside. It was strange to be so cut off from the outside world—from in here you couldn’t hear a sound. When the door beeped back open again, I rolled my head on my neck, clicking out knots of tension.

Phillipe put down a polystyrene cup of black-as-tar coffee and then the plastic packet with the damn hoodie in it. God, I’d been such a fucking idiot. I’d been so distracted with the prospect of discovering the DNA test for Lyra and me, I’d completely forgotten the damn plastic packet. I mean what sort of moron was I?

“Jack, I don’t know how to help you.”

I lifted my gaze to find his. “Why is no one questioning why you are with my mother, a victim? Surely that’s not allowed?”

“This isn’t about me and Ruth.”

In my head something wasn’t sitting right. A little piece of jigsaw that needed its edges sanded down to fit into place properly.

“And I would suggest you don’t bring it up too much,” he added.

“Secret romance?”

“Hardly, Jack, we live together. It’s not a secret.”

“Mm, out of wedlock. What will the neighbors say?”

“Well, if we got married it would be bigamy.”

This caused me to pause. “She’s still married to Dad? She can’t be.”