20. All is not forgiven
20
ALL IS NOT FORGIVEN
After last night, Netta wasn’t sure if Frank would come to the family meeting. They’d said some pretty strong things in the heat of the moment and when she’d messaged to invite him, his response had been short but not exactly sweet: I’ll be there. On top of that, it was his last day at college. He might have had other plans. Bugger. It was his last day. It should be a happy occasion, and she’d spoiled it for him with her half-cocked accusations. Although he had made it easy for her with his own accusations and shady behaviour.
‘You’re going to wear a hole in that spot,’ said Neil.
‘What?’ She looked down at the work surface she’d been cleaning for the last, however long. ‘Sorry. Lost in thought.’
‘Wanna share?’
‘Wanna listen?’
He took the cleaning cloth off her. ‘Always.’
‘Well, Colin looks like he’s had seven kinds of crap knocked out of him and I spent most of last night with him in A&E. When we got back, I had a row with Frank and, just to round the night off perfectly, I went home and had a pop at Doogie. It seems like the only person I’m not annoyed with at the moment is Colin. I’m actually beginning to feel sorry for him. And that is the most worrying development in all of this.’
‘Wow!’
‘Exactly. Two weeks ago, everything was rosy. Colin gets thrown out of his house and suddenly everything is not.’
‘Is it all Colin’s fault then?’
She threw him a scathing look. ‘Of course it is. It’s always Colin’s fault. If he hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have accused Frank and Doogie of beating him up.’
‘You accused them of beating him up? Ouch.’ Neil did an extremely over the top wince. It wasn’t the response she was hoping for.
‘What else was I supposed to think? Colin wouldn’t tell me who’d done it, so I assumed he was too scared to say. I put two and two together and…’ She caught Neil’s wide eye. ‘Yes, all right, I can see now that I was completely wrong. But in my defence, Frank’s been behaving very oddly and Doogie’s … well, he’s just being Doogie.’
‘In that case, who can blame you?’ At first glance, Neil’s face appeared serious but the twinkle in his eye was giving her notice that he thought the situation rather amusing.
‘You’re not helping as much as I thought you would, Neil.’
‘Oh I don’t know. We’ve already established you might have been a bit over zealous with your allegations.’
‘Yes, yes, okay. Any other observations, perhaps less painful for me to hear, that you’d like to pass on?’
‘Hmm. I guess it’s worth looking at Colin’s injury in a different way. It could just be coincidence. I mean he might have been mugged or got into a fight with some random. Why don’t you cast the net a bit further than home and try to pin it down to a time and place?’
‘So that is actually a good idea. We’ve got a family meeting tonight. I’ll run it by everyone then.’
‘And Frank. Perhaps try to understand why his behaviour’s changed.’
‘Oh I know why it’s changed.’
‘Yeah, but do you understand why?’
‘Yes. Probably. Maybe not entirely.’
The house was full when Netta got home from work. In the kitchen, her mum was cutting a hefty portion of steak and mushroom pie and lobbing it on a plate full of vegetables. She put the plate on a tray along with a pot of gravy and shouted: ‘It’s ready, Liza.’
Liza came in and picked up the tray. ‘Shall I tell Frank to come over?’
‘Yes please. Dinner’s going on the table now so come straight back.’ She gave Netta a cursory glance. ‘It’s for Colin. Much as I dislike him, I can’t have him wasting away.’
The table was soon loaded with the remaining pie and another that was untouched, and all the trimmings to make a big feast. If they were going to have a meeting, it was to be done on a full stomach. It was her mum’s way. Whatever problem needed to be solved, there was always an appropriate food accompaniment to help find the solution.
Frank came back with Liza. He hung around the kitchen, not looking at Netta and generally getting in the way. Doogie was in the lounge talking to her dad and Will, so he was naturally going to avoid retreating to there. When her mum called everyone to the table his relief was obvious. And so probably was Netta’s.
It was only when the dogs assembled around the table, as they often did when food was in the area, that Netta noticed an absence. ‘Where’s Spike?’
‘I left him with a friend for a few days to give Betty a break,’ said Doogie.
‘I didn’t know you had any friends in Birmingham, besides me.’
‘Well, it’s a client really, the one I met with today, but he offered.’ Doogie cut into a roast potato. Another one who couldn’t look at her.
‘Right, okay. Does he live far?’
‘North side of the city.’
‘Oh, so near your mum then?’
‘I think so. He didn’t say where exactly. We met up in the city centre.’
Still not looking at her then? Netta fixed him with a hard stare until he was forced to raise his eyes just long enough for her to make it clear she could see right through him. He loved that dog. There was absolutely no way he would leave him with someone whose address he didn’t even know. Something else was going on here. It was just a pity she didn’t have the time or headspace to try and work out what. ‘You didn’t have to do that on Betty’s account. I thought she was getting on a lot better with him.’
‘Just a few days and I’ll fetch him back. When did you want to have the meeting?’
‘Let’s get dinner out of the way first, shall we?’ said her mum.
Frank cleared his throat. ‘I have to go out later. I’m meeting friends for a drink.’
Netta tried to catch his eye. ‘I don’t think it’ll take too long. How was your last day?’
‘Great actually. Really nice.’
He was smiling for everyone else’s benefit, not hers. So was she. ‘Great.’
The plates were cleared and everyone had settled back down at the table, including Will. Netta sat next to him. ‘You know you don’t have to be here, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, but no one minds if I stay, do they?’
‘Of course not.’
Netta’s dad clapped his hands together and everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up at him. ‘Right. Let’s get started then. Over to you, Nettie.’
‘Yes. Right. Thanks Dad. The thing is, I’d hoped that Colin being here would help him to sort things out with Arianne, but that hasn’t happened. If anything, his state of mind seems to have gone downhill and I’m worried. I am worried about Colin.’ There, she’d admitted it. She looked around the table for reactions. Her gaze was met by a host of impassive faces which came as no surprise. It wasn’t as if any of them, aside from Liza, could say they liked Colin enough to care. Not even Will.
‘Me too.’ It was the person Netta least expected it to come from. Her mum.
‘I suppose I am too, a bit,’ said her dad. ‘I thought he was perking up at the allotment. He was getting on quite well with Ursula. And Clyde was tolerating him. But this black eye business has stopped him coming.’
‘About that black eye. Does anyone have any idea how it might have happened?’ Netta glanced at Frank who immediately folded his arms and set his mouth into a straight line. She looked away. ‘No? Okay, so I was thinking. Actually it was Neil’s suggestion. We should try to piece together Colin’s movements to see if we can pin down a time and place.’
Frank pulled his arms in even tighter. ‘Why?’
‘I, that is, Neil and I, thought that by doing that we could try to get to the root of Colin’s problem and really start to help him. Of course, it could have been a random attack but I’m not so sure.’
‘That’s a great idea.’ It was Doogie. He had a sarcastic smirk on his face. At least he didn’t call her Miss Marple again.
‘What makes you think there’s more to it?’ said Will.
‘Because it’s not the first time I’ve seen bruises on him. The first week he was here, I bumped into him as he was coming out of the shower. His back was covered in them.’
Liza shot forward in her seat. ‘Oh my God. Why didn’t you say before?’
‘Because he asked me not to say anything. He didn’t want to upset you. He said he tripped on the stairs at his house.’
‘Ursula saw him at the allotment on Tuesday evening. Apparently, he was fine when he left,’ said her dad.
‘What was he doing there?’ said Netta.
Frank coughed again. ‘He left the house just after Arthur dropped him back. He was upset.’
‘He was perfectly all right when I left him,’ said her dad.
‘I don’t doubt it, Arthur. He er, he saw something that upset him,’ said Frank.
‘What?’ said her mum.
‘Me?’ said Doogie.
Frank nodded.
Liza tutted. ‘I thought he’d gotten over all that. That’s what he told me.’
Netta’s attention shifted to Liza. So they must have discussed it then? At some point in the last few years, Liza and Colin must have had a conversation about her and Doogie. She wondered what had prompted that. She saw that everyone else was watching Liza too. Perhaps they were all thinking the same thing.
‘He probably thought he had, but it can be harder than you think to get over stuff like that.’ The communal focus shifted to Doogie. This time, Netta was sure they were all thinking the same as her. What made him say that? Frank looked like he’d already decided the answer to that question, and he didn’t like it.
Her mum pulled them back to the matter in hand. ‘Right, so we know Colin was okay when he left the allotment on Tuesday night, and no one saw him again until yesterday evening when he got back to Frank’s. So that leaves the rest of Tuesday night and yesterday unaccounted for.’
‘I’ll ask Ursula when he left the allotment. Thinking about it, she might be able to get more information out of him. I think they had a good chat the other night.’ As if catching the surprise in the room, her dad added: ‘She’s that kind of person. Not an enemy in the world.’
‘You do that, Arthur,’ said her mum. ‘Let’s get him back to the allotment then. Liza, that’s where you come in. When we’ve finished here, go round and talk to him.’
Liza raised her hand in a salute. ‘I get it. Turn on the emotional blackmail.’
‘Exactly. Now then, I think while he’s in such a vulnerable state he needs minding properly. Frank, you can do that while he’s in your house, can’t you?’
Frank looked like a rabbit who’d only just realised the headlights were almost on top of him. ‘I guess so.’
‘Lovely. Doogie, the other part is where you come in.’
Doogie frowned. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, love. You. I know you like a bit of gardening yourself so it shouldn’t be too much of a hardship to keep an eye on Colin while you do it.’
‘Er—’
‘Mum, we’ve just established that Colin’s still harbouring a grudge over Doogie,’ protested Netta.
‘Yes, I know. So Colin needs someone to guide him through that. And who better than the man he hates most?’
Doogie looked unconvinced. ‘I really don’t think that’s gonna work.’
‘You did say you wanted to help.’ Her mum gave him one of her sweetest smiles. She’d backed him into a corner, probably of his own making because he must have been stupid enough to offer assistance in one of their little chats.
‘Yeah but?—’
‘But?’ A Geraldine Wilde eyebrow was raised and it was pointed at Doogie Chambers.
Doogie took the hint. ‘Okay then.’
With the meeting concluded, Frank was on his way out the door. Netta followed him into the front garden. ‘About last night.’
‘It’s forgotten,’ he said, when clearly it wasn’t.
‘Okay. Where are you off to?’
‘The Hope and Anchor.’
‘Lovely. Do you want me to come with you?’
He shook his head. ‘It’ll just be college talk, and you have your visitor to entertain.’
That was a bit too snidey for Netta’s liking. ‘Right. Well you go then.’ She did an about turn and marched back inside the house, muttering under her breath: ‘And fuck you.’