Chapter 44
TOM
I park a street away because somehow that feels less dramatic than pulling up directly outside the café like I’m here to stage an intervention over an latte.
The August light is that Bristol kind—bright and slippery, like the sun’s been polished and is now reflecting itself off every window. I check my reflection in one of them anyway. I look… fine. Fine-adjacent.
As I walk, my phone buzzes. Facebook Messenger. Emma.
How did you get on? Any news? x
Of course she uses an x. People who weaponise affection via punctuation are dangerous. I hover my thumb over reply, then don’t.
Daniel’s voice from earlier slinks back in — She’s a liar, Tom. Don’t trust her. I don’t want to give Daniel space in my head, but he’s already rented the loft conversion and installed skylights.
I slip the phone away. See Pete first, think later.
The bell over the door tinkles as I step inside. The café smells like coffee and the kind of banana bread that pretends it’s healthy, despite being 80% sugar.
Pete is already at a corner table, hands curled around a mug like it might run away. He looks tired — creased at the edges, like someone folded him and didn’t quite unfold him properly. When he sees me, he smiles, and the room tilts back into focus.
“Hey,” he says, standing. We hug — properly, longer than polite. There’s that moment where our shoulders drop in sync. It’s a small, wonderful relief that makes everything else worse.
“You look…” I search for the least loaded adjective. “Human.”
He huffs a laugh. “You too.”
We sit. My heart is a drumline. I don’t know what to say first — I stole your house’s memories feels like a bit of a conversation killer.
Pete nudges a second mug towards me.
“I ordered you a latte. One sugar. Don’t @ me.”
“That’s exactly my order,” I say, mock-surprise.
“Yes, I can order a coffee under extreme trauma.” He smiles again, small and bright, then glances out the window. “I just wanted to see you. Yesterday was a quiet day at the house.” A pause. “Well. Quiet-ish.”
“Quiet-ish is good,” I say. “Quiet-ish is underrated.”
For a little while, we skate on safer ice. Work. Weather. A woman nearby who keeps loudly mispronouncing “cha-cuterie” like it’s a spiritual practice. My shoulders loosen a fraction. It almost feels normal—if you ignore the rogue hard drive-shaped guilt buzzing in my pocket like a wasp.
Pete traces a finger along the rim of his cup. “I missed you,” he says simply.
And there it is—the sentence that kicks my chest from the inside. “I missed you too.”
We hold that for a breath. Then I clear my throat because I’m me. “I, um… spoke to someone.”
“Oh?” He’s wary now, like I’ve produced a small bomb from a tote.
“Emma,” I say. “Chris’s sister.”
His mouth lifts, surprised. “Emma?”
“She was… following me,” I admit. “In a not entirely subtle way. We ended up talking.”
Pete blows out a breath and leans back. “She’s determined, I’ll give her that.”
“She said she liked you,” I say. “That you keep in touch. She seems… intense, but good. Like a hurricane that makes you soup afterwards.”
He smiles properly at that, then sobers. “She wants answers. And so she should.” A shadow crosses his face. “I feel guilty. About… all of it.”
Guilt. That word sits down at our table and orders itself a pastry.
“And is she trustworthy?” I ask.
“I mean, she comes across like an erratic hamster wheel on speed, but she’s trustworthy,” he confirms, and I feel a knot in me slacken an inch. Emma: one. Daniel: zero. It shouldn’t be a scorecard, but my brain loves a league table.
We talk a little more about Emma—how she messages him every few weeks, how she oscillates between poised and frantic. Pete squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I just wish I had something that would help her.”
And this is the point where I either change the subject or jump off the cliff I’ve brought us to. The problem is I’ve never been good at changing the subject. Especially when I’m standing on a cliff with a backpack full of evidence and a guilty conscience.
“Pete,” I say, and my voice comes out thinner than intended. “I did something. And you’re going to be… annoyed. But I need you to know why.”
His eyes lift to mine, wary. “Okay…”
“I went to your house. When you were out.” The words tumble now, trying to outrun each other. “I used the spare key behind the plant pot — don’t hate me — and I got into the office and… I went through some of the CCTV files.”
Silence. Then: the barest flinch—like someone snapped a rubber band inside him.
“You what?” he says, very softly.
“I know,” I rush. “I know it’s a massive invasion of privacy. I know. I hate myself. But I—Emma said there might be evidence, and I’ve been so worried, and when you told me about the cameras—”
He puts his hand up. “Tom.”
I stop. The café becomes extremely loud, then extremely quiet, then normal again. Pete stares at the table for a moment, jaw working, then looks back at me. There’s fear, yes—but also something like calculation. Tired math.
“How?” he asks.
“How…?”
“How did you get past the computer?”
The question is so practical I blink. “Your Apple Watch,” I say, embarrassed. “It was on the charger. I know the code. It’s the same as your alarm.”
He closes his eyes like he’s praying for patience. “And how did you guess that?
“I memorised it when you typed it in the other day.”
He shakes his head, in no way marvelled by my apparent criminal genius.
“Of course you did.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. The two least useful words. “I shouldn’t have. But I thought if we had proof—”
“Stop!” He says, in a firm whisper. The charcuterie lady looks over for a second before returning to her coffee. “That was stupid, dangerous. What were you thinking?”
“But I’ve seen what’s on some of them—”
“What did you see?” he asks.
“Him shouting at you. Hitting you. There was a folder with them all saved on there. I’ve got it all,” I confess.
“What do you mean, you’ve got it all?”
“I copied them onto a memory stick.”
“Tom, for fuck’s sake! You had no right to do that,” his voice solid but low against the hum from the café.
“I’m sorry, I just saw the memory sticks there and I grabbed one—”
“The sticks in the office? The silver ones.” His gaze bores into me. “Did you move them?”
“I—” I fumble. “I used one, yes. I… didn’t think—”
“James will notice,” he says, almost a whisper. The colour drains slightly from his face. “He notices everything. Remembers everything.” He swallows. “If he thinks anything’s missing, There will be hell to pay. He’ll check the CCTV—”
Guilt floods me hot. “I deleted the footage of me in the house, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would matter for a day.”
“It matters,” he says, not unkindly — just urgently. The way someone says there’s a fire.
“You can put it back,” I blurt. “Right now.” I pull out the memory stick from my pocket.
“Have you watched them?” he asks.
“A few,” I admit. I feel suddenly like a kid confessing to peeking at Christmas presents and finding a crime scene instead. “Enough to know…”
Pete’s mouth presses into a line. “I saved those videos,” he says. “Sometimes I thought — if I ever needed to… you know.” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to. Leave. Report. Survive.
I put my hand over his. It’s warm, tense. “You can.”
He shakes his head, quick, like a horse twitching off flies. “It’s not that simple.”
“Because you’re scared, I get that—”
“Because,” he says, a little sharper, “there are things you don’t know.
” He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them, staring past me.
“I’ve made mistakes, Tom.” The words come out flat with self-disgust. “Things I’ve done.
Things he could… use. Against me.” He meets my eyes again. “I’m not proud. I’m not… innocent.”
Something cold slides under my ribs. “Pete—”
“It was once,” he says quickly, seeing my face, misreading the direction of my fear. “Years ago. I thought I was protecting him. It doesn’t matter what now. He won’t let me forget it.” His voice frays. “I can’t just walk. He’ll bring me down too.”
I nod like I understand, because in a way, I do. The precise shape of the trap doesn’t matter; the teeth do. Shame is a padlock; fear is the key that keeps it locked.
“Okay,” I say softly. “Okay.” I squeeze his hand. “Then we do what we can, safely. We’ll make a plan. But first—if the missing stick puts you at risk—take it.” I slide the memory stick across the table. It looks ridiculous there beside the muffin crumbs. “Put it back before he notices.”
Pete exhales, shaky with relief and something like grief. He pockets it immediately, as if it’s radioactive and safer contained. “Thank you,” he mutters, and I can’t tell if he means for returning it or for not running away.
“I shouldn’t have taken it,” I say.
“No,” he says, quietly honest. “You shouldn’t.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “But I know why you did.”
He’s calmer now, but wired, like a man who’s walked away from the edge and only now registers how close he was. He glances at the door, then back to me. “I’ll go straight home and put it back.”
“Do you want me to come?” I ask.
He hesitates. “No. Better you’re not seen.” Then, gentler: “I know you want to fix this, Tom. I want to fix this too.”
I swallow the instinct to argue that “fix” is my middle name, along with “overthink.” I nod.
There’s a silence neither of us fills. I look at his cheeks—the faint fading of the bruises like storm clouds retreating. I want to cup his face and say, You don’t deserve any of this, but I’ve said versions of that and what good did it do?
“Emma messaged me,” I say, because my head is a tumble dryer and sometimes you have to take socks out in the order they appear. “Checking in.”
Pete’s mouth softens. “She means well.”
“She said the same about you,” I say. “That you’re a good person caught in a bad thing.”
He looks away. “Maybe.”
“Definitely,” I say, too quickly.
He smiles, sad but grateful, then glances at his watch. “I should go. James might be back this afternoon.”
My chest tightens. “Right.”
He stands, and I follow suit. Another hug—a little tighter. When we pull back his eyes shine for a second, like he’s about to say something else. He doesn’t.
“Thank you. For caring.” A pause. “Please be careful.”
“You too,” I say. It sounds inadequate and huge at the same time.
He leaves with the quiet urgency of someone carrying something fragile. I watch him go until the door shuts behind him, then sit back down because my legs have forgotten their purpose. My latte is cold. I drink it anyway.
The guilt eases… and then re-forms in a different shape.
Because the stick I gave back is not the only copy.
The files are on my laptop.
I tell myself this is safety—insurance. If James does go looking, there’s a version he can find and a version he can’t.
That sounds like sense if you tilt your head and squint.