Chapter Seven

Second Breakfast

There was silence in the limousine, only this time it was difficult to tell who dictated the terms. Time passed slowly, and Sandra stared out her window, outraged at the way she’d been manipulated. She’d stormed ahead of Sebastian to the exit, fumed in the lift, jumped into the limo and shut the door, and was surprised to see him open it and follow her in. He probably didn’t trust her. Suspected she’d steal the seats or something.

If he’d not got in the car with her then she probably would have. Just to be annoying. The way he followed her, all calm and sleazy only aggravated her further. He’d been so terribly suave and disarming earlier. Now that the truth had emerged, she suspected she was seeing his true self. Dark. Cruel. Unpleasant. Lawyery.

As the car moved on he continued to stare out the window, like he had on the way there, only this time he was devoid of that smug smile. It had felt all charming on the way in, but now it was just smug. She imagined telling him so. With her boot.

It reminded Sandra of the many teenage trips taken with her father. The tension. The silence. The arsehole with the God complex. Only at least her father was broke. This guy thought he was God and was so stupidly wealthy he probably printed his own money. With his face on it. “In Me We Trust.” Prick.

She turned to sneer at the lawyer and saw his face, his impassive, nothing expression. Naked dead guy had been his brother. Murdered. Horribly. Not that murdered nicely was really an option, but there had to be better ways to be murdered. Either way, he’d been naked dead guy until now. Now he had a name. And a family. Arseholes or not, no one deserved this.

She cleared her throat, and then realised she had nothing to say.

“Coffee?”

Might as well make the best of a bad situation.

She hated tension. Couldn’t stand it. She’d swiftly ended relationships based purely on tension levels. When the arguments would never quite manifest, the TV was on purely for background noise and she could feel the imaginary arguments taking place in the other’s head – before she broke the silence she’d decide that if that was the way it was going to be, then it wasn’t going to work out – and she’d tell them so. Before any discussion actually took place. Pretty soon one of them would be leaving, usually him. And usually he went home angry, went to bed angry and woke up the next day bewildered. She’d stay up and watch infomertials and drink beer, because she found these things entertaining, particularly when combined. And then she’d wake up the next day hungry.

“Seriously?” he asked, genuinely surprised. She considered it a small achievement that she’d managed to surprise him enough to betray his surprise. She made a ‘tick’ on the new addition to her mental list that read ‘surprise lawyer who cannot be surprised’. Day wasn’t entirely a write off then.

“Yeah. Coffee. I’m thirsty.” She wasn’t really, and she didn’t really want a coffee. Not particularly. It was early still but she felt like she’d been awake for 12 hours. She needed beer.

“Machine’s off” he said, tapping it as if tapping it would prove to her that it was off, just in case she didn’t believe him, which she didn’t.

She sighed, and turned her attention out the window. He maintained his steady tone as he said “something from the fridge?” and she turned back to see him lifting up the seat next to him, revealing, as she had suspected, a well stocked fridge.

Desperately hiding her desperation she said “Yeah why not.” She thought he must have been psychic until she watched him reach for a bottle of water. She stopped him mid-movement and told him exactly what she wanted, and suggested strongly that he join her.

To her surprised he did.

The bottle opener on the fridge door was applied and he handed her a brand of beer she’d never heard of but was, by request, the most expensive in the fridge. It was also incredibly good.

She watched him drink and maintain that same astonishing, unreadable level of composure, even when drinking beer from a bottle in the morning. She no longer wondered if he learnt this at law school. She was sure it was hereditary, or at the very least beaten into them as children by their charming father. Suddenly she wondered what he was thinking. He was impossible to read.

“Tell me about your brother” she asked.

He didn’t pause. He just said:

“Half-brother. And no.”

She drank. You bastard. Dropping the ‘half-brother’ thing. That was uncalled for and she knew what was coming next.

“I’m not telling you anything else. I know you want to know. You’re not alone. But we’re a very private family, and you have your own problems that you need to sort out. You should stop trying to create a distraction and focus on your own problems.”

She drank again. She considered what he said and responded with:

“Hey can you drop me off in town instead? I should really go into work. Let them know what’s going on.”

He didn’t drink. He simply said:

“Sandra, why is it that you can’t remember what happened?”

She paused before answering, unsure why she did but somehow feeling the need to.

“I was drugged Seb. I’m sure of it. I reckon we were both drugged, and I reckon your brother knew something or saw something he shouldn’t have and someone killed him for it. And I reckon I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they set me up for it.”

“You watch a lot of TV crime shows don’t you. Thriller movies. That sort of thing.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Sandra I’m sure you’re right when you say you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. How you precisely ended up there I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s that important.” He leant forward, as it making sure she was listening. “But has it occurred to you that maybe you weren’t drugged at all. Maybe you can’t remember because you’re in shock Sandra. Maybe you saw Richard murdered and now you’ve gone into shock. Maybe you saw something you can’t process and you’ve buried it deep down where you don’t have to think about it. That’s why you don’t remember anything after The Four Legs. That’s why you have this magnificent callous exterior”

“This magnificent callous exterior has been here for a long time buddy.”

“Then maybe it’s helping you protect yourself from what you saw.”

She pondered. She drank. She spoke.

“Then why am I still alive? If I saw it happen, why didn’t they kill me too?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they don’t know you saw it. Maybe they don’t care, I don’t know. The good news is you are still alive. Maybe you should just be grateful for that”, and he sat back and had a drink, and turned his attention to the passing world outside once more.

Well, he was right. She was glad to be alive. No one drinking beer in a limousine at 10am could not be. Still...

“You’re a very forthright prick Sebastian. You know that.”

He continued to look out the window.

“When I am required to be I can be.”

She waved her empty bottle at him.

“You gonna offer me another?”

He turned, smiled, and said “No.” This took her back a bit.

“Why not?”

“I think our business is done Ms Walker”, and the car magically stopped on cue.

“What?”

“You can get out of the car now. Actually, let me rephrase that. Get out the car now.” His face was very, very serious. His tone was very serious. He took another swig from the bottle.

“Who the fuck are you Sebastian you prick? What the fuck is your problem? Okay, so you’re brother – sorry, half-brother – was murdered, but fuck you. Fuck you I say. You can’t treat me like this. No one has the fucking right to treat me like this.”

He smiled, and it was disarming and charming once more. What a prick.

“We’ve arrived at your work. You said you wanted to go to your work. That’s where we are right now.” She looked out the window, and saw exactly that. He reached into his pocket, and passed her a phone and an envelope. “Here. Take this. It’s on loan until you find your missing phone, but don’t expect that loan to actually expire. It’s loaded with credit - in fact I challenge to break that credit. I’d give you a new bag but I’m not foolish enough to presume your taste. There’s some money in the envelope instead, it should suffice for something to suit. If you have any problems, please don’t hesitate to call me. You’ll find my number programmed already into the phone.”

Stunned, but not sheepish, she took the phone and envelope. She didn’t look inside. She just looked him directly in the eye.

“You’re a prick Sebastian”, she said, and got out of the car.

He smiled.