“Do you know the Whitegate Estate?”
He turns and catches my eye. “Only by reputation.” His voice is low. “Why do you want to go there?”
I take a deep breath and let my head fall back on the headrest. “Allegra MacArthur lives there with her mum.”
“Okay…”
“I want to check she’s all right.” I look at him again, and he’s waiting patiently for me to expand. For a moment, I sit and try to work out the right words. “Her mum has this on-again off-again boyfriend and I think he might have hurt her in the past. I want to go over and see if he’s back hanging around there.”
“He left?”
Another deep breath. “After he landed Daisy in hospital with multiple injuries. Now I hear he might be back.”
“Why not call somebody? The police or social services?”
It’s a good question, though not one I’m particularly delighted about answering. “Because I did a stupid thing,” I admit. “I asked Cameron Gibbs to keep an eye on her and let me know if Darren came back.”
“Darren’s the boyfriend?” Niall clarifies. He gives up trying to start the car and turns to face me. “The one who beats them?”
“Yes. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t call up social services just to tell them he’s been hanging around the estate. It’s only hearsay; they’d laugh at me. If I could just see for myself, then at least I’d have something to tell them.”
“And if he isn’t there?”
“Then I can go home knowing Allegra’s safe.”
He reaches out and runs his finger along my cheekbone. The intimacy of the gesture is almost painful.
“Okay, let’s go. But if you get out of the car I’m coming with you.”
It takes a while to get there. The evening rush hour halts our progress every few blocks, and we idle in long queues while motorbikes and couriers flash by, weaving in and out of the vehicles. Neither of us says very much, because I’m too busy worrying about Allegra, and Niall’s too busy concentrating on the road.
Eventually, he leans forward and switches on the radio, and the drive-time D.J. introduces the all-request hour. The Fray comes on, and our eyes meet. This song was in the charts the year Digby died. As the bittersweet melody fills the interior of the car, I wonder if Niall listened to it as much as I did.
“I hate this song.” Niall flicks off the radio. How to Save a Life fades away.
“It was everywhere that summer… I couldn’t escape it. And every time I listened to it, I felt as if I was being judged.”
“You’re not the one who deserved judgement. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The silence is so heavy it actually hurts. I can feel his pain dissolve into my own. “We were just kids, Niall. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I gave him that tab. Whose fault was it?”
We come to another stop behind some temporary traffic lights. Somebody beeps their horn.
“You gave me one, too, and I’m still alive,” I say firmly. “It was one of those things. The blame doesn’t lie on you.”
“It doesn’t lie on you either. When are you going to realise that?”
When I close my eyes I can picture Digby palming the tablet as Niall passes it to him. All three of us swallowing tiny white pills. Looking for ecstasy and finding only death.
“I should have listened to him. When he said he felt ill.”
Niall’s fingers tap against the steering wheel in a silent rhythm. “The poor guy never stood a chance. He was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in the post-mortem. Did you know that?”
I shake my head, feeling the nausea rise in my stomach the way it always does when I think about him and about those days.
“I read it in the papers. It came out in the inquest.”