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They won’t buy it. Not once they find out what happened in the pub. They’ll think you hit him deliberately. And we can’t prove that you didn’t.’
    ‘Oh, Jesus, Robbie—’
    Dan pushed his hand through his hair, while Robbie gazed into the distance, his eyes misty with regret.
    ‘I s’pose we should have stayed at the scene. Now it’s just gonna look like you ran off.’
    ‘But I said that.’ It was almost a shout. Dan had to make a real effort to lower his voice, talking through gritted teeth. ‘I wanted to stay. You were the one who insisted on coming home.’
    ‘Mm. Bad call on my part. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
    Dan turned away, his body almost writhing with misery. ‘This is insane. We should have flagged down that other car to fetch help.’
    Nothing from Robbie. When Dan turned back, what he saw made him flinch: an expression so cold that for a second this didn’t look like Robbie at all, but a stranger.
    ‘At the end of the day, though, it was your decision.’
    ‘ What? ’
    ‘You were driving, Dan. Not me.’
    Dan stared at him, at a friend he had known since primary school. The most important friend he’d ever had.
    ‘You grabbed the wheel.’
    ‘I was just trying to beep the horn, that’s all. Make him jump.’
    ‘No. You grabbed the wheel. That’s why we hit him.’
    Robbie opened his hands: whatever . ‘Look, I hate to point this out, but all the police will care about is that you were driving. It’s your car. You were in control of it. I was just a passenger, yeah?’
    His eyes widened, and what they told Dan was clear: I won’t go down for this. I won’t take any responsibility .
    The betrayal winded him. Dan raised a hand to wipe his eyes, not wanting to bear the scorn that would greet the appearance of tears. But a sudden burst of rage drew the hand into a fist, the movement into a punch.
    It struck Robbie on the chin and sent him floundering, completely unprepared for it. Along with surprise, and anger, there was a hint of grudging admiration on his face. Then a cautious look round to see if anyone had noticed.
    Dan did the same thing, realising how reckless it was, drawing attention to himself next to a car dented from a recent collision. But his heart was pounding and his fists remained clenched. If Robbie came at him now he thought it would probably end in murder: neither of them would back down.
    But Robbie only rubbed his jaw and gave Dan a long, calculating look. ‘Don’t do something you’ll regret, eh? Go home. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’
    It was good advice, and despite every primitive instinct to have it out with Robbie there and then, Dan relaxed his hands, turned and got back into his car.

CHAPTER 8
     
    Cate drove faster than was sensible on the journey home. With nine points on her licence, one more encounter with a speed camera and that would be it: a driving ban. Luckily, there were no fixed cameras on her route back into Brighton, and she barely considered the possibility of a speed trap. Too preoccupied.
    She lived in a two-bedroom terraced house in Victoria Street, in the Montpelier district of Brighton. Parking was sometimes a pain, even with a resident’s permit, but tonight she was lucky. She slotted the Audi into a tight gap right outside her front door. Funny to think that she’d once dreaded parallel parking: now it didn’t faze her at all.
    ‘Skillage,’ she muttered, and laughed. She was blatantly trying to pump up her mood, but every train of thought led back to her brother, and what he’d put her through, and then on to contemplation of the ways in which he might be made to suffer.
    For starters, he could decorate her back bedroom. Maybe tile the kitchen as well. And if he tried wriggling out of it, she would tell Mum everything. Not just the scam with O’Brien, but all the other stunts he’d pulled over the years. Like sleeping with his clients, and taking backhanders, and the company profits that had disappeared up his