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‘Joe, seriously,’ she says. ‘What the hell is going on? We’re in the middle of a conversation, then you grab your keys and hare off like a lunatic. And now you’re limping.’ She steps closer. ‘Jesus, you’rebleeding. Did you crash the car? Are you hurt?’
He glances down at himself. His trousers are torn at the knee, the fabric stiff with drying blood. ‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘I just tripped.’
‘Tripped where? Where did you go?’
‘I had a … a work thing I forgot about. A document I was meant to send. And then you mentioned the bungalow and I realized I left my laptop there.’
‘What was your laptop doing at the bungalow?’
‘I took it there yesterday. I thought I’d do an audit of the furniture. Put some of it on eBay, declutter the place a bit.’
He’s about to say more when Erin’s mobile rings. Shechecks the number, accepts the call. ‘Hi, Miah. Thanks for calling back. Yes … How did it go?’ She listens for a while, then says, ‘Look, bit of a weird one, but can I just check: did my husband turn up during the viewing?’
Erin stares at Joseph as she listens to the answer. Then she thanks Miah and ends the call.
‘You phoned the estate agent?’ he asks.
‘You weren’t picking up. I wanted to know where you’d gone.’
‘I’m sorry. I should have … I know I haven’t … I know I’ve …’ Joseph begins, and realizes, suddenly, that he’s gasping for breath. He’s trying to figure out what’s wrong when the strength drains from his limbs. His head nods forward, and even as he jerks it back upright his knees sag and he staggers towards the newel post at the base of the stairs. Somehow he prevents himself from falling, but the hall is yawning all over the place.
Erin rushes close, sliding an arm around his waist. Then she yells for Tilly. ‘Joe? What is it? What’s wrong?’
Tilly thunders down the stairs. When she sees what’s happening, she takes half Joseph’s weight. Together, they lead him into the living room and lower him on to the sofa. ‘Get him some water,’ Erin tells her daughter.
‘No, get me a beer.’
‘Joe, bad idea. Tilly, do as I say.’
‘It’s just my knee. I must have banged it worse than I thought.’
Erin fetches a footstool and positions it under his heel. Then she grips the tattered edges of his trousers. ‘They’re ruined, anyway,’ she says, ripping a larger hole. ‘So let’s just – oh,Jesus.’
When Joseph sees the damage, he groans. His knee looks like something Max might meet in the woods and decideworthy of his mercy – a swollen mess of blood and tattered skin. Still, he knows the injury wasn’t the reason he collapsed. The stress of the last three days, and the last half an hour in particular, appears to have momentarily doused his lights.
Tilly returns with a glass of beer. ‘Here you go, Axe Man.’
Joseph cringes when he hears that, a reference to the ridiculous tomahawk he’d hoped they’d both forgotten. He drinks down the beer in two long gulps and hands back the empty glass. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ he says. ‘Then I’ll patch this up.’
‘You can’t—’
‘Yes, I can. I’ll clean the knee, put a dressing on it. I just need you to help me up. Where’s Max?’
‘He went out looking for you.’
‘Bloody hell.’
Once Tilly and Erin have hauled him off the sofa, Joseph limps up the stairs to his bedroom. Locking himself in the ensuite, he turns on the shower and strips off his clothes. Then he removes the first-aid kit from the medicine cabinet and puts the Montblanc wallet in its place. Beneath water as hot as he can bear, he scrubs himself clean, watching the water run red, then pink, then clear. Afterwards, he dresses his wounded knee, steps into fresh clothes and douses himself in cologne.
He feels marginally better than he did – less like he’s actively dying and more like he’s on life support – but it’s only a temporary reprieve. He knows he hasn’t fooled Erin. She’ll be watching him ten times more closely from now on. When he opens the bedroom door, Max pushes him back inside the room so forcefully that he collapses on to the bed. His knee and his hamstring scream in tandem.
The boy is pale-faced, shaky with adrenalin. ‘Dad, what thefuck?’ he hisses. ‘You tell me there’s a viewing, thatpeople are at the bungalow, and when I ask you about it you cut me off?’
‘I couldn’t—’
‘And then, after leaving me hanging for over half an hour, you come home and take a shower, without even bothering tocontactme?’
Abruptly, he realizes how hellish the last sixty minutes must have been for Max. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘You’re right. You’re completely right. I was so—’