‘Do you know how it started?’
He takes the measure of the ruined building. ‘Kids playing with fire. Old electrical wiring . . . Anything.’
Whoever set fire to the former Suzi Lake Centre did not want me to come back. Thinking hard, I head towards the street. Something grabs my attention on the ground near the entrance.
My steps slow. Stop. It’s the brass serpent door knocker, lying on the ground, still eating its tail. I’m about to hurry on when my gaze spots an object nearby. What is that?
I inch closer. Hunker down. My eyes narrow as I try to identify what it is. It’s square, brass with writing engraved on it. Some of what it says is hidden by ivy that hasn’t been torched by the fire. I pick it up and wipe it off with my sleeve. It’s a plaque:
THE SUZI LAKE CENTRE
OPENED IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MAYOR BY
SUZI LAKE AND DANNY GREENE
CHAPTER 32
I drive through the open security gates of Danny’s home at speed, the squealing wheels scattering gravel in my wake. He’s in the front watering his exotic plants. He’s the picture of zen and chilled in his sun hat, linen trousers and sandals, although there’s also a touch of the eccentric hairdresser as he delicately trims back leaves on a rhododendron bush.
He looks askance when I climb out, slamming the door behind me. ‘Has something happened? What’s wrong?’
I fling the plague at his feet. ‘Who the hell are you?’
Danny turns the plaque round with the tip of his exposed toes and looks over it before sighing. ‘Who am I? Just a father trying to protect his daughter from harm, that’s all. That’s what fathers are for.’
I’m angry, but a part of me is also afraid. ‘Why did you take me to the wrong place claiming it was the Suzi Lake Centre? And you helped open it.’ The horrifying disbelief is still in my voice.
Danny shields his eyes from the glare of the sun. ‘Why don’t you come into the back garden, calm down and have a cup of reviving fresh mint tea?’ He tucks the shears under his arm and walks to his front door. ‘Are you coming or not?’
‘I did take you to the wrong place.’
I wasn’t expecting such a frank confession and it cuts the ground from under me a little.
‘Why would you do that?’ His confession makes no sense. ‘You’re supposed to be helping me.’
Danny sits in a wicker chair in the back garden. He looks stern like a real father who’s summoned his daughter to put her straight on a few things. I’m more afraid than ever now. He’s obviously satisfied that his conscience is clear and that it was in my own interest to be lied to. He serves me tea and cake. At this moment he could hardly look more harmlessly English, more harmlessly suburban. A solid and prosperous man sat in his sleek and well-tended garden with the river flowing by in front of us, his small rowing boat lilting against the water in the distance.
‘I take it you’ve found the real Suzi Lake Centre?’
‘How else do you think I found that plaque?’ My guarded gaze sharpens on him. ‘It burned to the ground this afternoon.’
He’s listening to me properly now. ‘And you think I did it? Because . . . ?’ He waves his hand for an explanation.
‘You took me to the wrong place. And now it turns out that you opened the centre as well. Both of those suggest someone with something to hide.’
‘I’m a businessman, Eva, not an arsonist,’ he bites back. ‘You know it’s never a good idea to have heroes, Eva. They’ll always let you down. They always have feet of clay. There are only two types of hero, those that have been found out and those that are going to be found out.’
I scoff, ‘You’re a hero now.’
‘Not me.’ He says it with such force it leaves me unsettled. Who does he mean?
I confront him with more evidence of his lying. ‘When I showed you the photo of the women in the office at the centre you must have recognised it?’
‘Why?’ Danny lifts his shoulders. ‘When I co-opened that place I was there for about thirty minutes, we had cake and coffee in the morning room and then I was gone. Do you really expect me to recall a room in a building I visited once in 1994?’
He’s making sense.
Danny’s fingers tighten, whitening around the cup. ‘I was asked to open it because I was always being asked to open this and that back in those days. Perhaps they hoped some more money would come their way, and they weren’t disappointed.’
‘So why couldn’t you have told me that?’