Nico went with Eve. His cousin was quiet as they walked. Eventually, with difficulty, Nico said, “So Alma talked?”
“It’s not her fault,” Eve said. “She’s not part of this. She had a knife at her throat.”
“I’m not complaining. I just want to know.”
Eve sagged. “She told Mr. Thorpe, yes. She thought it was your debt, that we—me and her—were being harassed because of you being feckless. She didn’t know.”
“Not if you didn’t tell her otherwise.”
“I couldn’t! Why would she believe a valet ran up two grand of debt?”
“She’d have believed it if you’d trusted her with the whole story already,” Nico said. “Which you didn’t, just like I didn’t trust Titus with it.”
“We’ve fucked up, haven’t we?”
“So badly.”
Eve exhaled hard. “Not gone well for you, then.”
“I have the money. He knows—something, I don’t know what, but he still gave me the money.”
“Tell him the truth,” Eve said urgently. “All of it. I got you into it, and it was my idea all along—”
“I lied to him from the start to get a share of the old lady’s money. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“Let me talk to him, Nic. I’ll tell him that you did it all for me. He can blame me.”
“He knows who to blame,” Nico said wearily. “And I’m not going to tell him it was all right for me to treat him like shit, and nor are you. He’s had enough people tell him that.”
They walked the rest of the way to Nag’s Head Court in silence.
It was as down at heel and dangerous feeling as before, with Jacky Gaskin holding court in front of his crowd of seedy hangers-on. Nico felt a lot of eyes on him and Eve as they approached the throne.
Gaskin was sprawled in a battered horsehair chair. “It’s the Frenchies. Got my money?”
“Oui, monsieur,” Nico said tightly, presented Titus’s banknote, and stood there as Gaskin performed delighted astonishment to a degree that Nico would have found quite insulting if he gave a damn what Jacky Gaskin thought. The moneylender spoke expansively on what a pleasure it was doing business with people who understood their obligations, even if they had to be reminded, made some jovial remarks on pretty young lady friends, and assured them both he was available for their future financial needs.
He’d taken eight hundred pounds “interest” as pure profit, and ruined Nico’s life with it, but who was counting? Nico forced a smile, since Eve clearly couldn’t, shook Gaskin’s hand, and confirmed that they were all square, accounts settled. Heeven took the offered gin rather than decline a gesture of goodwill.
“Talking of drink,” Gaskin said, swigging the oily spirit. “We have a friend in common.”
“We do, monsieur?”
“Mr. Matthew Laxton. Perhaps he’s a friend of a friend.” Gaskin fished out Titus’s banknote with two fingers and waved it. “Through your pal Mr. Pilcrow, I mean.”
Every one of Nico’s hair follicles sprang to attention. “I know Monsieur Laxton, yes,” he said easily.
“Clear something up for me, then,” Gaskin said. “What I heard was, Laxton thought he’d get the Whitecross fortune. This Pilcrow snatched it from under his nose and he hasn’t given Laxton a penny since. No love lost there.”
“Correct, monsieur.
“So why’s Pilcrow paying him off now?”
“Paying him?”
“Mr. Laxton assures me that Mr. Pilcrow is settling a sum on him as compensation for what he’s lost. All without going to court, very reasonable of him. What’s he doing that for?”
Blackmail, Nico thought instantly, and rejected it. Titus could not have kept that from him, not this last week. And in any case, there was the deathbed promise; Titus would not break that. No, Laxton was lying to Gaskin, which doubtless meant that he owed the man money he couldn’t pay and was stalling for time, much as Nico had done for the last weeks.