The Cross cafe wasn’t the nicest place to have tea and a chat, but it was a safe haven from the deluge outside. The rain had not stopped all day and runnels of water were swirling down the slopes of the pavement out side. Angelica sipped the hot brew, sighing with a mixture of pleasure and relief. It would be OK, now, she told herself. It was all over. Trying to make Leigh see things that way might be tricky but she had hopes.
As if on cue, the Irishman staggered into the cafe, his hair plastered black against his head. He gazed around him, lost for a moment in the sea of tables and chairs until he spotted her at the window. She’d sat there deliberately so he could see her but the window had steamed up, foiling her strategy.
‘Angelica.’ Leigh’s eyes softened as he sat down opposite her. ‘I thought…for a minute…you’d not come.’
‘I said I’d be here, didn’t I?’
‘Aye, that’s so.’
‘I haven’t let you down yet, my boy, and I’m not about to start now. Got that?’
Leigh nodded.
‘What d’you want? Tea? Coffee?’ Angelica asked as the waitress approached.
He shrugged as if it wasn’t important so Angelica gave the waitress an order for another pot of tea.
‘Now, down to business. The police were up at the respite centre in Lewis. That Chief Inspector wanted to know what you’d been doing the night of Kirsty’s death.’
Catching sight of Leigh’s sudden frown, she hastily added, ‘I told them that you were with me, of course. We’d been praying together. But somehow he seemed to think that was suspicious.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s the praying hands, Leigh. That’s what they can’t see past. You know and I know the significance for us both but they don’t look at things quite in the way that we do. D’you understand?’
The man nodded then flinched as the waitress set down a pot of tea on the table. Angelica poured it for him, knowing he was still too shaken for even a simple task like this. The man’s nerves were shot to pieces, she told herself. How he was going to stand up to that Lorimer when he came back from Lewis, only God knew.
‘You still keeping an eye on Phyllis?’
‘Aye.’
Angelica nodded her approval. That was something at least. She leant forward and patted his hand. ‘Now you’re not to worry, but the police will be coming back. They want to talk to you again.’
Leigh looked puzzled but said nothing.
‘Here’s what to do. Now listen. When they ask where you were the night Kirsty died, tell them you were with me. I’ll back you up.’
Leigh Quinn shifted in his seat, squirming around as he looked around the cafe. Suddenly every person there seemed to pose a threat. Angelica watched him intently, sensing his moods as she always did. She could almost smell the fear rising from him.
‘Look, Leigh, it’s going to be all right. You just have to trust me.’ Angelica fixed her eyes earnestly on the man’s white face until he looked at her. Then he gave a grudging nod.
‘Good. Now drink up your tea. We have plans to make, you and I.’