In the Woods

On Friday morning, as Sam and Rob go through the recordings of the wiretap on Andrews’s phone, they discover something important. Andrews is talking to someone who has taken bribe money to smooth out the motorway issue with the town council. Sam recognizes the voice on the other end. It’s his Uncle Redmond. Sam is upset and doesn’t know what to do. Rob says:

Sam had spent much of his life trundling happily along on sheer dumb luck, and I had a hard time working up much sympathy for the fact that he had finally stepped on a banana skin and gone flying. (421)

Rob gives Sam the weekend to decide what to do. He promises to say nothing until Monday.

Later that day, Cassie joins Rob outside for a smoke and asks him what’s going on between them. The conversation sparks anxiety; “[Rob’s] stomach plummeted. We’ve all had this excruciating conversation, but I don’t know of a single man who thinks it serves any useful purpose” (423).

Rob says he isn’t ready for a relationship. Cassie protests that she only wants things to go back to normal. Rob doesn’t believe that this is possible. His previous conversation with Rosalind planted a seed in his mind that perhaps Cassie wants to settle down and have children.