Cutting Edge

Forty-two

“Whatever you do or don’t do,” Ridgemount said to his son, “don’t be forgetting the split peas. One thing I don’t want, come back out of breath from pedaling up that hill, find the peas have gone to mush, bottom of the pan burned out. Am I understood?”

“Umh,” grunted Calvin, headphones pushed tight inside his ears. “Urn, umh, umf.” What he liked about those old bands like Black Sabbath, when they hit a rhythm it stayed hit.

“Calvin!”

Calvin’s eyes widened and he swayed out of his father’s reach. Headphones were going to be removed, he’d do it himself.

“You hear what I said?”

“Split peas, watch ’em. Satisfied?” Sound squeaked from the headphones that dangled from one hand.

“Listening to that garbage the whole time, turned up loud as it can go, be deaf this side of twenty-one.”

“Better than being a fool.”

Calvin started down the stairs to his room, his father standing by the front door, pointing his finger. “Take care, boy. Just you take care.” Whether he was still going on about the peas, or meant Calvin’s mouth, Calvin didn’t know.

“Whatever else we’ve done on this one,” Skelton said, “we’ve not exactly covered ourselves in glory. The Assistant Chief’s already had the Senior Consultant Anesthetist on the phone talking about undermining public confidence, asking where the virtue is in unnecessarily tarnishing professional reputations, causing additional distress to the relatives of the dead.”

“Imrie?”

Skelton nodded.

“Not much concern about the poor bloody patient in all that lot.”

“Closing ranks, Charlie. We know about that as well as anyone. A copper stands accused, one of the public brings a complaint, nine cases out of ten, what’s the first thing we do? Get the waggons round and form a circle. Keep the buggers out. Doctors, they’re no worse than any others.”

“Maybe, sir.”

“All I’m saying, Charlie, if we are close to something, let’s not screw it up. Take care. Just take care.”

“Right,” Resnick said. “Kid gloves.”

David McCarthy had promised Resnick fifteen minutes, no more, a meeting in the brasserie on High Pavement, across from St Mary’s Church. Around the corner, in Commerce Square, the first of the old Victorian lace factories was in the hands of the developers and would soon be architect-designed studio apartments, luxury condominiums, a gymnasium, a pool, a sauna.

Resnick had met McCarthy once before and recognized him as he came in, a slightly hunted look, briefcase in one hand, portable telephone in the other. He was finishing a call as he came through the door.

“So,” McCarthy said, carrying his glass of Aqua Libra over to the corner Resnick had staked out, “why the renewed interest in this old chestnut?”

Briefly, Resnick told him.

McCarthy leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. Cuff links, Resnick thought, noticing the solicitor’s pale blue shirt, thought they were a thing of the past. Like those daft suspenders for men’s socks.

“You’re not, of course, asking for anything that might be considered privileged information?”

“What I want to know,” Resnick said, “why was the action dropped?”

“Client’s wishes.”

“Not your recommendation?”

“Absolutely not. We had every chance of building up a good case.”

“If anything, then, you’d have been encouraging him to stay with it?”

“Financially, it would have served his interests best.”

“But not in other ways?”

McCarthy took a drink, glanced at his phone as if it were about to ring. “A similar situation to cases of rape, balance out the distress a client is put through reliving the experience in court against the potential gains. Here’s a man, held down, physically violated, and powerless to do anything about it at the time. How much does he want to talk about it, describe it, have what he believes to be true attacked, even ridiculed? No, he decided enough was enough.”

“Nothing to do, then, with Alan Imrie’s death?”

“Imrie?”

“The anesthetist.”

McCarthy pursed his lips. “I’d forgotten.”

“You can’t remember Ridgemount talking about it at the time?”

“No,” the solicitor replied after some moments’ thought, “he would have been aware of it, I’m pretty sure of that. But, no, I can’t recall him mentioning it. As far as I know, it didn’t affect his decision.”

Resnick nodded. McCarthy sampled the well-publicized delights of Aqua Libra. Libra, Resnick thought, anything but what it was. “The other personnel involved in the operation,” he said, “even though they weren’t named in the suit, you’d have determined who they were?”

“Right down to whoever pushed the trolley in and out.”

“You’d have told your client the names?”

McCarthy fidgeted with the mechanism of his briefcase’s double lock. Some people used the first digits of their phone number as the combination, others their wife’s birthday.

“I can’t see why I should. No, I don’t think so.”

“Not if he’d asked? Straight out.”

“I don’t know.” His telephone rang and he picked it up almost before the sound could register, listened, nodded a couple of times and told the caller he would ring right back. “I really don’t recall his having done so.”

“The names though, they would have been around, committed to paper? It couldn’t have been out of the question for him to get a look at them without you realizing. At some point he would have had the chance to write them down, make a photocopy even. What I mean is, he could have known who they were, as you say, even the porter wheeling the trolley.”

“Yes,” said McCarthy. “That’s right. That’s reasonable to assume.”

His portable telephone rang and Resnick got to his feet. “You don’t have to rush off,” McCarthy said, one hand over the mouthpiece. “I’m okay for another few minutes.”

“Enjoy them,” Resnick said. “Do the concise crossword. Dismantle the phone.” He touched McCarthy lightly on the shoulder in passing. “Thanks for your help.”

Great thing about the way the house was so high up, built near the crest of a hill, even his own room below stairs, there was no way in which he was overlooked. Except from the garden and who was likely to be standing out there in the garden? His father, maybe, but his father was off somewhere, hopefully getting back into being a fetcher and carrier, bringing home something good for their dinner.

Calvin stretched back on the bed, rearranging the pillows a little, get them really comfortable. This new stuff he’d got, Jamaican, the kid who’d sold it to him had said, but Calvin knew enough to know that didn’t mean a thing. It was good, though. Good stuff. Good shit. So good, in fact, he thought he would have another joint. Sometimes, lying there, instead of smoking, he would masturbate, thinking, maybe about the woman who worked in the ice cream van in the park. Sitting inside surrounded by all those Cool Kings and Juicy Fruits and Raspberry Torpedoes. Got the radio tuned to the pirate reggae station. White overalls: he was certain she didn’t have anything more than some skimpy kind of stuff underneath. Often, in the park, he would choose a spot where he could see her clearly, sprawl there listening to his music, watching what she did. Never once, she paid him any heed, gave any sign she knew he was even there. But Calvin knew enough to know different.

The tape in the stereo came to an end and Calvin swore and then realized he had his Walkman next to the bed. All he needed now was another tape from his bag and a light and hey! What was that Robert Plant thing? “Stairway to Heaven.”

Pretty soon, eyes closed, singing along at the top of his voice to Twisted Sister, himself and Dee Snider duetting, except that Calvin kept forgetting the words, getting them wrong, especially in the verses, getting it right for the chorus. Eyes shut tight. Take another hit, that’s it, hold it there and suck it down. Arms spread wide. Sing, you crazy bastard, sing! Calvin didn’t hear the first tentative taps at the window, only when Divine’s fist banged against the frame did Calvin sit up with a jolt and see the man’s cock-eyed face grinning in.

Whatever condition he was in, Calvin knew enough to understand this wasn’t the window cleaner, come knocking for payment.

Panicked, he jerked the headphones clear and threw them across the room, pinched out the joint with his fingers and pushed it from sight. Perhaps no one would notice, figure he was resting there enjoying Bensons King Size? Another of them rattling at the back door now, that fool with a plaster the size of a fist stuck to his face, still grinning like he’d woke up and suddenly it was Christmas.

Calvin wafted the air on his way down the room. Quicker to respond, he could have bolted up the stairs and out into the street, made off on foot, but what the hell, what did he have to run for anyhow? Englishman’s home was his castle, right?

The underside of a boot struck the door, low by the jamb, and it shook.

“Hey!” Calvin yelled. “Hey!”

He unlocked and they came in, forcing him back out of the way, not exactly pushing him, never using their hands, the one with the plaster making straight for the bed, easing the last inch and a half of his joint out into the light.

“Home grown?”

“Old Holborn,” Calvin said. “Cheaper to roll your own.”

“Sure. And I’m Mike Tyson.”

Shit! thought Calvin. You’re not even the right color.

The other one was flashing his card. “Detective Constable Naylor. This is Detective Constable Divine.”

Divine grinned some more. He was having a good time. The inside of the kid’s room smelled like some of the parties he used to go to when he was nineteen, twenty. Wherever he was getting his stuff, it was bloody good.

Naylor had spotted the sports bag on the floor and was making a beeline for it.

“Man,” Calvin said, “you got a warrant to come busting in here?”

“We didn’t bust in,” Divine said. “You let us in.”

“That or stand there and watch the door kicked in.”

“You didn’t invite us on to the property?” said Naylor.

“Damn right!”

“That’s okay, because we’ve got a warrant.”

“Like fuck you do!” said Calvin and wished he hadn’t because the bigger of the two looked as if he might be about to belt him one.

Kevin Naylor took the warrant from his pocket and held it in front of Calvin’s face.

“What you expect to find anyway?” Calvin asked. Naylor and Divine were exchanging glances over the bag, lying on the floor between them.

“That’s my stuff,” Calvin said. He could hear the whine sneaking into his voice and hated it but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. “That’s my personal stuff.”

“Show us,” Divine said.

“Huh?”

“All you have to do,” said Naylor, “unzip the top, pick it up, and turn it out on the bed.”

Calvin didn’t see where he had a lot of choice.

He held the bag over the bed and they all watched the contents tumble out. Old rolled-up copies of Kerrang!, maybe ten spare sets of batteries for his Walkman, EverReady Gold Seal LR6, must have been twenty to thirty cassettes, most of them pristine, Cellophane-wrapped, stickers still in place, HMV, Virgin, Our Price.

“Kid’s a collector,” Divine said.

“Yes,” said Naylor, “bet he’s got the receipts too.” Two of the T-shirts that now lay on the bed were also in their original wrapping, several others that he’d pulled and worn for a few hours and then rejected. A red-backed exercise book in which Calvin had copied the lyrics of his favorite songs, one day, he’d figured he’d start to write his own. All he wanted was the inspiration. A little more time.

“Shake it,” Divine said.

“Hmm?” Calvin looked back at him blankly.

“The bag. Shake it some more.”

This time it came rolling out of the corner where Calvin had desperately been trying to hold on to it with his thumb. Naylor lifted up the plastic bag, the kind Debbie used to buy in Tesco to keep his sandwiches fresh. He sniffed at the contents and passed it across to Divine, whose attention had been drawn to the bundle of tapes.

“Whatever,” he asked, perplexed, holding up a copy of John Denver’s Greatest Hits, “are you doing with this?”

“That shit,” said Calvin. “I don’t play that shit. I just sell it again.”

“Right,” said Divine, now holding the bag of marijuana, “to buy shit like this.”

“Hey,” said Kevin Naylor, moving towards the door, looking upwards. “Does anybody else smell burning?”

Ridgemount had smelt it too, even before he’d eased himself off the saddle and wheeled his bike over the pavement, trailer behind it full with potatoes, onions, ten pounds of bruised Bramleys that he was going to simmer down into apple sauce. Honest to God, Ridgemount thought, I knew it. I just knew it. One thing I asked that boy to do, one thing and he can’t even do that. He was sliding the key into the front door lock when Patel came up behind him and spoke his name.

“I don’t want to buy anything from you,” Ridgemount said, “I don’t want anything on credit and right now I can’t stop to discuss the Bible, because my nose tells me there’s a small emergency going on in my house. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

But Patel showed him his warrant card instead.

“I’m sorry,” Ridgemount said, “I have to deal with this first.”

He pushed the door open and left it wide. A man he didn’t recognize was standing half-way up the stairs, Calvin two steps from the bottom with another man right behind him, a hand on Calvin’s arm. Ridgemount stepped across the hall and into the kitchen; the windows were thick with steam and clouds of it had collected over the ceiling and were beginning slowly to descend the walls. He took a tea towel from its hook and bunched it in his hand, turned out the gas and lifted the pan from the stove. What had been a pound and a half of split peas was now a blackened mass crusted across the pan. Between the stove and the sink, the bottom of the saucepan fell out but the peas clung on, welded to the sides.

“Mr. Ridgemount,” said Resnick, who had walked over from his car and followed Patel into the house, “Detective Inspector Resnick. I’d appreciate it if you’d come with these officers to the police station. There are some questions we’d like to ask you.”

“Dad?” said Calvin from the hallway.

“These questions,” Ridgemount said. “What are they about?”

“Oh,” Resnick said, “I think you know.”

Ridgemount looked past Resnick to where Calvin was standing, Divine and Naylor at either side of him, Naylor still holding his arm.

“Let my son go,” Ridgemount said.

Resnick looked questioningly towards Naylor. “Possession of an illegal substance, sir. Namely, marijuana. Possession of stolen goods.”

“Sweet Jesus!” Ridgemount breathed.

Resnick nodded towards Patel, who went forward and reached his hand towards Ridgemount’s shoulder.

“Nooo!” Ridgemount screamed and backed clumsily against the stove, cleaving the space between Patel and himself with his fist. “No! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

Patel moved in again but now there was a knife in Ridgemount’s hand, a kitchen knife, tears and fear glistening in his eyes.

“Steady!” called Resnick

Behind him, Calvin struggled to be free. “He won’t … You can’t … He won’t let you touch him. Not at all. He can’t.”

Resnick nodded, understanding.

“Let the boy go,” he said and Naylor, querying the order with his eyes, did exactly that. “Now, Mr. Ridgemount,” said Resnick, moving round Patel, slowly extending one hand, fingers spread. “Please let me have the knife. You have my word, we won’t touch you. Give me the knife and all you have to do is walk to the car and wait with one of the officers. We do have a warrant to search these premises and we’ll see that’s finished as speedily and with as little disturbance as possible. After we’ve searched the house, you’ll be driven to the station.”

“And Calvin?”

“He’ll come with us also. He can ride in the same vehicle as you if you wish.”

Ridgemount reversed the paring knife and placed the handle, carefully, in Resnick’s hand.

Forty-three

The postcard was from the island of Mykonos and off beyond the low, white buildings what Lynn presumed to be the Aegean was a dark stain like an ink blot in the monochrome copy on her desk. She imagined how blue it would be and Karen Archer stepping down to it through sand, even this far on in the year, to swim. We thought you would like to see this, Karen’s parents had said in their covering letter, we hope it sets your mind to rest.

Sorry to have been out of touch for so long but felt I just had to get away. Thank God for Thomas Cook and Access!! Think of me in the sun, pigging out on ouzo and olives!!! I’ll phone the minute I’m back in England. Take care and try not to worry. I’m fine!

Heaps of love, Karen XXXXXXXXXXXX

Well, good for you, Lynn thought. Be nice, wouldn’t it, if everyone in your position could go swanning off to Greece and pretend it had all been a bad dream. She sat for a moment, resting her head down into her hands. What’s the matter with you? Did you really want her to be a body somewhere, just so that you could have another victim, something to trace back to Ian Carew’s hand?

“Everything that’s said in this room,” Resnick explained, “everything you say, will be recorded on this machine, afterwards the tapes will be sealed and signed to show that they’re a true record.”

Ridgemount nodded to show that he understood.

“What I’d like you to do is say what happened in your own words, exactly as you want. If there’s anything that doesn’t seem clear, I might interrupt to ask a question, but other than that all I want to do is listen. All right?”

Ridgemount nodded: all right.

Carew hadn’t been certain whether to go up to her when she was with other people or wait again until she was alone. He hadn’t known whether to wear something not exactly formal but a little less sporty. Suggest that this was serious, not play. Touch and then go. Finally he settled on a faded denim shirt, white slacks, moccasins. Wallet buttoned down in his back pocket in case she said, “Terrific! Let’s go for a drink, celebrate!” Later they could get something to eat, that new place up from the Council House, all white tablecloths and single-stem flowers, Sonny’s, he’d been wanting to go there.

In the event, she didn’t say a thing. Stood there, staring at him as if not really able to believe it was him. The others that were with her, three of them, nurses, uncertain what to do, whether to walk on or stay, staring from Sarah to Carew and back again. Beneath her long, open coat she was still in her uniform, belted tight at the waist, dark sheen of her hair: perfect.

“Surprise, surprise!” Carew said.

“See you tomorrow, Sarah,” called one of the others, continuing on her way.

“Fine,” Sarah said. “Bye.”

Then they were alone in the middle of the broad corridor, doors off. Paintings by local primary children on the walls. “I thought you were in jail,” Sarah said.

Carew smiled. “I was. It was a mistake.”

“There must have been something. They must have arrested you for something.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Well, yes.”

A doctor, stethoscope around his neck, came into the corridor and walked towards them. He had a squash ball in his hand and he was squeezing it rhythmically, pressing it hard into his palm.

“Well, there was something,” Carew said. “They seemed to think I’d murdered someone. A woman.”

Scarcely missing a beat, the doctor turned through one of the doors and disappeared from sight.

Sarah Leonard was staring at him, unable to work him out. “And now they’ve changed their mind,” she said.

Carew smiled. “The wrong Ian. You see, they found her diary, the woman’s, and there was a name there, Ian. They thought it was me.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. But it was a mistake. The real Ian turned up, the one from the diary and, well, here I am.”

“What for?”

“Um?”

“What for? Why are you here? I don’t understand.”

The smile shifted from the mouth to the eyes. “I thought, you know, we had some unfinished business.”

Sarah waited.

“When we were talking, before, if I remember rightly, we’d just got to the point.”

“Of what?”

“Finalizing the arrangements. Where we were going to go, where we were going to meet. Italian or Chinese. You know the kind of thing.”

“I may do. But what makes you think I’d ever agree to going out with you? Especially now.”

“Exactly my point.”

“What?”

“Especially now. It’s not every day the police decide you didn’t murder somebody after all. We have to go and celebrate.”

Sarah shook her head. An elderly woman was maneuvering the length of the corridor on a Zimmer frame, pausing every fifteen feet or so to draw breath.

“We’ve got to,” Carew said.

“You’re the one. It’s nothing to do with me. You celebrate.” She began to walk towards him, veering left to go past. As she drew level he caught hold of her hand.

“It’s no fun on your own.”

“Tough!”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

One of the side doors opened and she pulled herself clear. A porter backed out a trolley bearing a sheet and blankets, nothing else. He was chewing gum and whistling “When You’re Smiling”; recognizing Sarah, he winked and grinned and switched the gum from one side of his mouth to the other, all without quite losing the tune.

“Just one drink,” Carew pleaded. “Half an hour. On your way home.”

“No.”

“But …”

“No. How’s it spelt?”

Carew hung his lower lip, made a good pass at crossing his legs standing up, and stared at her as if she’d asked him to explain the theory of relativity. “Er,” he stuttered. “Um … er, um … the first letter, miss, it’s not an M?”

“No.” Willing herself not to find his little-boy act funny, just absurd. Pathetic.

“N? It’s an N, isn’t it? N for no.”

Unable to stop herself smiling, Sarah nodded. “Yes.”

“Yes?” Carew was suddenly no longer the timid boy, moving confidently towards her. “You did say yes.” He’d been saving his best smile for last, the one that never let him down. “Half an hour,” he said. “An hour at most.”

“I was lying there,” Ridgemount said, “I was lying there with my eyes taped over shut and I couldn’t move. They had this tube, see, this tube clamped over my mouth. Taking the air down to my lungs. And they’ve been saying, before, you know, they give me this shot, put me under, she was saying, this girl, not much more than a girl, just a few seconds and you won’t feel a thing. Not till you’re back in recovery and it’s all over.

“Well, I went spark out all right. Next thing I know, I seem to come to and there I am thinking it’s just like sleeping, nights you go to bed and you’re so tired you can’t as much as remember your head hitting the pillow but the next second you’re waking up and it’s eight hours or more later. So I’m there thinking, okay what did she say this place was, recovery? All right, I’m in recovery, except my mouth is still covered and my eyes are still taped over and I reason I’m still in the operating room, must be going to wheel me out any minute.

“They don’t wheel me out. Nobody’s about to wheel me out.”

“Even though I’ve got this tape across my eyes, somehow I can see these bright lights right there above me and it’s like, you know when you’ve been looking up at the sun and you close your eyes and for a while you can see this hot blur, like it’s printed on the inside of your eye, that’s what it’s like. Not only that, I can hear voices. Not too clear what they’re saying, not clear at all, so I try and say something, speak to them, what’s going on? Only there’s no way I can say anything, not a word. I try to move, can’t move a muscle. Just stretched out there and I realize, shit, they haven’t done this operation, taken out this damn gallbladder, haven’t even started yet. My head’s panicking and my body can’t move and I can’t shout or scream and all I can see is the blur of those lights and I’m thinking, no, it can’t be going to happen, no, it can’t be going to happen, no, it can’t and then it does.

“It’s like wire being pulled clear through me. Thin wire. Only it’s hot. It’s a piece of red-hot wire and I swear I can hear the flesh tear when he pulls it through. And all I can do is pray for it to stop. Pray to die. ’Cause I know it won’t stop ever. Won’t stop till it’s done.”

Carew was drinking his second single malt, savoring it, the look he gave the stupid little cow behind the bar when she asked him if he wanted ice in it should have made her pee her pants. Where was the point in drinking the good stuff like this, only to water it down with frozen algae out of the Severn-Trent?

“D’you ever come in here?” He looked round at the wide room, stuffed red chairs and shiny black-top tables, like something off a P amp; O cruise ship.

Sarah Leonard shook her head. It was only after he made a fuss about ordering bitter lemon-what kind of a celebratory drink was that? — that she’d relented and had a dry white wine and now she was regretting it.

“We should have gone somewhere a bit livelier. More style.” He leaned forward across the table exactly as she knew he would. “We still could.”

“Oh, no.”

“Come on. Let’s go dancing, for heaven’s sake. When was the last time you went dancing? Venus. New York, New York. God, we could even go to the Irish.” He reached for her hand and she pulled it away. “How about it?”

The wine tasted sour and old, as if the box it had been squeezed out of had been moldering in a cellar somewhere for years.

“Why don’t you ever give up?”

“It’s not in my nature,” Carew smiled, “to accept defeat.” Sarah put down her glass and stood up.

“Where are you going?”

She pointed towards the door alongside the bar. “Ladies.” Carew nodded.

“Sarah,” he called when she was halfway across the room. Swiveling her body, she stopped to look back at him. “Don’t go slipping out the back way now, will you?” And he laughed.

“You could tell from their faces, the way they were all over me, fussing with this, fussing with that, you could tell they knew something had gone wrong. But they never said, never said a thing to me and I couldn’t … at first, when they pulled the tube away from my mouth, all the time I’d been wanting to shout out and scream and cry and when I could do it I couldn’t get a sound to come out.

“Later, yes. Then I would scream and call them barbarians and butchers and they would come running and slide this needle into my arm. Keep me quiet. Take away the pain. That’s what they say, make you feel comfortable, take away the pain. It’s too late, I say, it’s too late for that. And they slide the needle home.”

“What’s that?” Sarah asked, pointing at the glass.

“Bitter lemon.”

“And?”

“Ice.”

“And?”

“Gin.”

She picked it up and carried it over to the bar. “There was a misunderstanding,” she said. “I didn’t want this.”

“I’m sorry,” said the girl behind the counter. “You can’t have your money back.”

“Fine.”

Sarah gave Carew a quick look, see how he was taking that, and headed for the door. A picture in denim, that was how he saw himself. Mr. Irresistible. She wondered when a woman had last turned him down and what had happened to her when she had. She had thought he might jump up and come after her, flash another of those practiced-in-the-bathroom-mirror smiles, but Carew continued to sit where he was, drinking his malt whisky, looking cool.

A quarter of a mile on, she was less angry about it already, just another bloke trying it on, this one, maybe, a touch more persistent than the rest. Approaching the road that led down towards the old Raleigh factory, Sarah’s face opened to a smile. Had he really imagined she was going to go off with him, dancing, dressed like that? The badge on her uniform that spelled out her name and rank. Ridiculous.

And suddenly there he was in front of her, posing at the corner of the side street, having to struggle to control his breathing and pretend he hadn’t had to sprint fast to double around that block and get ahead of her in time.

“Now what?” Sarah said, angry again.

“Easy. I walk with you to your door, say good night, turn right around, and go home. End of evening. Okay?”

“No.”

Ian Carew didn’t say anything; he didn’t even smile. He just looked.

Sarah began to walk and he danced into step alongside her, not attempting to talk, simply walking. All right, Sarah thought, five minutes, another five streets and it will be over.

“When I got home from the hospital I could still feel the pain. I didn’t go to bed at night, I wouldn’t lie down, as soon as I did I’d be waiting for it again, waiting for it to start. The cutting. The wire. I slept sitting up, wherever I was and even then, though I wasn’t lying down, I would scream.”

“At first my wife, she would come to me and try to calm me down but if she went to touch me I screamed all the more. I couldn’t ever bear to have anyone touch me.”

“My Marjorie … she was little then, she says to her mother, why does daddy shout at me like that, why won’t he let me near him, why does he hate me?”

“In the end they couldn’t take it any more and they left me and Calvin he stayed. No matter what that boy does, I’ll always love him for that. He stayed by me when nobody else would.”

Sarah’s house was in a short terrace that backed on to a playing field. She had bought it when prices in the city had been lower than almost anywhere aside from Belfast, which was just as well because on her salary it had been all she could afford. She stood with her back to her front door, hands in her coat pockets, fingers of one tight about some loose change, the others round her keys.

“Right,” Sarah said.

“What?”

“Good night.”

The smile was back. “Good night.”

Sarah didn’t budge. “Let me see you walk away.”

“Just one thing …”

“No.”

“Just …”

“No!”

“Tim Fletcher, I wanted to ask …”

“What about him?”

“You were getting pretty friendly with him, running errands and all that …”

“Errands?”

“You were buying books for him, remember?”

“The condition he was in at the time, he wasn’t exactly in a position to do that for himself.”

“That’s what I wanted to know. How is he? His mobility? I mean, is he ever going to regain that?”

“He’s made a lot of progress, yes.”

“I’m sure he has,” said Carew, “but no matter how hard he tries, however much you do for him, he’s never going to get it back fully. Is he?”

Sarah Leonard watching him, Carew was off down the street, not exactly hurrying but gradually lengthening his stride, stepping out, showing his paces.