RICHARD

Zoe is making a scene in the garden. I notice it happen from the kitchen window and the detectives in the dining room see it too, because one of them interrupts the interview with Tessa and calls for the Liaison Officer woman to go out and help. Grace and I are struggling somewhat to find something else suitable for her to eat, but we settle on a biscuit, which she seems to enjoy hugely, and somebody has put a bottle of her milk in the fridge so I heat that up the way I saw the Russian do it earlier: small saucepan, water heating, bottle floating in it. I feel quite professional when I squeeze some of the milk out of it on to the inside of my wrist to test the temperature, as I also observed.

‘It’s perfect, darling,’ I say to Grace and she stuffs it into her mouth even before I’ve got us settled down properly in the sitting room, and guzzles it with the rather unnervingly greedy intensity of a lamb at the ewe’s udder.

We disturb Lucas. He’s looking through my collection of DVDs, and he jumps out of his skin when we enter the room, as if I’d caught him with his hand in my wallet.

‘You can borrow one if you like,’ I say, to put him at ease. ‘I mean, not today, but when things are more… although if it helps to watch something now, then feel free.’

‘No, thank you, I was just looking.’ He sits back down, plunges his hands into his pockets.

I’m not really sure what to say to him, though I feel sorry for him. He probably had become fond of Maria, had maybe even come to love her, and to bear this in addition to the premature loss of his own mother is going to be hard, is hard. I’m also at a loss for words because I mostly only talk to other scientists at work and to Tess at home. My friends have long since slipped down the cracks between my infrequent attempts at keeping in touch. I should probably say something reassuring, or comforting, but all I can come up with is, ‘Do you like film then?’

He nods. The movement is economical, the eye contact only fleeting.

‘What sort of films do you like?’

He glances back at me, and then at the door, as if he’s not sure either that we should be talking like this, but I think it’s OK, especially if it keeps his head above water, reminds him that somebody is interested in him.

‘I like some old films.’

‘Such as?’

‘Um. Apocalypse Now is a favourite.’

I’m surprised that he’s been allowed to watch that in their closeted household, but I try not to let that show.

‘One of my favourite opening sequences,’ I say.

He sits up straighter, engages with me with startling intensity. ‘I know, it’s incredible. The montage is quite confusing at first but it gives you the whole scene, how it starts off with the slow rasp of the helicopter blades, which comes in and out like an echo, and you fade in to the palm trees with blue sky above, and then you see the yellow smoke and the helicopters coming across the trees and then, boom!, the explosion, which is so intense, and then there are loads of images overlaid on each other so you see his face in the hotel room over the images of his memories of Vietnam and then the fan above him becomes the helicopter blades and you’ve got “This is the End” playing over it which is so intense when you see his eyes, and his pupils are like pinpricks and then the camera goes to the window and you’re in Saigon. And the voiceover starts. It’s incredible.’

He comes alive as he delivers this speech and I’m astounded because I’ve never heard this boy talk so much. Granted, I’ve only spent time with him on a handful of occasions, but he behaved as if he was mute then, and Tessa has made the same observation about him.

‘I love the scene where they brief the main character,’ I say, wanting to keep Lucas talking, thinking that it’s good for him.

He fixes me with eyes that seem slickly alive, like black treacle. He says, in a slightly strange accent: ‘“Because there’s a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil… Every man has got a breaking point.”’

‘What?’ I say, feeling rather unnerved, before I appreciate that he’s quoting the film, and in fact the scene I just mentioned. In truth, I have very scant recollection of it, but I don’t want to discourage him, so I say, ‘Oh sorry, yes! Bravo, Lucas. Yes, very good. It’s a very dark film, I think.’ That, I do recall.

‘I think it’s his best film,’ he says.

‘What is?’ Chris has crept up on us, but he makes no move to take his daughter from me. The poor man looks absolutely shattered.

‘Can I get you anything?’ I ask him. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘Just keep doing what you’re doing.’ He gestures towards Grace, who hasn’t really reacted to him, because she’s still too busy sucking at the bottle, which is nearly empty now. ‘I hope you’re not being a film bore,’ he says to Lucas, rather harshly I feel, though everybody is, of course, under pressure.

‘No, not at all. He was very helpfully answering a question of mine.’ I brush it off, while Lucas reverts to staring at the floor.

We’re distracted by the sight of Zoe being led in through the hallway, and escorted up the stairs. She’s leaning on the arm of the Liaison Officer and her father is in their wake. They ascend extremely slowly and we watch.

‘She’s a bit overwhelmed, I think,’ I say to the others, because I feel the need to excuse her behaviour, perhaps because she belonged to us before she belonged to them, and even though Grace chooses that moment to finish her bottle and try to heave herself into a sitting position with the last gulp of milk drooling from her lips, it doesn’t escape my notice that Chris is looking at Zoe with an expression that I would struggle to describe as either friendly or caring.

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