The safe house

THE SAFE HOUSE

‘A craftily plotted book in which the mystery unfolds layer by layer… right up until the surprise ending’ Sunday Telegraph‘A narrative of striking complexity, with sleights of hand, malevolence and cupidity in abundance’ Times Literary Supplement‘[French] sustains the pervasive mood of terror and suspense before the final surprise. The result is a superior psychological thriller’ The Times‘A potent, emotionally acute psychological thriller’ Mail on Sunday

‘A winner’ Independent

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicci French is the pseudonym for the writing partnership of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. The couple are married and live in Suffolk.

There are now ten bestselling novels by Nicci French: The Memory Game, The Safe House, Killing Me Softly, Beneath the Skin, The Red Room, Land of the Living, Secret Smile, Catch Me When I Fall, Losing You and Until It’s Over (the new hardback, published in May 2008).

The Safe House

Nicci French

To Pat and John

One

The door was the first thing. The door was open. The front door was never open, even in the wonderful heat of the previous summer that had been so like home, but there it was, teetering inwards, on a morning so cold that the moisture hanging in the air stung Mrs Ferrer’s pocked cheeks. She pushed her gloved hand against the white painted surface, testing the evidence of her eyes.

‘Mrs Mackenzie?’

Silence. Mrs Ferrer raised her voice and called for her employer once more and felt embarrassed as the words echoed, high and wavering, in the large hallway. She stepped inside and wiped her feet on the mat too many times, as she always did. She removed her gloves and clutched them in her left hand. There was a smell, now. It was heavy and sweet. It reminded her of something. The smell of a barnyard. No, inside. A barn maybe.

Each morning at eight-thirty precisely Mrs Ferrer would nod a good-morning at Mrs Mackenzie, click past her across the polished wood of the Mackenzies’ hallway, turn right down the stairs into the basement, remove her coat, collect her vacuum cleaner from the utility room and spend an hour in an anaesthetized fog of noise. Up the large staircase at the front of the house, along the passageways on the first floor, the passageways on the second floor, then down the small back staircase. But where was Mrs Mackenzie? Mrs Ferrer stood uncertainly by the door in her tightly buttoned porridge-meal-tweed coat, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She could hear a television. The television was never on. She carefully rubbed the sole of each shoe on the mat. She looked down. She had already done that, hadn’t she?

‘Mrs Mackenzie?’

She stepped off the mat on to the hard wood – beeswax, vinegar and paraffin. She walked across to the front room, which was never used for anything and hardly ever needed vacuuming, though she did it anyway. There was nobody, of course. The curtains were all closed, the light on. She walked across to the foot of the staircase to the other front room. She rested her hand on the newel, which was topped by an ornate carving like a beaked pineapple of dark wood. Afrormosia – linseed oil, it needed, boiled, not raw. There was nobody. She knew that the television was in the sitting room. She took a step forward, her hand brushing the wall as if for safety. A bookcase. Leather bindings, which required lanolin and neat’s-foot in equal quantities. It was possible, she reflected, that whoever was watching television had not heard her call. And as for the door, perhaps something was being delivered, or the window cleaner may have left it open on his way in. Thus fortified she walked to the rear of the house and into the main sitting room. Very quickly, within a few seconds of entering the room, she had vomited profusely on to the carpet that she had vacuumed every weekday for eighteen months.

She leaned towards the ground, bent double, gasping. She felt in her coat pocket, found a tissue and wiped her mouth. She was surprised at herself, embarrassed almost. When she was a child, her uncle had led her through a slaughterhouse outside Fuenteobejuna and had smiled down at her as she refused to faint in the face of the blood and dismemberment and above all the steam rising from the cold stone floor. That was the smell she had remembered. It wasn’t a barn at all.

There were splashes of blood across such a wide area, even on the ceiling, on the far wall, that Mr Mackenzie might have exploded. Mostly, though, it was in dark pools on his lap and on the sofa. There was so much of it. Could it be from just one man? What had made her sick, perhaps, was the ordinariness of his pyjamas, so English, even the top button done up. Mr Mackenzie’s head now lolled back stupidly at an impossible angle. His neck was cut almost through and there was nothing to hold it up except the back of the sofa. She saw bone and sinew and the improbable spectacles, still uselessly over his eyes. The face was very white. And a horrible unexpected blue as well.

Mrs Ferrer knew where the phone was but had forgotten and had to look for it. She found it on a small table, on the other side of the room away from all the blood. She knew the number from a television programme. Nine nine nine. A female voice answered.

‘Hello. There has been a terrible murder.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘There has been a murder.’

‘It’s all right. Calm down, don’t cry. Can you speak English?’

‘Yes, yes. I am sorry. Mr Mackenzie is dead. Killed.’

It was only when she had replaced the receiver that she thought of Mrs Mackenzie and walked upstairs. It took only a second for Mrs Ferrer to see what she had feared. Her employer was tied to her own bed. She seemed almost submerged in her blood, her nightie glossy with it against her gaunt body. Too thin, Mrs Ferrer had always thought privately. And the girl? She felt a weight in her chest as she walked up another flight of stairs. She pushed open the door of the one room in the house she wasn’t allowed to clean. She could hardly see anything of the person tied to the bedstead. What had they done to her? Brown shiny tape around the face. Arms outstretched, wrists tied to the corners of the metal grille, thin streaks of red across the front of the nightgown.

Mrs Ferrer looked around Finn Mackenzie’s bedroom. Bottles were scattered across the dresser and the floor. Photographs were torn and mutilated, faces gouged out. On one wall, a word she didn’t understand was written in a smeary dark pink: piggies. She turned suddenly. There had been a sound from the bed. A gurgle. She ran forward. She touched the forehead, above the neat obscuring tape. It was warm. She heard a car outside and heavy footsteps in the hall. She ran down the stairs and saw men in uniform. One of them looked up at her.

‘Alive,’ Mrs Ferrer gasped. ‘Alive.’

Two

I looked around me. This wasn’t countryside. It was a wasteland into which bits of countryside had been dropped and then abandoned, a tree or a bush here and there, a hedgerow stripped bare for winter, a sudden field, stranded in the mud and marsh. I wanted a geographical feature – a hill, a river – and I couldn’t find one. I tugged off a glove with my teeth to look at the map and let it fall on to the slimy grass. The large sheet flapped wildly in the wind until I concertinaed it into a wad and stared at the pale brown contours and dotted red footpaths and dashed red bridleways. I had followed the dotted red line for miles but had failed to reach the sea wall that would lead me back to the place where I had begun. I peered into the distance. It was miles away, a thin twist of grey against sky and water.

I looked at the map again, which seemed to disintegrate under my gaze, an unbroken code of crosses and lines, dots and dashes. I was going to be late for Elsie. I hate being late. I’m never late. I’m always early, the one who’s kept waiting – standing crossly under the clock, sitting in a cafe with a cooling cup of tea and a tie of impatience under my right eye. I am never, not ever, late for Elsie. This walk was meant to take exactly three and a half hours.

I twisted the map: I must have failed to see the fork in the path. If I cut across to the left, along that thin black line, I could cut off the headland of marsh and meet the sea wall just before it reached the hamlet where my car was parked. I shoved the map, now splitting at its folds, into my anorak pocket and picked up the glove. Its cold muddy fingers closed around my numbing ones. I started to walk. My calf muscles ached and my nose ran, snotty little dribbles down my stinging cheeks. The huge sky threatened rain.

Once, a dark-coloured bird, its long neck outstretched and its wings heavily batting the air, flew low past me, but otherwise I was quite alone in a landscape of grey-green marsh and grey-blue sea. Probably something rare and interesting, but I don’t know the names of birds. Nor of trees, except obvious ones like weeping willows, and the plane trees that stand on every London street, sending out roots to undermine the houses. Nor of flowers, except obvious ones like buttercups and daisies, and the ones you buy from a florist on a Friday evening and stick in a vase for when friends come round: still-life roses, irises, chrysanthemums, carnations. But not the feeble plants that were scratching at my boots as I walked towards a small copse that didn’t seem to be getting any nearer. Sometimes when I lived in London I would feel oppressed by all the billboards, shop signs, house numbers, street names, area codes, vans bearing legends ‘Fresh Fish’ or ‘Friendly Movers’, neon letters flashing on-off-on in the orange sky. Now I didn’t have the words for anything at all.

I came to a barbed-wire fence which separated the marsh from what looked like something farmed. I held the wire firmly down with the ball of my thumb and swung one leg over.

‘May I help you?’ The voice sounded friendly. I turned towards it, and a barbed prong embedded itself in the crotch of my jeans.

‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’ I managed to get my other leg over. He was a middle-aged bearded man, in a brown quilted jacket and green boots. He was smaller than me.

‘I’m the farmer.’

‘If I go straight across here, will I arrive at the road?’

‘I own this field.’

‘Well…’

‘This is not a public right of way. You are trespassing. On my land.’

‘Oh.’

‘You have to go that way.’ He pointed gravely. ‘Then you’ll come to a footpath.’

‘Can’t I just…?’

‘No.’

He smiled at me, not unpleasantly. His shirt was wrongly buttoned at the neck.

‘I thought of the countryside as something you were free to walk around in.’

‘Do you see my wood over there?’ he asked grimly. ‘Boys from Lymne’ – he pronounced it Lumney – ‘started riding their pushbikes down the track through the wood. Then it was motorbikes. It terrified the cows and made the track impassable. Last spring, some people wandered across my neighbour’s field with their dog and killed three of his lambs. And that’s not with all the gates being left open.’

‘I’m sorry about that but…’

‘And Rod Wilson, just over there, he used to send calves over to Ostend. They started with the picketing of the port at Goldswan Green. Couple of months ago, Rod’s barn was burned down. It’ll be somebody’s house next. Then there’s the Winterton and Thell Hunt.’

‘All right, all right. You know what I’ll do? I’ll climb back over this gate and head in a huge circle around your land.’

‘Do you come from London?’

‘I did. I’ve bought Elm House on the other side of Lymne. Lumney. You know, the one without any elms.’

‘They’ve finally managed to sell that, have they?’

‘I came to the country to get away from stress.’

‘Did you now. We always like visitors from London. I hope you’ll come again.’

Friends had thought I was joking when I said I was going to work at the hospital in Stamford and live in the countryside. I’ve only ever lived in London – I grew up there, or at least in its trailing suburbs, went to university there, did my pre-med there, worked there. What about take-aways?, one had said. And, what about late-night films, twenty-four-hours shops, babysitters, M&S meals, chess partners?

Danny, though, when I’d summoned up the courage to tell him, had looked at me with eyes full of rage and hurt.

‘What is it, Sam? Want to spend quality time with your kid on some fucking village green? Sunday lunch and planting bulbs?’ Actually, I had imagined a few bulbs.

‘Or,’ Danny had continued, ‘are you finally leaving me? Is that what this is all about, and is that why you never even bothered to tell me you were applying for a job in the sticks?’

I’d shrugged, cold and hostile in the knowledge that I was behaving badly.

‘I didn’t apply for it. They applied to me. And we don’t live together, Danny, remember. You wanted your freedom.’

He’d given a kind of groan and said, ‘Look, Sam, maybe the time has come…’

But I’d interrupted. I didn’t want to hear him say we should live together at last and I didn’t want to hear him say we should leave each other at last, although I knew that soon we would have to decide. I’d put one hand on his resistant shoulder. ‘It’s only an hour and a half away. You can come and visit me.’

‘Visit you?’

‘Stay with me.’

‘Oh, I’ll come and stay with you, my darling.’ And he’d leaned forward, all dark hair and stubble and the smell of sawdust and sweat, and yanked me to him by the belt that was looped through my jeans. He’d unbuckled my belt and pulled me down on the lino of the kitchen, warm where a heating pipe ran underneath, his hands under my cropped head saving it from banging as we fell.

If I ran I might be in time for Elsie. On the sea wall the wind screamed and the sky was swallowed up by the water. My breath came in bursts. There was a bit of grit in my left shoe, pressing up under the ball of my foot, but I didn’t want to stop. It was only her second day at school. The teacher will think I’m a bad mother. Houses: I see houses at last. Nineteen-thirties, red brick and square, a child’s drawing of a home. Smoke curling perfectly, one-two-three puffs, out of the neat row of chimneys. And there was the car. I might be on time after all.

Elsie tipped from heel to toe, toe to heel. Her slick fair hair swung as she moved. She was wearing a brown donkey jacket and a checked red and orange dress, and on her stocky legs she had pink spotty tights, which were wrinkled around her steadily pivoting ankles (‘You told me I could choose my clothes and I want these,’ she’d said truculently at breakfast). Her nose was red and her eyes were vacant.

‘Am I late?’ I hugged her unyielding bulk.

‘Mungo was with me.’

I looked around the deserted playground.

‘I can’t see anyone.’

‘Not now.’

That evening, after Elsie had gone to sleep, I felt lonely in my house by the sea. The dark outside was so very dark, the silence so eerily complete. I sat by the unmade fire with Anatoly on my lap, and his purr as I scratched behind his ears seemed to fill the room. I poked aimlessly around in the fridge, eating a lump of hardened cheese, half an apple, a chunk of nut-and-raisin milk chocolate. I rang up Danny but only got his stiff answering-machine voice and didn’t leave a message.

I turned on the television for the evening news. A wealthy local couple had been brutally murdered, their throats cut. A picture of their formally smiling faces, his florid and plump, hers pale and thin and self-effacing, was followed by a view of their large red house from the end of a wide gravelled drive. Their teenage daughter was ‘comfortable’ in Stamford General. There was a blurry school photograph that must have been years old, a happy, roundly plump face, poor thing. A large police officer said something about unstinting efforts, a local politician expressed shock and outrage and called for measures.

Briefly, I wondered about the girl in hospital, her savaged future. Then the news switched to an obstacle in a peace process somewhere, and very quickly I forgot all about her.

Three

‘After you.’

‘No, after you.’

‘For God’s sake, pour it, you wally.’

They were four deep around the coffee machine, uniforms and suits fighting over the sugar and the milk jug. They were in a hurry. Seating in the generally unused conference room was restricted, and nobody wanted to be late for this one.

‘It’s a bit soon for a case conference, isn’t it?’

‘That’s what the Super wants.’

‘I’d say it’s a bit soon.’

The conference room was in the new extension of Stamford Central police station, all Formica and strip lighting and the hum of the heating system. The head of the CID, Superintendent Bill Day, had called the meeting for 11.45 on the morning that the bodies had been discovered. Blinds were pulled up, revealing an office building opposite, whose mirrored windows reflected a bright winter sky. An overhead projector and a video recorder were pushed into the far corner. Plastic chairs were peeled from stacks against the wall and crammed around the long table.

Detective Inspector Frank ‘Rupert’ Baird edged his way through the ruck of officers – he towered over most of them – and took his seat at the end. He dumped some files on the table in front of him and looked at his watch, fingering his moustache reflectively. Bill Day and a senior uniformed man came into the room, which at once became silent, attentive. Day went and sat near Rupert Baird, but the uniformed man pointedly remained standing, just to one side of the door, leaning lightly back against the wall. Bill Day spoke first.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘And ladies,’ he added, catching the ironic eye of WPC MacAllister down at the far end of the table. ‘We won’t keep you long. This is just a preliminary meeting.’ He paused, scanning the faces around the table. ‘Look, lads. We need to get this one right. No pissing about.’ There were nods of acknowledgement. ‘I’d like to take the chance to introduce Chief Superintendent Anthony Cavan, who’ll be new to most of you.’

The uniformed man by the door nodded at the heads turned towards him.

‘Thanks, Bill,’ he said. ‘Good morning, everybody. I’m here for the press conference, but I wanted to put my head round the door, show some encouragement. Pretend I’m not here.’

‘Yes,’ said Bill Day, with a thin smile. ‘I’ve asked Detective Inspector Baird to chair the meeting. Rupert?’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Baird, and he shuffled some papers on the desk in front of him with a purposeful air. ‘The point of this introductory meeting is to establish clarity right from the outset. Stamford CID is going to be under the spotlight. Let’s not make fools of ourselves. Remember the Porter case.’ Everybody knew the Porter case, if only by repute: the TV documentaries, the appeal, the books, the early retirements, reassignments. The atmosphere became noticeably chillier. ‘I’ll try to cover the ground as quickly as I can. Ask any questions. I want everybody to get all this straight.’ He put his reading spectacles on and looked down at his notes. ‘The bodies were found at about eight-thirty this morning. Thursday the eighteenth of January. The victims are Leopold Victor Mackenzie and his wife. Elizabeth. Mr Mackenzie was the chairman of Mackenzie & Carlow. They made medicines, drugs, that sort of thing. Their daughter, Fiona, was taken to Stamford General.’

‘Will she live?’

‘I haven’t heard. We’ve got her in a fully secure room at the hospital with minimum access. Her own doctor insisted on it and we think he’s right. A couple of PCs are standing by.’

‘Has she said anything?’

‘No. The emergency call was made by the family’s Spanish cleaning lady, a Mrs Juana Ferrer, shortly after half-past eight. The scene was secured within ten minutes. Mrs Ferrers is downstairs at the moment.’

‘Did she see anything?’

‘Apparently not, she…’

Baird paused and looked up as the door opened. A middle-aged man with unbrushed hair and wire-framed spectacles stepped into the room. He was carrying a bulging briefcase and he was panting.

‘Philip, thanks for stopping by,’ said Baird. ‘Could somebody give him a chair?’

‘Haven’t got time. I’ve just come from the house and I’m on my way to Farrow Street. I want to walk the bodies straight through. I can give you about one minute. Anyway, I don’t think I’m much use to you here.’

‘This is Dr Philip Kale, the Home Office pathologist,’ Baird explained to the meeting. ‘What can you tell us?’

Dr Kale placed his bag on the floor and frowned.

‘As you know, one of my responsibilities as a forensic pathologist is not to construct premature theories. But…’ He began to count off his fingers, ‘… based on examination of the bodies at the scene, the two cases seem strikingly similar. Cause of death: anaemic anoxia, due to the incised wounds in the throats, which some of you have seen. Manner of death: their throats were cut with a blade, possibly non-serrated, of at least two centimetres in length. It could be anything from a Stanley knife to a carving knife. Mode of death: homicide.’

‘Can you tell us the time of death?’

‘Not with precision. You must understand that anything I say about this is very preliminary.’ He paused for a moment. ‘When I examined the bodies at the scene, hypostasis had commenced but was not fully developed. I would estimate that the deaths occurred more than two hours before they were found and not more than, say, five or six hours. Definitely not more than six.’

‘The daughter couldn’t have survived five hours with her throat cut, could she?’

Dr Kale paused for thought.

‘I haven’t seen her. Possibly not.’

‘Anything else you can tell us? Anything about the murder?’

Dr Kale gave the smallest hint of a smile.

‘The person who wielded the knife was using his or her right hand and has no disabling aversion to blood. And now I must go. The autopsies should be complete by mid afternoon. You’ll have a report.’

There was a hum of conversation in the moments after his departure, silenced by a rap of Baird’s knuckles on the desk.

‘Is there anything from the crime-scene people?’

There was a shaking of heads.

‘I talked to the cleaning woman.’

It was Detective Chris Angeloglou who had spoken.

‘Yes?’

‘She said that the day before yesterday Mrs Mackenzie gave a party in the house. There were two hundred people there. Bad news. Sorry.’

‘Christ.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll just have to let them get on with it. We’ll need a list of who was there.’

‘I’m already on to it.’

‘Good. We haven’t found any signs of forced entry as yet. But it’s early days. Anyway, you could open their front door with a credit card, a plastic ruler, anything. A cursory survey of the contents showed some rifling of drawers, cupboards. Lots of damage. Photographs torn and smashed.’

‘Looking for something?’

‘We’ll leave the theories until we’ve gathered the information and collated it. I don’t want officers looking for evidence to prove a theory. I want all the evidence. You can start thinking after that.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘What else is there? There was the writing on the wall, in Mrs Mackenzie’s lipstick. “Piggies.”’

‘Manson,’ said DC Angeloglou.

‘What’s that?’

‘Isn’t that what the Manson gang wrote on the wall in blood, when they killed all those people in California? “Death to Pigs.” It’s from a Beatles song.’

‘All right, Chris. Look into it. Don’t get carried away. It’s probably a blind alley. So that’s where we are now, which isn’t anywhere much. I’m going to wind up in a moment. If you pop round to Christine afterwards, you can get a copy of the roster. The investigation is going to involve searching every inch of the house, knocking on doors in the area, talking to Mackenzie & whatever the company’s called and interviewing people who were at the party. We’ve already got officers at the railway station and roadblocks on the Tyle road asking for witnesses. I hope we’ll catch the bastard inside twenty-four hours. If we don’t, I want a lot of information to fall back on. Any questions?’

‘Did they have any enemies?’

‘That’s why we’re having an inquiry.’

‘Were there a lot of valuables in the house?’

‘Go and find out. You’re a policeman.’

‘It may just be very simple, sir.’

Baird’s bushy eyebrows rose to a forty-five degree angle. Everybody turned to Pam MacAllister down at the far end.

‘Enlighten us WPC MacAllister.’

‘If she survives, the daughter may be able to tell us.’

‘Yes,’ said Baird drily. ‘Meanwhile, until she is fit to give a statement, we could pretend that we’re policemen. Or policewomen. I will if you will.’

Pam McAllister reddened but said nothing.

‘Right,’ said Baird, grabbing his papers and standing.

‘If you come across anything significant, see me. But don’t waste my time.’

Four

‘Wind up your window.’

‘But I’m too hot.’

‘It’s freezing; we’ll both get pneumonia. Wind it up.’

Elsie struggled sulkily with the handle. The window inched up and stopped.

‘Can’t.’

I leaned across her cross body. The car veered.

‘Can we have my tape on? The worm tape.’

‘Are you enjoying school?’

Silence.

‘What did you do yesterday?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Tell me three things you did yesterday.’

‘I played. And I played. And I played.’

‘Who did you play with?’ Brightly. Eagerly.

‘Mungo. Can I have my tape?’

‘The tape machine’s broken. You shoved coins down it.’

‘It’s not fair. You promised.’

‘I did not promise.’

‘I’m telling of you.’

We’d been up three hours already, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. Elsie had slipped into my bed before six, scrambled up beside me, pulling the duvet off in the icy dawn, scratching my legs with her toenails, which I’d failed to cut, putting cold little feet against my back, butting her head under my arm, kissing me with a warm, wet, pursed mouth, peeling back my eyelids with her expert fingers, turning on the bedside light so that for a moment the room full of unpacked boxes and cases from which creased clothes spilled had disappeared in a dazzle of pain.

‘Why can’t you collect me?’

‘I’ve got to work. Anyway, you like Linda.’

‘I don’t like her hair. Why do you have to work? Why can’t Daddy work and you stay at home like other mummies?’

She doesn’t have a daddy. Why does she say things like that?

‘I’ll come and get you as early as I can from Linda, I promise. I’ll make you your supper.’ I ignored the face she made at that. ‘And I’ll take you to school in the mornings. All right?’ I tried to think of something cheerful. ‘Elsie, why don’t we play our game? What’s in the house?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You do know. What’s in the kitchen?’

Elsie closed her eyes and wrinkled her brow with the effort.

‘A yellow ball.’

‘Brilliant. What’s in the bath?’

‘A packet of Coco Pops.’

‘Fantastic. And what’s in Elsie’s bed?’

But I’d lost her. Elsie was staring out of the window. She pointed at a low, slatey cloud. I turned on the radio. ‘… freezing weather… high winds… north-easterlies’. Did that mean from the north-east or towards the northeast? What did it matter? I turned the knob: crackles, jazz, crackles, stupid discussion, crackles. I switched it off and focused on the landscape, such as it was. Was it for this I’d left London? Flat, furrowed, grey, wet, with an occasional industrial-looking barn made of aluminium or breeze-block. Not a good place to hide.

When I was trying to make up my mind about the Stamford job, I made a list. On one side I’d listed the pros, the other the CONS. I love lists – every day at work I make long ones, with priorities asterisked in a different colour. I feel in control of my life once I’ve reduced it to a half-sheet of A₄, and I love crossing off the things I’ve done, neatly. Sometimes I even put at the top of the list a few neatly crossed-out tasks I’ve already completed, as a way of getting some momentum which I hope will get me through the things I haven’t done.

What had the pros been? Something like this:CountrysideBigger houseMore time to spend with ElsieJob that I’ve always wantedMore moneyTime to finish the trauma projectWalksPet for Elsie (?)Smaller schoolWork out relationship with DannyAdventure and changeMore time (this was asterisked several times since it engulfed all the other reasons)On the con side it simply said:Leave London.

I grew up in the suburbs and through my teenage years I only ever wanted to get to the centre, the hub, the bull’s eye. I used to go shopping in Oxford Street with my mother when I was little and she was still choosing my clothes (demure circle skirts, polo-neck tops, neat jeans, navy sandals with nibbly little buckles, sensible coats with brass buttons, thick ribbed tights that never stayed up properly, and ‘Oh, look at you, you’re getting so tall,’ my mother would say as she tried to force my gangly body into clothes for dainty girls). I’d sit at the top of the double-decker bus and stare at the crowds, the dirt, the chaos, the wild-haired youths swinging down the pavements, couples kissing on the corners, the hot bright shops, the disorder of it all, the terror and the delight. I always said I was going to be a doctor and move into the centre of London. While Roberta was dressing her dolls and carrying them around, clutched to her chest, cooing, I was amputating them. I was going to be a doctor because no one that I knew was a doctor, and because half of my class at school wanted to be nurses and because my mother raised her eyebrows and shrugged every time I told her my ambition.

London to me meant tiredness, early-morning starts, traffic jams, jaunty radio stations every notch along the dial, dirt in my clothes, dog shit on the pavements; meant I was called ‘doctor’ by men who looked like my father; meant advancement and money in the bank that I could spend on loud ear-rings and unsensible coats and pointy shoes with loud buckles on them; meant sex with strangers on strange weekends that I could hardly remember now, except for the sense in my euphoric body that I’d abandoned Edgware, not Edgware the place, but the Edgware in my mind with its Sunday lunches and three streets to get to somewhere that wasn’t a house. London meant having Elsie and losing her father. London meant Danny. It was the geography of my coming of age. As I drove into Stamford, having unpinned Elsie’s fingers from my jacket and kissed her suddenly flushed cheeks and promised on an impulse to collect her from school myself, I suddenly missed London as if it were a lover, a far-off object of desire. Though, actually, the city had betrayed me after Elsie was born, had become a grid of playgrounds and creches and babysitters and Mothercares. A parallel universe I’d never even noticed until I’d joined it, working in the week, pushing a buggy on Saturday and Sunday, swearing revenge.

This was what I had dreamed of. Time. Me, alone in the house, and no child and no nanny and no Danny and no schedule that ticked away in my mind. There was a miaow and a prickle of claws on my leg. Opening the cat food at arm’s length, I filled Anatoly’s bowl and shoved it and him out of the back door. A breath of air blew a whiff of the tuna and rabbit in jelly back into my face, provoking a heaving cough and memories of seasickness. How could something like that be good even for a cat? I washed up Elsie’s bowl and mug from breakfast, and made myself a cup of instant coffee with water that hadn’t properly boiled, so the granules floated to the surface. Outside, rain dripped on to my waterlogged garden; the pink hyacinths that I’d been so excited about yesterday had tipped sideways in the rubbly soil, and their rubbery petals looked grimy. Apart from the sound of rain I could hear nothing, not even the sea. A feeling of dreariness crept over me. Normally, I would have been at work for two, maybe three or, in a crisis, four hours by now; the phone would be ringing, my in-tray would be overflowing, my secretary would bring me a cup of tea and I’d be dismayed by how quickly the morning was going. I turned on the radio: ‘Four small children died in a…’, and turned it off again hastily. I wished that someone had sent me a letter; even junk mail would be better than nothing.

I decided I ought to work. The drawing that Elsie had done for me last week, when I’d complained about forlorn spaces on the sallow, peeling walls of my study, gazed accusingly down at me from where I’d pinned it above my desk. The room was dank and chilly, so I switched on the bar fire; it heated up my left leg and made me feel droopily in need of a morning nap.

The screen of my word processor glowed green. A cursor pulsed at a healthy sixty beats a minute. I clicked the mouse on the hard disk, then on the empty folder called Book. ‘Even a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step,’ somebody irritating had once said. I created a file and labelled it ‘Introduction’. I opened the file and wrote ‘Introduction’ again. The word sat, pitifully small, at the head of a green, blank space. I highlighted it and upped the typesize, then changed the font so that it thickened and slanted. There, that looked better, more impressive anyway.

I tried to remember what I’d written in my proposal for the publisher. My brain felt as shiny and empty as the screen in front of me. Perhaps I should start with the title. What does one call a book about trauma? In my proposal I’d simply called it ‘Trauma’, but that sounded bald, a kind of scholarly idiot’s guide, and I wanted this to be controversial, polemical and exciting, a look at the way trauma as a label is misused, so that real sufferers remain invisible, while disaster junkies jump on the bandwagon. I typed, in large print, above the ‘Introduction’, ‘The Hidden Wound’ and centred it. That sounded like a book about menstruation. With a smooth swipe of the mouse, I erased the letters. ‘From Shell Shock to Culture Shock’. No, no, no. ‘Trauma Victims and Trauma Addicts’? But that was a small strand of the book, not its overall pattern. ‘Soul Searching’. That was a title for a religious pamphlet. ‘On Griefs Track’. Yuk. How about ‘The Trauma Years’? I’d save that for my memoirs. At least time was passing now. For nearly three quarters of an hour I typed and erased titles, until at the end I was back at the start. ‘Introduction.’

I ran myself a bath and filled it with expensive oils and lay in its slippery warmth till my fingers shrivelled, reading a book about end-games in chess and listening to the sound of rain. Then I ate two pieces of toast with mashed sardines on top and the remains of a cheesecake that had been sitting shrink-wrapped in the fridge for days and two chocolate biscuits and a rather pulpy slice of melon.

I went back to the melancholy green on the computer screen and typed firmly: ‘Samantha Laschen was born in 1961 and grew up in London. She is a consultant psychiatrist who heads the new Referral Centre for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder based in Stamford. She lives in the Essex countryside with her five-year-old daughter and her cat, and in her spare time plays chess.’ I crossed out the bit about the cat (too fey). And the bit about chess. I erased my age (too young to be authoritative, too old to be prodigious) and the bit about growing up in London and now living in Essex (boring). I erased Elsie – I wasn’t going to wear my daughter like an accessory. I looked at what was left; maybe we doctors were too hung up on status. There, I liked it: ‘Samantha Laschen is a consultant psychiatrist.’ Or what about just ‘Samantha Laschen is…’ Minimalism has always been my style. I lay back in my chair and shut my eyes.

‘Don’t move,’ said a voice, and two warm and callused hands were put over my closed eyes.

‘Mmmm,’ I said, and tilted back my head. ‘Blindfolded by a strange man.’

I felt lips at the pulse of my throat. My body slipped in the chair, and I felt its tensions uncurl.

‘Samantha Laschen is…’ Well, I can’t argue with that. But maybe there are better ways for you to spend your days than writing three words, eh?’

‘Like what?’ I asked, still blind, still limp where I sat with my face in the fold of his rough hands.

He swivelled the chair around and when I opened my eyes his face was a few inches from mine: eyes so brown under their straight dark eyebrows that they were nearly black, hair an unwashed tangle over a battered leather jacket, stubbly cleft chin, smell of oil, wood shavings, soap. We didn’t touch each other. He looked at my face and I looked at his hands.

‘I didn’t hear you arrive. I thought you were building a roof.’

‘Built. Installed. Paid for. How long have we got before you have to collect Elsie?’

I looked at my watch.

‘About twenty minutes.’

‘Then twenty minutes will have to be enough. Come here.’

‘Mummy.’

‘Yes.’

‘Lucy said your hair has died.’

‘She didn’t mean it’s dead, she probably meant that I dye it. Colour it.’

‘Her mummy’s hair is brown.’

‘Yes, well–’

‘And Mia’s mummy’s hair is brown too.’

‘Would you like my hair to be brown as well?’

‘It’s a very bright red, Mummy.’

‘Yes, you’re right, it is.’ Sometimes I still got a shock myself when I met my face in the speckled bathroom mirror on a groggy morning: white face, fine lines beginning to grow and spread around the eyes and a flaming crop of hair on a nobbly neck.

‘It looks like’ – she stared out of the window, her stolid body leaning out from her safety straps – ‘like that red light.’

Then there was quiet, and when I next glanced round she was fast asleep, thumb babyishly in her mouth, head tilted to one side.

I sat on one side of Elsie’s narrow bed and read her a book, occasionally pointing to a word which she would falteringly spell out or madly, inaccurately, guess at. Danny sat on the other and twisted small scraps of paper into the shape of an angular flower, a nimble man, a clever dog. Elsie sat between us, straight-backed, eyes bright and cheeks flushed, self-consciously sweet and serious. This was like a proper family. Her glance darted between us, tethering us. My body glowed with the memory of my brief encounter with Danny on my dusty study floor and in anticipation of the evening ahead. As I read, I could feel Danny’s gaze on me. The air felt thick between us. And when Elsie’s speech slipped, stopped, and her eyelids closed, we went into my bedroom without a word and took off each other’s clothes and touched each other, and the only sound was the drip of rain outside or sometimes a breath that was louder than normal, like a gasp of pain. It felt as if we hadn’t seen each other for weeks.

Later, I took a pizza out of the freezer and put it in the oven, and while we ate it in front of the fire which Danny had lit, I told him about progress with the trauma unit, and Elsie’s first days at school, about trying to start the book and my encounter with the farmer. Danny talked about what friends he’d seen in London and perching on damp crumbling rafters in the bitter cold, and then he laughed and said that as I rose up through my profession, so he fell: from acting, to resting, to carpentry, now to doing odd jobs, building a roof for a cantankerous old woman.

‘Don’t,’ he said, when I started hastily to say something about success being about more than work, ‘don’t bluster. You don’t need to worry so. You like what you do and I like what I do.’

When the fire died away, we went up the creaking stairs once more, looked in at Elsie sleeping in a nest of duvet and soft toys, made our way to the double bed and lay facing each other, sleepy and uncomplicated.

‘Maybe we could,’ he said.

‘Could what?’

‘Live together. Even’ – his hand rubbed my back, his voice became very light and casual – ‘even think of having a child.’

‘Maybe,’ I muttered sleepily. ‘Maybe.’

It was one of our better days.

Five

‘Everything all right, sir?’

‘No.’

‘Let me cheer you up. Fancy something to read?’

Detective Angeloglou tossed a pamphlet on to Rupert Baird’s desk. Baird picked it up and grunted at the faded print.

‘Rabbit Punch? What’s this?’

‘You’re not a subscriber? We’ve got the full run of issues downstairs. It’s the house magazine of ARK.’

‘ARK?’

‘It stands for the Animal Rights Knights.’

Baird groaned. He gently patted the hair on top of his head which covered but did not conceal the bald scalp underneath.

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. They’re the ones who broke into the mink farm over at Ness in ’92. They set the mink free.’ Angeloglou consulted the file he was carrying. ‘They fire-bombed the supermarket in Goldswan Green in ’93. Then nothing much till the university explosion last year. They’ve also been involved in some of the more extreme veal protests, the direct actions against farmers and transport companies.’

‘So?’

‘Look at this.’

Angeloglou opened the magazine to its central pages, a section under the headline in red ink: ‘Butchers shopped.’

‘Is this relevant?’

‘This is one of the services they provide to readers. They print the names and addresses of people they accuse of torturing animals. Look, here’s Professor Ronald Maxwell of the Linnaeus Institute. He researches bird-song. He uses caged birds. Dr Christopher Nicholson has been sewing up the eyelids of kittens. Charles Patton runs the family fur company. And here we have Leo Mackenzie, Chairman of Mackenzie & Carlow.’

Baird seized the magazine.

‘What is… what was he meant to be guilty of?’

‘Experiments on animals, it says here.’

‘Bloody hell. Well done, Chris. Have you checked it out?’

‘Yes. At its Fulton laboratories, the company are working on a project, partly financed by the Department of Agriculture. It’s on stress in animal husbandry, they told me.’

‘What does it involve?’

Angeloglou smiled broadly.

‘This is the good bit,’ he said. ‘The research involves giving pigs electric shocks and lacerating them in various ways and testing their responses. Have you ever seen a pig being killed?’

‘No.’

‘They cut the throat. Blood all over the place. They make black pudding with it.’

‘I can’t stand black pudding,’ said Baird, turning several pages of the magazine over. ‘I don’t see a date. Do we know when this was published?’

‘You don’t get Rabbit Punch at your local newsagent. Its publication is best described as intermittent, and its distribution is patchy. We obtained this copy six weeks ago.’

‘Was Mackenzie warned about this?’

‘He’d been told about it,’ said Angeloglou. ‘But it was nothing new. From what they say at his head office, he was used to things like this.’

Baird frowned with concentration.

‘What we need now are some names. Who was it who headed the animal operation? Mitchell, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but he’s arse-deep in the West Midlands at the moment. I’ve been on the phone to Phil Carrier who was his DI. He’s spent the last couple of months wandering around burnt barns and wrecked lorries. He’s going to come up with some names.’

‘Good,’ said Baird. ‘Let’s move quickly on that. What’s the latest with the Mackenzie girl?’

‘She’s conscious. Not critical.’

‘Any chance of a statement?’

Angeloglou shook his head.

‘Not at the moment. The doctors say she’s in deep shock. Hasn’t said anything yet. Anyway, she was hooded, remember. I wouldn’t hold my breath for anything there.’

As recently as 1990, Melissa Hollingdale had been a biology teacher in a comprehensive school without even an unpaid parking ticket on her record. Now she was an habituée of police interrogation rooms with a file that scrolled up the screen for page after page. Looking through the one-way mirror, Chris Angeloglou sat and stared at this impassive woman in her mid thirties. Her long thick dark hair was tied up behind, no make-up. Her skin was pale, smooth, clean. She dressed for speed. A flecked turtleneck, jeans, trainers. Her hands, laid palm down and steady on the table in front of her, were surprisingly dainty and white. She waited with no sign of impatience.

‘We’ll start with Melissa, then?’

Angeloglou turned. It was Baird.

‘Where’s Carrier?’

‘He’s out. There’s a report of a bomb sent to a turkey farm.’

‘Christ.’

‘Inside a Christmas card.’

‘Christ. Bit late, isn’t it?’

‘He’ll be over later.’

A constable appeared carrying a tray with three cups of tea. Angeloglou took it. The two detectives nodded at each other and went in.

‘Thank you for coming to see us. Cup of tea?’

‘I don’t drink tea.’

‘Cigarette?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘Do you have the file, Chris? What are Miss Hollingdale’s qualifications for being here?’

‘She’s a coordinator for the Vivisection and Export Alliance. VEAL.’

‘I’ve never heard of it,’ said Hollingdale evenly.

Angeloglou looked down at his file.

‘How long have you been out now? Two months, is it? No, three. Malicious damage, assaulting a policeman, affray.’

Hollingdale allowed herself a resigned smile.

‘I sat down in front of a lorry at Dovercourt. Now what is all this about?’

‘What is your current occupation?’

‘I’m having difficulty finding an occupation. I appear to be on various blacklists.’

‘Why do you think that is?’

She said nothing.

‘Three days ago a businessman called Leo Mackenzie and his wife were murdered in their home in the Castletown suburb of Stamford. Their daughter is critically ill in hospital.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you ever read a magazine called Rabbit Punch?’

‘No.’

‘It’s an underground magazine produced by a terrorist animal-rights group. The most recent issue published the name and address of Mr Mackenzie. Six weeks later he, his wife and his daughter had their throats cut. What do you have to say about that?’

Hollingdale shrugged.

‘What do you feel about activism of this kind?’ Baird asked.

‘Have you brought me in here for a discussion about animal rights?’ Hollingdale asked with a sarcastic smile. ‘I’m against any creature having its throat cut. Is that what you want me to say?’

‘Would you condemn such acts?’

‘I’m not interested in making gestures.’

‘Where were you on the night between the seventeenth and the eighteenth of January?’

Hollingdale was silent for a long time.

‘I suppose I was in bed, like everybody else.’

‘Not everybody. Do you have any witnesses?’

‘I can probably find one or two people.’

‘I bet you can. By the way, Miss Hollingdale,’ added Baird. ‘How are your children?’

She started, as if in pain, and her expression hardened.

‘Nobody will tell me. Will you?’

‘Mark Featherstone, or should we call you by your adopted name of Loki?’

Loki was dressed in extravagantly varied fabrics, sewed together into a shapeless tunic over baggy white cotton trousers. His red hair was knotted into dreadlocks which hung down over his back at stiff angles, like giant pipe cleaners. He smelled of patchouli oil and cigarettes.

‘Does that rhyme with “hockey” or with “chokey”? I suppose “chokey” would be more appropriate.’ Angeloglou consulted his file. ‘Breaking and entering. Burglary. Assault. I thought you were against violence?’

Loki said nothing.

‘You’re a clever man, Loki. Chemical engineering. A Ph.D. Useful training for manufacturing explosives, I suppose.’

‘Were they blown up, then, this couple?’ said Loki.

‘No, though my colleagues will no doubt be asking you about the parcel received at Marshall’s Poultry.’

‘Did it go off?’

‘Fortunately not.’

‘Well, then,’ said Loki contemptuously.

‘Mr and Mrs Mackenzie’s throats were cut. How do you feel about that?’

Loki laughed.

‘I guess he’ll think twice before torturing animals again.’

‘You sick bastard, what do you think you’ll achieve by murdering people like that?’

‘Do you want a lecture about the theory of revolutionary violence?’

‘Try us,’ said Baird.

‘The torture of animals is part of our economy, part of our culture. The problem is no different from that faced by opponents of slavery or the American colonists, any oppressed group. You just have to make the activity uneconomic, unpalatable.’

‘Even if that involves murder?’

Loki leaned back in his chair.

‘Wars of liberation have their price.’

‘You little shit,’ said Baird. ‘Where were you on the night of the seventeenth of January?’

‘Asleep. A broken sleep. Like the Mackenzies.’

‘You’d better hope you have a witness.’

Loki smiled and shrugged.

‘Who’s hoping?’

‘Let me read you something, Professor Laroue,’ said Baird, holding a sheet of typescript. ‘Forgive me if I don’t do the style justice:All of us accept limits to our obligation to obey the law. After the Holocaust we may further accept that there are times when we are obliged to violate the law, even to violate the limits of what we would normally consider to be acceptable behaviour. I anticipate that future generations will ask us about our own holocaust, the holocaust of animals, and ask us how we could stand by and do nothing? We in Britain are living with Auschwitz every day. Except this time it’s worse because we can’t plead ignorance. We have it for breakfast. We wear it. What will we say to them? Perhaps the only people able to hold their heads up will be those who did something, those who fought back.

‘Do you recognize that, Professor?’

Frank Laroue’s hair was cut so short that it was almost like a film of gauze draped across his skull. He had very pale-blue eyes, with curiously tiny pupils, so that he looked already flash-bulb blind. He was dressed in an immaculate fawn suit, with a white shirt and canvas shoes. He had a pen in his fingers which he rotated compulsively, sometimes tapping it on the table.

‘Yes. It is a part of a speech that I delivered at a public meeting last year. Incidentally, it has never been published. I would be interested to know how you got a copy of it.’

‘Oh, we like to get out in the evenings. What did you mean by that passage?’

‘What is all this? My views about our responsibilities towards animals are well known. I’ve agreed to come and answer questions but I don’t understand what you want.’

‘You’ve written for Rabbit Punch.’

‘No, I haven’t.’ He gave a half-smile of acknowledgement. ‘Things I have written or things I have said may have been reproduced there, as in other magazines. That is quite a different matter.’

‘So you read it?’

‘I’ve seen it. I have an interest in the field.’

Chris Angeloglou was leaning against the wall. Baird took his jacket off and draped it over the chair on the opposite side of the table from where Laroue was sitting. Then he sat down.

‘Your speech is a clear incitement to violence.’

Laroue shook his head.

‘I’m a philosopher. I made a comparison.’

‘You suggested it was people’s duty to take violent action in defence of animals.’

There was a short pause. Then, patiently, ‘It’s not a matter of my suggestion. I believe that, objectively, it is people’s duty to take action.’

‘Is it your duty?’

‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘It follows.’

‘Rabbit Punch believes the same thing, doesn’t it?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The magazine publishes the names and addresses of people it accuses of harming animals. The point of this is to encourage violent action against those people?’

‘Or their property, perhaps.’

‘That wasn’t a distinction you made in your lecture.’

‘No.’

Baird leaned heavily across the table.

‘Do you believe it was wrong to kill Leo Mackenzie and his family?’

Tap, tap, tap.

‘Objectively speaking, no, I don’t,’ he said. ‘Could I have some tea or water or something?’

‘What about the innocent victims?’

‘Innocence is a difficult term to define.’

‘Professor Laroue, where were you on the night of the seventeenth of January?’

‘I was at home, in bed with my wife.’

Baird turned to Angeloglou.

‘Give me the file, will you? Thanks.’ He opened it and thumbed through some pages before finding what he wanted. ‘Your wife is Chantal Bernard Laroue, is she not?’

‘Yes.’

Baird ran his finger down the page.

‘Hunt sabotage, hunt sabotage, public order, public order, obstruction, she’s even moved on to some assault here.’

‘Good for her.’

‘But not necessarily good for you, Professor Laroue. Would you like to talk to your solicitor?’

‘No, officer.’

‘Detective Inspector.’

‘Detective Inspector.’ A smile spread across Laroue’s pale bony face and he raised his eyes to meet Baird’s gaze for the first time. ‘This is all crap. Speeches and where was I on the night of the whatever. I’m leaving now. If you want to talk to me again, make sure you’ve got something to talk to me about. Will you open the door, please, officer?’

Angeloglou looked at Baird.

‘You heard the bastard,’ said Baird. ‘Open the door for him.’

In the doorway, Laroue turned and faced the two detectives:

‘We’re going to win, you know.’

Paul Hardy said nothing at all. He sat in his long canvas overcoat, as if removing it would itself be a minor concession. Once or twice he pushed his hand through his curly brown hair. He glanced at Baird and Angeloglou in turn, but mostly he stared into space. He didn’t reply to questions or acknowledge he had even heard them.

‘Do you know about the Mackenzie murders?’

‘Where were you on the night of the seventeenth?’

‘You realize that if charges are preferred, your silence may be cited in evidence against you.’

Nothing. After several futile minutes there was a tap at the door. Angeloglou answered it. It was a young WPC.

‘Hardy’s briefs here,’ she said.

‘Show him in.’

Sian Spenser, a firm-jawed woman in her early forties, was out of breath and cross.

‘I want five minutes alone with my client.’

‘He hasn’t been accused of anything.’

‘Then what the hell is he doing here? Out. Now.’

Baird drew a deep breath and left the room, followed by Angeloglou. When Spenser brought them back into the room, Hardy was seated with his back to the door.

‘My client has nothing to say.’

‘Two people have been murdered,’ Baird said, his voice raised. ‘We have evidence to suggest that animal-rights activists were involved. Your client has been convicted of conspiracy to cause criminal damage. He was fucking lucky that he wasn’t caught with the explosives. We want to ask him some questions.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Spenser. ‘I want my client out of this building within five minutes or I’ll file a prerogative writ.’

‘DC Angeloglou.’

‘Sir?’

‘Let it be noted for the record that Paul Michael Hardy has refused any cooperation with this inquiry.’

‘Have you quite finished?’ Spenser asked with a quizzical expression that was almost amused.

‘No, but you can take your piece of filth out with you.’

Hardy stood and moved to the door. He paused in front of Angeloglou. A thought seemed to occur to him.

‘How’s the girl?’ he asked, then walked away without waiting for an answer.

An hour later, Baird and Angeloglou were in Bill Day’s office for a debriefing. Bill Day was standing at the window looking out into the darkness.

‘Anything?’ Day asked.

‘Nothing concrete, sir,’ said Angeloglou cautiously.

‘I didn’t expect anything,’ said Baird. ‘I just wanted to get a feel for the people. Get the smell of it.’

‘And?’

‘I think it’s an avenue worth going down.’

‘What have we got?’

‘Almost nothing. The reference in the magazine, the message written at the scene.’

‘Almost nothing?’ Day asked sarcastically. ‘Scene of crime?’

Baird shook his head.

‘It’s not good. There was this huge reception a couple of days before. Hair and fibres is a total disaster. The girl’s room may be better.’

‘What about the girl?’ Day asked. ‘Have we got anywhere with her?’

Baird shook his head.

‘What are we going to do with her?’

‘She’s ready to be discharged.’

‘Is this a problem?’

‘It’s possible, just possible, mind, she may be at some risk.’

‘From these animal-shaggers?’

‘From whoever.’

‘Can they keep her in the hospital for a few more days?’

‘This may be for months, not days.’

‘What’s her mental state?’

‘Upset. Traumatic stress, that sort of thing.’

Day grunted.

‘Jesus, we got through two world wars without fucking stress counsellors. Look, Rupert, I’m not happy with all this but go ahead and find her somewhere discreet. For God’s sake, make sure it’s somewhere the press won’t find.’

‘Where?’

‘I haven’t a clue. Ask Philip Kale, he may have some names.’

Baird and Angeloglou turned to leave.

‘Oh, Rupert?’

‘Yes?’

‘Find me some bloody evidence. I’m getting nervous.’

Six

In just a couple of weeks I had managed to construct a life for myself. I had a house and a garden. The house was old with large windows and a solid, four-square shape and stood on what must have been a quayside long ago. Now it looked forlornly across marshland to the sea, half a mile away.

In the hectic few days after buying the house in November I had asked around in the estate agent and in the shop a couple of miles up the road in Lymne and found a child-minder. Linda was small and slight with a pasty complexion and seemed older than her twenty years. She lived in Lymne and though she was lacking in GCSEs, she had the two main qualifications I was interested in: a driving licence and an air of calm. When Elsie first met her she went and sat on her lap without a word, which was enough for me. At the same time I arranged for Linda’s best friend, Sally, to come two or maybe three times a week to clean the house.

The nearest primary school, St Gervase’s, is in Brask, three miles on the other side of Lymne, and I went and looked through the railings. There was a green playing field, bright murals on the wall, and I didn’t see many tears or children left to fend for themselves. So I walked into the office and filled out the form, and Elsie was accepted on the spot.

It had all seemed almost alarmingly easy: a grown-up life to go with my imminent grown-up job. A few weeks into January, when Britain was starting to get going again after Christmas and when Danny had been staying for five days and was still showing no sign at all of going again, filling my house with beer cans and my bed with warmth, I went to Stamford General Hospital to meet the deputy chief executive of the trust who administered it. He was called Geoffrey Marsh, a man of about my own age so immaculately turned out that he looked as if he was just about to present a television news programme. And his office looked big and elegant enough to double as the studio for it. I felt immediately underdressed, which must have been part of the point.

Geoffrey Marsh took me by the hand – ‘Call me Geoff, Sam’ – and told me that he was immensely enthusiastic about me and about my unit. He was convinced it was going to be a new model for patient management. He took me for a walk up staircases and along corridors to show me the empty wing that I would fill. There was almost nothing to see except how big it was. It was on the ground floor, which I liked. There was a patch of green outside a window. I could do something with that.

‘What used to be here?’ I asked.

He shook his head as if this were an unimportant detail.

‘Let’s head back to my office. We’ve got to arrange some brain-storming sessions, Sam,’ he said. He used my name like a mantra.

‘About what?’

‘About the unit.’

‘Have you read my proposal? I thought the staffing and therapeutic protocols I laid out there were clear enough.’

‘I read it last night, Sam. A fascinating starting-point, and I want to assure you that it is firmly my belief that this unit, and you, will put the Stamford General Trust on the map, and my aim is that it must be as good as it can be.’

‘I’ll need to liaise with social services, of course.’

‘Yes,’ said Marsh, as if he hadn’t heard, or hadn’t wanted to hear. ‘First I want to get you together with my Human Resources Manager and the management working party for the current programme of expansion.’ We were back in his office by now. ‘I want to show you the energy-flow structure I have in mind.’ He drew a triangle. ‘Now at this apex…’ His phone rang and he answered it with a frown. ‘Really?’ he said and looked at me. ‘It’s for you. A Dr Scott.’

‘Dr Scott?’ I said in disbelief, taking the receiver. ‘Thelma, is that you?… How on earth did you find me?… Yes, of course, if it’s important. Do you want to meet in Stamford?… All right, whatever you want. It’ll be your chance to see the new style I’m living in.’ I gave her an address and the elaborate directions I already had off by heart about the third exit on the roundabout and level crossings and duck pond with no ducks in it and said goodbye. Marsh was already on another phone. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to go. It’s urgent.’ He nodded at me and gave me a brisk wave in a pantomime of being busy. ‘I’ll ring you next week,’ I said, and he nodded in response, obviously engrossed in something else.

I drove straight home. Danny’s van was still in the drive but he wasn’t in the house and his leather jacket was no longer hanging on the hook. A few minutes later Thelma spluttered up in her old Morris Traveller. I smiled as I watched her stride across to the path, her head darting around, assessing where I’d ended up. She wore jeans and a long tweed coat. Thelma could look inelegant in anything. I didn’t find her comic, though. Nobody whose research had been supervised by Thelma Scott found her comic. I opened the door and gave her a big hug, which required some dexterity as she was getting on for a foot shorter than I was.

‘I can see the house,’ she said. ‘Where are the elms?’

‘I can take you round the back and show you the tree stumps. This is the first place the beetles came when they got off the ferry from Holland.’

‘I’m amazed,’ she said. ‘Green fields, silence, a garden. Mud.’

‘Nice, isn’t it?’

She gave a dubious shrug and walked past me into the kitchen.

‘Coffee?’ she said.

‘Make yourself at home.’

‘How’s the book going?’ she asked.

‘Fine.’

‘Bad as that? Danny still around?’

‘Yes.’

Without asking, she opened the food cupboard and removed a packet of ground coffee and some biscuits. She heaped tablespoon after tablespoon of coffee into a jug. Then she sprinkled some salt on top.

‘A pinch of salt,’ she said. ‘That’s my secret for good coffee.’

‘What’s your secret for why you’re here?’

‘I’ve been doing some work for the Home Office. We’re looking at the neurological pathology of childhood recall. It’s all to do with the capacity of small children to give evidence in criminal trials.’ She poured the coffee into two mugs with a great show of concentration. ‘One result of becoming a member of the fairly great and good is that you get tickets to things you were never able to get tickets to before.’

‘Sounds nice. Are you here to ask me to the opera?’

‘Another result is that people ring you with odd requests. Yesterday somebody asked me something about post-traumatic stress disorder, about which I know almost nothing.’

I laughed.

‘Happy is the doctor who knows that she knows nothing about post-traumatic stress.’

‘Not only that, it concerned a problem that has arisen in Stamford. I was struck by the remarkable coincidence that the best person I know in the field has just moved up the road from Stamford, so I came to see you.’

‘I’m flattered, Thelma. How can I help you?’

Thelma took a bite from a biscuit and frowned.

‘You should keep biscuits in a tin, Sam,’ she said. ‘Left in an open packet, they go soft. Like this one.’ But she finished it anyway.

‘Not if you eat the whole packet in one day.’

‘We have a nineteen-year-old girl whose parents have been murdered. She was attacked also but survived.’

‘Using my famous forensic skills, I think I can guess at the case you’re talking about. This is the murder of the pharmaceutical millionaire and his wife.’

‘Yes. Did you know him?’

‘I think I may have used his shampoo occasionally.’

‘So you know the details. Fiona Mackenzie’s life is not in any immediate danger. But she is scarcely speaking. She has refused to see anybody she knows. I understand that there are no surviving relatives in Britain, but she won’t see any family friends.’

‘You mean nobody at all? It’s none of my business, but she should be encouraged to restore some sort of connection.’

‘She allowed the family’s GP to visit her. I think that’s all.’

‘That’s a start.’

‘What would you recommend for a case such as hers?’

‘Come on, Thelma, I can’t believe you’ve come up here from London for my advice about a patient I’ve only read about in the papers. What’s going on?’

Thelma smiled and refilled her mug.

‘There’s a problem. The police consider that she is possibly still at risk from the people who murdered her parents and tried to murder her. She needs to be kept reasonably secure, and I wanted some advice about what might be best for somebody who has suffered as she has.’

‘Do you want me to see her?’

Thelma shook her head.

‘This is all unofficial. I just wanted to know what your first thoughts on the subject might be.’

‘Who’s treating her? Colin Daun, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s all right. Why not ask him?’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘You know what I’m going to say, Thelma. She should be in a familiar environment with family or friends.’

‘There is no family. The possibility of her staying with friends has been considered, but the matter is academic because she has rejected the idea out of hand.’

‘Well, I don’t think staying in hospital for an extended period will do her much good.’

‘It’s not practical, anyway.’ Thelma drained her coffee. ‘This is a lovely house, Sam. Large, isn’t it? And quiet.’

‘No, Thelma.’

‘I wasn’t saying…’

‘No.’

‘Just wait a moment,’ Thelma said, with a more insistent tone now. ‘This is a severely troubled girl. Let me tell you what I know about her. Then say no.’ She sat back, marshalling her thoughts. ‘Fiona Mackenzie is nineteen years old. She is academically clever, although not brilliant, and apparently she has always been eager to please and to conform. A slightly anxious girl, in other words. I gather she was quite dominated by her father, who had a very forceful personality. Since puberty, she has been somewhat overweight.’ I remembered the plump, smiling face of the girl in the news. ‘When she was seventeen she had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized in a godawful private unit up in Scotland for almost six months. In the process she lost almost half her body-weight and plumpness became anorexia that nearly killed her.’

‘How long has she been out?’

‘She was discharged in the summer, missing the last term of school and her A levels; I think the plan was that she was going to go to a crammer this year and do them. And then she immediately spent a few months going around South America; I think her parents felt it would mark a new beginning. She’s only been back a couple of weeks, if that. It seems that the people who committed these murders didn’t expect her to be there. It may be the weak link in the crime. Hence the danger she’s in and the help she needs. Aren’t you intrigued?’

‘Sorry, Thelma, the answer is no. For the last eighteen months I haven’t seen Elsie except on weekends, and as soon as she fell asleep on Saturday and Sunday I would do paperwork until two in the morning. Mainly I just remember migraines in a fog of fatigue. If you have seriously considered that I could have a traumatized young woman actually staying in my house where I have my little daughter… And staying here because she may be in danger. It’s not possible.’

Thelma bowed her head in acknowledgement, although I knew her well enough to know she wasn’t convinced.

‘How is little Elsie?’

‘Cross, insubordinate. All the usual. Just started a new school.’ I was worried by the interested, predatory look that came over Thelma’s face when I mentioned Elsie and my home. I had to get on to something else. ‘Your research sounds interesting.’

‘Mmm,’ she said, busily dunking, refusing to be so crudely drawn.

‘I’ve been overseeing some work on trauma in children which might interest you,’ I continued, stubbornly, on the same doomed track. ‘Obviously, you know that children relive past traumas in repetitive play. A team down in Kent is trying to assess the effect this has on their memory of the event.’

‘So it’s not your own research?’

‘No,’ I said with a laugh. ‘The sum total of my research on childhood memory is a mnemonic game that Elsie and I play. It’s just for fun, but I’ve always been interested in systems of organizing mental processes and this is one of the oldest. Elsie and I invented the image of a house, and we know in our minds what it looks like and we can remember things by putting them in different places in the house and then retrieving them when we want to remember them.’

Thelma looked dubious.

‘Can she manage that?’

‘Surprisingly well. When she is in a good mood we can put something on the door, on the doormat, in the kitchen, on the stairs and so on and later she can usually remember them.’

‘It sounds hard work for a five-year-old.’

‘I wouldn’t do it if she didn’t like it. She’s proud of being able to do it.’

‘Or pleased to get your approval,’ Thelma said. She stood up, a dumpy and dishevelled creature covered in crumbs. ‘And now I must go. If you have any more thoughts about our problem, please phone me.’

‘All right.’

‘You can post a reminder to yourself on the front door of Elsie’s imaginary house.’

I felt I needed to say something.

‘You know, when I became a doctor I had an idea about making the world a saner, rational place. I sometimes think that when I began treating victims of trauma, I gave up on the world and just tried to help people deal with it.’

‘That’s not a small thing,’ Thelma said.

I saw her to the door and watched her walk across to the car. I stayed in the doorway for several minutes after she’d gone. It was ridiculous, entirely out of the question. I sat down on the sofa and pondered it.

Seven

‘This crackling’s a bit soft.’ Danny held up a bendy, pale-brown strip that looked as if it had been torn from the sole of a shoe rather than the back of a pig.

‘Blame Asda. Or the microwave. I just followed the instructions on the packet.’

‘I like it chewy. It’s like chewing gum.’

‘Thanks, Elsie, and take your feet off the table – just because you’ve got another INSET day off school doesn’t mean you can start copying Danny and slouching around. Pass the apple sauce, Danny. From a tin,’ I added.

‘Didn’t your mother ever teach you to cook?’

‘Help yourself to some spinach. Microwaved in the bag.’

I slid two slabs of whitish meat on to my plate.

‘Do a bird,’ said Elsie.

‘Wait,’ said Danny.

‘Just a small bird.’

‘All right.’

Danny ripped a corner of a page of a newspaper and made some surprisingly deft movements with his large chafed fingers and, in a few seconds, perkily standing on the table was a something with two legs and a neck that could plausibly be described as a bird. Elsie gave a shriek of approbation. I was impressed as ever.

‘Why is it that men can always do these things?’ I asked. ‘I could never do origami.’

‘This isn’t bloody origami. It’s just a nervous habit for when I’ve got nothing better to do.’

That was certainly true. Already, tiny paper creatures were infesting the house like moths. Elsie was collecting mem.

‘Now I want a puppy,’ she said.

‘Wait,’ said Danny.

‘Can we paint after lunch? I’ve finished anyway. I don’t like it. Can I have ice-cream for pudding?’

‘Have two more mouthfuls. We’re all going for a walk after lunch and…’

‘I don’t want to go for a walk!’ Elsie’s voice climbed up the scales. ‘I’m tired of going for walks. My legs are tired. I’ve got a cough.’ She coughed unconvincingly.

‘Not a walk,’ said Danny quickly. ‘An adventure. We’ll find shells and make a…’ Inspiration failed. ‘Shell-box,’ he said without much conviction.

‘Can I go on your shoulders on the adventure?’

‘If you walk the first bit.’

‘Thanks, Danny,’ I said as Elsie marched out of the room to find a bag for the shells. He shrugged and shovelled a forkful of meat into his mouth. We’d had a good night, and now we were having a reasonable day; no bickerings. He’d said nothing at all about his next job or about having to get back to London – he always spoke about London as if it were an appointment, not a city – nor had I asked him. We were getting on better. We had to talk, but not just yet. I stretched, pushed away my plate; tired, languid and comfortable.

‘It’ll do me good to get out of the house.’

I never went for the walk because, as I was pulling Elsie’s red elephant boots on to her outstretched feet and she was shouting that I was hurting her, we heard a car draw up outside. I straightened up and peered out of the window. A tall stout man with a ruddy face on which he was already preparing a smile got out of the driver’s seat. Out of the passenger seat came Thelma, wearing an extraordinarily unbecoming track suit. I turned to Danny.

‘Maybe it would be nice for you and Elsie if you went off on your adventure alone.’

His expression didn’t change, and he took hold of her hand and led her, ignoring her single squeal of protest, through the kitchen and out of the back door.

‘No.’

‘Miss Laschen…’

‘Dr Laschen.’

‘Sorry. Dr Laschen, I do assure you that I understand your reluctance, but this would be a very temporary arrangement. She needs to be in a safe place, anonymous and protected, with someone who understands her position, just for a short time.’

Detective Inspector Baird gave a reassuring smile. He was so big that as he walked into my living room, ducking his head under the door-frame, leaning against the mantelpiece, he made the house seem frail, as if it were built of canvas flats like a stage set.

‘I have a daughter and a time-consuming job and…’

‘Dr Scott tells me your job at Stamford General is months away.’

I shot a venomous glance at Thelma, who was sitting unconcernedly bang in the middle of the sofa, stroking Anatoly with great deliberation and apparently not listening to anything that was being said. She looked up.

‘Have you got anything to eat with this cup of tea apart from stale custard creams?’ she asked.

‘It’s not practical,’ I said.

Detective Inspector Baird gulped tea. Thelma lifted her glasses away from the bridge of her nose, and I could see the deep red groove they’d made there. She rubbed her eyes. Neither of them said anything.

‘I’ve only just moved here. I wanted a few months off.’ My voice, too high with indignation, filled the quiet room. Shut up, I told myself; just keep your mouth closed. Why didn’t Danny and Elsie come home? ‘This time is important for me. I’m sorry about the girl but…’

‘Yes,’ said Thelma. ‘She needs help.’ She popped a whole custard cream into her mouth and chomped vigorously.

‘I was about to say that I’m sorry about her; however, I don’t think that it’s…’ The sentence trailed away and I couldn’t remember how I was going to end it. ‘How long did you say?’

‘I didn’t. And you must make your own mind up.’

‘Yeah yeah. Detective Inspector Baird, how long?’

‘It would not be more than six weeks, probably much less.’

I stayed silent and thought furiously.

‘If I were to consider it, how would I know I wasn’t putting my daughter at risk? If I decide to have her.’

‘It would be discreet,’ Baird said. ‘Completely. Nobody would know she was here. How would they? It’s just a precaution.’

‘Thelma?’

She peered up at me, a troll come in from the cold. ‘You’re in the right area of expertise, you live near by. You were the obvious choice.’

‘If she came,’ I said feebly, ‘when would she arrive?’

His brow wrinkled as if he were recalling the departure time of a commuter train.

‘Oh,’ he said casually. ‘We thought tomorrow morning would be an appropriate time. Say, nine-thirty.’

‘Appropriate? Make it eleven-thirty.’

‘Good, and that means that her doctor will be able to accompany her,’ said Baird. ‘So that’s all settled.’

Thelma took my hand as she left.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, but she wasn’t.

‘I’ll be gone before she arrives.’

‘Danny, you don’t need to go; I just think it would be a bad idea to be round when…’

‘Don’t talk shit, Sam. When you were deciding about this girl, did I come into the equation?’ He stared at me. ‘I didn’t, did I? You could at least have talked to me about it before saying yes, pretended that it mattered what I thought about it. Is this girl’s future more important to you than ours?’

I could have said that he was right and I was sorry, except I knew I wasn’t going to go back on my agreement to take the girl. I could have pleaded. I could have become angry in response. Instead I tried to reconcile our differences in the old familiar way. I put my arms around him, I pushed back his hair and stroked his stubbly cheek and kissed the corner of his furious mouth and started to undo the button on his shirt. But Danny pushed me away angrily.

‘Fuck me and I’ll forget, eh?’

He pulled on his shoes and picked up the jacket which he’d slung over a chair.

‘Are you going?’

‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ He paused in the doorway. ‘Bye Sam, see you. Maybe.’

Eight

The most tiresome thing about having a guest – or in this case a pseudo-guest – coming to call is the apparent tradition that you are meant to clear up for them. Fiona Mackenzie was due mid morning. This gave me a couple of hours after taking Elsie to school to dither around the house. I had to be tactical about this. Clearing up the house in any meaningful sense was obviously impractical. Establishing order was an even more forlorn hope which needed to be explored in detail with Sally. But Sally was very slow and she had a complicated emotional life and any conversation with her got lost in its labyrinths. For the moment I had time to push a few things out of the way so that doors could be entered, hallways walked along, chairs sat on.

The surface of the kitchen table was almost invisible, but it only took the transfer of Elsie’s bowl and cup into the sink, the stowing of her cereal packets into a cupboard, the disposal of a few days’ worth of opened envelopes in the bin, and almost half of it was available for use once more. I pushed the window above the kitchen sink slightly up and opened the door to the garden. The house would at least smell a bit cleaner. I wandered up and down looking for anything else that I could tidy up. One of the radiators was leaking rusty liquid on to the floor so I put a cup under it. I looked into the lavatory and thought about cleaning it. I needed bleach or one of those liquids with nozzles designed for squirting under the rim. I made do with flushing it. That was enough for one day.

Looking from a first-floor window, I could see sunlight streaking the lawn and I could hear a bird singing in a twittery sort of way. Things like this were presumably among the benefits of living in this godforsaken bit of countryside. One was supposed to find bird-song beautiful. Was it a skylark? A nightingale? Or did they only sing at night? A robin? A pigeon? Except that I knew that pigeons cooed instead of singing. I was running out of birds. I ought to get a book about bird-song. Or a CD or something.

This was all wrong. I was curious, but most of all I was irritated at having committed myself to an arrangement which was out of my control. I felt bad about Danny; worse than bad – uneasy. I knew I ought to ring and admit I was wrong, but I kept putting it off. I find it hard to be in the wrong. I made myself some instant coffee and compiled a cross list inside my head: it was a distraction for me; a waste of my time; it was an unprofessional way to deal with a person who needed help; it might even be dangerous; it would do no good for Elsie; I didn’t like the idea of somebody else in my space; and I didn’t like the idea of indistinct, open-ended commitments. I felt exploited and sulky. I retrieved one of the old envelopes from the bin and made a real list.

As eleven-thirty approached, I hovered near the window which looked out at the approach to the house. Another morning entirely wasted. I tried to tell myself that I should be savouring these entirely useless bits of filler time. After years without a spare moment I was wandering around from room to room without even being able to form a coherent impulse. Finally I heard a car pulling up near the front door. I looked out of the window, keeping myself far enough back so that I would be invisible to anybody looking up at the house. It was an entirely anonymous four-door thing, wedge-shaped like a supermarket cheddar. There were no blue lights or orange lines. Three of the doors opened at once. Baird and another man in a suit got out of the front seats. From the rear door stepped a man in a long charcoal-grey overcoat. He straightened up with obvious relief, for he was tall. He looked around briefly, and I glimpsed a swing of lank dark-blond hair, a thin and aquiline face. He bent down and looked back inside the car and I thought of the way, only a year ago, I had cursed the straps on Elsie’s baby-seat, the awkward angles at which I had had to extract her from the old Fiat. I saw a jeaned leg emerge and then a young woman stepped out. She was blurred by the coarse grain of the old window. I saw jeans, a navy-blue jacket, dark hair, pale skin, nothing else. I heard a knock at the door and walked down the stairs.

Baird stepped into my house with an avuncular, possessive air that repelled me. I suspected that all of this wasn’t his idea, or at least that I wasn’t his idea, but that he was going to make a show of seeing it through. He stepped to one side to allow the others to pass. The man in the long coat was leading the girl by the arm, gently.

‘This is DC Angeloglou,’ Baird said. ‘And this is Dr Daley.’ The man gave me a curt nod. He was unshaven but looked none the worse for that. He looked around him with narrowed eyes. He seemed suspicious, as well he might. ‘And here is Miss Fiona Mackenzie. Finn Mackenzie.’

I held my hand out to her, but she wasn’t looking at me and didn’t see it. I turned the action into a meaningless fluttery gesture. I invited them through to where there was a sofa and we all sat down awkwardly. I offered them tea. Baird said that Angeloglou would make it. Angeloglou stood up looking irritated. I went with him, leaving silence behind us in the sitting room.

‘Is this really a good idea?’ I whispered as I rinsed out some mugs.

He shrugged.

‘It might do some good,’ he said. ‘We’ve got sod all else, but don’t tell anyone I said so.’

When we returned, it was to a silent room. Baird had picked up an old magazine from the floor and was looking at it absently. Dr Daley had removed his coat and, wearing a rather startling yellow shirt which might have come from an expensive Italian designer or from an Oxfam shop, was sitting beside Finn on the sofa. I held out two mugs of tea and Daley took them both and placed them on the table. He felt in his trouser pockets as if he’d lost something and didn’t know what it was.

‘Can I smoke?’ His voice was almost unnaturally deep, with a certain languid drawl. I remembered the type from med school. Socially assured in a way I never felt myself to be.

‘I’ll get an ashtray,’ I said. ‘Or an equivalent.’

I immediately felt more at home with him than with Baird or Angeloglou. He was well over six foot; the cigarette packet looked slightly too small in his long-fingered hands. He lit a cigarette immediately and was soon tapping the ash into the saucer I gave him. He must have been in his mid forties, but he was hard to assess because he looked tired and distracted. He had dark smudges under his grey eyes and his straight sheet of hair was a bit greasy. It was a curiously crowded face, with fierce eyebrows, high cheek-bones and a wide, sardonic mouth. Finn looked small and frail and rather bland beside him. The paleness of her face was only accentuated by her thick dark hair and her sombre clothes. She had evidently not eaten for days; she was gaunt, her cheek-bones prominent. She was unnaturally still, except that her eyes flickered, never settling on anything. Her neck was bandaged and the fingers of her right hand constantly strayed to the edge of it, picking at it.

I ought to be saying that my heart went out to this cruelly abused creature, but I felt too compromised and confused for that. This was an absurd setting for meeting a new patient, but then she wasn’t my patient, was she? But exactly what was she? What was I meant to be? Her doctor? Older sister? Best friend? A stool-pigeon? Some kind of amateur police forensic psychologist sniffing for clues?

‘Are you enjoying life in the country, Dr Laschen?’ asked Baird airily.

I ignored him.

‘Dr Daley,’ I said, ‘I think it would be a good idea if you and Finn went upstairs to look at the room where Finn will be staying. It’s the room at the back on the left looking over the garden. You can have a look round and tell me if I’ve forgotten anything.’

Dr Daley looked quizzically at Baird.

‘Yes, now,’ I said.

He led Finn out of the room and I heard them mounting the stairs slowly. I turned to Baird and Angeloglou.

‘Shall we step out into some of this countryside that I’m meant to be enjoying so much? You can take your tea with you.’

Baird shook his head as he saw the state of my kitchen garden.

‘I know,’ I admitted, kicking a pink plastic object Elsie must have dropped out of the way. ‘I had this vision of being self-supporting.’

‘Not this year,’ said Angeloglou.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It seems as if I’ve got other things to do. Look, Inspector…’

‘Call me Rupert.’

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.

‘Are you serious? All right. Rupert. Before I start anything, there are some things we need to talk about.’

I extracted the old envelope from the pocket of my jeans.

‘Is this official?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘I don’t give a fuck whether it’s official or not. You got my name as an authority on trauma.’

‘An authority on trauma with an isolated house in the country near Stamford.’

‘Fine, well, I should start by saying, even if it’s only to you two that, in my professional capacity, I don’t consider this to be professional.’

‘It’s convenient.’

‘I don’t know whose convenience we’re talking about, but Finn ought to be in familiar surroundings with people she knows and trusts.’

‘The people she knows and trusts are dead. Apart from that, she has absolutely refused to see anybody she knows. Except for Dr Daley, of course.’

‘As I’m sure you’ve been told, Rupert, that is a standard response to what she’s been through, and it’s not in itself a justification for projecting her into an entirely new environment.’

‘And we have some reason to believe that her life could be in danger.’

‘All right, we’re not arguing about that. I just wanted to give you my objective medical opinion.’ I looked down at my envelope. ‘Secondly, do you see me as playing some sort of informal part in your investigation, because if you do…’

‘Not at all, Dr Laschen,’ Baird said in a soothing tone that enraged me. ‘Quite the contrary. As you know, Miss Mackenzie has said nothing about the murders. But there’s no question of you being expected to poke around trying to stir up memories and find out clues. This would do more harm than good. Anyway, I understand that this is not your therapeutic style.’

‘That’s right.’

‘If Miss Mackenzie should wish to make a statement, she is no different from any other citizen. Just contact me and we will be glad to hear what she has to say. We in our turn may occasionally visit her here as part of our inquiries.’

‘What makes you think she’s under threat?’

Baird did a mock double take.

‘Have you seen her throat?’

‘Do murderers normally come back if they’ve failed the first time?’

‘This is an unusual case. They wanted to kill the entire family.’

‘Rupert, I’m not interested in the details of your investigation. But if you’re trusting me to look after Finn, you must trust me with any relevant information.’

‘Fair enough. Chris?’

Angeloglou, caught with a mouthful of tea, choked and spluttered.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s possible that there is an animal rights connection. It’s a line of inquiry.’

‘Why would they want to kill Finn?’

‘To save little pigs from having lotions and potions administered to wounds deliberately fostered in their flesh. She is guilty by family association.’

A sudden thought occurred to me.

‘When I was at university I was part of a group of hunt saboteurs. For a bit. I was arrested and cautioned.’

‘Yes, we know.’

‘Well, how do you know she’s safe with me?’

‘You’ve taken the Hippocratic oath, haven’t you?’

‘Doctors don’t take the Hippocratic oath any more. That’s a myth.’

‘Oh,’ said Baird, disconcerted. ‘Well, please don’t kill her, Dr Laschen. The investigation’s going slowly enough as it is.’

I looked at my envelope once more.

‘I have friends, a child, people coming to the house. What am I supposed to tell them? I’ve already told Danny – my, uh, boyfriend – who she is.’

‘It’s best to keep it simple. Complicated stories have a way of going wrong. Couldn’t she be some sort of student, staying with you? What about that?’

I was silent for a long time. I couldn’t deal with this.

‘I’m not interested in all these cloak-and-dagger games. I can’t manage it and it’s not going to be much help to Finn.’

‘That’s why we’re making it as simple as we possibly can. Dr Laschen, I know this isn’t ideal. Other arrangements would probably be worse.’

‘All right, I suppose I’ve already agreed.’

‘She could be helping you.’

‘I wish.’

‘And you don’t have to change her name much. Call her Fiona Jones. That should be easy for us all to remember.’

‘All right. But listen to me, Rupert, I reserve the right at any time to terminate this arrangement. If you don’t agree to that, you can take her away with you now. If, at any time, I feel this charade is bad for me, bad for my daughter or, for God’s sake, bad for Finn, then it ends. All right?’

‘Of course, Dr Laschen. But you’ll be fine. We all have great confidence in you.’

‘If that’s so, then your confidence is too easily earned.’

When we returned inside, I asked Dr Daley to help me take the mugs back to the kitchen. I wanted to talk to him alone. There was no chance of Finn following us through. There seemed to be no chance of that poor damaged girl doing anything at all.

‘Sorry to lure you into the kitchen,’ I said. ‘We should have had a proper talk before Finn arrived, but it all seems to be beyond my control. Which I don’t like.’

Dr Daley smiled with an automatic politeness. I stepped forward and looked at him.

‘How are you?’

He returned my assessing stare. He had very deep eyes, opaque. I liked that. Then his face relaxed into a smile.

‘It’s not been a good time,’ he said.

‘Are you sleeping?’ I asked.

‘I’m fine,’ he said.

‘You don’t have to impress me. You can save all that for your practice manager. I like vulnerable men.’

He laughed and then was silent for a moment. He lit a cigarette.

‘I feel I could have handled this better. And I’m sorry about all this as well,’ he said, gesturing with a vague kind of grace, as if at the whole situation in which we found ourselves. ‘I’ve only been obeying orders.’

I didn’t say anything. He began talking as if he couldn’t tolerate the silence.

‘Incidentally, I wanted the chance to tell you that I read your article in the BMJ, ‘The Invention of a Syndrome’, or whatever it was called, the one that caused all the fuss. It was splendid.’

‘Thanks. I didn’t think doctors like you would read it.’

His colour rose slightly and his eyes narrowed.

‘You mean a GP out in the provinces.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. I meant a doctor outside the speciality.’

It was an awkward moment, but then Daley smiled again.

‘I can remember a bit of it by heart: “dogma, based on unexamined premises and unsupported by demonstration”. The stress counsellors must have needed some counselling of their own after reading that.’

‘Why do you think I’m out here in the sticks setting up my own unit? Who else would employ me? By the way, I mean “the sticks” in the nicest possible way.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Dr Daley. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and picked up the mugs. ‘You wash, I’ll dry.’

‘No, you wash and then put them in the rack and they can dry on their own. How is Finn?’

‘Well, the superficial lacerations…’

‘I don’t mean that. You’re her doctor, what do you make of her?’

‘Dr Laschen…’

‘Call me Sam.’

‘And call me Michael. If you mean her mood, her degree of shock, then I’m talking beyond my field of competence.’

‘That doesn’t stop other people. What do you think?’

‘I think she is severely traumatized by what happened. Understandably traumatized, I would say.’

‘How is her speech?’

‘You mean from her injuries? It has been affected. There is some degree of laryngeal paralysis. There may have been minor lesions in the vocal cords.’

‘Any stridor or dysphonia?’

Daley paused in his scouring of a mug.

‘Is this your field?’

‘More like a hobby. It’s one up from stamp-collecting. Or one down.’

‘Perhaps you should have a word with Dr Daun at Stamford General,’ said Daley, returning to his scrubbing. ‘Anyway, she’s all yours now.’

‘No, she isn’t,’ I replied. ‘She’s your patient. I insist on that. This is irregular enough as it is. I’m helping out in an informal, I hope, supportive way. But I understand you’ve been her GP for years, and it’s absolutely essential that you should remain in place in her eyes as the doctor. Is that acceptable to you?’

‘Sure. I’ll do anything at all to help.’

‘I hope you’ll come to see her regularly then; you’re her only link to the world she comes from.’

‘There we are, finished,’ he said, having washed up not just the mugs but my breakfast things and yesterday’s dinner things as well. ‘I should say that I felt dubious about this. I mean about this as a plan. But the way it’s worked out, I don’t think Finn could be in better hands.’

‘I hope everybody is going to carry on being this supportive of me when it has all gone wrong.’

‘Why should it go wrong?’ Daley asked, but he laughed as he said it, his eyebrows slanting into a dark upturned ‘V’. ‘The only thing I want to say is that I’m worried about Finn being so cut off from her normal surroundings, from people she knows.’

‘I feel the same, I promise.’

‘You know about these things, but if I could just make a single suggestion, it would be that we should arrange for her to see people. Assuming that’s what she wants and the police agree, of course.’

‘We’ll take it slowly for a bit, shall we?’

‘You’re the doctor,’ Daley said. ‘Well, I’m a doctor as well, but what I mean is you’re the doctor.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I protested. ‘I’m a doctor. You’re a doctor. And we’ll just try to make the best of this stupid and tragic situation that we possibly can. Meanwhile, I shall want the details of medication, history and so on, and your number. I don’t want to have to go to Baird every time I need some information.’

‘It’s all in my bag in the car.’

‘One more thing. This situation is ridiculously vague, so I want to be firm about one thing. I’m going to tell you and I’m going to tell Baird that I want a strict time-limit for all of this.’

Daley looked taken aback.

‘What do you mean?’

‘If things work out, there’s the danger that we’ll become a replacement family for Finn in her new life. That’s no good. What’s the date now, January the twenty-fifth, isn’t it?’

‘The twenty-sixth.’

‘I’m going to be clear with Finn that whatever happens, however things go, this arrangement is until the middle of March – let’s call it March the fifteenth – and no more. All right?’

‘Fine,’ said Daley. ‘I’m sure it will be less than that anyway.’

‘Good. So, shall we join the ladies?’

‘You think it’s a joke, Sam. You wait until you get invited for dinner by the neighbours.’

‘I’m looking forward to it. I’ve already got my face-powder ready.’

Nine

I turned to face the girl. I hadn’t looked at her properly until now. Her pale oval face, behind the swing of dark-brown hair, was perfectly expressionless. Under her neat thick eyebrows, her brown eyes were unfocused. She was attractive, she could be lovely in different circumstances, but hers was a face from which all character seemed to have been wiped.

‘Let me show you round the house,’ I said. ‘Though that won’t take long.’

She stooped to pick up the small suitcase which was beside her, although she looked too weak and listless to carry anything at all.

‘Here, let me take that for you. We’ll start with your bedroom, though you’ve seen that already.’ She flinched as my hand touched hers on the handle of her case. ‘Your hands are cold; I’ll put the heating on in a minute. Come this way.’

I led the way up the stairs, Finn following obediently behind. So far, she had not said a word.

‘Here. I’m sorry about all the boxes; we can move them into the attic later.’ I put her suitcase by the bed, where it stood, forlornly small in the high-ceilinged room. ‘It’s all a bit bare, I’m afraid.’ Finn stood in the middle of the room, not looking. Her arms hung by her sides, pale fingers loose as if they didn’t belong to her at all. I gestured vaguely at the wardrobe and small chest of drawers that Danny had found for me in a nearby village. ‘You can put your stuff in there.’

I led the way back into the corridor. I saw something small and white and angular on the floor. I crouched and picked it up delicately between two fingers.

‘And this, Finn, is a paper bird created by my semi-detached partner, Danny.’ Was he still my semi-detached partner, or had he become quite detached? I pushed the thought away for later. ‘Look, I can make it flap, sort of. Lovely, don’t you think? After living in this house for a few days you will start to find these little creatures among your clothes, in your hair, sticking to you, in your food. They get everywhere. Men, eh?’

I was talking to myself largely.

‘That’s my room. And this’ – she walked two feet behind me and stopped when I stopped – ‘is the room of my little girl, Elsie.’ The door jammed on a jumble of blonde-maned Barbie dolls, pencil cases and plastic ponies. ‘Elsie is short for Elsie.’ I looked at Finn and she didn’t laugh – well, what I had said wasn’t particularly funny – but she gave me a little nod, more like a single convulsive jerk. I saw the plaster around her throat.

Downstairs I showed Finn my study (‘out of bounds to everyone’), the living room, the kitchen. I pulled open the fridge door.

‘Feel free to take whatever you want. I don’t cook but I do shop.’

I pointed out tea and coffee and the hole where the washing machine would be and I told her about Linda and Sally and the routines. ‘And that’s about it, except of course that’s the garden’ – I pointed out of the window at the soggy undergrowth, the mulched heaps of leaves that hadn’t been cleared, the frayed edges of the balding lawn – ‘ungardened.’

Finn turned her head, but still I couldn’t tell if she saw anything at all. I peered into the fridge again and pulled out a carton of country vegetable soup.

‘I’m going to heat us up some soup. Why don’t you go and get freshened up in the bathroom, then we can have lunch together.’ She stood, stranded in the kitchen. ‘Upstairs,’ I said encouragingly, pointing, and watched as she turned slowly round and made her way up the broad shallow steps, one at a time and stopping on each step, so slowly, like a very old woman.

Sometimes I see trauma victims who don’t speak for weeks on end; sometimes words pour from them like a great muddy flood with no barriers. Quite recently a middle-aged man came to me after being in a train crash that he had been lucky to survive. All his life, he’d been reticent, buttoned up. In the crash he’d emptied his bowels (his phrase, through puckered-up lips) in shock, something that seemed to affect him as deeply as all the deaths he had witnessed. Afterwards, when he was released from hospital, he became incontinent with speech. He told me how he would stand at the bus stop, walk into a shop, stand at his front door, and tell anyone who came near him what had happened to him. He played the scene over and over, yet got no relief from its telling. It was just like scratching an unbearable itch. Finn would speak in her own time; when she spoke I would be there to hear, if it was to me she chose to speak. In the meantime she needed to be given a structure to feel safe in.

I looked at her as she lifted very small puddles of soup in her spoon and carried them carefully to her mouth. What would she say if she could talk?

‘Elsie gets back here at six,’ I said. ‘Some days it might be earlier; often I collect her from school myself. She’s excited that you’re coming. I will tell her only what we’ll tell other people: that you’re a student who is staying with us. Fiona Jones.’

Finn got up, the chair scraping noisily against the tiles of the floor in the kitchen that was too quiet, and took her bowl, still half-full of soup, over to the sink. She washed it and balanced it on the draining-board among all the other dishes, and she sat down at the table once more, facing me and not looking at me. She put her hands around the cup of tea I’d made for her and shivered. Then she raised her velvet eyes to mine and stared at me. It was the first time she had done so and I was unaccountably startled. I felt as if I could see into her skull.

‘You’re safe here, Finn,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything unless you want to; you don’t have to do anything. But you’re safe.’

The second-hand on the kitchen clock, the glowing green digits clicking over on my radio clock, the deep metronome of the grandfather clock’s pendulum in the hall, all agreed with me that it was a long, slow afternoon. Time, which had always hurtled through my days, slowed to a painful dawdle.

I ran Finn a hot bath, which I filled with my favourite bath oil. She went into the bathroom, locked the door, and I heard the sound of undressing and of her getting in, but she was out again and dressed in the same clothes as before in under five minutes. I asked her to help me choose curtains for her room, and we knelt by the piles of fabric that I pulled out from under my bed where I’d stored them, and she watched as I held up pleated lengths and said nothing. So I chose her something cheerful in dull red and yellow and navy, though it was much too long for the small square window, and hung it up. I left her in her bedroom so she could unpack, thinking she might like to be alone there for a bit. Before I left the room I saw her looking into her open case at clothes which were all still in their packets. A few minutes later she came downstairs again and stood in the doorway of my study where I was tidying away folders. I took her out into the garden, hoping that the bulbs the previous owner was sure to have planted had poked through the neglected soil, but all we found were a few snowdrops in a cracked flowerpot.

We went back inside and I lit a fire (mostly consisting of firelighters and tightly crumpled balls of newspapers), and she sat a while in my only easy chair, staring into the erratic flames. I sat near her, on the rug, reading through chess problems I’d saved up from the week’s papers. Anatoly clattered through the cat flap and into the living room, and he pushed his moist jaw against my hunched knees a few times and then lay between us. Two women and a cat by the fire: it was almost cosy.

Then Finn spoke. Her voice was low, husky.

‘I’m bleeding.’

I looked in horror at her neck, but of course she didn’t mean that. Her eyebrows were puckered in a kind of vacant puzzlement.

‘That’s OK.’ I stood up. ‘I’ve got plenty of Tampax and towels and stuff in the bathroom. I should have thought to tell you. Come on.’

‘I’m bleeding,’ she said again, this time almost whispering. I took hold of her thin, chilly hand and pulled her to her feet. She was several inches shorter than me and she looked terribly young. Too young to bleed.

‘This,’ said Elsie, ‘is a shoulder.’ She plunged her thin rectangle of toast into the runny yolk and sucked it noisily; it slipped down her chin like yellow glue. ‘Do you have shoulders?’ She didn’t wait for a reply; it was as if Finn’s silence had loosened her own guarded tongue. ‘We had chicken nuggets today and Alexander Cassell’ – she pronounced it Ale-xxonder – ‘put his in his pocket and they squished together.’ She gave a squeal of appreciation and sucked her toast again. ‘Finished. Do you want to come and see my drawing?’ She slithered from her chair. ‘This way. My mummy says I draw better than her. Do you think that’s true? My favourite colour’s pink and Mummy’s is black but I hate black except I like Anatoly and he’s all black like a panther. What’s yours?’

Elsie didn’t seem to notice that Finn wasn’t replying. She displayed her picture of her house with a front door up to the roof and two crooked windows, she showed her how she could do somersaults, crashing into the legs of the chair, and then she demanded a video and together they sat through the whole of 101 Dalmatians, Finn in the chair, Elsie on the rug, both staring at the screen full of puppies, Finn vacantly and Elsie avidly, and when I took Elsie up for her bath (‘why do I always have to have baths?’) Finn stayed staring at the blank screen.

Evenings would be the worst, I thought: stretches of time with just the two of us and no structure and Finn just sitting and waiting, but waiting for nothing. I thought of the way she’d looked at me. I rummaged through the freezer: Marks & Spencer steak and kidney pudding, Sainsbury’s chicken kiev, a packet of lasagne (serves two), spinach and cheese pie (serves one). I pulled out the lasagne and put it in the microwave to defrost. Perhaps there were some frozen peas. I wondered where Danny was; I wondered who he was with, and if he had sought comfort and pleasure elsewhere, taking his rage to a different bed. Was he with someone else now, as I nursed a mute invalid? Was he laying his roughened hands on someone else’s compliant body? For a few moments, at the thought, I could hardly breathe. I suppose he would say that I’d been unfaithful to him, in my fashion. Finn, sitting passively in the next-door room, represented a kind of treachery. I wished he was here now and I was heating up lasagne and peas for him instead; then we could have watched a movie on the telly and gone up to bed together and pressed up against each other in the dark. I wished that I could banish Finn, and my foolish and hasty decision to take her in, and return to the past of two days ago.

‘Here we are.’ I carried the tray into the living room, but Finn wasn’t there. I called upstairs, at first not loudly, then with greater impatience. No answer. Eventually I knocked at her bedroom door, then opened it. She lay, fully clothed, on her bed. Her thumb was in her mouth. I pulled the duvet over her, and as I did so her eyes opened. She glared at me and then turned her head to the wall.

And so ended Finn’s first day. Except later that night when I’d gone to bed myself and outside it was quite dark in the way that only the countryside can be dark, I heard a thump from Finn’s room. Then another, louder. I pulled on my dressing gown and padded along the chilly corridor. She lay quite asleep, both hands covering her face like someone hiding from an intrusive camera. I went back to my warm bed and heard nothing more except the hoot of an owl, the sigh of the wind, horrible unfiltered country sounds, until morning.

Ten

Finn was a chilly presence in the house. I’d see her out of the corner of my eye: slumped somewhere, shuffling somewhere. In all the debates about safety and status, what hadn’t been discussed was what she was actually meant to do in my house from hour to hour. In the first couple of days she was with us she woke early; I heard the slap of naked feet on the bare boards of the landing. At breakfast-time I knocked on her bedroom door, asking if I could bring her anything. There was no reply. I saw nothing of her until I returned from driving Elsie to school. She would be sitting on the sofa watching daytime television, game shows, public confessions, news broadcasts, Australian soap operas. She was impassive, almost immobile, except for worrying at the plaster on her neck. Fidget, fidget, fidget. I brought her coffee, black with no sugar, and she took it and cupped her hands around it as if to draw its warmth into herself. That was the closest to human contact for the whole day. I brought her toast but half an hour later it was untouched, the butter congealed.

When I encountered Finn, I would talk to her casually, in the sort of spirit that you might speak to a patient in deep coma, not knowing whether it was for your benefit or theirs. Here’s some coffee. Mind your hands. It’s a nice day. Budge up. What are you watching? The occasional questions came out by mistake and provoked awkward silences. I was embarrassed and furious with myself for being embarrassed. I was professionally as well as personally discomfited. This was supposed to be my field and I was behaving absurdly, as well as ineffectually. But it was the situation itself that was disastrous, not my behaviour within it. Admitting a severely traumatized woman to my home, establishing her in the context of my own family, such as it was, was contrary to any normal procedure. And I was missing Danny in a way that took me by surprise.

As I drove to Elsie’s school in the afternoon of Finn’s third mute day, I went over possibilities in my mind. I walked into Elsie’s class and found her engaged in a picture almost as large as herself. She was glaring with ferocious concentration and gouging a few final touches into it with a black crayon. I knelt beside her and looked over her shoulder. I could smell her soft skin, feel her cotton-wool hair against my cheek.

‘That’s a good elephant,’ I said.

‘It’s a horse,’ she said firmly.

‘It looks like an elephant,’ I protested. ‘It’s got a trunk.’

‘It looks like an elephant,’ Elsie said, ‘but it’s a horse.’

I wasn’t going to let this go.

‘I look like an ordinary woman. Could I be a horse?’

Elsie looked up at me with a new-found interest.

‘Are you?’

I felt a stab of remorse at what I was allowing to be inflicted on this cross little flaxen-haired goblin. I should be doing something for her. I had to do something. Straight away. I looked around.

‘Who have you been playing with, Elsie?’

‘Nobody.’

‘No, really, who?’

‘Mungo.’

‘Apart from Mungo.’

‘Nobody.’

‘Name one person you’ve been playing with.’

‘Penelope.’

I went to the teacher, Miss Karlin, a teacherly dream in a long flowery dress and wire-rimmed spectacles, her hair carelessly tied up, and asked her to point out Penelope, and she told me that there was nobody in the class or, indeed, the school with that name. So could she point out somebody that Elsie had played with or stood next to for more than two minutes? Miss Karlin pointed to a mousy-brown-haired girl called Kirsty. So I loitered at the edge of the class like a private detective and when a woman approached Kirsty and attempted to insert her into a little duffle-coat, I accosted her.

‘Hello,’ I said ruthlessly, ‘I’m very glad that Elsie – that’s my little girl over there on the floor – and Kirsty have become such good friends.’

‘Have they? I didn’t…’

‘Kirsty must come and play at Elsie’s house.’

‘Well, maybe…’

‘What about tomorrow?’

‘Well, Kirsty’s not really used…’

‘It’ll be fine, Miss Karlin tells me that they’re absolutely inseparable. Linda will pick them both up and I’ll drop Kirsty back. Could you give me your address? Or would you prefer to collect her?’

That was Elsie’s social life sorted out. The rest of the day was unsatisfactory. After we arrived home, I steered Elsie away from Finn’s presence as much as was possible. The two of us ate alone together and then I took Elsie up to her room. She had a bath and I sat on the edge of her bed and read books to her.

‘Is Fing here?’

‘Finn.’

‘Fing.’

‘Finn.’

‘Fing.’

‘Fin-n-n-n-n-n.’

‘Fing-ng-ng-ng.’

I gave up.

‘Yes, she is.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I think she’s asleep,’ I lied.

‘Why?’

‘She’s tired.’

‘Is she ill?’

‘No. She just needs rest.’

This stalled Elsie for long enough for me to get her on to another subject.

On the following morning, I made a dismal attempt at retreating to my room and staring at the computer screen. I double-clicked the chess program. I thought I might as well have a quick one. A king’s pawn opening, the program took me into a complicated version of the Sicilian Defence. Without much thought, I established a favourable pawn structure and simplified with a series of exchanges. The program’s position was losing but it took a long and intricate series of manoeuvres to queen a pawn. Served the machine right, and a whole hour had gone. Bloody hell. Time for work.

I took a business card out of my pocket and ran it along the interstices of my keyboard. I managed to prod out a surprising amount of dust, fluff and hair that had been trapped underneath, so I began to tackle the problem systematically. I ran the card between the number line of keys and the QWERTY line, between the QWERTY line and the ASDF line, between the asdf line and the ZXCV line. By the end I had a small grubby pile, about enough to stuff the pillow of a dormouse. I blew it hard and it drifted down behind my desk.

The very idea of getting any work done was absurd. I hate spiders. It is a ridiculous distaste, because I know how interesting they are and all that, but I can’t bear them. I felt as if I had glimpsed a spider in the room and it had scuttled away. I knew it was in the room somewhere and I could think of nothing else. Finn was in the house and I felt as if she was rattling around in my brain. I looked at the business card, the corners of which were now grubby and curled. It was the one that Michael Daley had left with me. I dialled the number of his surgery. He wasn’t there and I left my name. Less than a minute later he rang back.

‘How’s she doing?’ he asked immediately.

I described Finn’s demeanour and expressed my doubts about the whole affair. When I had finished, there was a long silence.

‘Are you there?’

‘Yes,’ Daley started to say something and then stopped. ‘I’m not sure what to say. I think you’re being put in an impossible position. I’m worried about Finn as well. Let me think about this.’

‘To be honest, Michael, I think this is a farce. I don’t believe it’s doing anybody any good.’

‘You’re probably right. We must talk.’

‘We are talking.’

‘Sorry, yes. Can I come and see her?’

‘When?’

‘Straight away.’

‘Haven’t you got surgery?’

‘It’s finished and I’ve got a spare hour.’

‘That’s fine. Christ, Michael, a doctor who offers to make housecalls. We should have you stuffed.’

Daley arrived barely a quarter of an hour later. He was dressed for work, with a dark suit, a bright tie and a jacket. He’d shaved and brushed his hair, but he had a pleasingly incongruous appearance. His expression was concerned, unsettled even.

‘Can I see her?’

‘Sure, she’s watching TV. Take as much time as you want. Do you want tea or something?’

‘Later. Give me a few minutes. I’d like a look at her.’

Daley disappeared into the living room and shut the door. I picked up a newspaper and waited. I could hear the TV through the wall, nothing else. After some time, he emerged, looking as sombre as before. He came through to me in the kitchen.

‘I’ll have that tea now,’ he said. He ran his hand through his hair.

I filled the kettle and plugged it in.

‘Well?’

‘She didn’t speak to me either. I had a quick look at her. Physically, she’s fine. As you already know.’

‘That’s not the issue, is it?’

‘No.’

I moved mugs around, found tea-bags, rattled spoons, while waiting for the kettle to boil.

‘A watched kettle takes about three minutes to boil,’ I said.

Michael didn’t reply. Finally, I put two mugs of tea in front of him and sat opposite.

‘I can’t give you my undivided attention for long,’ I said. ‘Linda will be back with Elsie and Elsie’s new friend, or ersatz friend at least.’

‘I’ve got to go anyway,’ said Michael. ‘Look, Sam, I’m sorry about you having been landed with all this. It’s not working. And it’s not your fault. Don’t do anything. Give me a day or so. I’ll ring Baird and we’ll get her off your hands.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ I said uneasily. ‘It’s not a question of getting anybody off my hands.’

‘No, no, of course not. I’m speaking as Finn’s doctor. I don’t believe this is appropriate for her. Secondly, and quite separately, it’s no good for you either. I’ll ring you tomorrow afternoon and let you know what we’re going to do.’

He rested his head in the cup of one hand and smiled at me. ‘OK?’

‘I’m sorry about this, Michael,’ I said. ‘I hate feeling that I can’t do something, but this…’ I gave a shrug.

‘Absolutely,’ he said.

The first appearance of Kirsty was not promising. Elsie ran straight past me. Linda came in holding a grim-faced child by the hand.

‘Hello, Kirsty,’ I said.

‘I want my mummy,’ she said.

‘Do you want an apple?’

‘No.’

‘I want to go home,’ Kirsty said, and she began to cry, really cry, with big tears running over her red cheeks.

I picked her up and carried her through to the living room. Finn wasn’t there, thank Christ. Holding Kirsty in my left arm, I pulled a box of toys from behind the sofa and shouted to Linda to bring Elsie down, by force if necessary. There were dolls without clothes, clothes without dolls.

‘Would you like to dress the dollies, Kirsty?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Kirsty.

An equally cross Elsie was dragged into the room.

‘Elsie, wouldn’t you like to help Kirsty dress the dollies?’

‘No.’

The phone rang out in the hall.

‘Answer that, Linda. You love the dollies, don’t you, Elsie? Why don’t you show them to Kirsty?’

‘Don’t want to.’

‘You’re supposed to be fucking friends.’

Both of them were crying when Linda came back into the room.

‘It’s a Thelma for you,’ she said.

‘Christ, tell her to… no, I’d better take it in my office. Don’t let anybody leave this room.’

Thelma was ringing to find out how it was going, and I described the situation as quickly as I could. Even so, it was more than twenty minutes before I could get off the line and I left my office expecting screams and blood on the walls and legal action from Kirsty’s mother and the intervention of Essex social services and an inquiry culminating in my being struck off. Instead, the first sound I heard was miniature tinkling laughter. Linda must be a miracle worker, I thought to myself, but as I turned the corner I saw Linda standing in the hall by the partially open door.

‘What…?’ I began, but she held a finger to her lips and gestured me forwards with a smile.

I tiptoed towards her and stared through the crack. There was a thin scream of delight which crumbled into gurgling laughter.

‘Where’d it go?’

‘I don’t know.’

Whose voice was that? It couldn’t be.

‘You do, you do,’ two little voices were insisting.

‘But I think it might be in Kirsty’s ear. Shall we look? Yes, there it is.’

There were more tiny shrieks.

‘Do it again, Fing. Do it again.’

Elsie and Kirsty were kneeling on the carpet. Very slowly, I peered round the edge of the door. Finn was sitting in front of them holding a little yellow ball from the play-box between the thumb and index finger of her left hand.

‘I don’t think I can,’ she said and rubbed her hands together, transferring the ball from her left to her right hand. ‘But maybe we can try.’ She held her left hand forward. ‘Can you blow?’

Elsie and Kirsty blew with furrowed brows and round cheeks.

‘And say the magic word.’

‘Abracadabra.’

Finn opened her left fist. The ball was gone, of course. It was a terrible magic trick, but both little girls gasped in amazement and shrieked and laughed. None of them saw us, and I stepped back into the hall.

‘Let’s not get in the way,’ I whispered, and we tiptoed away.

‘I’m amazed,’ said Kirsty’s mother, as she stood in the doorway waiting to leave two hours later. ‘I’ve never seen Kirsty like this in anybody else’s house.’

‘Oh, well,’ I said modestly, ‘we tried to make her feel at home.’

‘I don’t know how you did it,’ said Kirsty’s mother. ‘Come on, Kirsty. Goodbye, Elsie, would you like to come and play with Kirsty some time at our house?’

‘I don’t want to go,’ said Kirsty, tears in her eyes once more. ‘I want to stay with Fing.’

‘Who’s Fing?’ asked Kirsty’s mother. ‘Is that you?’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘She’s – Fiona’s – someone who’s staying with me.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ shrieked Kirsty.

Kirsty’s mother picked her up and carried her out. I shut the door behind her. The screams receded into the night. There was the slam of a car door and they ceased. I knelt and held Elsie close.

‘Did you like that?’ I asked softly in her ear.

She nodded. She had a glow about her.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Run upstairs and take your clothes off. I’ll come up in a minute and put you in the bath.’

‘Can Fing come? Can she read me a story?’

‘We’ll see. Now go on.’

I watched the back of her strong little body making its way up the stairs. I turned and walked back into the sitting room. The television was on. Finn was sitting watching. I sat next to her, and she showed no sign of having noticed me. I looked at the screen and tried to work out what the programme was. Suddenly I felt her hand on mine. I turned and she was looking at me.

‘I’ve been a drag,’ she said.

‘That’s all right,’ I said.

‘Elsie gave me a present.’

I couldn’t help laughing.

‘And what might that be?’

‘Look,’ Finn said and held her fist out. She slowly unfolded the fingers and there, neatly perched on her palm, was one of Danny’s paper birds.

That night I rang Danny. I rang at ten, at eleven, then at twelve, when he answered in a thick voice, as if I’d woken him.

‘I’ve missed you,’ I said.

He grunted.

‘I’ve been thinking about you all the time,’ I continued. ‘And you were right. I’m sorry.’

‘Ah, Sammy, I’ve been missing you too,’ he said. ‘Can’t seem to get you out of my head.’

‘When will you come?’

‘I’m rebuilding a kitchen for a couple who seem to think that sleep’s a luxury and weekends don’t exist. Give me a week.’

‘Can I bear to wait for a week?’ I asked.

‘But then we need to talk, Sam.’

‘I know.’

‘I love you, you difficult woman.’

I didn’t reply, and he said sombrely, ‘Is it such a hard word for you to say?’

Eleven

We stood side by side in front of the long mirror in my bedroom, looking like two witches in a coven. I had dressed in a black knee-length skirt, black coarse-silk shirt and black waistcoat, and then, taken aback by how red my hair looked topping such dark attire, I’d even pulled on a black cloche hat. Finn was wearing her black polo-necked sweater, and I’d lent her a shapeless charcoal-coloured shift to go over the top of it. It came down to her calves, but actually she looked rather touching and graceful standing in its inky folds. Her glossy head came barely to my shoulder; under its fringe her face was pale and her lips looked slightly swollen. Suddenly, never taking her eyes from her reflection, she did a small and disconcerting jiggle; one bony hip jutted out from the enveloping shift. If it had been in different circumstances I might have giggled and offered some ironic or self-mocking remark. As it was, I remained silent. What, after all, was there to say?

Out of the picture except for one plump knee sat Elsie, off school with a cold which seemed to consist of a theatrical sniffle every twenty minutes. If I turned round – which I didn’t yet want to do for I felt that some subtle drama was going on for Finn in front of this mirror – I would have seen her sitting, legs tucked up under her bottom, draping herself in the cheap round beads which she was scooping from a lidded box. As it was, I heard her muttering to herself: ‘That looks nice, I’m so proud of you. A little princess.’

Outside, it was raining. The countryside gets wetter when it rains than cities. It’s to do with the increased surface area from all those leaves and blades of grass. Much of it still seemed to be hanging in the air as well, as if the marshland and mud were so sodden already that it was incapable of absorbing any more moisture. This was my bit of England, undecided whether it was in the sea or on land. A loud revving and a splutter of pebbles signalled the arrival of a car.

‘Danny,’ I said. Elsie slithered off my unmade bed, pulling a mess of duvet behind her, loops of coloured glass bouncing round her neck, a crown of pink plastic falling out of her unruly hair as she made for the stairs.

‘Are you sure about this?’ I asked Finn, again. She nodded.

‘And you’re sure you want me there too? I won’t be able to sit anywhere near you, you know.’

‘Yes. Sure.’

I wasn’t sure. I know that funerals help us to realize that loved ones are dead and not returning; I know that we can say goodbye at a funeral and start to mourn. I’ve been to funerals – well, one funeral in particular – when this has been true, the start of the melting of the great ice-block of grief. The familiar words do touch you, and the faces around you, all wearing the same look of battened-down grief, make you part of a community, and the music and the sobs inside your chest and the sight of that long box and the knowledge of what’s inside it well up into a kind of sorrow that’s the beginning of a thaw.

But at this funeral there would be police and journalists and photographers and busybodies peering eagerly at her. Finn would have to see all the people that she’d hidden from since the day she lost her parents. We’d be escorted there by plain-clothes policemen, and she’d be flanked by them throughout the ceremony, bodyguards for a girl still at risk. People talk too easily about facing up to loss, coming to terms with it. Finn seemed to me more in need of protection than self-knowledge. Avoidance is a common and ill-advised coping strategy for people suffering from post-traumatic-stress depression; Finn was certainly avoiding. But safe, soothing routines may be the best way for them to start the healing process.

‘It’s your choice,’ I said. ‘If you want to leave, just tell me. All right?’

‘I just need to…’

She didn’t finish her sentence.

‘Let’s go and meet Danny then.’

She looked at me imploringly.

‘He’s not going to bite you. At least, not in a horrible way.’

I took Finn by the hand and pulled her out of the room. Later, Danny laughed about his first sight of Finn, she and I descending the stairs in melodramatic black, but then he looked up at us, hair over his shoulders, unsmiling. Finn didn’t smile either, but nor did she hesitate. She let go of my hand, and the two of us – me clip-clopping behind in my leather buckled shoes and she softly padding in front in her pumps – approached him. She stopped in front of him, looking tiny against his bulk, and lifted her eyes to his. Still no smile from either of them.

‘I’m Finn,’ she said in a murmury little voice from behind her silky curtain of hair.

Danny nodded. He held out his hand and instead of shaking it, she laid her thin fingers against his palm, like a small child deciding to trust someone. Only then did Danny look past Finn at me.

‘Hi, Sammy,’ he said nonchalantly, as if he’d been away for an hour, not nearly two weeks. ‘Do you know what you look like?’

‘I’m sure you’ll tell me.’

‘Later I will.’

Elsie came in from the kitchen.

‘There’s a man called Mike.’

‘It’s time for us to be off, Finn.’

Danny bent his head down and kissed me on my lips. I put the flat of my hand against his cheek and he leaned into it briefly, and we smiled at each other. I smelled his skin. Then Finn and I went into the rain. Daley got out of his car. He was dressed in a crinkled navy-blue suit with wide lapels. He looked more like a slightly hungover jazz musician than a mourner. Finn stopped suddenly, one foot in the car.

‘No.’

I laid my hand on her back.

‘Finn?’

Daley stepped forward.

‘Come on, Finn,’ he urged. ‘It’ll be…’

I interrupted him.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ I said.

‘You go,’ Finn said suddenly. ‘You and Michael go for me.’

‘Finn, you ought to go, don’t you think, Sam?’ Daley said. ‘You should see people.’

‘Please, Sam. Please will you go for me?’

Daley looked at me.

‘Sam, don’t you think it would be good for her to go? She can’t go on not seeing people like this.’

A look of panic came into her eyes. I was getting wet and wanted to move from the muddy gravel and pouring rain. We couldn’t force her.

‘She should make up her own mind,’ I said.

I beckoned to the figures in the doorway, who ran out to hear the change of plans. The last glimpse I had of Finn was of her being led into the house, a small damp figure resting limply against Danny, while Elsie skipped behind them and the rain rained on.

During the service I was silent and still, Daley was silent and fidgeting endlessly. He ran his fingers through his silky hair, rubbed his face as if he could wipe away the dark shadows under his eyes that made him look so dissolute, shifted his weight from foot to foot. Finally, I put a calming hand on his arm.

‘You need a holiday,’ I whispered. An elderly woman sitting on the other side of me, a pork-pie hat jammed on her head, warbled. ‘Bread of Hea-a-a-a-aven,’ she sang, in a passionate vibrato. I mouthed the words and looked around. I was trying to get a feel of the world of Finn and her family. For me, Finn so far was pitifully isolated. This funeral felt unreal. I had no connection at all to the dead couple, except through their daughter. I hardly knew what they looked like, except from the photograph I had seen in all the papers – a blurred picture taken at a charity ball, him burly and her skinny, both smiling politely at a face out of the frame, while the fact of their terrible death cast them into history. ‘Fe-e-e-d me ti-ill I-I want no more.’

Sometimes I wonder if people can smell suburbia on me, like a dog is supposed to be able to sniff out fear. I think I can smell wealth and respectability a mile off, and I smelled it here. Modest black skirts and neat black gloves, grey gaberdine suits with a dash of glamour at the neck, sheer black tights, low shoes (my buckles gleamed loudly in the dull air of the Victorian church), small ear-rings on a hundred lobes, make-up which you couldn’t detect but knew was there on the faces of all the middle-aged women, the low-key, well-bred grief, a discreet tear here and there, modest and expensive bouquets of early spring flowers laid on the two coffins that sat so baldly on the catafalque. I had had to arrange a funeral once and I had gone through the catalogues and learned the vocabulary. I glanced from face to face. In one pew ahead of me sat seven teenage girls; from the angle at which I sat their sweet profiles overlapped each other like angels on a gilt Christmas card. I noticed that they were all holding hands or nudging each other, and they tilted their heads occasionally to catch whispers from one side or the other. Finn’s schoolfriends, I decided, and made up my mind to try to bump into them later. Across from me a plump woman in shiny black with a large hat was sobbing into her copious handkerchief. I knew at once that she was the cleaner, the one who’d found the bodies. She was the only person I saw that day who displayed raw, noisy, undignified grief. What would happen to her?

We knelt in silence to remember the dear departed, to the cracking of a dozen ageing knees. I wondered what all these people were remembering – what conversation, what row, what little incident bobbed above the implacable surface of death to remind them? Or were they remembering that they’d left the oven on, or planning what to wear to the concert that evening or wondering if any dandruff was falling on to their dark-fabricked shoulders? Which ones had been close to Finn – the old friends of the family who’d known her all through her childish years, had seen her suffer and seen her grow into a lovely young woman, the ugly duckling into the graceful swan? Which were the vague acquaintances who’d turned up because the couple had been slaughtered and there were police and journalists at the door of the church?

‘Our Father,’ intoned the vicar.

‘Who art in heaven,’ we followed obediently. ‘Hallowed be thy name…’ And the cleaner, whatever her name was, sobbed on.

Ferrer, that was it. She hung behind as people started to make their way up the aisle, and I forced myself against the flow towards her. She was scarcely visible, bent over between two pews. I got closer and saw she was picking things up from the floor and putting them into her bag. She started to put on her coat and knocked her bag all over again.

‘Let me help you,’ I said and bent down and felt under the bench for keys and a purse and coins and folded pieces of paper that had fallen out of it. ‘Are you coming next door?’ I saw her face close up, the skin pale, the eyes swollen with crying. ‘Next door?’

There was a prod in my back and I turned to see the detective, Baird. He nodded at me with a smile, then remembered himself and looked sombre.

‘You’ve met Mrs Ferrer,’ he said.

‘Has anybody done anything for this woman?’ I asked.

Baird shrugged.

‘I don’t know, I think she’s going back to Spain in a few days.’

‘How are you?’ I asked her. She didn’t respond.

‘It’s all right,’ Baird said, in the loud slow voice English people use when speaking to foreigners. ‘This is Dr Laschen. She is a doctor.’ Mrs Ferrer looked anxious and distracted. ‘Um… doctoray, medico.’

Mrs Ferrer ignored me and began talking quickly and incoherently to Baird. She had things for the ‘little girl’. Where was she? She was going home and wanted to get things to Miss Mackenzie. Say goodbye to her. She must say goodbye, couldn’t go before she had seen her. She started crying again, hopelessly. I noticed that her hands were trembling. In my professional judgement, she was a total mess. Baird looked nervously across at me.

‘Well, Mrs Ferrer, if you pass anything on to me, then in due course…’ He looked over at me and nodded me away. ‘Don’t worry, doctor, I’ll take her across.’

‘You look like a bridge player. Help us out here.’

Two women – one woman with coarse brown hair and a strong nose, the other smaller with perfect white hair under a tiny black hat – beckoned me into their conversation. When I was about thirteen, my mother had forced me into the school bridge club as part of my upwardly mobile social education. I’d lasted about two weeks, enough to learn the point counts of the court cards and not much more.

‘If I open two no trumps, what does that mean to you, eh?’

‘Trumps,’ I said gravely. ‘Are they the black cards or the red ones?’

Their faces fell and I backed away, teacup in hand, an apologetic smile on my lips. Over the other side of the hall I saw Michael deep in conversation with a balding man. I wondered who’d arranged all of this – booked the hall, made the sandwiches, hired the tea urn. My attention was snagged suddenly.

‘I was hoping to see Fiona, poor girl. Has anyone spoken to her?’

I stood still and sipped my empty cup.

‘No,’ came the answer. ‘I don’t think so. I heard she’d been taken abroad to recover. I think they have some relatives in Canada or somewhere.’

‘I heard she was still in hospital, or a nursing home. She nearly died, you know. Poor darling. Such a gentle, trusting girl. How will she ever get over this?’

‘Monica says’ – the voice behind me sank to a stage whisper so that I could hear it more clearly than ever – ‘that she was, you know, raped.’

‘No, how terrible.’

I moved away, grateful that Finn had been spared this. The mourning process could wait. Baird had been standing dutifully with Mrs Ferrer in a corner, and I saw them making their way towards the door. I caught Mrs Ferrer’s eye and she came across to me, seized my hand and mumbled what seemed to be thanks. I tried to say to her that if there was anything I could do I would do it, and that I would find out her address from Baird and come to see her. She nodded at me but I wasn’t sure if she had taken it in and she released my hand and turned away.

‘How’s the cleaner?’ a voice said behind me. Michael Daley.

‘Aren’t you her doctor?’

‘She’s registered with me. I took her on as a favour to the Mackenzies.’ Daley turned and followed her progress out of the room with a frown, before turning back to me. ‘Does she know who you are?’

‘Baird introduced us; I don’t think she understands the connection between me and Finn,’ I said.

‘What did she want?’

‘Help, I should say, and urgent help at that. And she wants to give Finn some of her things. And to see her, before she goes back to Spain.’

Daley sipped reflectively at his sherry.

‘Sounds good to me,’ he said. ‘I suppose it would be good for Finn to see someone she knows.’

‘I don’t know if it’s safe, but on the other hand she might be an unthreatening kind of presence,’ I said.

‘It’s fine,’ he said.

There was a pause. He gave a half-smile. ‘There are one or two people I should make a pretence of talking to. I’ll pick you up on the way out.’

Standing in a huddle in the corner of the room were the girls I’d noticed in the church. I made my way over to them and when I caught the eye of one, I moved into their circle.

‘You must be friends of Finn’s?’

A tall girl with dark shoulder-length hair and freckles over the bridge of her pert nose held out her hand, looked suspiciously at me, and then back at her friends. Who was I?

‘Just from school,’ she said. ‘I’m Jenny.’

I’d wanted to find out about Finn from people who knew her, but now I couldn’t think what to say.

‘I knew her father. Professionally.’

They all nodded at me, incurious. They were waiting for me to move on.

‘What’s she like, Finn?’ I asked.

‘Like?’ This from a blonde girl with cropped hair and a sharp nose. ‘She’s nice.’ She looked around for confirmation. The girls nodded.

‘Was nice,’ another girl said. ‘I went to visit her at the hospital. They wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. Seems pretty stupid.’

‘I suppose…’

‘Are you ready to go?’

I turned with a start to see Michael’s face. He hooked an arm under my elbow and nodded at the girls. They smiled back at him in a way they hadn’t smiled at me.

The car park of the little parish church at Monkeness was right by the sea wall, and we sat there for a few minutes. I nibbled at a walnut cake that I’d scooped up from a tray on the way out, and Michael lit a cigarette. It took several matches, and finally he had to crouch down in the shelter of the wall.

‘Did Finn get on with her parents?’

He gave a shrug.

‘Were they close? Did they argue? Help me out here, Michael, I’m living with this girl.’

He took a deep drag from his cigarette and gave a gesture of helplessness.

‘I think they were close enough.’

‘Michael, there must have been problems. She was hospitalized because of depression and anorexia. You were her doctor.’

‘Yes, I was,’ he said, looking away from me over at the indistinct sea. ‘She was a teenager, it’s a messy time for most of us, so…’ He gave a shrug and didn’t finish his sentence.

‘Was it difficult for you being a friend of her parents?’

Daley turned to face me with his tired dark eyes.

‘It’s been very difficult for me being a friend of Leo and Liz. Did the police tell you what they did to them?’

‘A bit. I’m sorry.’

We got into the car and drove off. The countryside seemed grey, scrubby, indistinct. I knew it was my own mood. I had been to a funeral and felt no grief. I had just been uselessly thinking. I looked out of the window. Reed city.

‘I’m not right for Finn,’ I said. ‘And I wasn’t particularly proud of myself today.’

Michael looked round.

‘Why and why?’

‘I think Finn was telling me something in wanting me to go to the funeral of her parents and all I did was snoop around and try to find out about what she was like.’

Michael seemed surprised.

‘Why did you do that?’ he asked.

‘I can’t see a patient in a vacuum. I want a context.’

‘What did you learn?’

‘Nothing, except what I already knew: that our knowledge even of our close friends and relations is strangely vague. “Nice.” I learned that Finn is nice.’

He put his hand on my arm, took it away to change gear, put it back on my arm.

‘You should have told me. If you want, I’ll introduce you to some people who knew the family well.’

‘That would be good, Michael.’

He turned and gave me a mischievous smile.

‘I’ll be your ticket into rural society, Sam.’

‘They won’t have me, Michael. I’m lower middle class.’

He laughed.

‘I’m sure they’ll make an exception in your case.’

Twelve

‘She thinks I’m a layabout. Why should I be polite to her?’

‘You are a layabout. Just don’t be completely rude. Or go for a long walk and don’t be here at all.’

Danny put his hands around my waist as I stood at the sink, and bit my shoulder.

‘I’m hungry and I like to be here.’

‘I’m washing the dishes,’ I said crossly. Danny was getting on my nerves today, just as he’d got on my nerves yesterday. Although, after we had returned from the funeral and talked at length to Finn about it, and Michael Daley had stayed for a drink – Danny glowering at him as if he and I had spent the day in a double bed together, not at a funeral, and Michael oddly nervy with Danny – and Elsie had been put to bed, we’d had a passionate reunion, the next two days had not gone well. He’d hung around in his normal kind of way, getting up late, eating huge breakfasts while Sally cleaned around him, going to bed in the small hours of the morning and leaning into me with beery breath, and this had irritated me. He’d not put himself out for Finn, although he hadn’t actually been rude, and this had irritated me too. He’d left his dishes unwashed in the sink, his clothes unwashed in the corner of my room, he’d almost picked my fridge clean without replacing anything, and then I was irritated by my own prissiness. Didn’t I want Danny to be Danny? ‘Can’t you lay the table or something?’ I complained.

‘Lay the table? Let her get her own fork out of the drawer. She’s not going to be here for at least fifteen minutes. Why don’t we just go upstairs?’ Now his hands were under my shirt.

I pushed his roving hands away with my soapy ones.

‘Elsie and Finn are next door.’

‘Half-way through the puzzle.’

‘She’s quite nice to have around, isn’t she?’

Danny let me go and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. ‘Is she?’ he said.

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Oh Christ,’ he ran his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t want to talk about your patient.’

I took five forks from the plastic basket by the sink and clattered them on to the table in front of him.

‘Quiche is in the fridge. Warm it up. Ice-cream in the freezer. I think you’re jealous of her.’

‘And why would I be jealous?’ Now Danny’s arms were folded across his chest and he was glaring at me.

‘Because I like her and Elsie likes her and you don’t feel quite so much like the king of the castle when you deign to visit us in the country – that’s why.’

‘And do you know what I think, Sam? I think you’ve stopped separating work from home. You’re in trouble here. And have a think about this while you’re at it: first of all I have to compete with a dead man for your love, and then with an invalid child. How can I ever win?’

There was a loud knock on the front door. For once I was glad Roberta had arrived early.

I am sometimes unkind to Roberta because I am scared of the mixed and contradicting emotions I have always had for her. I don’t want to know if she is unhappy. When we were girls, Roberta was designated the pretty one and I was the clever one. She never had a chance. She wore the pink dresses and had the row of dolls along the shelf in her bedroom; I wore trousers (even though, to my disgust, they had heel straps and no pockets) and read books by torchlight under my covers. She painted her manicured nails with pearly varnish (I bit mine), wore pretty blouses and plucked her eyebrows. When her breasts started to develop she and mum made a special trip to Stacey’s department store to buy pretty little bras with matching knickers. When she got her periods, a sense of glamour and mystery surrounded the sanitary towels and blood stains. She was an insecure little girl, who went into womanhood bravely and fearfully, as if it were her terrible vocation.

When I was working seventy-two-hour weekend shifts as a junior doctor at the Sussex by the river, she was a mother and living in Chigwell, and while I became thin and haggard and middle-aged, she became rounder, wearier, middle-aged. Her husband called her Bobsie and once told me that my sister made the best scones in Essex. But then, what did she think when she looked across at me? Did she see a successful doctor or a scraggy unmarried mother with a vulgar on-off boyfriend and vulgar red hair, who couldn’t even cook quiche when her sister came to lunch?

‘And how are you enjoying staying with Sam, Fiona?’

‘It’s nice.’

Finn had hardly touched her food. Once an anorexic always an anorexic they say, like alcoholics and smokers. She had sat with an anxious half-smile on her face as Danny had slouched and made flirtatious remarks and I had scowled and Bobbie had made bright remarks about how we could all see more of each other.

‘Do you like country life or do you prefer the town?’ Bobbie, in her social anxiety, sounded as if she were talking to a six-year-old.

‘I’m not sure…’

‘Auntie.’ Elsie had insisted on sitting so close to Roberta she was practically in her lap. Her sharp little elbows jabbed my sister every time she spooned more chocolate-chip ice-cream into her smeared and eager mouth.

‘Yes, Elsie.’

‘Guess what I’m going to be when I grow up?’

This was the kind of conversation Bobbie could deal with. She turned away from the three adult faces ranged opposite her.

‘Let’s see. A doctor like mummy?’

‘Nowayhosay!’

‘Um, a nurse?’

‘No.’

‘A ballerina?’

‘No. Give up? A mummy, like you.’

‘Are you, dear, that’s lovely.’

Danny smirked and spooned more ice-cream on to his plate, slurped it loudly into his mouth. I glared across at him.

‘You’re her role model, Roberta,’ he said.

Bobbie smiled uncertainly. We’re bullying her, I thought.

‘Let me clear the dishes,’ she said, stacking plates with a clatter.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ I said, ‘and then maybe we can all go for a walk.’

‘Not me,’ said Danny. ‘I’m going to stay and lie about, I think. That’s what I really like doing, eh, Sammy?’

Finn followed Roberta and me into the kitchen, carrying a couple of glasses as her excuse. She turned to my sister, who was furiously scrubbing clean dishes.

‘Where did you get your jumper?’ she asked. ‘It’s pretty; it suits you.’

I stopped in the middle of the room, kettle in hand. Bobbie smiled with delighted embarrassment.

‘A little shop near us, actually. I thought maybe it made me look too fat.’

‘Not at all,’ said Finn.

I felt a wash of emotions – astonishment at Finn’s aplomb, shame at my own neglect of Bobbie, a rush of swamping tenderness for my sister, who could be made so happy by such a small remark. But then I heard Bobbie asking Finn what exactly she was studying. There was a ring at the front door, a murmur of voices, and Danny appeared in the kitchen doorway.

‘A man called Baird,’ he said.

‘I’ll see him in the kitchen. Can you take the others through into the living room?’

‘I feel like a fucking butler,’ Danny said, looking across at Roberta. ‘I mean a damned butler.’

Baird came into the kitchen and began fidgeting with a mug on the table.

‘Do you want me to put some coffee into that for you?’

‘No, thanks. Your extractor fan wants fixing. It gets rid of kitchen odours. I could have a look at it if you want. Take it apart.’

I sat down opposite him.

‘What’s up?’

‘I was just passing.’

‘Nobody just passes Elm House.’

‘Dr Daley says that Miss Mackenzie’s shown some signs of improvement.’

‘Some.’

‘Has she said anything about the crime?’

‘Rupert, has anything happened?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ he said formally. ‘I just wanted to see how you were.’

‘We’re fine too.’

He stood up as if he was about to go.

‘I just wanted to ask,’ he said, as if it was an afterthought, ‘that you keep a lookout for anything unusual.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Not that there’ll be anything, but if you notice anything unusual, or if Miss Mackenzie says anything, dial 999 and ask for Stamford Central 2243. That’s the quickest way of reaching me any time, day or night.’

‘But of course I won’t be using that number, Rupert, because you explained to me how perfectly safe this situation was and that I had nothing to worry about.’

‘Absolutely. And that’s still the case, although we had hoped for a conviction by now. Is this the only exterior door apart from the one at the front?’ He grasped the handle and tried it. It didn’t seem very firm.

‘Should I have bars put on?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Rupert, wouldn’t it help if you told me who we were supposed to be looking out for?’

‘You’re not supposed to be looking out for anybody.’

‘Do you have a suspect or a description or an Identikit picture?’

‘We’re pursuing various possibilities.’

‘Rupert, nothing’s going to happen here. Nobody cares about Finn, and nobody knows she’s here.’

‘That’s the spirit.’

‘For God’s sake, Rupert, there was that lorry-park fire on Monday. How many veal transporters were destroyed? Forty?’

‘Thirty-four lorries suffered varying degrees of damage.’

‘So shouldn’t you be out harassing animal liberationists rather than worrying me?’

‘I believe that some of my colleagues are following a line of inquiry there as well. As a matter of fact…’ The sentence died away.

‘Have you got a suspect? Why are you really here?’

‘Looking in. I’ll go now. We’ll keep in touch.’

‘Do you want to see Finn?’

‘Better not. I don’t want to make her nervous.’

We walked to his car together. A thought occurred to me.

‘Have you heard from Mrs Ferrer?’

‘No.’

‘She wanted to see Finn, bring her some stuff, and I thought it might be helpful to Finn to meet her.’

‘That’s probably not such a good idea at the moment.’

‘I thought I might go and see her. I’m worried that nobody has given her any kind of help. Also I’d like to talk to her about the family, about Finn. I wondered if you could give me her address.’

Barid paused and looked back at my house, apparently deep in thought. He rubbed his eyes.

‘I’ll think about it.’

We shook hands and for just a fraction of a second he delayed letting go. I thought he was about to say something, but he stayed silent, just nodding a goodbye. As I turned round to return to the house I saw Finn’s pale face at her window. I wasn’t going to be put off so easily. And anything that delayed joining Danny and Roberta for a few minutes was additionally attractive. I picked up the phone and called Michael Daley.

Thirteen

‘How are you coping?’ Daley asked.

‘What with?’

He laughed.

‘I don’t know where to begin. With Finn. With a child. Moving to the country. With a big new job.’

‘I’m coping. That’s what I do.’

Michael was driving me on the Stamford ring road towards the Castletown area of Stamford where Mrs Ferrer lived. Michael had been resistant at first but I told him that after meeting Mrs Ferrer, I felt a certain responsibility for her. I was worried about her mood. Also, if she wanted to see Finn, then that might be good for both of them, and I was determined to encourage it. Certainly, the cleaner had seemed pretty determined to track down Finn and say goodbye. At any rate, I wanted to talk to her. No, I didn’t want to talk to her on the phone. After my experience at the funeral, I thought it would take a good deal of patience, not to mention sign language, to establish meaningful contact with her.

‘Just give me her address and I’ll go there in the morning.’

‘I think she’s at work in the morning. If you can wait until the afternoon, I’ll come with you. After all, I am supposed to be her doctor. It could count as a home visit.’

As we drove, Michael pointed out remains of Roman fortifications, the traces of a siege in the civil war, an ancient mount, but then we left the interesting local sites behind and drove among school playing-fields, allotments, roundabouts, superstores, petrol stations, about which there was nothing to say.

‘How are you coping?’

‘Fine,’ said Daley, a little sharply. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Politeness.’

‘You don’t need to be polite with me.’

‘You haven’t seen me not being polite.’

‘I could deal with it.’

Michael never took his eyes off the road and I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes.

‘Do you resent me being here?’ I asked.

‘In my car?’

‘Here, on the scene. When you are Finn’s doctor.’

‘I’ve already told you that I don’t.’

‘It would be natural.’

We were back in a residential area of terraced houses.

‘If we turned left here, we’d get to the Mackenzies’ old house. But we just turn right here into the less salubrious part of Castletown. We’re alike I think, you and me.’

I smirked at his apparent flirtatiousness.

‘How so?’

‘We like challenges. We take things on.’

‘What do you take on?’

‘When I was a child, I used to be scared of heights. There was a sort of tower near where I went to prep school, a monument built by an eccentric old duke. There were a hundred and seventy steps, and when you were at the top it felt as if you were falling. I made myself climb it every week of term.’

‘Did it cure you of your fear of heights?’

‘No. Then it would have become boring. My work’s just a job. Except for people like Mrs Ferrer, of course. But my real life’s largely outside it. I make myself do things. Gliding. Riding. Have you ever been sailing?’

‘No, I hate water.’

‘You can’t live here and not sail. You must come in my boat.’

‘Well…’

‘This car’s another example. Do you know anything about cars?’

‘We don’t seem alike to me. I never do things I’m afraid of.’

‘It must be somewhere here.’

‘Here? Can we park?’

‘Trust me. I’m a doctor. I have a sticker in my window. I’m paying a call.’

‘Does she live in Woolworths?’

We were in a busy shopping street. Mrs Ferrer lived in one of those rooms that you don’t notice, a doorway between shops leading up to a first floor that you wouldn’t suspect is there. A door from the street led up some grey-carpeted stairs to a landing from which there were two doors. One had the nameplate of a dentist on the door, the other had nothing.

‘This must be it,’ said Daley. ‘Handy for the shops, at any rate.’

There was no bell or knocker. He rapped at the door with his knuckles. We waited in awkward silence. There was nothing. He knocked again. Nothing.

‘Maybe she’s at work,’ I suggested.

Daley turned the handle of the door. It opened.

‘I don’t think we should go in,’ I said.

‘The radio’s on.’

‘She probably forgot to switch it off when she went out.’

‘Maybe she can’t hear us. Let’s go up and see.’

There were more steps. No carpet this time. As I reached the top my face was hit by a breath of stifling hot air. Michael grimaced at me.

‘Is there something wrong with the electrics?’ I asked.

‘A reminder of Spain, I suppose.’

‘Mrs Ferrer!’ I called. ‘Hello? Where’s the radio?’

Michael pointed ahead of me into the tiny, squalid kitchen.

‘I’ll find the heater,’ he said.

I walked into the kitchen, in which the music was echoing tinnily. I found the radio by the sink, pushed at buttons ineffectually and then pulled the plug out from the wall. There was a shout which I thought at first was a delayed throb from the radio, but then I realized it was my name: ‘Sam! Sam!’ I ran through to the other room and found a complicated and strange scene. Looking back on it even a few minutes later, I wasn’t able to recall how I had put it together in my mind. I could see a woman lying on the bed with all her clothes on, a grey skirt, a brightly coloured nylon sweater. No head. Yes, there was a head but it was obscured by something, and Michael was picking frantically at it, tearing it. It was plastic, a bag, like the bags you put fruit in at the supermarket. Michael was pushing his fingers into her mouth and then firmly pushing down on the woman’s chest and doing things with her arms. I looked around for a phone. There. I dialled.

‘Ambulance, please. What? Where are we? Michael, where are we?’

‘Quinnan Street.’

‘Quinnan Street. By Woolworths. Above Woolworths, I think. And police as well.’ What was his name? Rupert. Rupert. ‘Tell Inspector Baird at Stamford CID.’

I put down the receiver and looked round. Michael was sitting still now, obscuring most of Mrs Ferrer’s body, though I could see her open eyes, disordered grey hair. He stood up and walked past me. I heard a tap running in the kitchen. I walked over and sat by the body. I touched her hair and tried to arrange it slightly, except that I couldn’t remember which way it was supposed to go. Who was left to know?

‘I’m sorry,’ I said aloud to myself, to her. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

The ambulance arrived within five minutes, a man and a woman in green overalls ran in at high speed, then slowed down and stopped after a brief examination of the body. They looked around as if they had woken from a dream and had noticed us for the first time. As we were introducing ourselves, two young police constables came up the stairs. I asked about Baird, and one of them spoke into a radio. I whispered to Daley, feeling guilty and conspiratorial.

‘How did she die?’ I knew the answer.

His faced looked dazed.

‘Suffocated.’

I had an ache in my stomach that seemed to be rising in my oesophagus and becoming a throbbing headache. I was unable to think clearly except for a feeling that I wanted to leave but probably had to stay. I felt strangely grateful a few minutes later at the sight of Baird, who entered the room, apparently filling it, with a distracted-looking, rumpled man who was introduced to me as Dr Kale, the Home Office pathologist. With a nod Baird walked past me and stood over the body for a moment in silence. Then he turned to me.

‘What were you doing here?’ he asked in a subdued tone.

‘I was concerned about her. I met her once and she seemed to be crying out for help. But I was too late, it seems,’ I said.

‘You mustn’t reproach yourself. This wasn’t just a cry for help. She really meant to die… Has the body been moved?’

‘No. Michael tried to revive her.’

‘Was death recent?’

‘I’ve no idea. It’s hard to tell in this heat.’

Baird shook his head.

‘Awful,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You don’t need to stay. Either of you.’

‘I suppose we’d better tell Finn.’

‘I’d like to, if that’s all right.’ It was Michael. ‘I’m her doctor, after all.’

‘Yes, you are.’

So we made our way to Elm House in a cumbersome fashion. Michael drove me back to his surgery, where I had left my car. Then the two of us drove in an absurd convoy out of Stamford, and all the way I thought of a woman coming on a murder scene, the blood and the suffering, and finding it all too much to bear and having nobody to help her and that I’d already known this and had been too late.

We came on Finn in the kitchen tracing letters with Elsie. Without a word I took Finn and Elsie by the hand and walked outside where Michael was waiting. I held Elsie tight in my arms and prattled to her about her day at school, at the same time watching as Michael and Finn walked down in the direction of the sea. I saw their silhouettes, and behind them the reeds were tipped golden with the low sun, although it was barely four o’clock. They talked and talked and sometimes leaned one on the other. Finally they walked back towards us and I put Elsie down and, still without talking, Finn fell into my arms and grasped me close to her so that I felt her breath on my neck. I felt Elsie pulling at me from the side, and we all laughed and walked inside out of the wind.

Fourteen

‘Am I your patient?’

I felt like a mother being asked where babies come from, having already considered the different answers I could give when the question was posed. I felt torn for a moment between the desire to reassure and the responsibility to be clear.

‘No. You’re Dr Daley’s patient, if you’re anybody’s. But you shouldn’t think of yourself as a patient.’

‘I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know what I’m doing in your house. Am I in hiding? On the run? Am I a lodger? A friend? A sick person?’

We were sitting in a sort of pseudo-bistro establishment near the old harbour in Goldswan Green, half an hour up the coast and almost empty on this cold Monday in February. I was eating a bowl of pasta and Finn was pushing her fork into a side salad served as a main course. She stabbed a leaf of some kind of bitter lettuce that I found inedible and rotated it.

‘You’re a bit of all of them, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Except for the sick person.’

‘I feel sick. I feel sick all the time.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re the expert, Sam,’ Finn said, pushing the salad around her plate. ‘What should I be feeling?’

‘Finn, in my professional capacity, I usually make a point of not telling people what they should do or feel. But in this case I’m going to make an exception.’

Finn’s expression hardened in alarm.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Speaking as an authority in the field of post-traumatic stress disorder, I would strongly advise you to stop playing with your salad and scraping the fork on the plate, because it’s getting on my nerves.’

Finn looked down with a start and then relaxed into a half-smile.

‘On the other hand,’ I continued, ‘you could move some of it from your plate into your mouth.’

Finn shrugged and pushed the whole large leaf into her mouth and crunched at it. There was a sardonic sense of triumph.

‘There we are,’ I said. ‘That wasn’t so difficult.’

‘I’m hungry,’ Finn said, as if she were examining the behaviour of an exotic creature.

‘Excellent.’

‘Perhaps I could order some of the pasta you’ve got.’

‘Take mine.’

I pushed the dish across and she dipped into it, almost excited by the novelty of what she was attempting. For several minutes neither of us spoke. It was enough for me to see her eat.

‘Maybe I’ve had too much, all at once,’ Finn said, when the two plates were clean.

‘It wasn’t all that much. What I forgot to eat, mostly. Do you want some coffee?’

‘Yes. White.’

‘Good, Finn. Some more protein and calcium. We can start building you up.’

She started to laugh, then stopped herself.

‘Why did she do it?’

‘Who? Mrs Ferrer?’ I shrugged, then took a chance. ‘She wanted to come out to see you, you know. She was going back to Spain, but she wanted to see you first.’ I remembered her frantic desire to visit the ‘little girl’ – then I remembered her lying dead on the bed in her cheerful jumper.

Finn’s face darkened. She seemed to be looking through me at something far away.

‘I wish, I think I wish, that she had. I’d liked to have seen her. It was the horror of what she’d seen, I suppose.’

‘It must have been something,’ I said absently.

‘You sound suspicious.’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Do you think I was stupid? With the bonfire?’

On that shambolic Saturday afternoon, Danny had left shortly after Rupert and Bobbie – he’d picked up his holdall and shoulder-bag, ignored Michael and Finn, and given me a curt nod. When I’d tried to detain him (‘I know this isn’t ideal, but let’s talk about it later’) he’d said wearily that he’d been waiting for three days to talk to me, and I’d just been spiky and hostile, and didn’t I know by now that my ‘later’ never arrived and anyway he had things to do in London? To which I hissed, babyishly, that he was behaving just like a baby. Then, he’d left. This was becoming a habit. Neither Finn nor Michael said anything about it, and Elsie scarcely seemed to notice that he was no longer with us. As for me, Mrs Ferrer’s death, my concentration on Finn, had pushed him to the edge of my mind.

Then, on the following Sunday morning, Michael Daley had suddenly turned up. I was in the garden piling planks, canes, old branches on to a bonfire when his Audi pulled into the drive. He didn’t come over but removed a dozen or so stuffed Waitrose bags from the back. Was he buying food for us now? No such luck. He had brought some of Finn’s clothes which the police had released from the house.

‘Where am I supposed to put all of this?’ I asked as we ferried bags up the path into the hallway.

‘I thought it might be a step back into normality,’ Daley said.

‘I wondered how long Finn could keep padding around in my rolled-up jeans.’

‘Sorry I can’t stay,’ said Daley. ‘Give her my regards.’

‘Regards,’ I said. ‘I never know what they are.’

‘You can think of something.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve lost another patient.’

‘Is that a joke?’ he asked and said nothing more. He left without seeing Finn. I called her down.

‘Look what the doctor brought you,’ I said.

She was visibly startled. She pulled a maroon crushed-velvet blouse from one of the bags and held it up.

‘I’ve got some work to do outside,’ I said. ‘I’m burning almost everything that’s movable in the garden. I’ll leave you to go through it, if you want.’

She nodded but said nothing. I left her, and when I looked back, before closing the front door, I saw her kneeling on my hall floor holding the velvet to her cheek, as if she were a tiny lost child.

Gardening would always be a mystery to me, but I loved making fires. There had been rain and it was a tricky business but that only increased the ultimate satisfaction. I had screwed newspaper into balls at various points on the windward side of my pile of rubbish. I lit them and they crackled, glowed and went out. I looked in the shed and found an almost empty box of firelighters and a washing-up-liquid bottle that didn’t smell of washing-up liquid any more. I wrapped up the entire box in newspapers and pushed it deep into the recesses of the rubbish pile. I sprayed all that was left of the petrolly liquid over it. I had created a small incendiary device and wasn’t sure whether it would ignite my pile of rubbish or simply blow it up. I lit a match and tossed it at the heap. There was a low thud, as if a punch-bag had been dropped on to a concrete floor. I saw a yellow glow, heard crackling, then flames escaped from the pile, and I was pushed back by a soft invisible pillow of heat against my cheeks and forehead.

I felt the usual thrill at the transition from the stage when the fire couldn’t be started to the stage when it couldn’t be stopped. I began to feed the flames with scraps from all over the garden. There were old grey wooden lattices, a pile of ancient planks by the back wall of the house, all of them soon cracking in the core of heat, sending sparks flying high. I felt a presence at my side. It was Finn, the reflection of the flames dancing in her eyes.

‘Good fire, eh?’ I said. ‘I should have been a pyromaniac. I am a pyromaniac. I can’t imagine robbing a bank or killing somebody, but I can understand the pleasure of setting fire to something big and watching it burn down. But this will have to do.’

Finn leaned close to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. I could feel the brush of her lips as she whispered into my ear. She finished and moved back, but she was still close. I could see the golden down on her cheeks.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

She nodded.

‘Wouldn’t you like to drop it into an Oxfam shop or something?’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t want anybody else to wear it.’

‘Whatever you think is right.’

So she went back into the house and a minute later she emerged with an armful of skirts, dresses and shirts. She came past me and heaved them on to the pyre. The bright fabrics ballooned, bubbled and burst. She made trip after trip. There were some beautiful things among them, the things she must have bought after she’d lost weight, and Finn must have detected a wistful expression on my face, because she broke off from one of her journeys to push a trilby hat on my head and wind a damson cashmere scarf around my neck. The hat fitted me perfectly.

‘Rent,’ she said with a smile.

She kept nothing for herself at all. When it was all over we contemplated the fire together, watching the fragments of braid and ribbon being consumed, and I felt a little sick, like a champion eater who has been out-gourmandized.

‘So what do we do now?’ Finn asked finally.

‘I think that tomorrow I’ll take you shopping.’

‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ Finn said, swallowing the last of her coffee. ‘Oh, it’s bitter. Nice. I know it was melodramatic, burning them all like that. It felt like something that I had to do.’

‘You don’t have to explain it to me.’

‘Yes, I do. This is hard for me to put into words, but what I feel is something like this. In a way I feel contaminated by those people who tried to… you know. My life has been ripped apart and completely changed by them. Do you see what I mean? You like to feel that your life has been directed in a good way. But I felt, feel, that my life has been put in a certain direction by people who hated us. I had to cut all that away and be reborn. Remake myself. Do you see what I mean?’

‘I understand completely,’ I said with deliberate bland acceptance. ‘But you’re used to doing that, aren’t you?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You suffered from anorexia, it was life-threatening. But you moved on. You know how to recover, and that’s a wonderful thing.’ I paused for a moment, wondering how far I could take this. ‘You know, it’s funny. The first sight I had of you was in some old photo of you, plump, jolly-looking. And here you are, a different person, secure, alive.’

I looked at Finn. Her hand was trembling so much she had to put her knife down.

‘I hated that girl. Fat Fiona Mackenzie. I feel no connection to her. I made myself a new life, or thought I had. But now it’s hard for me to accept the good things. Meeting you and Elsie and all of this. I sometimes think that I’ve met you and Elsie because of, you know, them. I’m not sure if I should be talking about this. Should I be talking about this?’

I kept feeling different things and I was rather afraid that I was saying different things at different times. If I was discussing her case with a colleague we could have considered the different therapeutic options and the varying, much-disputed rates of success for each one. With one or two of my most trusted friends, I might have remarked that in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder we were still stuck in medieval times, in the age of superstition, of humours and agues and bleedings. Finn was looking to me for the sort of authority people expect from doctors. And I knew so much about the subject that I was less certain about it than somebody who knew less man I did might have been. Most of what people thought they knew about trauma and its treatment was wrong. The truth seems to be that talking about the experience makes some people better, some people worse and leaves other people about the same. That isn’t what people like to hear from doctors.

I took a deep breath and aimed for as much of the truth as we could both manage.

‘I don’t know, Finn. I wish I could give you an easy answer and make you feel better, but I can’t. I want you to feel that you can tell me anything. On the other hand, I’m not the police. I’m not after you for evidence. And I can’t say this too often: I’m not your doctor. There isn’t some schedule of treatment involved here. But if I can be disloyal to my great and noble profession for a moment, that may not be entirely a bad thing.’ I reached across the table and took Finn by the hand. ‘I sometimes think that doctors find it particularly difficult to accept suffering. You had a most terrible, unspeakable thing happen to you. All I can say is that the pain will diminish over time. It will probably be better when the bastards who did it are caught. On the other hand, if you have specific physical symptoms, you must mention them to me or to Dr Daley and he’ll deal with them. All right?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Good enough.’

‘Sam?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m in the way, aren’t I?’

‘Everything in my life has always been in the way of everything else. But I’ve decided that you are one of the nice things and that’s all that matters.’

‘Don’t feel you have to be nice, Sam. I’m stopping you writing your book, for a start.’

‘I was doing a good enough job of not writing it before you arrived.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Oh, you know, trauma, what I do, all that stuff.’

‘No, really, what’s it about?’

I narrowed my eyes in mock disbelief. I summoned the waitress and ordered two more coffees.

‘All right, Finn, you asked for it. The basis for the book is the status of post-traumatic stress as an illness. There is always a question of whether a pathology, I mean, a particular illness, actually exists before it has been identified and given a Latin name. Bobbie, of all people, once asked me a good question. She asked if Stone Age men suffered from traumatic stress after fighting a dinosaur. First I explained to her that there were no dinosaurs during the Stone Age, but her question stayed with me. We know that Neanderthals suffered bone fractures, but after terrible events did they have bad dreams, did they have triggered responses, did they show avoidance?’

‘Well, did they?’

‘God knows. What I’m planning to do is to give a brief history of the condition, in which it was largely described by false analogies with recognizable physical traumas, and then I’ll analyse the amazing inconsistencies of diagnosis and treatment in the subject in Britain at the moment.’

‘Are you going to study me?’

‘No. And now let’s spend some money.’

∗

We spent a delirious couple of hours drifting up and down the paved pedestrianized concourse in Goldswan Green’s shopping district. I tried on an absurd little pillbox hat with a veil, which would have gone perfectly with a black dress, black stockings and plain black shoes, none of which I possessed. But I bought a navy-blue velvet waistcoat and thought about some ear-rings until I realized that the point of the expedition was to kit out Finn rather than me and turned my attention to her. We found a large basics store and equipped her from the inside out: socks, knickers, bras, tee-shirts, two pairs of jeans – one black, one blue. My own tendency would have been to rush around and grab almost at random, and I was impressed by Finn’s gravity and exactitude. There was nothing frivolous or light-hearted about her choices. She selected clothes with the precision of a person setting off to climb a mountain, in which every surplus ounce would be a liability.

As we drifted around the shop I noticed that another woman was eyeing us. I wondered if it was because we were buying so much and then forgot about her until I heard a voice behind me.

‘It’s Sam, isn’t it?’

I turned with a sinking feeling of non-recognition. The woman was familiar, but I could see that I wasn’t going to be able to place her quickly enough.

‘Hello…’

‘It’s Lucy, Lucy Myers.’

‘Hello…’

‘From Bart’s.’

Now I knew who she was. Christian Society. Glasses, which she no longer wore. Went into paediatrics.

‘Lucy, how are you? Sorry, I didn’t recognize you at once, it must be your glasses. Lack of.’

‘And I wasn’t really sure it was you, Sam, because of your hair. It looks really… really…’ Lucy looked for the right word. ‘Brave,’ she said desperately. ‘I mean, interesting. But I know all about you. You’ve come to Stamford General.’

‘That’s right. Is that where you’re based?’

‘Yes, for years. I grew up there.’

‘Oh.’

There was a pause. Lucy looked expectantly at Finn.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘This is Fiona. Jones. We’re working together.’

They nodded at each other. I didn’t want to prolong this.

‘Look, Sam, it’s great to see you. When you’re in the hospital we must, you know…’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I must get on with my shopping.’

‘Yes.’

Lucy turned away.

‘You weren’t very nice to her,’ Finn whispered to me as we inspected some cardigans.

‘She wasn’t a friend, we were just in the same year. The last thing I want is to get thrown together as soul mates out here in the middle of nowhere.’

Finn giggled.

‘And I only like seeing people by appointment,’ I added. ‘Here.’ I brandished a grey cardigan at her. ‘I order you to buy this.’

‘Buy it for yourself.’

‘If you say so.’

I lay in bed with my eyes open in the dark. The day after tomorrow was Valentine’s Day. Would Danny come with a red rose and a sarcastic smile, a cross word and a kind look? Would he ever come again, or had I lost him, carelessly, without really meaning to, just because I hadn’t been looking his way? I’d write to him tomorrow, I promised myself, I’d make things all right again, and on this resolution I fell asleep.

Fifteen

On Wednesday, when I had shuffled down the cold stairs wrapped in Danny’s dressing gown, which he’d forgotten to take in his hurry to be gone, a letter lay on the doormat. But it was too early for the postman to have been and the ‘SAM’ that was written in blue Biro on the envelope showed this was Elsie’s handiwork, not Danny’s. After I’d turned up the thermostat and put on the kettle, I slipped a finger under its sealed flap. She had stuck a pink tissue-paper heart on to white card. Inside the card was written, in tilted letters that belonged to Elsie but which had clearly been spelt out by Finn, ‘Happy Valentine’s Day. We love you.’

The ‘we’ had bothered me, although it touched me too. In a moment of weakness, I had let Elsie stay at home with another of her not very serious colds, and we’d sat, me three of us, at the kitchen table, eating Rice Krispies and toast. Nothing had come from Danny – no card, no phone call, no sign that he was thinking of me. I wished that I had never sent him yesterday’s rather raw letter. Well, who cared about Valentine’s Day, anyway? I did.

We’d drifted around in the morning, pottering. For a while, Finn looked through the bundle of letters that Angeloglou had brought over the previous day – letters that friends had written to her and left with the police for delivery. They made quite a thick parcel, which she propped rather secretively against her knees. I watched her very carefully to see if she became agitated, but she seemed strangely unaffected. It was almost as if she had no interest in them. After a bit, she pushed them all together again, and took them up to her room. She never mentioned them to me and I never saw her looking at them again.

Finn had become fascinated with the subject of trauma, with herself, perhaps, and I told her about its beginnings, about railway spine and shell-shock, how the First World War doctors thought it was caused by the impact of the artillery. I was amused by Finn’s interest and just a little concerned whether such an absorption in her own condition was entirely healthy. We were planning to head out for a walk as soon as the rain eased. But the rain didn’t ease off. It grew heavier and more dense, and the windows were now almost opaque, as if we were living behind a waterfall.

‘It’s like being on an ark,’ I said, and of course Elsie asked what an ark was. Where should I begin?

‘It’s a story,’ I said. ‘A long long time ago, God – he had made the world, in the story, but he thought it had all gone wrong, that everyone was behaving badly. So he decided to make it rain and rain and rain to cover the whole world and kill everybody…’