Let Me Lie(32)

Until then, he was on his own.





SIXTEEN


ANNA


‘It just seems a bit over the top, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘Not to me.’ We stand in the open doorway, Ella in her car seat between us. Mark looks at his watch, even though he only just checked the time. ‘You don’t have to come. You can drop me at the police station and go on to work, if you’d rather.’

‘Don’t be silly, of course I’ll come.’

‘Silly? I’d hardly call a dead rabbit—’

‘I didn’t mean the rabbit! Christ, Anna! I meant: “Don’t be silly, I’m not going to leave you to go to the police on your own”.’ Mark exhales noisily and stands squarely facing me. ‘I’m on your side, you know.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

There’s a shout from next door. ‘Morning!’

Robert Drake is standing outside his house, his hands on the railings between our driveways.

‘Bit early, isn’t it?’ Mark slips easily into Jovial Neighbour mode, going down the steps to greet Robert through the railings.

‘First one off for six years – I’m going to milk it.’

‘I don’t blame you. Six years!’

I watch them shake hands through the railings.

‘Still on for Christmas drinks at mine?’

‘Absolutely,’ Mark says, with far more enthusiasm than I’d be able to muster. Robert holds a party every year. He cancelled it last year, out of respect for my parents, but the invitation for this year’s dropped through the door a couple of weeks ago. Presumably my mourning period is over. ‘What can we bring?’

‘Just yourselves. Unless you want soft drinks. Not many of those around. Ha!’

Dad and Billy used to play golf with Robert from time to time, but Mum never joined them. She said Robert was smug. I look at him now – at his expensive shirt and his confident stance – and think she was right. Robert Drake has the innate arrogance of someone so on top of their professional game that they adopt the same position in their private life.

Fuck off, Robert.

The voice in my head is so clear I think for a moment I’ve said it out loud. I imagine Mark’s face, and Robert’s, and stifle a snort of laughter that erupts from nowhere. I think perhaps I’m going mad, the way I think my mum did after Dad died. Laughing at things that weren’t funny, crying at things that weren’t sad. My world feels tipped upside down and this man next door, with his cheery Christmas greetings and his jokes about soft drinks, feels not just insignificant but inappropriate after the events of the last twenty-four hours.

My mother was murdered, I want to tell him. Now someone’s threatening me.

I don’t, of course. But it occurs to me that Robert, with his penchant for wandering outside to chat to the neighbours, might have seen something useful. I join Mark by the railings.

‘Did you see anyone outside our house this morning?’

Robert stops short, his festive cheer dimmed by the intensity of my stare. ‘Not that I recall.’ He’s a tall man, but not broad, like Mark. He stoops slightly, and I imagine him leaning over the operating table, scalpel in hand. I shiver. Imagine that same hand slicing open a rabbit …

‘Were you outside the house late last night?’

The abruptness of my question is followed by an awkward pause.

Robert looks at Mark, even though it’s me who asked the question. ‘Should I have been?’

‘Someone put a rabbit on our doormat,’ Mark explains. ‘There was blood all over the steps. We wondered if you might have seen anything.’

‘Good God. A rabbit? What a peculiar … But why?’

I examine his face, looking for any sign that he’s faking. ‘You didn’t see anyone?’ Even as I ask, I’m not sure what answer I’m expecting. Yes, I watched someone put a mutilated rabbit outside your house, but didn’t think to ask what the hell they were doing. Or: Yes, I put it there as a joke. Ha ha. An early Christmas present.

‘I wasn’t back till late last night … Both your cars were in the driveway, but there were no lights on. And I’m afraid I had a lie-in this morning. Off till New Year. I know: lucky bugger, eh?’

This is stupid. Robert Drake is the sort of person who starts Neighbourhood Watch schemes and reports cold callers. If he had seen someone putting a rabbit on our step, he’d have told us. As for putting it there himself … the man’s a doctor, not a psychopath.

I turn to Mark. ‘We should get going.’

‘Sure.’ He picks up Ella’s car seat and takes it to his car, strapping it in with no sense of urgency. I sit in the back next to her.

I don’t think Mark is taking this seriously. My parents were murdered. How much more proof does he want? The anonymous card. A dead rabbit. These aren’t normal events.

He stands for a while outside the closed car door, then moves away. I hear the crunch of gravel underfoot. I stroke Ella’s cheek with one outstretched finger and wait for Mark to lock the front door. I have a sudden memory of waiting in the car for my parents, sitting in the back like this, while Dad tapped the steering wheel and Mum rushed back to the house for something she’d forgotten.