Nutshell(41)

She’s looking at the cardboard boxes my father carried in and left under the bay window. My mother gets to her feet. If there’s to be trouble she’d better use her height. And width.

‘He was moving back in. Leaving Shoreditch.’

‘May I see?’

‘Just books. But go ahead.’

There’s a gasp from the sergeant as he goes down on his knees to open the boxes. I’d say the chief inspector is squatting on her haunches, not a robin now, but a giant duck. It’s wrong of me to dislike her. She’s the rule of law and I count myself already in the court of Hobbes. The state must have its monopoly of violence. But the chief inspector’s manner irritates me, the way she riffles through my father’s possessions, his favourite books, while seeming to talk to herself, knowing we’ve no choice but to listen.

‘Beats me. Very, very sad … right on the slip road …’

Of course, this is a performance, a prelude. And sure enough. She stands. I think she’s looking at Trudy. Perhaps at me.

‘But the real mystery is this. Not a single print on that glycol bottle. Nothing on the cup. Just heard from forensics. Not a trace. So strange.’

‘Ah!’ says Claude, but Trudy cuts across him. I should warn her. She mustn’t be too eager. Her explanation comes out too fast. ‘Gloves. Skin complaint. He was so ashamed of his hands.’

‘Ah, the gloves!’ the chief inspector exclaims. ‘You’re right. Clean forgot!’ She’s unfolding a sheet of paper. ‘These?’

My mother steps forward to look. It must be a printout of a photograph. ‘Yes.’

‘Didn’t have another pair?’

‘Not like these. I used to tell him he didn’t need them. No one really minded.’

‘Wore them all the time?’

‘No. But a lot, especially when he was feeling down.’

The chief inspector is leaving and that’s a relief. We’re all following her out into the hall.

‘Here’s a funny thing. Forensics again. Phoned through this morning and it went right out of my mind. Should have told you. So much else going on. Cuts to front-line services. Local crime wave. Anyway. Forefinger and thumb of the right glove. You’d never guess. A nest of tiny spiders. Scores of them. And Trudy, you’ll be pleased to know this – babies all doing well. Crawling already!’

The front door is opened, probably by the sergeant. The chief inspector steps outside. As she walks away her voice recedes and merges with the sound of passing traffic. ‘Can’t for the life of me remember the Latin name. Long time since a hand was in that glove.’

The sergeant lays a hand on my mother’s arm and speaks at last, saying softly in parting, ‘Back tomorrow morning. Clear up a last few things.’





TWENTY


AT LAST THE moment is on us. There are decisions to take, urgent, irreversible, self-damning. But first, Trudy needs two minutes of solitude. We hurry down to the basement, to the facility the humorous Scots call the cludgie. There, as the pressure on my skull is relieved and my mother squats some seconds longer than is necessary, sighing to herself, my thoughts clarify. Or take a new direction. I thought the murderers should escape, for the sake of my liberty. This may be too narrow a view, too self-interested. There are other considerations. Hatred of my uncle may exceed love for my mother. Punishing him may be nobler than saving her. But it might be possible to achieve both.

These concerns remain with me as we return to the kitchen. It appears that after the police left, Claude discovered that he needed a Scotch. Hearing it poured from the bottle as we enter, a seductive sound, Trudy finds she needs one too. A big one. With tap water, half and half. Silently, my uncle complies. Silently, they stand facing each other by the sink. Not the moment for toasts. They’re contemplating each other’s errors, or even their own. Or deciding what to do. This is the emergency they dreaded and planned for. They knock back their measures and without speaking settle for another. Our lives are about to change. Chief Inspector Allison looms above us, a capricious, smiling god. We won’t know, until it’s too late, why she didn’t make the arrests just then, why she’s left us alone. Rolling up the case, waiting for the DNA on the hat, moving on? Mother and uncle must consider that any choice they make now could be just the one she has in mind for them, and she’s waiting. Just as possible, this, their mysterious plan, won’t have occurred to her and they could be one step ahead. One good reason to act boldly. Instead, for now, they prefer a drink. Perhaps whatever they do obliges Clare Allison, including an interlude with a single malt. But no, their only chance is to make the radical choice – and now.

Trudy raises an arm to forestall a third. Claude is more steadfast. He’s in strict pursuit of mental clarity. We listen to him pour – he’s having it neat, and long – then we listen to him swallow hard, that familiar sound. They might be wondering how they can avoid a row just when they need a common purpose. From far away comes the sound of a siren, an ambulance, merely, but it speaks to their fears. The latticework of the state lies invisibly across the city. Hard to escape it. It’s a prompt, for at last, there’s speech, a useful statement of the obvious.

‘This is bad.’ My mother’s voice is croaky and low.

‘Where are the passports?’