When You Are Mine(106)

My father is standing beneath the portico light when the Range Rover pulls up at the house. He puts his arms around me, holding me wordlessly for a long while. A moth flutters against the light-casing, throwing shadows on the steps.

He sighs, as though baffled with himself, and leads me into the brightly lit hallway.

‘Do you want to talk?’

‘Not tonight.’

‘We have decisions to make.’

‘They can wait.’





59


Morning comes with wind and showers and scudding clouds. Outside my window, seagulls fight over mitten crabs, uttering deep-throated cries. Why do they make everything sound like pandemonium? I didn’t expect to sleep, but exhaustion is the best sedative. For eight hours I disappeared into unconsciousness and dreamed of nothing.

My phone has been turned off for days. I risk using it now, hoping Henry might have called. Dozens of text messages and emails ping into my inbox. Some are from Tempe. I read only a few of them.

Are you OK? The police have been here. They searched the flat and took your clothes. Call me when you get this.



And another one:

The police have let me go. I just heard the news. I know you didn’t kill him. You were with me. How can they be so stupid? I love you. Call me.



There are other messages from Carmen, Georgia and Margot. Sara mentions the photographs and I stop reading immediately. Everybody will have seen the images by now. The whole world. The internet of things. Public humiliation is a strange feeling, a fluttering sensation in my chest, and an overpowering urge to put my head under the pillow and scream.

I venture downstairs. Breakfast has been set up in the sunroom: a buffet of cereals, along with fruit salad and yoghurt. A young woman asks if I want coffee or tea.

‘Do you work here?’ I ask.

‘Yes, ma’am. I’m Molly.’

‘Call me Phil.’

‘Yes, ma’am, I mean, Phil.’

I shouldn’t be surprised that my father has staff. Constance has taught him how to spend money, but I know the poor man isn’t far below the surface. Scratch him and the lacquer would come off like on the cheap nesting dolls he once flogged at market stalls before he turned the family’s fortunes around.

Molly has gone. I’m eating a triangle of toast, sitting propped in the open window, when Daddy arrives, wearing chinos and a casual shirt and loafers.

‘How did you sleep?’ he asks.

‘Fine.’

He pours muesli into a bowl and cuts up a banana, adding a dollop of yoghurt.

‘What happened to your cooked breakfasts?’ I ask.

‘A triple bypass. It took away my appetite.’

He pulls a wicker chair next to me. I prop my feet on the armrest. He spoons cereal into his mouth and chews slowly.

‘Do you want to talk about what happened?’

‘I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Never crossed my mind.’ He takes another mouthful. ‘Helgarde tells me the case is largely circumstantial, but the forensic evidence puts you at the murder scene.’

‘Not that night,’ I reply.

‘You broke into his house.’

‘I had a key. I thought I could sneak in and out again without anyone knowing.’

‘Finbar knew.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He leans down and places his bowl on the floor. A tortoiseshell cat languidly uncurls from a patch of sunshine and wanders across the sunroom and begins lapping up the dregs.

‘Cats are lactose intolerant,’ I say.

‘So are humans,’ he replies, rising from his chair and pouring himself a coffee from a glass pot.

‘What about your alibi?’

‘Tempe Brown.’

‘And the photographs.’

‘Those pictures were taken when I was sleeping, or drugged.’

‘So, you’re not a whatnot?’

‘A lesbian? A bisexual? No, Daddy. And two women can sleep in a bed without scissoring each other.’

‘What’s scissoring?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Why would she drug you?’

‘She has a history of obsessive behaviour, of stalking people. I talked to a psychiatrist who has been treating her for years.’

‘Could Tempe Brown have killed Goodall?’

‘Yes. Maybe. I can’t be certain.’

There is more I could say, but I’m not sure of what I believe. Tempe talked about murdering Goodall and having someone else blamed. We argued about perfect and imperfect crimes and whether they exist. I also remember Dr Coyle talking about Mallory Hopper and how far Tempe went to hold on to their friendship. Stalking her. Setting fire to her parents’ house.

Daddy returns to his seat, nursing his coffee two-handed, ignoring the heat of the mug.

‘Helgarde says your friend will come under pressure to change her story.’

‘She’s not my friend.’

‘You need her now.’

I want to change the subject. I’m sick of people treating this like a game of Cluedo: who killed Professor Plum in the library with a candlestick? This is not an intellectual exercise or a parlour game or a puzzle to be solved.

‘Your mother has been calling,’ says Daddy. ‘It’s strange to talk to her again, after so long. In a good way.’