The Family Remains(96)
And then I realise, inside a sickening tidal wave of knowing, that Justin has sacrificed himself for me. That he has given himself to save me. Me. Henry Lamb. Pathetic loser that I am.
But for some reason he thought I was worth his own life. And only then do I cry proper tears. Tears of wonder and gratitude, and also tears of relief, because even though the letter is a lie it also could be true. Quite easily. Just as I have recalibrated my own personal history to rewrite the part where I grew deadly nightshade in the garden of 16 Cheyne Walk and used it to poison to death my parents and David Thomsen and have come almost to believe that they really did kill themselves in a suicide pact, then so too in a parallel world maybe Justin did send me letters that I never received, maybe he did come to London to rescue us, and maybe it was him, not me, who bashed Birdie on the head with an elephant’s tusk and robbed her of her life. Why not, I think, why ever not? And immediately the nuts and bolts of the story shift and fall into new places in my head and within moments I have recalibrated everything, the whole fucking thing, and I did not kill Birdie, but I might have moved her bones, and really, would that be such a crime, to protect a man like Justin? A fine man. Really?
‘Does this match up with your memories of events?’
I nod, pathetically, and run my hand under my snotty nose.
‘Yes,’ I say, in a teeny tiny voice. ‘Yes. It does.’
DI Owusu sighs and leans back into his chair. He stares at me. ‘We went back to the garden at Cheyne Walk,’ he says. ‘The gate in the back wall you told us about. We found it. But it is still grown over with wisteria branches. The branches are mature and intact. There is no way that anyone would have been able to access the garden on number sixteen Cheyne Walk through that gate within the past few years. It is impossible. So, Mr Lamb, I have to ask. Was it you? Did you move those bones?’
I nod, pathetically. Then I glance up at the detective and say, ‘Are you going to arrest me? For what I did with Birdie’s bones?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Lamb. Do you think that I should?’
I shake my head. ‘No. I don’t.’
For a long moment Detective Owusu stares at me. I see what is in his eyes: the truth. He knows that Justin’s suicide note is a fiction. He knows that my tears are theatrical. He knows that I killed Birdie. And he knows that I know he knows. We are both still and silent in a glittering, crystalline moment of reckoning. I wait for him to throw something more back at me, to make one last attempt to dislodge the truth from me. But he doesn’t. Instead, he smiles.
‘Well.’ He starts to get to his feet. ‘We shall see. But for now, I think our business here is done. Oh – but there is one thing. Only vaguely connected with the case. It has been mentioned a couple of times in my investigation that you had been trying to find Phineas Thomsen. The real Phineas Thomsen, that is. I wonder – did you ever find him?’
I can feel a violent flush blooming through my body, radiating outwards from my stomach, and I try to catch it and halt it before it reaches my face. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Sadly not. It looks like he’s determined never to be found.’
‘He was very important to you?’
‘Yes. He was something of a role model, I suppose. As you can tell from me using his name all of these years. But also, Phin was Libby’s real father. Did you know that?’
‘Yes,’ says Samuel. ‘I did know that.’
‘That was my real incentive for wanting to find Phin. To bring about a reunion. For him to finally meet the daughter he hasn’t seen since she was a baby in a crib. But there you go, his loss. He was never really the dad type, I suppose you might say.’
I’m gabbling and I can tell that DI Owusu is reading my body language constantly, so I stop. I breathe in and out and I say, ‘It’s a shame. He’s missing out on such a wonderful relationship with such a wonderful girl. He really is.’
DI Owusu leaves a moment later. I press my back against the door as I close it behind him and let myself sink down on to the floor where for a few minutes I sit and shake.
67
July 2019
Lucy gazes up at the strange building. It looks like a fridge that has been tipped on to its side. She stands by the main door and regards the buzzers, trying to remember which number Rachel had said it was. Thirty-one, she thinks, before pressing the button.
‘Hi,’ she says, ‘this is Lucy. Could I come in?’
There’s a tiny silence before the latch buzzes and Lucy pushes the door and steps into the entrance. Rachel meets her outside her apartment door. She’s wearing short pyjamas and her dark hair is piled up on top of her head. Her legs are endless and smooth and for a moment Lucy feels thrown by the sheer perfection of this young woman; for a moment she thinks no, Michael would not have hurt this woman, no man would ever hurt this woman because she is a goddess. She turns for a second, considering an escape, but then Rachel smiles and says, ‘Christ. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. Come in.’
Rachel had pushed a note through the door of Henry’s apartment block two days ago: ‘Lucy, I have news for you re the investigation in France. Please, please call me.’ Rachel had seen the story in all the papers last month, she’d said, about the pop star who’d died in the big house in Chelsea. She’d seen the paparazzi photos of Lucy leaving Henry’s apartment with her dog and she’d tracked it down.