The Things You Didn't See(11)

‘It’s okay,’ she said, trying not to appear too eager. ‘You can trust me.’

He sighed. ‘He said farmers have the highest suicide rate of any profession. It’s a hard life, and there are guns on hand. One thing leads to another, yes?’

Holly recalled Cassandra saying, She thinks suicide is for cowards.

‘But enough of this. Raggmunk,’ he said, handing her a plate. ‘Potato pancakes to you. Best served with cranberry sauce.’ He opened a jar and spooned a dollop onto the pancake.

‘Yum,’ said Holly, taking a bite. Its savoury wholesomeness was very welcome, almost transporting her from her circular thoughts, and she ate quickly. ‘God, this is delicious.’

‘Missed lunch, S?tnos?’

Holly felt her lips twitch at the corners. ‘Who are you calling snot nose?’

‘It’s a term of endearment. Literally, sweet nose. Which, by the way, you have.’ He was still busy, making cups of sugary tea. ‘The only drink that goes with raggmunk. Come on, bring your plate.’

She followed him back to the lounge, where she cleared her plate while Leif knelt on the floor by the TV, soon brandishing a black-and-white DVD, Murder on the Orient Express.

Holly laughed. ‘Don’t you have anything more modern?’

‘This is a timeless classic, S?tnos. Give it a try.’

Stomach sated, Holly sipped her tea. ‘Okay. But I can only stay another hour.’

She was shocked at the spookiness of the opening scene, the newspaper features that flashed in front of the screen telling the story of a kidnapped child who was eventually slain. The house from which the child was taken was large and forbidding, and her mind clicked back to Innocence Farm, though not as she’d seen it today. As it had appeared to her twenty years ago, when she was a terrified eight-year-old.

‘This is really creepy. I thought Agatha Christie was supposed to be twee?’ she said, and Leif turned to her with mock horror on his face.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve never seen this?’

‘I’ve never seen any Agatha Christie.’

‘But for sure you must recognise this man?’ Leif pointed with his knife. ‘Albert Finney, from the Bourne films.’

Holly didn’t tell him that she hadn’t seen any of the Bourne films, which would open up a line of enquiry she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t watch films because she’d literally experience every touch, every smell, and be bombarded with emotions she couldn’t predict. It was as if, that Halloween long ago, her synaesthesia had been born in the place of her conscience. While she was running away from something – or someone – in pain, her senses were rewiring, to ensure she’d never do it again. It made life unbearably close and loud, especially before she knew what was actually wrong. Over the years, she’d learned tricks to manage it, and training to be a paramedic was her latest and best effort to lead a normal life. If I confront the very thing I did twenty years ago, if I deal directly with pain and suffering, then my senses will quieten. That, at least, was the hope.

She didn’t own a TV and avoided books, especially crime novels. She didn’t even watch the news if she could help it. But this film, perhaps because it was set in the 1930s, or because of the formulaic investigation by Hercule Poirot within the gilded confines of the luxurious train, pulled her in and amused her. His was a type of detecting, now hopelessly outdated, that relied on a sort of cod psychology that surely wouldn’t stand up in court. The ending shocked her.

‘So Poirot is going to let them get away with it?’ she said, feeling disappointed in the detective she’d grown strangely fond of during the course of the film. ‘Twelve people, all guilty, walking free.’

‘Well, Samuel Ratchett did deserve to be murdered,’ observed Leif. ‘He organised the kidnapping, and there were all those repercussions for everyone on that train. He was a nasty piece of work.’

‘Surely that’s not the point?’

‘You’re overthinking it, Holly. It’s just a great twist.’ His Nordic blue eyes were sparkling with energy. ‘Twelve people in this conspiracy, all surely guilty, each one stabbing the victim. But none knows which of the others dealt that fatal blow.’

‘Preposterous,’ said Holly. ‘And a police officer’s nightmare, I would think.’

Leif leaned back, his arms behind his head. ‘Ja, it’s a tough job. Even from what I see, I wouldn’t want to do it for a living.’

‘But you do see things.’ Holly coaxed him back to the subject, unable to leave it alone. ‘Like the shooting at Innocence Farm today.’

Leif looked confused. ‘Did I say the address?’

She shifted awkwardly. ‘Actually, I was there – one of the paramedics attending the scene. I’m still in training, so I didn’t do much.’

‘But why didn’t you say so?’ He sounded hurt. ‘Why the secrecy?’

She had no good answer. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Anyway,’ he said, wiping his hands clean on the legs of his jeans, and reaching for her with carnal hunger, ‘it’s unlikely a crime was committed. There’s nothing suspicious about what happened. So my small part in it – and yours – is finished.’