‘The original case file.’
‘I’ll get it for you,’ said Shaw. It was a confrontation he’d been avoiding. An emotional tussle over his father’s memory. ‘Give me twenty?four hours.’
It had been someone’s birthday in the Queen Victoria, on Mary Seacole ward. A blue balloon, detached, stirred and rushed ahead as Grace Ellis pushed through the doors of the children’s ward, nodded to the nurse on night duty, and headed for Jake’s room, the linoleum sticky with disinfectant under her feet. A child laughed in one of the rooms, and through an open door she saw a small girl lying on top of the sheets, one leg kicking out straight in her dreams.
Grace Ellis knew Jake would be awake. Normally he slept in the afternoon, and then early evening, something to do with the drugs. But since his father’s murder he’d struggled to find deep sleep, enmeshed instead in a series of fitful nightmares. His TV was on, the sound down, a video playing,
Her son turned his head on the pillow. ‘Mum,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ she said, kissing him roughly, cradling the head. She didn’t take another breath. ‘Look. Dad’s not here to tell you this.’ The boy killed the film with the remote control, just using his fingers, not even flexing the wrist. ‘The appeal, Jake. We’re not going to raise the money,
She went to stand, but forced herself not to run away. ‘Mrs Tyre’s looking after Michael and Peggy, I can’t stay long. Only I couldn’t sleep thinking… thinking you’d be looking forward to it. Because it isn’t going to happen.’ She began to cry. ‘What is it about this bloody hospital?’ she said. ‘I never cry at home. I walk in here and it feels like my whole life wants to run out through my eyes.’
They both laughed. ‘S’OK,’ said Jake. ‘It was Dad’s idea really.’ He hauled in another breath, an effort which distorted his face. ‘He said it’d give you something to look forward to.’
‘Me?’
‘So you could cope,’ said Jake. ‘I’m OK, Mum,’ he said, but his voice was desperately weak.
‘Me?’ she said again.
But he’d turned away, with his eyes open.
John Holt sat in his favourite armchair, the lightweight overnight bag on his lap full of his kit from hospital — pyjamas, toothbrush, toothpaste, towel, soap, reading glasses. The front room of his daughter’s bungalow was overheated and he worked a finger between the collar of his shirt and his neck. His daughter Michelle sobbed on the sofa, clutching and unclutching his granddaughter’s thin body. ‘They won’t be back,’ said Holt, sipping tea, aspirating to cool the surface. ‘It was a mistake — they’ll get their money. We’ll be OK, Micky, so stop crying.’
‘She was out in the snow,’ said Michelle, dabbing at her eyes. ‘Playing snowballs.’ Michelle was in her mid? twenties perhaps, but obesity obscured her age. Flesh hung from
She’d almost screamed and Holt held up both hands. ‘Micky — not in front of Sasha, OK? It’s over. I was in hospital — I couldn’t pay them. I’m OK now — they’ll get their money.’
‘They left that mark on the door.’
Holt’s voice betrayed his anger. ‘I’ve said they won’t be back, Micky. Sasha’s fine now. This is her home, and she’s staying here. All right? I’ve sorted it. The sign on the door’s just a reminder. It’s done.’ Holt blinked behind the thick lenses, adjusted the heavy black frames.
‘If I lost the house I’d lose Sasha,’ she said, tears welling up again. ‘I’d be out on the street. They’d take her away, Dad.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ he said. ‘We’d stick together.’
But Michelle shook her head.
He took a breath. ‘Look. They’re not going to take Sasha away,’ he said. ‘I promise. We’re always here for you. Now — shhhhhh …’ He held a finger to his lips.
His wife stood at the window, parting the curtains, looking out on the snow?covered sports ground opposite her daughter’s cottage.
‘We’d better go,’ said Martha Holt. ‘Your dad needs to rest. He should still be in hospital, he knows that. If he won’t go back then he should be at home.’ She put a hand to her forehead, the fingers shaking. ‘Discharging yourself is stupid,’ she said, biting her lip.
‘What? For God’s sake, woman, I had to. They want
Michelle felt under the armchair cushion and found a packet of cigarettes, taking one out and lighting up.
‘Jesus!’ said her father. ‘Let’s go.’
Holt stood on the step after he’d shut the door. He ran a finger along the marks they’d made: six savage cuts of a knife in the wood, identical to the ones on the side of the Corsa.
Sarah Baker?Sibley stood in the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom. She could smell Jillie, that soap, and the stuff that she put in her hair now it was short. Her bedclothes were thrown back, the sheet screwed up where her daughter’s body should have been.
When had she seen her last? Half ten, after the news, after the police had called asking for another interview.
She turned on the bedside light and pulled open the first drawer of clothes. Nothing. What did she keep in here — knickers, socks, tops? Sarah thought that she should know, and not for the first time she felt how inadequate she’d been. She pulled open another and pushed aside multicoloured tights. A book: bound in leather. She flicked it open and felt sick. A diary, full of secrets. James had given it to her for Christmas two years earlier. But every page was blank. She flicked through: nothing. That was typical of Jillie, she thought; that she should reveal nothing, but keep everything inside her head.
Sarah covered her eyes with her hand. She’d lost a son. Now she’d lost her daughter. She’d asked her to lie for her, just this once.
Izzy Dereham tucked her daughter Natalie into bed with an almost savage efficiency. The child was pinned down, both arms under the coverlet, her mouth breathing warm air into the patterned quilt. The head of a jet?black toy cat peeked from the counterpane.
‘Now sleep,’ said Izzy. ‘In the morning the world will be a different place.’ The farmhouse roof creaked, the timbers straining against the wind that had come with the tide. Down by the oyster beds the sea thudded on the sands.
‘But why were you crying?’ asked her daughter. ‘Some of the oysters were lost in the storm. I love the oysters. I cried at Christmas, didn’t I, when we read about the Walrus and the Carpenter.’
Her daughter watched her in the half?light. ‘That was pretend.’
‘I’m not so sure, young lady.’
She turned out the light, waited a second, then padded swiftly down the stairs. In the room behind the kitchen she sat down at her desk, punched a number into the handset of the phone. He’d said not to call, but she couldn’t wait. She listened to the ringing tone, as her eyes filled with tears again.
His daughter was coughing. A winter cold. He’d caught her paddling that weekend, the blood just beneath the skin as blue as the inside of a mussel shell.
He rolled out of bed and pulled on his boxers. Walking the corridor, he checked the window latches, then the front door, double?checking the latch. Had he left the cooker on? He’d boiled pasta on the gas ring. But the kitchen was cold, no flame on the hob. He checked the red light by the shower too. Nothing.
His daughter coughed again. So he went down the corridor, the sand gritty on the wooden floor, and looked in through the open door. She was coughing in her sleep now, metronomic, both hands held before her mouth.
Closing the door behind him he bottled up the sound. The chair in which he used to sit and read to Francesca was gone, so he sat on the floor, his back to the bookcase.
4.30 a.m.
He’d see her through until dawn. He hadn’t done that for a long time; she’d been three, four perhaps, and
