wait. The pipes will thaw when it warms up outside.
When I’m hungry like this I think about home. I think about cottage pie and baked pears. Phoebe. Ben. I used to be able to describe The Old Vicarage down to the last detail, every crack and creak and wobbly window, but over time I’ve started to forget things.
If I concentrate really hard, I can imagine throwing rocks into the pond and hear them land with a satisfying plonk before muddy bubbles break the surface. Then I can hear my mother calling me inside for breakfast but I keep standing in the garden, not wanting to leave, watching the first rays of sunshine reach across the lawn towards the greenhouse.
Phoebe will be up early. She’s a morning person, always buzzing and chatting, treating each day like the start of a new adventure. If it’s Saturday morning she’ll watch TV, curled up on the sofa, creating a fort of pillows around her. She’ll get Ben breakfast because he gets hungry before Mum and Dad get up.
I have a new baby sister. I don’t know her name. George didn’t tell me what they called her. I can’t remember much about Phoebe being a baby, but Ben came along when I was twelve. I saw him at the hospital, lying in a cot in the maternity ward. I thought he looked like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.
There’s a sound above me. Boxes are being moved. For a fleeting second, I’m hoping that Tash has come back, but then I hear his voice.
“Honey, I’m home,” he sings from the far side of the trapdoor.
My bowels seem to liquefy. Stupid, stupid, stupid me! I wanted him to come. I prayed for it. Now I would take it back. I would take it back a million times.
The trapdoor opens. His face appears.
“Are you ready?”
I draw back, shaking my head, waiting.
“I heard you asking for me.”
“Where’s Tash?”
“I have food.”
“I want to see her.”
“Forget about her. She’s being punished. If you’re good to me, I’ll let you talk to her. Come on. Climb up. That’s it. Raise your arms. One, two, three, upsy daisy.”
30
The paramedics have flushed out my eyes and checked my lungs. Victoria Naparstek has waited for me, sitting in silence in a police car, lost in her own thoughts.
DCI Drury steps over the hoses and shakes water from the shoulders of his coat, pausing to study the house. The front two or three rooms have been completely gutted but the main structure is intact.
Avoiding a fountain of spray, he finds the senior fire officer, who is uncoupling the harness and lifting his tank onto the back of a truck. The fire chief has thick sideburns that make him look like the circus ringmaster. He takes off his helmet and wipes soot from his forehead, smudging it into a dark stain beneath his fringe.
“There’s a body in the upstairs bathroom. Young. Male. Tag on his ankle.”
Drury grimaces as though acid reflux is scalding his esophagus. He swallows and turns away, striding back towards the police lines. Ignoring the spray, oblivious to it, he yells instructions to DS Casey.
“Get these people away from here. Call SOCO. Secure the scene.”
“We don’t have the personnel,” says Casey.
“Wake them up.”
Drury notices me. One eyebrow arches. “What happened to you?”
“I was inside. Grievous and Ruiz pulled me out.”
“What were you doing here?”
“She called me.”
He turns his head and recognizes Victoria Naparstek. Something softens in his eyes and he draws forward, crouching beside the open car door, talking to her softly. Ash smudges her right cheek. He reaches to wipe it away. She pushes his hand away. Trembling.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “We should have had more officers… nobody expected this.”
Victoria looks hard into his eyes, testing his honesty.
“Who started the fire?” asks Drury.
“I don’t know.”
“Did it start inside or outside?”
“Something was thrown through the window. They wanted to kill him.”
Shakily, Drury stands, stiff-kneed, joints creaking like armor. He stares at the house for a moment and then turns to Casey.
“Get a warrant.”
“Who are we arresting?”
“Hayden and Victor McBain.”
Victoria Naparstek lets me drive her home. We stop halfway because she wants to be sick. The fresh air makes her feel better. We walk in silence along the river, the mist shrouding the far bank where canal boats are groaning against their lines.
Her shoulder brushes mine. I can still see the smudge of ash on her right cheek. Drury had tried to wipe it away. It was a gesture of intimacy, accompanied by something vague and bright in his eyes, a painful rapture.
I should have seen it earlier. The clues. Drury had looked like a married man in the midst of an affair. Victoria acted like a woman trying to escape from one. I understand now why she wouldn’t go to the DCI’s house. She didn’t want to see his wife and children. That’s why she reacted so angrily towards him at the police station and again at the hospital. She expected more from the DCI because she had given so much of herself.
I am not surprised. I don’t disapprove. Who am I to judge? Had I asked for honesty? No. The truth is an overrated quality. Lies make a dull world more interesting. They take things in unexpected directions. They add complications and layers of texture.
Victoria tugs the collar of her coat more tightly around her.
“How did you and Drury meet?” I ask.
She is silent for a long time. “I did a psychiatric report for a defendant and gave evidence at the trial. It was Stephen’s case. He won. He took me for a drink afterwards. One thing led to another.”
Another silence, longer this time.
“Are you in love with him?”
“No.”
“Is he in love with you?”
“He says he is.”
“And now you feel trapped.”
She looks up at me and back at the river. “Pretty much.”
The wind is buffeting her, pushing her coat against her body and shaking her hair. We’ve reached a turn in the path. There is a pub ahead with closed shutters and Christmas lights blinking around the door. I push against her and kiss her clumsily, my hand slipping inside her coat to find her breast.
Her mouth tastes of smoke and something yeasty and exciting. It’s the sort of kiss I would have taken for granted a few years ago-deep and unhurried-but now it feels like a rare gift. Pushing me away gently, Victoria looks past my shoulder and I have a sensation that she can see someone behind me, watching us from the shadows. It’s that same impression that I often get with her; that she’s dreamily preoccupied or looking for something other than me.
“We had sex,” she says. “It wasn’t a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“There was always a conflict of interest. You are evaluating one of my patients. It could be misconstrued…”
