‘I wasn’t sure if it was a mistake, until I saw you just now. How have you been?’
‘The same.You look marvellous.The trip has done you good.’
‘Yes, I feel refreshed . . . in different ways.’
But he detected a shadow behind her words, and had the sudden awful suspicion that the purpose of this meeting was to make a final break.
‘A new perspective?’
‘Yes …’
He sensed some hard thing about to emerge, but then she veered away and spoke about the things she had done: riding horses on a cattle station, scuba diving on a reef, hiking through a rainforest.
Her martini arrived and he raised his glass to hers.‘Welcome home.’
She lowered her eyes.‘Did you miss me?’
‘Every day. Three months is a long time.’
She was about to reply to that when the waiter came for their order, and when he left she instead turned the conversation to the restaurant and its memories. Did he remember the old couple that always sat at that table over there, and how they’d invented their story from small clues-his taste in shoes, her silver-tipped walking stick, the tiny appointment diaries they would compare?
And how they would get tired of that, or discover a new clue, and invent a completely new story for them?
‘I had this idea that I could change our story too,’ she went on. ‘I used to think you were suffering from a malignant condition that I called Brock’s Paradox, a belief that you could only keep a relationship alive by not allowing it to reach its full potential.’ She gave a little smile.‘I thought if I could get you away for long enough I could show you that it needn’t apply, so I planned a long trip for us, overseas, but at the last minute you backed out.Work, you said.’
She propped her chin on a hand and looked at him quizzically. ‘Where did Brock’s Paradox come from, do you think? Was it your wife leaving you? Or does it go further back? Something to do with your mother?’
Brock was recalling that it was on the tenth anniversary of his divorce that he’d first seen Suzanne,been immediately struck by the woman getting out of the red sports car and going into the small antiques shop she ran just off Sloane Square. He had followed her inside and got her to tell him all about her cabinet of eighteenth-century English glassware.
‘So things didn’t quite work out as I’d planned. Quite the opposite, in fact. The thing was that, even though I’d put thousands of miles between us,every time I saw something interesting-green shoots coming out of the ground after a bushfire, an electric storm out to sea, a flock of pink-chested parrots filling a tree-I mentally turned to you to compare notes. I thought I could change you, and there I was, unable to change myself.You were still inside my head, and I decided I didn’t want to let you go.’
‘I’m glad,’ he said, and was.
‘But that wasn’t why I came home.’
The waiter appeared with oysters and a bottle of white wine.
‘Last week I got a panicky phone call from Ginny, who’s been running the shop.’
Brock stiffened. Had Roach made a move against her after all? It would be ironic if he’d been the cause of bringing her back.
‘Stewart had been in touch with her. He said that he and Miranda had been living on their own for the past two weeks,without anyone knowing-doing their own shopping and cooking, getting themselves off to school-but now they’d run out of money, and didn’t know what to do. He was quite apologetic. He had no idea where their mother was.’
Suzanne’s grandchildren would now be ten and eight, Brock reckoned, and it was their return to the care of their mother, after Suzanne had looked after them for a number of years in her absence, that had precipitated Suzanne’s plans for an overseas trip.
‘Ginny called the police, who traced Amber to the psychiatric hospital in Hastings. Apparently, she’d been found lying on a headland outside the town after taking an overdose. She had no identification.’
‘Oh no. I’m sorry.’
‘You know what she was like,always erratic in her moods.After she came back from living with that man in Greece she went through a black period, very depressed. Her doctor referred her to a psychiatrist who diagnosed her as suffering from Bipolar I Disorder.That did make sense.It’s a long-term illness,and it seemed to explain a pattern of extreme mood swings over the years. Also it’s heritable, and her father had similar symptoms-and you know he killed himself. The thing is that it’s treatable, with drugs and psychotherapy,and when she went on the medication she improved so much that I was tremendously relieved. When she said she wanted to look after the children again, I was really confident that she could do it. She was doing fine when I left . . .’
Neither of them had touched their oysters, and Suzanne’s voice had dropped to a flat murmur. Brock tasted his wine and she followed suit.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have kept in touch with them. I never thought.’
‘No, you couldn’t, not after the way we parted. It seems the hospital disagrees with the diagnosis. They think she’s suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, which has similar symptoms but is less amenable to treatment. Also, when the social services went to the house to see the children, they found drugs-cannabis and methamphetamine. It seems Amber had never really given them up. I didn’t know. I should have been more careful.When I got home I discovered she’d taken things from my house, little things she could sell, and Ginny told me she’d discovered things missing from the shop.’
He watched the distress building in her, and reached out to put his hand over hers.‘You don’t deserve this. It isn’t your fault.’
She took a deep breath, reining her feelings in. ‘Anyway, I wanted you to know; that’s why I’ve come home.’ She picked up her fork and stabbed it at a grey mollusc.
They ate in silence, then she said, with a forced attempt to change the subject,‘So,and what are you doing at the moment?’
He told her about Dee-Ann and Dana, and despite her preoccupation, she gradually became drawn into the story.
‘Michael Grant, yes, I’ve seen him on TV. I thought he was very impressive. I wish there were more like that at Westminster. So the other three victims were his contemporaries. I suppose he could have been one of them, if things had been different.’
‘Exactly. This is why he’s taking such a personal interest in the case, that and his suspicions about Roach.’
‘But if he has evidence against him he should give it to you, surely?’
‘He’s giving us access to his files, but I don’t know if he’s holding something back. So far we’ve seen nothing we can act on.
We’re looking for a pattern of incrimination, you could say. My
lot are beginning to think I’m obsessed.’
‘What, you?’ She laughed.‘Don’t they know you by now?’
‘When your hair turns grey people start to look for signs of a similar deterioration inside your head. Kind of applied metonymy. Even Dot’s giving me funny looks.’
‘And how’s Kathy?’
‘Okay, I think. She’s going out with a bloke who’s working with us at the moment, on secondment from Special Branch. I’m keeping a close eye on him.’
‘I’m sure she’ll be glad about that.Why don’t you just let her get on with it?’
‘I don’t interfere!’ he protested. ‘I’m just not sure about her taste for Special Branch officers.Why can’t she meet a nice lawyer or something? Someone with a safe desk job. Anyway, you can catch up with her yourself this evening, if you feel like it, and Michael Grant too.’ He explained about the concert.‘And maybe afterwards . . .’
‘I have to get back this afternoon, David,’ she said quickly.‘I’ve got a note of the train times. Thanks.’
‘Of course.’ He stiffened, mentally cursing himself for spoiling everything.‘They’re staying with you now are they,the children?’
‘Yes, back to the old routine. I must say they seem happy about it. I wonder what went on, what they saw.’
