The safe house

‘How are you coping?’ Daley asked.

‘What with?’

He laughed.

‘I don’t know where to begin. With Finn. With a child. Moving to the country. With a big new job.’

‘I’m coping. That’s what I do.’

Michael was driving me on the Stamford ring road towards the Castletown area of Stamford where Mrs Ferrer lived. Michael had been resistant at first but I told him that after meeting Mrs Ferrer, I felt a certain responsibility for her. I was worried about her mood. Also, if she wanted to see Finn, then that might be good for both of them, and I was determined to encourage it. Certainly, the cleaner had seemed pretty determined to track down Finn and say goodbye. At any rate, I wanted to talk to her. No, I didn’t want to talk to her on the phone. After my experience at the funeral, I thought it would take a good deal of patience, not to mention sign language, to establish meaningful contact with her.

‘Just give me her address and I’ll go there in the morning.’

‘I think she’s at work in the morning. If you can wait until the afternoon, I’ll come with you. After all, I am supposed to be her doctor. It could count as a home visit.’

As we drove, Michael pointed out remains of Roman fortifications, the traces of a siege in the civil war, an ancient mount, but then we left the interesting local sites behind and drove among school playing-fields, allotments, roundabouts, superstores, petrol stations, about which there was nothing to say.

‘How are you coping?’

‘Fine,’ said Daley, a little sharply. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Politeness.’

‘You don’t need to be polite with me.’

‘You haven’t seen me not being polite.’

‘I could deal with it.’

Michael never took his eyes off the road and I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes.

‘Do you resent me being here?’ I asked.

‘In my car?’

‘Here, on the scene. When you are Finn’s doctor.’

‘I’ve already told you that I don’t.’

‘It would be natural.’

We were back in a residential area of terraced houses.

‘If we turned left here, we’d get to the Mackenzies’ old house. But we just turn right here into the less salubrious part of Castletown. We’re alike I think, you and me.’

I smirked at his apparent flirtatiousness.

‘How so?’

‘We like challenges. We take things on.’

‘What do you take on?’

‘When I was a child, I used to be scared of heights. There was a sort of tower near where I went to prep school, a monument built by an eccentric old duke. There were a hundred and seventy steps, and when you were at the top it felt as if you were falling. I made myself climb it every week of term.’

‘Did it cure you of your fear of heights?’

‘No. Then it would have become boring. My work’s just a job. Except for people like Mrs Ferrer, of course. But my real life’s largely outside it. I make myself do things. Gliding. Riding. Have you ever been sailing?’

‘No, I hate water.’

‘You can’t live here and not sail. You must come in my boat.’

‘Well…’

‘This car’s another example. Do you know anything about cars?’

‘We don’t seem alike to me. I never do things I’m afraid of.’

‘It must be somewhere here.’

‘Here? Can we park?’

‘Trust me. I’m a doctor. I have a sticker in my window. I’m paying a call.’

‘Does she live in Woolworths?’

We were in a busy shopping street. Mrs Ferrer lived in one of those rooms that you don’t notice, a doorway between shops leading up to a first floor that you wouldn’t suspect is there. A door from the street led up some grey-carpeted stairs to a landing from which there were two doors. One had the nameplate of a dentist on the door, the other had nothing.

‘This must be it,’ said Daley. ‘Handy for the shops, at any rate.’

There was no bell or knocker. He rapped at the door with his knuckles. We waited in awkward silence. There was nothing. He knocked again. Nothing.

‘Maybe she’s at work,’ I suggested.

Daley turned the handle of the door. It opened.

‘I don’t think we should go in,’ I said.

‘The radio’s on.’

‘She probably forgot to switch it off when she went out.’

‘Maybe she can’t hear us. Let’s go up and see.’

There were more steps. No carpet this time. As I reached the top my face was hit by a breath of stifling hot air. Michael grimaced at me.

‘Is there something wrong with the electrics?’ I asked.

‘A reminder of Spain, I suppose.’

‘Mrs Ferrer!’ I called. ‘Hello? Where’s the radio?’

Michael pointed ahead of me into the tiny, squalid kitchen.

‘I’ll find the heater,’ he said.

I walked into the kitchen, in which the music was echoing tinnily. I found the radio by the sink, pushed at buttons ineffectually and then pulled the plug out from the wall. There was a shout which I thought at first was a delayed throb from the radio, but then I realized it was my name: ‘Sam! Sam!’ I ran through to the other room and found a complicated and strange scene. Looking back on it even a few minutes later, I wasn’t able to recall how I had put it together in my mind. I could see a woman lying on the bed with all her clothes on, a grey skirt, a brightly coloured nylon sweater. No head. Yes, there was a head but it was obscured by something, and Michael was picking frantically at it, tearing it. It was plastic, a bag, like the bags you put fruit in at the supermarket. Michael was pushing his fingers into her mouth and then firmly pushing down on the woman’s chest and doing things with her arms. I looked around for a phone. There. I dialled.

‘Ambulance, please. What? Where are we? Michael, where are we?’

‘Quinnan Street.’

‘Quinnan Street. By Woolworths. Above Woolworths, I think. And police as well.’ What was his name? Rupert. Rupert. ‘Tell Inspector Baird at Stamford CID.’

I put down the receiver and looked round. Michael was sitting still now, obscuring most of Mrs Ferrer’s body, though I could see her open eyes, disordered grey hair. He stood up and walked past me. I heard a tap running in the kitchen. I walked over and sat by the body. I touched her hair and tried to arrange it slightly, except that I couldn’t remember which way it was supposed to go. Who was left to know?

‘I’m sorry,’ I said aloud to myself, to her. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

The ambulance arrived within five minutes, a man and a woman in green overalls ran in at high speed, then slowed down and stopped after a brief examination of the body. They looked around as if they had woken from a dream and had noticed us for the first time. As we were introducing ourselves, two young police constables came up the stairs. I asked about Baird, and one of them spoke into a radio. I whispered to Daley, feeling guilty and conspiratorial.

‘How did she die?’ I knew the answer.

His faced looked dazed.

‘Suffocated.’