The safe house

‘Did Daley tell you?’

‘We believe him to be a dangerous man, Sam. And now he has contacted you.’

I was confused for a moment.

‘What did…? Are you tapping my phone?’

‘It was an obvious precaution,’ Baird said.

‘Fuck,’ said Danny, and walked out.

‘How much does he know?’ Baird asked.

‘How much do I know? Why wasn’t I told any of this? Is Laroue a suspect?’

Baird frowned and looked at his watch.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘I think it is likely that the Mackenzie murders are linked to the wave of terrorism in the region of Essex around Stamford. We thought it possible that there might be a move against Fiona Mackenzie here. Please offer your friend my apologies.’ He got up to go. ‘For your information, tomorrow…’ He paused and smiled wanly. ‘Today, there will be an operation led by a colleague of mine named Carrier, involving arrests across the county. Among them will be Frank Laroue, who will be charged with various offences of conspiracy and incitement to violence.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘So I suppose the drink I was going to have with him will have to be postponed.’

‘That was not especially prudent,’ Baird said. ‘Anyway, I’m convinced that you are now perfectly safe.’

‘What if it wasn’t the animal terrorists who killed the Mackenzies?’

‘In that case the murderers were probably burglars.’

‘What did they steal?’

‘It went wrong, they were disturbed. Whatever the case, you’re safe now.’

‘No, I’m not. I’ve got my parents coming for dinner later today.’

At ten later that morning there was a timid knock on the door. A thin young man, boy, really, whose hair was scraped back into a pony-tail, was standing there with a bag and a nervously adoring smile. It faded when he saw me.

‘Miss Fiona wanted some vegetables,’ he said and pushed the bag into my hands.

‘Real farm produce, whatever next?’ asked Danny. ‘Real home-cooking, perhaps?’

Finn and Elsie came out of the kitchen. They both had their sleeves rolled up, and Elsie had wrapped a dish towel around her waist like an apron.

‘Why don’t you two go out for a walk before your mother arrives?’ asked Finn.

Was this the girl who only a few weeks ago had been unable to piece two words together? She was wearing her new, dark-blue jeans and a white cotton shirt; her dark hair was brushed back into a pony-tail and tied with a velvet bow. Her face was tanned from our windswept walks and flushed from the heat of the stove. She looked clean and young and soft, with her supple limbs and her strong slim shoulders; I knew if I stood closer to her I would be able to smell soap and talcum power on her. She made me feel old and weathered. Coming forward, she took the bag from me, peering into its interior.

‘Potatoes,’ she said. ‘And spinach. Just what we wanted, eh, Elsie?’

‘Who was that boy?’ I asked.

‘Oh, that was Roy, Judith’s son,’ she replied airily. She knew far more local people than I did. She giggled. ‘I think he fancies me,’ and then she flushed from the roots of her hair down to her throat, on which the scar was already fading.

Danny looked after her as she went.

‘She’s looking well.’

‘You and that boy with the pony-tail,’ I said.

Danny didn’t laugh.

Outside the sky was a bright pale-blue, and although it had snowed a few days ago – spitty, mean little flakes that scattered along the ridges of the red-soiled fields – the air was gentle. I had turned all the heating off and opened the windows. In the garden, among the weeds and undergrowth, daffodils glowed and tulips stood in a row of tightly unopened buds.

‘Shall we have a walk then?’ asked Danny. ‘When are your parents descending?’

‘We’ve a good couple of hours. Let’s go through Stone-on-Sea’ – though the sea had long since been pushed back by the sea walls, leaving the village surrounded by desolate marshland and strange, land-locked jetties – ‘and to the coast that way.’

It was so mild we didn’t even need jackets. Through the kitchen window I could see Finn bending over something, a furrow of concentration on her brows. Elsie was out of sight. Danny pulled me closer to him, and for a long time we walked in silence, strides matched. Then he spoke.

‘Sam, there’s something I need to talk to you about.’

‘What’s that?’ His tone was unusually serious, and an unaccountable fear invaded me.

‘It’s to do with Finn, of course, and you, and Elsie too. Oh hell, I don’t know, come here.’

And he stopped and pulled me against him and buried his face in my neck.

‘What is it, Danny? Talk to me, we should have talked a long time ago, please tell me.’

‘No, wait,’ he murmured. ‘Bodies talk better.’

I pushed my hands under his sweater and shirt and felt his warm, strong back naked under my fingers. With his face still nuzzling me, stubble grazing my cheek, he undid the belt on my jeans like a blind man and slid one hand inside my trousers, cupping my buttocks. My breath came in shallow gasps.

‘Not here, Danny.’

‘Why? There’s no one to see.’

Around us the marshes spread out in every direction, punctuated by stunted trees and rusting boats stranded when the sea was tamed by the walls. Danny undid my bra with one expert hand. I pulled back his head by his long, not-quite-clean hair and saw his face was screwed up in a kind of concentrated disquiet.

‘Don’t be anxious, my love,’ I said, and undid his trousers and let him tug down mine, and he pushed into me despairingly while my jeans and knickers puddled round my pinioned ankles. So we stood tangled together in a great empty space under a tepid sun, and I thought how undignified I must look and hoped no farmer would decide to walk this way and wondered what my mother would say.

‘This,’ Danny was speaking with his mouth full and I could see my mother looking across the table at him with a pucker-mouthed distaste, ‘is great, Finn.’

Finn had served us roast leg of lamb spiked with garlic and rosemary, jacket potatoes with sour cream as well as butter, coarsely chopped spinach, and she’d even remembered to buy mint sauce from the supermarket yesterday. My father – dressed in his version of casual, which meant a tweed jacket, trousers of an indeterminate greyish colour, the first button undone on his well-ironed shirt and a parting like a new pink road running though his thinning grey hair – had produced two bottles of wine. My mother ate her food neatly, dabbing her lips after each mouthful, taking cautious sips of wine every so often. Finn ate almost nothing, but she sat at the table with bright eyes and a nervous smile hovering on her lips. On one side of her sat Danny, who was on his best behaviour but rather subdued, I thought. On the other sat Michael Daley, determinedly animated, diligently charming to everyone. He had arrived in a flurry of yellow roses (for me), anemones (for Finn, who’d clutched them to her like a shy bride), wine, firm handshakes. He listened to my mother attentively when she spoke about the terrible morning they’d had, asked my father respectfully about the route they’d taken to come here, lifted Elsie, wriggling, on to his shoulders, bent consolingly towards Finn every time he spoke to her, his dark-blond hair flopping over his eyes as he did so. He wasn’t suave; he just seemed attractively eager to please. He turned on his chair like a weather-vane, swinging at every remark. He handed out vegetables, jumped up to help Finn in the kitchen. He was full of a strange nervous energy. Suddenly I wondered, appalled, if he was falling in love with Finn, and then I wondered if he was falling in love with me. And if he was, what did I feel about that?

I looked at the two men on either side of the girl: one so dark, surly and gorgeous; the other fairer, more enigmatic. And I could see which of them my mother liked with every grim mouthful that she diligently chewed. There was a strange tension between the men; they were in competition, but I couldn’t work out over what, exactly. Danny incessantly made paper shapes, twisting scraps of his paper napkin into flowers and boats.

Over baked apples (stuffed, by Elsie, with raisins and honey, though Elsie by now had retired to her bedroom,