Afterwards

her.

And when a doctor says she has three weeks to live without a transplant, you tell her that she will get one.

You say you won’t let her die. And I wish to God I could believe that.

A momentary swish of air as a young man on a ventilator, unconscious and totally still, is wheeled quickly past us. He can’t be more than twenty. His mother is with him. We both watch him.

Sarah rejoins us.

‘Can you stay with Jen?’ you ask. ‘Till the police get here? I need to be with Addie, just for a bit, and-’

She puts a hand on your shoulder.

‘There’s nobody coming. I’m sorry.’

Like Jenny, the police were hardly going to find someone standing still cause for alarm. The trail of trust in your suspicion ends with Sarah.

‘I’ll go and see Silas Hyman, find out where he’s been this morning,’ she says. ‘And I’ll talk to the Richmond Post, and see who told them about the fire.’

‘But first, I need to see Addie and-’

Sarah interrupts you. ‘If someone is trying to kill Jenny, we need to find out who it is as soon as possible. And that will help Addie too. Because I don’t want him to spend another day being accused of this.’

You nod; perhaps remembering all those police statistics Sarah’s quoted at us over the years; the number of cases solved decreasing exponentially with the amount of time that elapses – trails going cold; witnesses missed who then became untraceable; door-to-door enquiries not done in time.

You stay by her bed but I know that you again feel the pain of being torn in half.

* * *

I go to Jenny in the garden. The sun is directly overhead, the shadows tiny silhouettes of what make them, offering no shade.

Jen is sitting with her arms around her knees.

‘I’m going with Aunt Sarah,’ I say.

She turns to me. ‘You know when you last saw Addie?’

I nod, flinching at the memory. Mum had told Adam I wasn’t going to wake up again and I’d tried to comfort him but he couldn’t hear me.

‘Just before,’ Jenny continues, ‘you asked me if a scent could have made me hear the fire alarm at school. You know my mad person’s tinnitus?’

‘Donald had just gone into Rowena’s room,’ I say. ‘I thought it could have been his aftershave, or cigarettes.’

‘Like a sensory teleporter?’ she says, caught with the idea. ‘Beam me up, Scotty! ’

A you and Adam catchphrase. I smile at her. ‘Something like that.’

‘Do you think a smell could make me remember more of the fire?’

I think of the night stocks in this garden and the grass-scented air at the playing field today, and how each time I was captured by the past, for a few moments actually there. Her sensory teleporter isn’t so off the mark.

‘It might do,’ I say.

But being back in that fire, even for a few moments, would be terrifying.

‘It’s before the fire that I need to remember,’ she says, seeing my anxiety. ‘When the person was lighting it.’

‘I’m not sure you can control your memory like that.’

‘I have to do something to help Addie.’

I remember his small face as Mum led him away, the bruised shadows of grief under his eyes, how his whole body seemed mute.

‘You go with Aunt Sarah and I’ll go on a scratch-and-sniff tour of the hospital,’ she continues.

I nod, because I’m not worried about her remembering anything too close to the fire – there’s nothing in the hospital that smells remotely like a fire, or even like the school.

‘You’re sure it doesn’t hurt you to go outside?’ she asks.

‘Absolutely.’ Fingers crossed behind my back.

This time I don’t think she’s getting rid of me. But I do think there’s another reason she wants to stay in the hospital.

‘Flights this time of year get really booked up,’ I say. ‘It might take him quite a while to get a standby.’

She turns away from me, as if caught out; a little embarrassed. ‘Yeah.’

I leave the hospital with Sarah.

As we drive I think about the young man I saw in ICU. I’d wondered if he would die or if he was brain-dead already and just being kept alive. I’d wondered if he was the right tissue type for Jenny. I’d hoped that he was.

Then I’d seen his mother; her suffering. And I felt ashamed. Because I still hope that he’s the right match for Jenny; and that he’s dead. The hope is ugly inside me, tarnishing the person I once was.

I think you feel the same.

It’s not always good things that unite people, is it?

Sarah pulls up outside Silas Hyman’s house. The pain still hasn’t kicked in. I’m building up greater stamina.

* * *

Natalia opens the door, looking hot and flushed and furious.

‘Yes?’

Her voice is aggressive, ambient rage surrounding her like a heat haze.

‘Detective Sergeant McBride,’ Sarah says, her voice cool. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Like I get a choice?’ she says, but there’s fear on her face.

Sarah doesn’t answer her question, but follows her into the flat.

‘Is your husband home?’

‘No.’

She volunteers nothing more.

It’s sweltering in here. The walls of the flat probably ooze damp in the winter but now trap the heat. A toddler, grimy and hot, is screaming, his nappy sagging heavily.

Natalia ignores him, going into a bathroom. Sarah follows.

‘Do you know where he is?’ Sarah asks her.

‘A building site. Been there since first thing this morning.’

He was in the hospital the last time he’d told her he was at a building site.

Two little boys are in the bath fighting, one of them swishing the scummy water over the edge of the bath onto the chipped tiled floor. They have sunburnt necks and faces.

‘Do you know which building site?’ Sarah asks.

‘Maybe the same as yesterday’s. A big development in Paddington. But he didn’t know if they’d want him again. Get out of the bath, Jason. Now!’

Building sites are a pretty good alibi.

‘Early for bath-time?’ Sarah says, and I think she means to be friendly but it comes out as a criticism.

Natalia glares. ‘I’ll be too knackered to do it later.’

The youngest one is still screaming, more desperately, his nappy almost at his knees with the weight of urine. Natalia sees Sarah looking at him.

‘You know how much they cost? Nappies? Do you know that?’