quite a gentle man, actually.’
‘He’s doing time for assault,’ said Blake. ‘That’s how gentle he can be.’
Karen considered the scar on Blake’s face; the boxer’s bend to his nose.
‘That’s different.’ Stephanie looked to Karen. ‘Isn’t it? That was business. That’s not what the doctor’s talking about.’
Karen made as though taking down a note. When she looked up Stephanie had a flame to her second cigarette, her eyes drawn together and trained, it looked like, on the tip of her nose.
‘Is it possible,’ Karen said, ‘that Frank ever touched Daniel? Ever interfered with him in any way?’
Stephanie expelled the smoke in her lungs. ‘None. Never. I would have known.’
‘But you said he drank. Might his behaviour have been different when he was intoxicated?’
‘I don’t see why. And anyway I still would have known. Besides, he hated that kind of thing. It made him furious. Really properly furious.’
This time Karen did make a note. ‘What about, I don’t know. Uncles. Male friends. Older boys. Anyone else.’ She did not look at Blake directly but she was watching for his reaction.
Blake did not move. His wife shook her head.
Karen tapped her pen against her notepad. ‘When Frank left,’ she said, ‘Daniel was, what? Eight?’
Stephanie thought, nodded.
‘How did he react?’
‘Who? Danny?’ Stephanie made a show of trying to recall. ‘He – Frank, I mean – he wasn’t around much by that time anyway.’ She pulled on her cigarette and her frown deepened. She held in the smoke for so long that Karen felt sure it was not coming out again. ‘Danny wasn’t happy about it, obviously. But I wouldn’t say he was specially unhappy either. He just… I don’t know. Went on being Daniel.’
‘Was Daniel generally happy, would you say? As a child. When he was younger.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Stephanie. ‘He wasn’t ever, like, joyous. Is that a word?’ She glanced at Karen and Karen nodded. ‘Danny wasn’t ever that kind of boy. It isn’t his nature.’
‘ To be happy?’
‘ To be… I don’t know. Laughing all the time. Things like that. It isn’t Daniel.’
Stephanie finished her second cigarette. She adjusted herself in her seat, transferred her handbag from her lap to the floor. There was the rattle, as she moved it, of pills in a jar. Or mints in a tin, of course. Vitamins, paracetamol – it might have been anything.
‘What about you, Stephanie?’ Karen said. Blake, before, had been fiddling with his packet of Rothmans. The box ceased dancing all of a sudden in his grip. ‘How did you cope when Frank left you?’
‘Me? I…’ Stephanie looked down.
‘She coped just fine. Didn’t you, Steph?’ There was malice in Blake’s tone; anger in the look Stephanie, in response, cast towards her husband.
‘I coped,’ she said.
Karen waited for Stephanie to say more. ‘You coped,’ she said after a pause. ‘May I ask what you mean by that?’
‘She means she coped,’ Blake said. ‘What could be clearer?’
Karen left another silence but neither of Daniel’s parents sought to fill it. ‘What about motherhood? More generally, I mean. Did you enjoy it? How did you cope, would you say, with being a mother?’
Stephanie glanced towards her husband. ‘I don’t know. Okay, I suppose. It was hard but everyone finds it hard. Don’t they?’
Karen let the question go unanswered. ‘Hard in what way, Stephanie? Can you explain?’
Stephanie hesitated and Blake leant forwards, forcing himself into Karen’s sight line. ‘This is about Daniel. Isn’t it? I thought this was supposed to be about the boy.’
‘Absolutely,’ Karen said. ‘It’s just background, that’s all. It’s just to help us try to understand—’
‘What’s to understand! What bloody difference does it make whether Steph “enjoyed motherhood”?’ He said this last as though the concept were patently something to mock.
‘Well, actually, Vincent, it does make quite a significant—’
‘Steph didn’t kill anyone. Frank, her ex: he liked a scrap but he never killed anyone either.’
Karen inclined her head. ‘No. That’s true. But—’
‘So what’s with all the questions about them? You wanna help Daniel, that’s what you said. Sounds to me like all you’re interested in doing is digging up the family dirt.’ An idea seemed to strike him. His eyes tightened. ‘Like for the papers or something.’ He smiled. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re digging up dirt to give the papers.’ He allowed Karen an instant to respond but all she could manage was a shake of her head. ‘I’m right,’ Blake said, his smile spreading. ‘Aren’t I?’
Stephanie shuffled forwards, pressing her knees against the coffee table and reaching half-heartedly across it. ‘Vince. Please. I’m sure that’s not what this is about.’
Blake stood. ‘This is over. We’ve said all we’re going to.’
Karen rose to face him. ‘Mr Blake. Vincent. I promise you. This entire conversation is completely confidential. There is simply no way I would—’
‘Let’s go, Steph.’
Stephanie looked up at Karen.
‘Stephanie!’ Blake was halfway across the room. ‘I said, let’s go!’
His wife looked down. She started gathering her things.
Blake waited with his hand on the door handle. There was an unlit cigarette jutting from his lips, a lighter sparking in his grip. He tapped his trainer on the floor as he watched his wife, pointedly avoiding Karen’s gaze. Karen started to speak, to make one last attempt to stop them leaving, but Blake was quicker to find his voice.
‘We just want this over,’ he said and he glowered. ‘Understand? All your prodding, your poking about – it’s not gonna help.’
Karen could think of nothing to say.
‘Leave things alone. Leave us alone. All we want is our lives back to normal.’
And then, of course, Karen could have answered. Your lives will never be back to normal, she might have said. This, the way things are – it’s how they’re going to be.
‘And then they left.’
Leo was stirring sugar into his coffee. There were two empty cups in the centre of the table, a steaming one in front of each of them. Leo stopped stirring and allowed his spoon to drip. He settled it noiselessly on the saucer.
‘Leo? Did you… Are you okay?’
He looked up. ‘Sorry? What? Yes, I… Sorry,’ he said again. ‘It was a long weekend. That’s all.’ He sat straighter. ‘So what do you think?’
Karen peered at him before answering. ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I found it quite upsetting. Not that these things aren’t always upsetting but… well…’
‘Because of Blake, you mean? He’s like that with everyone. He’s a moron, I told you. Doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.’
Karen shook her head. ‘Not because of him. On the scale of obnoxiousness among the people I have to deal with in this job, he barely scrapes a seven. And anyway,’ she said, turning her cup, ‘I’m not sure that’s true.’
‘That he’s a moron?’
‘No. He’s definitely a moron. I mean the bit about him not giving a damn.’
Leo frowned. He started to ask Karen what she meant but she was dangling her arm into the bag at her feet, looking the way she was reaching. She glanced briefly at the tables around them – empty but for two mothers with their babies and an elderly couple crossing forks over a slice of carrot cake – then slid an A4 envelope alongside Leo’s cup of coffee.
‘What’s this?’
‘Just something I found. Something I obtained, rather. Take a look.’
Leo lifted the flap and pulled out the sheets that were inside. ‘What is this?’ He turned from the first page to
