There had been hours of silence, long periods where they kept out of each other’s way, but inevitably something would cause the other to erupt—one of dad’s old trainers wedged under the foldaway table, or a tub of the ice cream he especially liked left in the freezer. And then, like splinters working their way under the skin, these little reminders of his absence—of what Heather had done—tore all the wounds open again.
Reluctantly, Heather remembered bringing the injured bird home in her arms, still carefully wrapped in her t-shirt. She had hidden it in her room, finding an old shoe box and stuffing it with rags. She had filled up a little pot of water, stolen a handful of breakfast cereal, thinking it might eat that. Looking back, she was amazed she had done it—obviously she couldn’t have kept it hidden for long, and she hadn’t the faintest idea of how to look after animals; she had never been allowed any pets, after all.
Even now, after life had supplied her with a number of terrible memories, the look on her dad’s face when he’d found the box was still one of the very worst. He’d snatched the box up from its place by the bed—the bird had looked dead then, Heather remembered, its head curled round to its breast and its eyes glassy—and a look of sheer terror had passed over his face. Then, slowly, anger had replaced it; a rage so unexpected and complete that thinking of it as an adult still frightened her.
He had turned red in the face, and they had shouted at each other, a rising chorus of outrage. Even then, Heather had been taken aback by the heat of her own anger, a lot of it fueled by sheer surprise—in their little family dynamic, her dad was the soft touch, and mum was the rod of iron. And besides which, it was just a bird. A poorly bird. And he was acting as though she’d been out murdering babies.
She had told him that, she remembered; had screamed it in his face. White blotches appeared on his red cheeks, his eyes wet and shining, and he had marched from her room, the bird box still in his hands. He had died around forty-five minutes later, a sudden and apocalyptic heart attack while he was in the park, putting the bird back where it had come from. It had been getting late, the sun going down, and there had been no one there to help him, or to phone for an ambulance, and that was that.
Sitting alone in the spare room of her mother’s empty house, Heather looked down at her hands. She felt sick to her stomach and so tired she couldn’t keep her eyelids from slipping down every few seconds, yet her heart was skittering in her chest.
“You know what you’ve done.” It was what her mother had hissed at her, a day or two after the funeral. She had never seen her mother drink before that, but she had been drinking then, taking small sips from a glass of vodka and coke, her eyes red and the skin around her mouth pinched. “You know what you’ve done.” It was the icy truth of it, the freezing water between them that could never be bridged again. And was it really so different from I know what you are? Heather found she could imagine her mother writing that note. Could imagine it very easily, her lips pinched together with hate and the hand holding the pen clenched so tightly her fingers were white.
Abruptly, Heather leaned over the bed and was noisily sick, snatching up the bucket just in time. A hot curd of bread pudding and sour red wine splashed wetly against the plastic bottom, her stomach clenching and flexing until it was all out of her. After that, some vital energy seemed to leave her and she finally slept, despite the smell of sick and the brightly burning lights.
She woke up at around 4 AM, sitting straight up in the bed. My toothbrush was in the cabinet, she thought wildly, with no idea why the information was important. It was only when she’d stepped out to turn the light off, then slipped back into bed, that she realized what it meant: if she’d put the toothbrush in the cabinet that morning, then why hadn’t the note and the feathers fallen out then?
She lay awake for some time after that, until the rancid smell of vomit forced her out of the bedroom and onto the downstairs sofa.
CHAPTER20
“SORRY ABOUT THE mess.”
Heather stepped around a stack of box files as DI Parker led her through the chaotic office. It was remarkably shabby for a police station, to her mind, mostly filled with people frowning at pieces of paper or eating Subway sandwiches, but it was at least very lively.
“Like I said before, you’re busy, right?”
Ben Parker gave her a quick smile over his shoulder. “Always. But as it happens, part of the ceiling collapsed in the east side of the building, so a lot of stuff that was over there is now being found a home over here,” he waved at the overloaded desks. “It’s also where we’d normally interview people, so you’ll have to make do with my office today.”
At the far end of the open plan space they came to a row of small, closed off offices, the glass partitions dotted with Post-its and pale dots of old Blu Tack adhesive. Parker led them inside one and set down the two coffees he’d been carrying on a crowded desk. As Heather sat down, she found herself trying to see everything on the desk at once; there were handwritten reports there, printouts of emails, and a few large photographs of what looked like someone’s bedroom.
“Is this an interview then? I mean, that sounds very official.”
“Ah, no.” Parker sat down, the chair squeaking slightly. He ran a hand through
