“What?”
“Your asking for an investigation into his nephew’s death.”
“Perhaps he did, but what could he say? ‘I don’t want that’? I would have asked why. He would have tried to explain. Perhaps he would have said it was unfair to Nicholas, to Manette, to Mignon to suspect them, but I would have argued it’s better to know the truth about one’s children than to live a lie and that, Inspector, would have taken us far too close to the truth Bernard himself didn’t want me to know. He had to run the risk you wouldn’t unearth Vivienne. He really had no choice in the matter.”
“For what it’s worth, she’s returning to New Zealand.”
She made no response to this. She took his arm as they worked their way along the path. She said, “What’s odd is this: After more than forty years of marriage, a man often becomes a habit. I must consider whether Bernard is a habit I would prefer to break.”
“Might you?”
“I might. But first I want the time to think.” She squeezed his arm and looked up at him. “You’re a very handsome man, Inspector. I’m sorry you lost your wife. But I hope you don’t intend to remain alone. Do you?”
“I haven’t thought about it much,” he admitted.
“Well, do think about it. We all have to choose eventually.”
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
Tim spent hours in the business centre waiting for the time to be right. It hadn’t taken him that long to reach the town once he’d left Kaveh that morning. He’d leaped over a drystone wall and jogged across a lumpy paddock in the direction of dense woods comprising fir trees and birches. He’d remained there — in a shelter of autumn-hued bracken backed by the trunk of a fallen spruce — until he was certain Kaveh had driven off, and then he’d worked his way over to the road to Windermere, where two lifts took him to the middle of town, at which point he began his search.
He’d had no luck in finding a restorer of broken toys. At long last, he’d had to settle upon an establishment called J. Bobak amp; Son, a shop dedicated to the repair of all things electrical. Inside this place three aisles crammed with broken kitchen appliances led to the back, where J. Bobak turned out to be a woman with grey plaits, a lined face, and bright pink lipstick that ran up the cracks above her lips while Son turned out to be a kid in his twenties with Down’s syndrome. She was tinkering with something that looked like a miniature waffle iron. He was working on an old-time wireless that was nearly the size of a Mini. All round both Son and his mother stood various appliances in various stages of repair: television sets, microwaves, mixers, toasters, and coffeemakers, some of which looked as if they’d been waiting for expert electrical ministrations for a decade or more.
When Tim presented J. Bobak with Bella, she’d shaken her head. This poor lump of arms and legs and body couldn’t be repaired at all, he was told, even if J. Bobak amp; Son repaired toys, which they did not. At least, she couldn’t be repaired in a way that would be pleasing to her owner. He’d be better off saving his money to buy a new doll. There was a toy shop-
It had to be
She said to Tim, “Sure you don’t want to buy a new doll, luv?”
As could be, Tim told her. Could she repair it? There was no other shop. He’d tried all over town.
She said reluctantly that she’d see what she could do, and Tim told her he would give her the address where the doll had to be sent when it was completed. He took out a crumpled wad of bank notes and some coins, all of which he’d cadged over time from his mother’s bag, his father’s wallet, and a tin in the kitchen where Kaveh kept pound coins to use when he ran out of money and hadn’t thought to stop at the cash point in Windermere on his way home from work.
J. Bobak said, “What? You not coming back for it yourself?”
He said no. He wouldn’t be here in Cumbria by the time the doll was repaired. He told her to take as much money as she liked. She could send any change back with the doll. Then he gave her Gracie’s name and the address, which was simple enough. Bryan Beck farm, Bryanbarrow, near Crosthwaite. Gracie might well be gone by then, but even if she’d returned to their mother, certainly Kaveh would send the doll on. He’d do that much, no matter what sort of lie he was living with his pathetic little wife at that point. And she’d be pleased to see it, would Gracie. Perhaps she’d even forgive Tim for having wrecked the poor doll in the first place.
That done, he’d found his way to the business centre and there he stayed. On his way, with what remained of his money he bought a packet of jam mallows, a Kit Kat bar, an apple, and a nachos kit of chips and salsa and refried beans, and, squatting between a filthy white Ford Transit and a wheelie bin overloaded with soaking Styrofoam, he ate it all.
When the car park began to empty as people left the various businesses for the day, he ducked behind the wheelie bin and kept out of sight. He fixed his eyes upon the photo shop and just before the hour when it was to close, he went across to it and opened the door.
Toy4You was taking the cash drawer out of the till. His hands full, he didn’t have the chance to remove his name tag. Tim saw part of it,
He said, “I told you I’d text. What’re you doing here?”
Tim said, “It happens tonight.”
Toy4You said, “Get this straight: I’m not playing power games with some fourteen-year-old. I told you I’d let you know when I had it set up.”
“Set it up now. You said not alone this time and that means you know someone. Get him over here. We’re doing it now.” Tim pushed past the man. He saw Toy4You’s face darken. It didn’t matter to Tim if it came to blows. Blows were just fine. One way or another, things were going to be concluded.
He went into the back room. He’d been here before, so nothing about it surprised Tim. It wasn’t a large space, but it was divided into two distinct sections. The first was for digital printing, supplies, and articles relating to the photographic business. The second, at the far end of the room, was a studio in which subjects posed for their pictures in front of various backgrounds.
At the moment, the studio took the form of a photographic parlour from another century, the sort of place where people used to pose stiffly, sitting or standing or both. It contained a chaise longue, two plinths upon which sat artificial ferns, several overstuffed chairs, thick faux curtains drawn back with fancy tasselled cords, and a backdrop. The backdrop made it look as if anyone posing had dragged their furniture outside to the top of a cliff: It comprised a painted landmass ending in a deep sky filled with cumulus clouds.
Tim had learned that this setup was all about contrast. And contrast, he’d also learned, was all about two things being in direct opposition to each other. When this had been explained to him on his first visit, he’d thought immediately of the contrast between what he’d once counted upon as his life — a mum, a dad, a sister, and a house in Grange-over-Sands — and what his life had been reduced to, which was nothing. Entering the space now, he thought about the contrast between how Kaveh Mehran had lived with his dad at Bryan Beck farm and how Kaveh Mehran intended to live in what was going to go for the next phase of his miserable excuse for a life. When this thought came upon him, Tim forced himself to think instead of the real contrast that lay ahead, which was the contrast between the mock innocence of this setting for photos and what the photos themselves consisted of.
Toy4You had explained all this to him the first time he had posed for the pictures as he had been instructed to pose. Certain kinds of people, he’d been told, liked to look at or purchase photos of nude young boys. They liked the boys posing in certain ways. They liked to see certain body parts. Sometimes it was just the suggestion of a