They left me with the red-haired officer. As Aidan passed me, he leaned towards me.
‘You’ll never get rid of me,’ he said in a whisper.
I asked the officer what his name was.
Thorpe, he told me. Ronnie Thorpe.
‘OK, Ronnie, would you like some coffee?’
His eyes darted around as if he was expecting Durrant to emerge from a cupboard.
‘If you’re making some.’ He couldn’t meet my eye.
‘I am.’
I made us both strong coffee, taking my time over it. Then Ronnie sat stiff-backed and perspiring at the table, while I rang my school to say I wouldn’t be in until the following morning. I’d been a victim of a crime, I said, and heard the intake of breath at the other end.
I fed Sunny. I washed up the dishes from last night, sluicing the congealing duck fat off the plates, sloshing the glasses under hot water for ages and then rinsing them several times. I scrubbed at the kitchen surfaces. Every trace of him. Anywhere he might have touched.
‘How long will this take?’ I asked Ronnie.
Ronnie didn’t know. He only knew I was to stay in the house; his job was to keep an eye on me.
I went and had a shower. The water was tepid, but I stood under it until it turned cold, washing every inch of my body, scrubbing at it, and even that wasn’t enough. I cleaned my teeth, gargled with mouthwash. I pushed the torn tee shirt and the knickers I’d been wearing into the wastepaper basket. I did the same with the red dress and the lacy underwear from last night. I put on drawstring linen trousers and a crisp white cotton shirt, soft on my skin. I stripped the sheet off the bed, pulled the duvet cover off, the pillowcases, and threw them onto the landing, to take to the bin outside later. I had a sudden impulse to cut off all my hair, but thought that Poppy might be alarmed to see me shorn so I just coiled it into a tight knot at the back of my neck.
I went downstairs again and Ronnie was still sitting hot and stiff on the chair, nursing his coffee and gazing steadfastly in front of him.
I went into the garden, which I had neglected recently. I put birdseed in the feeder and crouched down with a trowel and dug out the ground elder, a stubborn weed with thin deep roots. I deadheaded the roses, then sprayed the buds with soapy water to keep the bugs away. I tipped out the rainwater that had gathered in the little paddling pool, rinsed it out with a couple of buckets of water. I got rid of the ash in the barbecue.
I understood that I was thinking nothing, feeling nothing. I was waiting. Behind me in the conservatory, Ronnie waited too.
Just before midday, I saw him get to his feet and move heavily towards the stairs, so I rinsed my hands from the outdoor tap and went back inside, just as he came back down again, with a figure behind him.
It was Ross Durrant. He strode into the conservatory as if he was on his way somewhere else, then came to an abrupt halt just in front of me. I could see a small tic in his temple and realised that he was angry.
‘Well?’ I asked.
He rested his eyes on me. I felt he was looking at me the way I looked at a snarl in the thread when I was sewing.
‘I am here to take you to the police station,’ he said and I felt a trickle of dread run through me. Had something gone wrong?
‘Why?’
‘To make a statement.’
‘What’s happening?’ I asked. ‘Did you find the things I told you you’d find?’
‘We did.’ His mouth snapped shut.
‘What were they?’
‘There’s a car outside for you.’
‘I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘All right,’ he said, unsmiling, ‘you can have your moment of triumph.’
‘I don’t feel any triumph.’
‘I’m not going to apologise, if that’s what you want.’
‘What I want is for Aidan to be put away where he can’t harm me or my daughter.’
‘It looks like you’ll get your wish.’
I picked up my denim jacket and bag, took my keys from the table.
‘A small silver goblet with Skye’s name engraved on it.’ His back was to me; I couldn’t see the expression on his face but his shoulders were square and unyielding. ‘A christening or a naming mug, I imagine. And an old copy of a poetry book that Peggy was awarded as a school prize for best improvement or something in 1986. It has a bookplate inside its front cover with her name on it and she’s scribbled in the margins.’
‘Is it enough?’
‘We’re about to turn his life upside down. There’s nothing we won’t know about Aidan Otley by the time we’re done. But it doesn’t really matter. We’ve already got enough to charge him with double murder. Which we will be doing imminently.’
‘Good.’ My hands were trembling; my stomach felt hollow. I felt as if I was very hungry or about to throw up. ‘That’s good.’
Ross Durrant looked at me with a more humane expression.
‘And all because your little girl saw something or heard something and put it in a picture.’
‘That’s right. Poor little thing.’
‘Any idea where it happened?’
‘I’ve gone over and over it. She barely spent any time alone with him. It might have been in the park or Skye may have come to the flat one day when I was out at the shops, or maybe at night after I was asleep. Looking back, I can see that Poppy didn’t want to be alone with him after that. I think in her way she was trying to protect me.’
‘Can’t you just ask her?’
I shook my head.
‘She’s been asked about it so much, there’s nothing real left. That picture – that was her memory: a girl falling from a tower.’