She watched Axel from the living room, all the lights off, the only glow coming from the television, which was playing reruns of old shows. He was letting himself into the house, being as quiet as he could, and he paused, the door still open, snow flittering inside, and looked up the incline of the stairs. He was trying to figure out if he’d woken her, seemed genuinely concerned about it.
Most of the time, that was what he was like.
‘Hey,’ she said.
He looked in her direction, became aware that the television was on, that light was dancing along the corridor towards him, painting its walls and floors, and he turned, the soles of his shoes squeaking on the parquet.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘hey. I thought you might be asleep already.’
‘Just watching some TV.’
He came forward, stopping in the living-room doorway, the TV bleaching one side of his face so it looked like he was wearing half a mask.
‘Have you had a good day?’ she asked.
‘Long.’
‘Even though it’s late, I thought we could get takeout.’
‘Okay.’ He smiled. ‘That sounds nice.’
‘You choose.’
But he eyed her: he could see something was up.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You just seem a little …’
They looked at each other and he didn’t say anything else, because he knew what was wrong with her and it didn’t need repeating. Instead, he came further into the room, eyes switching to the TV, to the LA Law rerun that was silently playing. ‘Oh, I love this one,’ he said, eyes lighting up, looking at her as if they were in the middle of a conversation about something else entirely. It was like he didn’t have any cares in the world. ‘This is the one where Rosalind turns around and just steps into that elevator …’
She watched him.
‘Oh, this is it,’ Axel said, smiling again to himself, moving closer to the TV. Blobs of snow were melting on the hardwood floor now. ‘This is where she drops.’ He chuckled, perching on the edge of the couch. ‘Here we go.’
Onscreen, the doors to an elevator opened and one of the characters – not realizing the car hadn’t arrived – stepped into the empty shaft.
‘Damn,’ he said quietly. ‘What a way to go.’
He glanced at her and smiled again, she smiled back, and when his eyes returned to the television, she kept looking at him, turning things over in her head. She started thinking about relationships, about how they evolved over time – and about how, sometimes, hard as it was, they left you no choice.
You just had to walk away.
Early the next morning, Tillman was waiting for her on a bench at the end of Pier 15. The city was in deep freeze, the sky gunmetal-grey and hanging like a ceiling on the verge of collapse. With the wind whipping off the river, and the snow straying in and out of existence, it was a smart place to meet: as she made her way off the esplanade and along the bleached wood of the pier, she didn’t pass a single other person. No one was brave enough – or stupid enough – to be out here.
No one, except them.
She sat down next to him, pulling her coat tighter around her. Next to her, Tillman didn’t move, just kept his gaze on the river. He had his coat collar up and a scarf over his mouth, but his skin was still scoured red and his eyes were watering. He said, ‘Whoever made the decision to meet out here is clearly a moron.’
It was a joke. It had been his.
They stayed like that for a moment, because they both knew what they were here for and neither wanted to begin, but then Tillman shifted his weight on the bench, turned to her, and said, ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want to try to pretend we aren’t having this conversation,’ she replied, then glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She smiled, although it was sad, fleeting.
‘We can wait,’ Tillman said.
‘Will waiting make it any better?’
Tillman shrugged. His silence was him being generous. It wasn’t going to get any better. They had a problem and it would need to be addressed.
‘Look,’ Tillman said, ‘after today, Travis has three days left as a cop. From what I hear, he’s made absolutely zero progress. The whole case is in the swamp and he’s up to his neck with no way out. There’s no chance in hell this is going to be solved before he goes. So we can wait and see if anyone else picks up the reins. It might happen, and if it does, we can delay for now and make the decision then.’ Tillman paused as the wind came again, colder and harder than before. He tightened the scarf around his chin. ‘But, you know …’ He looked at her. ‘Even if Louise Mason gets filed and forgotten, it’s still in a drawer somewhere. This whole thing will still be hanging over us.’
She watched as a plane dropped out of the clouds, like a dolphin diving beneath the surface of the ocean. It was banking in their direction, heading towards Newark. For a moment, she thought of escape, of taking a plane somewhere and disappearing for good. Then she said, ‘What was she like?’
‘Who, Louise?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Rebekah.’
Tillman eyed her. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You never met her?’
‘No.’
‘I hear she was a doctor.’ She could see the concern on Tillman’s face. He was worried she was losing focus. ‘Takes a lot to become a doctor.’
‘Takes a lot to become all sorts of things.’
He shut her down, maybe rightly. This was a discussion that wasn’t going anywhere good, and even if she ignored him and kept asking questions, she’d end up the only casualty. She’d look weak and indecisive in front of him when she needed to be ruthless and single-minded.
Rebekah wasn’t the reason they were here.
Neither was Louise.
This was about someone else entirely.
‘Just give him a little longer,’ she said.