‘Iaaaan!’ she shouts up the stairs as she makes for the front door, rubbing her hands and thinking she must put the heating on. Their thermostat timer has not been adjusted to all these bodies being home during the daytime.
Miriam opens the front door and there is DS Bradshaw, a rumpled mass of black clothing, a capacious bag dropping off one shoulder. Her curls are pushed back from her forehead. She half-smiles a hello.
‘Do come in,’ says Miriam, stepping back. ‘Gosh, it’s freezing. Come on in, yes, that’s it, follow the corridor straight down to the kitchen.’
DS Bradshaw walks ahead of her, Miriam following and saying, ‘Tea?’
‘Lovely, yes, thanks,’ says the officer, allowing her bag to slip to the floor beside the kitchen table. ‘Glad to see the photographers have gone.’
‘Yes, we are no longer of interest, thank God,’ says Miriam, filling the kettle at the tap. ‘For the time being, at least. The last of them sloped off on New Year’s Eve but it was only the stragglers, to be honest.’
DS Bradshaw takes off her coat, laying it gently over the back of the padded banquette and revealing only more black, formless clothing. Perhaps they have to be constantly prepared for death – harbingers at the ready!
Ian walks in. ‘DS Bradshaw,’ he says, offering his hand. His voice these days has no uplift, no spring of humour behind it, which Miriam had always so loved in his greetings.
‘Call me Manon, please.’
‘Yes, Manon, of course.’
‘Tea, darling?’ says Miriam.
‘Why not?’
‘Can you call Rollo down?’
‘Yes, of course,’ says Ian. ‘He’s frantically tweeting and Facebook-ing,’ he says by way of explanation, and he disappears again to look for their son.
Miriam places a tea in front of Manon, who looks up at her and her face is lit by the window opposite – an angry left eye, swollen, pink-sheened and half shut.
‘You’d better treat that, sooner rather than later, by the looks of it. Conjunctivitis,’ Miriam says, adopting her GP no-arguing voice. ‘Very simple – buy some Chloramphenicol eye drops over the counter. It’ll clear up in a day. But make sure you finish the course. There, sermon over.’
‘I thought it might clear up by itself.’
‘Unlikely.’
‘How are you bearing up, Lady Hind?’
‘My name’s Miriam, my dear,’ she says. ‘And I’m not bearing up at all. Do you have any news for us?’
‘Not about Edith’s whereabouts. We have some leads …’
‘Leads?’ says Ian, settling, with Rollo, in the chairs opposite Miriam and Manon.
Manon stretches out her hand. ‘Nice to see you again, Rollo. I hear you’re running a formidable social media campaign.’
‘Much good it’s doing. There’s a lot of online emoting,’ says Rollo, ‘often by strangers, which I know I should find comforting but is really quite creepy.’
They smile and sip. In the sad silence of the kitchen, a fly fizzes against the glass of the window. Tap, fizz, tap.
‘So – leads, you said,’ says Ian.
‘Well, not exactly leads,’ says the sergeant. ‘Possible links which need exploring. We found a body.’ Then she swiftly adds, ‘No, not Edith. A boy – a seventeen-year-old called Taylor Dent.’
‘Oh, his poor mother,’ says Miriam, her palm across her mouth. Poor mother, but oh thank God it’s not Edith, thank God that wretched mother is not me. ‘What has he to do with Edith?’
‘We don’t know yet. That’s what we’re investigating. He is, was, from Cricklewood, not far from here.’
‘I think you’ll find Cricklewood is very far from here,’ mutters Ian.
‘Did Edith ever mention the name?’ asks Manon.
‘Taylor Dent?’ says Ian and he searches Miriam’s face. They shake their heads at one another.
‘I’ve never heard of him,’ says Miriam. ‘How did he die?’
‘We can’t be sure. His body was found on Friday in the river near Ely. Did you know him, Rollo?’
‘No, no, I’ve never heard of him,’ Rollo says.
‘Did Edith ever try any drugs? Did she buy any marijuana from anyone, for example?’
‘No,’ say Rollo and Miriam simultaneously.
‘She had a boyfriend who smoked a bit – Jonti – but she never wanted it,’ says Rollo. ‘I know because I was with her when he was smoking.’
‘Might she have refused because you were there?’
‘I don’t think so. It wasn’t a big deal – she had no moral problem with it, she just didn’t like it, or feel the need for it,’ Rollo says.
‘We’ll need to talk to Jonti,’ says Manon.
‘I went to see him this morning. He hasn’t seen or heard from her. But yes, of course, I’ll get you the number,’ says Miriam, getting up to fetch her telephone book from the worktop.
The fly is fizzing its death throes again.
Ian gets up and turns to the window, his back to them. He begins to rattle – rather frantically, Miriam feels – at the window lock, trying to lift the metal arm to let the fly out.
She returns to the table, her reading glasses on, and gives Manon the number. Then she looks up irritably. ‘Ian, stop fussing and come and sit down. This is important.’
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Is this Dent boy your lead? Do you think he harmed Edith?’
‘We’re trying to work out whether there’s a connection between the two of them first – whether they had ever met, or whether they had friends in common.’
‘He was seventeen, you say?’ says Rollo.
‘A child,’ says Miriam.
‘Which school was he at?’ asks Rollo.
‘He’d left school. He worked the black market, basically,’ says Manon. ‘Cigarettes, counterfeit gear, stolen goods, other things, too.’
‘I hardly think Edith would know someone like—’
‘Oh, Ian, shut up,’ Miriam snaps, and she is immediately ashamed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says to Manon. ‘I shouldn’t snap.’
‘It’s all right,’ says Manon with a weak smile.
Oh, stop fucking observing us, Miriam thinks. We are like that fly, helplessly bashing ourselves against glass.
‘We have the feeling,’ says Ian, ‘that there is information you are keeping back about the investigation.’
Miriam looks into Manon’s face. She can see a decision being made.
‘There was another lead, which was a focus of our investigation for a time, but it has proved … well, it hasn’t gone anywhere.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ says Ian, and Miriam smiles at him gratefully. At least he still has some fight in him.
‘Go on,’ pleads Miriam.
‘We have been looking at someone called Tony Wright. He was released from Whitemoor prison eight months ago, where he’d been serving a sentence for aggravated burglary and sexual assault.’
‘Sexual assault,’ says Miriam. ‘I was praying it wouldn’t be—’
‘It isn’t,’ blurts Manon. ‘He has a cast-iron alibi for the weekend Edith disappeared.’
She has closed the door on Detective Sergeant Bradshaw and the things she shared with them about Tony Wright, the way he held a knife to the throat of his terrified victim.
Miriam and Ian stand in the cold, quiet well inside their front door. He looks at her, then frowns and turns, and in this split second she thinks she can see contempt. For what? For her upset?
He is marching down towards his study and she follows him.
‘What was all that rattling about with the window? Can’t you sit still for a minute?’ she says, spoiling for him to swivel on his heels and give as good as she wants to give him.
‘Leave me alone,’ he says icily. He stands behind his desk, pretending to leaf through some papers.
She walks out of the study and he shouts after her, ‘Where are you going – for another lie-down?’ and she turns and storms back in, and when she gets there, his face is a jagged mess of fury and accusation. ‘Why is your distress the only thing in the room?’ he demands.
‘It isn’t, Ian, but you won’t allow me any grief at all. She’s my daughter.’
‘And she’s mine, and you sobbing or lying in a darkened room the whole time doesn’t help.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
He is silent, his head bowed again towards his desk, but she knows he is fizzing and enraged just like her.
‘Stop acting like this is my fucking fault,’ she says and walks out again.