A corridor led from the left-hand side of the living room to the master bedroom, the bathroom and three smaller bedrooms. The smallest bedroom contained a single bed, a desk and a bookshelf. The walls were decorated with pinups of Brad Pitt and Beck. Out of the window there was a view of the side of the next-door garage, with a lone deflated basketball on the roof.
“Nanny’s room,” said Dan.
He took her through to the end bedroom. It was here that the four-year-old boy and the seven-year-old girl had slept on bunk beds. There was a brown, metallic smell in here—the smell of recently dried blood. The room was prettily wallpapered in blue stripes and knotted pink flowers. A blue-painted toy chest stood under the window, crammed with Barbies and doll’s-house furniture and model automobiles and Star Wars figures. On the walls were framed prints of The House That Jack Built by Randolph Caldecott.
The bunk beds, however, were almost impossible to look at. Both children had been fast asleep in Disney comforters with pictures of the Lion King on them, and these had been blown into bloody blackened shreds, like monstrous flower blossoms. The Lion King still smiled benevolently at Bonnie out of the carnage, here and there. The mattresses of both beds were completely soaked in crimson. There was blood all the way up the walls, and two umbrella-shaped sprays of blood on the ceiling. It was no consolation at all that the children couldn’t have known what hit them.
Bonnie picked up a Raggedy Ann doll, only to find that it had a thin string of unidentifiable human tissue draped across its face. Dan was watching her so all she did was put it down again.
“You know, we have a whole lot in common, you and me,” said Dan.
“You think so?”
“Maybe we should meet for a drink one evening, talk.”
Bonnie turned. “Why would you want to talk to me, Dan? I’m a thirty-four-year-old mother with only three topics of conversation. Cookery, cosmetics and cleaning up messes like this.”
She could see that Dan wanted to say something to her, but he didn’t. He turned and led the way into the nine-year-old’s bedroom. Pink curtains, tied back with bows. A small dressing table, with play cosmetics set out neatly on top of it, as well as three or four nearly finished lipsticks that she must have been given by her mother. Bonnie picked one up. It was Startling Scarlet, by Glamorex.
The bed was the same bloody riot as the other two, but here it looked as if the father’s first shot hadn’t been immediately fatal. There were handprints on the wall, and the white sheepskin rug beside the bed was matted with blood, so that it looked like a slaughtered animal.
Dan said, “She had half her pelvis blown away, but she tried to escape. She managed to get as far as the window.”
“Yes, I can see.”
They looked around the bedroom a few moments longer, and then Dan said, “Think you can do it?”
Bonnie nodded. “Let me go talk to the mother.”