We stand and survey the garden: the piles of leaves, ready for the bonfire; the neatly fleeced bay tree; the lopped roses.
“It doesn’t look much now, but you’ll really see the benefits come spring.”
“I wish you were going to be here to see it.”
She puts an arm around me. “Why don’t you put the kettle on? I think we deserve a cuppa, after all that.”
I leave her standing in the garden, and it’s only when I’ve kicked off my wellies, and the door is closed, and the kettle is whistling on the Aga, that I look out and see that she’s crying. Her lips are moving. She’s talking to her plants; saying good-bye to her garden.
I’ll look after it, I tell her silently.
I let the tea brew, and give Mum the solitude she so clearly needs. I wonder if she will go back up north or if she’ll find somewhere new to settle. I hope she has a garden again, one day.
I fish out the tea bags, drop them into the sink, and pick up the mugs awkwardly in one hand, leaving the other free to open the door.
I’m halfway across the kitchen when the doorbell rings.
I stop. Look through the glass doors at Mum, who shows no sign of having heard the door. I put the mugs down, slopping the contents onto the table. A dark stain seeps into the stripped pine.
The doorbell rings again, longer this time, the caller’s finger pressed hard against the buzzer.
Go away.
It’s fine, I tell myself. Whoever it is can’t know anyone’s home, and you can’t see into the garden without walking down the side of the house. I keep an eye on Mum, to make sure she stays out of sight. She bends down and pulls out a weed from between two paving stones.
The bell rings again. And then I hear footsteps, the crunch of gravel.
Whoever it is, they’re walking around the house.
I run to the hall, tripping over in my haste to get there, and yank open the door. “Hello?” Louder. “Hello?” I’m about to run outside in my socks, when the crunch of footsteps comes back toward me, and a man appears from the side of the house.
It’s the police.
My chest tightens, and I can’t think what to do with my hands. I clasp them together—my thumbnail digging into the palm of the opposite hand—then pull them apart and thrust them into my pockets. I feel acutely aware of my face; I try to keep my expression neutral but can’t remember how that might look.
Murray Mackenzie smiles. “Ah, you’re home. I wasn’t sure.”
“I was in the garden.”
He takes in my mud-spattered jeans, the knee-length woolen socks that fit under my boots. “May I come in?”
“It’s not a good time.”
“I won’t stay long.”
“Ella’s about to go down for a nap.”
“Just a moment.”
Throughout our brief exchange he has been walking toward me, and now he’s on the bottom step, the middle, the top . . .
“Thank you.”
It isn’t that he forces his way into the house, more that I can’t think of a way to refuse him. Blood sings in my ears, and the tightness in my chest makes my breath come fast and shallow. I feel like I’m drowning.
Rita pushes past me and onto the drive, where she squats for a pee, then sniffs at the marks left by unseen cats. I call her. The lure of the cat is stronger, and selective deafness takes hold.
“Rita—get here now!”
“Through here?” Murray’s on his way into the kitchen before I can stop him. There is no way he won’t see Mum. The back wall of the kitchen is an almost unbroken sheet of glass.
“Rita!” There are cars on the road—I can’t leave her. “Rita!” Finally she lifts her head and looks at me. And then, after a pause long enough to make it clear that the decision to come inside is hers, she trots back into the house. I push the door hard, leaving it to slam on its own while I run after Murray Mackenzie. I hear a sharp sound—an exclamation.
Not now. Not like this. I wonder if he will arrest her himself or wait here for uniformed officers to arrive. I wonder if he’ll let me say good-bye. If he’ll take me, too.
“You have been busy.”
I move to stand next to him. Our neat pile of leaves and prunings is the only evidence that anyone has been in the garden. A finch flies across the patio to the fence, where Mum has replenished the bird feeder. It hangs upside down, pecking at the ball of peanut butter and seeds. Aside from the birds, the garden is empty.
Murray walks away from the window. He leans against the breakfast bar and I keep my gaze steadily on him, not daring to glance again at the garden. This man is too perceptive. Too shrewd.
“What was it you wanted to speak to me about?”
“I wondered how many mobile phones you had.”
The question takes me off guard. “Um . . . just the one.” I slip my iPhone out of my back pocket and hold it up in evidence.
“No others?”
“No. I had a second phone for work, but I handed that back when I went on maternity leave.”
“Do you remember what the brand was?”
“Nokia, I think. What’s all this about?”
His smile is polite but guarded. “Just tying up some loose ends from the investigation into your parents’ deaths.”
I go to the sink and start washing my hands, scrubbing at the dirt under my fingernails. “I told you I’d changed my mind. I don’t think they were murdered. I told you to drop it.”
“Yet you were so adamant . . .”
The tap runs hotter, burning my fingers until I can hardly bear to hold them under the water. “I wasn’t thinking straight.” I scrub harder. “I’ve just had a baby.” I add using my daughter as an excuse to my mental list of things to feel guilty about.
There’s a noise from outside. Something falling over. A rake; a spade; the wheelbarrow. I turn around, leaving the tap running. Murray isn’t looking outside. He’s looking at me.
“Is your partner at home?”
“He’s at work. It’s just me.”
“I wonder . . .” Murray breaks off. His face softens, losing the sharpness that makes me so uneasy. “I wonder if there’s anything you want to talk about.”
The pause stretches interminably.
My voice is a whisper. “No. Nothing.”
He gives a brief nod, and if I didn’t know he was a police officer, I might have thought that he looked rather sorry for me. Disappointed, perhaps, not to have found what he was looking for.
“I’ll be in touch.”
I walk him to the door, then stand with one hand on Rita’s collar while he crosses the road and gets into an immaculately polished Volvo. I watch him drive away.
Rita pulls away, complaining, and I realize I’m shaking, holding her collar too tight for comfort. I drop to my knees and give her a fuss.
Mum’s waiting in the kitchen, her face ashen. “Who was that?”
“The police.” Articulating it makes it even more frightening, even more real.
“What did he want?” Her voice is as high-pitched as mine, her face as drawn.
“He knows.”