Hard as Nails.
Sarah would have gotten it sooner. She’d have noticed the name in a way that Murray hadn’t; would have stopped to read it out. To talk about it.
What a terrible name for a salon.
He imagined her jabbing a finger at the pocket notebook entry that meticulously noted the names of those present when police broke the news that Caroline’s husband had killed himself.
Laura Barnes. Receptionist at Hard as Nails.
I hate it when businesses try to be funny . . . Murray could hear Sarah’s voice as clearly as if she were sitting in the car with him. You may as well call it No More Nails, just because it’s catchy and it has “nails” in it, and that would be a ridiculous name, too . . . Murray laughed out loud.
He caught himself. If talking to oneself was the first sign of madness, where did holding imaginary conversations rank?
Still, Sarah would have remembered the name. And if she had talked to Murray about it, he would have remembered it, too. And then, when he’d left Diane Brent-Taylor’s house, wondering who had stolen her name, the flyer on her bulletin board would have leaped out at him, and he would immediately have made the association between Laura Barnes and her former place of work.
In Murray’s experience, inventing an alias was surprisingly difficult. He used to laugh at the green kids from the estates, looking like rabbits in headlights as they tried to come up with something convincing. Invariably they’d use a middle name, the name of a kid at school, the name of their street.
Laura had panicked. Hadn’t bargained on having to give a name at all, perhaps; thought she’d just ring on the nines and report a suicide, and that would be that.
What’s your name?
Murray could picture the call taker, headset in place, fingers hovering over keys. He could picture Laura, too: out on the cliffs, the wind whipping the words from her mouth. Her mind a blank. Not Laura—she wasn’t Laura. She was . . .
A customer. Picked at random.
Diane Brent-Taylor.
It had almost been perfect.
When Murray pulled onto his street, it was half past eleven. Just enough time to find his slippers, pop the champagne, and sink onto the sofa with Sarah in front of Jools Holland and his hootenanny guests. And at midnight, as they welcomed in the New Year, he would tell Sarah that he wouldn’t be going back to work; that he was retiring again, and properly this time. He remembered an old detective inspector who worked his thirty years, then worked another ten. Married to the job, people used to say, although he had a wife at home. Murray had gone to his retirement party—when he’d eventually had one—had heard all the DI’s plans to travel the world, learn a language, take up golf. Then he’d died. Just like that. A week after he’d turned in his ticket.
Life was too short. Murray wanted to make the most of it while he was still young enough to enjoy it. A fortnight ago Murray had been feeling every bit deserving of his bus pass; today—even at this late hour, and after the day he’d had—he felt as spritely as the day he’d joined the job.
Someone on the next street was letting off fireworks, and for a second the sky was lit up with blues and purples and pinks. Murray watched the sparks burst outward and then fade to black. The cul-de-sac split into two at the end, and Murray slowed down before he turned left onto his section of the road. His neighbors were mostly elderly, and unlikely to be celebrating New Year’s Eve by dancing in the street, but you never knew.
There were more fireworks as he turned the corner, the sky glowing blue and—
No. Not fireworks.
Murray felt ice in his stomach.
There were no fireworks.
It was a light, revolving silently; bathing the houses, the trees, the people who stood outside their houses, in soft blue.
“No, no, no, no . . .” Murray heard someone talking; didn’t realize it was himself. He was too intent on the scene unfolding in front of him: the ambulance, the medics, the open front door.
His front door.