Strachan stayed at the station until well past midnight, compiling his notes and making sure the file on the case was up to date. The photographs of the victim at the Country Club were still not back from the photographers so he would have to add them tomorrow. He put a note into the file to remind himself. Perhaps there was something that could help them later.
Reluctantly, he placed the file and his notes on Miss Cavendish’s desk ready for Chief Inspector Rock when he arrived in the morning. He checked them twice, added a few more notes, even retyped them once more when he noticed a few errors in spelling.
But even he realised he could stay at the station no longer; there was nothing left to do that night.
He drove slowly back to his house, trying to postpone the time of his arrival for as long as he could. A few times he debated with himself whether it would be better to check into a hotel for the evening, but common sense won out. One day he would have to go home. If he postponed it now, he would never go back.
He had grown up in this house, ridden his first bicycle here, played on the steps, walked to school from here. His whole life was bound up with this house, tied tightly with ribbons of memory.
From the front seat of the car, the house looked as it had always looked, but darker, somehow more menacing. For the first time he could ever remember, there was no light above the porch door. His mother had always left the light on for him until he returned. He’d often told her it was a waste of money, but she had insisted; ‘to help him find his way’, as she said.
He stepped out of the car and walked up the path. It took him a while to find the right key; it was as if his fingers were links of a sausage. Eventually, he managed to insert it into the lock and turn.
The door swung open. The only thing that greeted him was darkness. There was no scent of sweet soup. No aroma of dumplings steaming on the table in the kitchen. No call from his mother: ‘Is that you, David?’
He fumbled for the light switch. It flickered as if deciding whether to work or not. For a moment, in the half-light of the blinking bulb, he saw her grey hair, the black dress she always wore, and the smile playing on her lips as she welcomed him home
Then, the small entrance hall was flooded with light, and she vanished. He hurried into the kitchen. The table was bare, unmade. The stove cold and unlit. His mother’s pots hung from hooks above the fire. It was the first time he had seen so many hanging there. Normally they were being used.
He walked back towards the living room, went in and sat in front of the unlit fire. For a moment, he stared at the mantlepiece. He couldn’t see his father’s face in the dark but he knew the picture was staring at him. Blaming him for his mother’s death. Admonishing him for a lack of good sense in the broad Glaswegian accent his father had never lost despite living for over twenty years in Shanghai.
‘Have ye nae idea, David. To leave your mother alone? Schuct, ye oughtta be ashamed.’
Strachan buried his face in his hands, trying to cover his ears. But the voice carried on. ‘It was yere faut. All yere faut.’
For a moment, Strachan managed to keep himself in check, summoning up years of practice at concealing his thoughts and emotions. It wasn’t easy being a half-caste in a world where both sides, white and Chinese, looked down on you. It had helped him build a carapace over his feelings, to block out the world and its desperate cruelty and get on with the job, get on with doing what he had to do..
He felt a shuddering begin in his stomach and rise through his chest to his mouth. His head went back and he screamed out, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
And then the tears came, waterfalls of tears, accompanied by a moaning from the depths of his soul. He began to rock back and forth, his hands clasped in front of him in supplication.
He stayed like that all night.