That last instruction plays on a loop. It’s the sort of line I associate with Clara in those days when divorce felt as impossible as death or old age. I may be fitter physically, but in other respects I’ve let myself go. It is the melancholy that our ancestors wrote about.
Still the heat grows. The storm beckons outside. Each cloud taunts me, threatening to spill its load. The suspense is the worst part. It will come without warning, I know, the flash of rain that wipes out all before it, like a biblical cleansing.
I return home and the flat looks different to me now. Empty bottles by the bins. Food-stained plates. There is a loveless odour. I wonder if most versions of hell masquerade as a version of paradise. I stand in front of the small hallway mirror and quickly turn away.
I shower, dress in my one good shirt and pair of trousers. I trim my beard, comb my hair. I haven’t made an effort like this for months. It feels almost like another date. I see Anna’s smile at the clinic and Harriet and that hint of mutual attraction.
I walk along the beachfront until I reach the speckled lights of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, one of the biggest hotels on the island. I imagine other diners leaping out with cameras and microphones and packaging this up for a shock-and-awe documentary. Or Interpol and the Met cornering me as I walk through the lobby. Even now, after all this time, I see eyes everywhere.
I reach the hotel entrance and try to remain calm. I splash my face with cold water in the bathroom. I have one promise to myself.
No running. Not anymore.
I look ahead and see that Anna is already seated. I feel that hiccup of fear again. I want to believe she is innocent. But I know, deep down, she is not. She is capable of taking someone else’s life. She can sit here in polite society knowing there is literal and metaphorical blood on her hands. If Harriet was the scapegoat, then Anna wasn’t drugged when she committed the murders. Which means she meant to do it. The sleepwalking and resignation syndrome were cover. Harriet helped her fake the resignation syndrome with those hip flask sips disguised as Jack Daniel’s. Anna Ogilvy got away with murdering two people in cold blood and pushed Harriet towards suicide.
Three deaths. Three bodies.
I am about to break bread with a killer.