‘You were doing one, two, three, not A, B, C.’
‘Give me a break. I’ve had a head injury. Three, have you seen where he lives? He could have just chucked himself off that cliff any time. Why bother with cyanide-infused cake?’
‘Trying to make it look unclear so it’s an open verdict and the wife gets the life insurance?’
‘Why the email then?’
‘You make a persuasive case for a woman recently bashed on the head, but it’s Richard you need to convince, not me. And he’s not expecting you in till Monday.’
I sank back on my pillows. What I hadn’t said to Jai was – four, Mark Hamilton is a nice man with lots of dogs and cats, and he had an argument with his brother who is now dead, and I cannot let him think his brother committed suicide if it’s not true. No one should have to go through that.
‘I’ll go in tomorrow,’ I said. ‘And persuade Richard.’
‘Be careful, alright?’ He reached out and touched my arm. I instinctively pulled away and Jai withdrew his hand as if he’d touched a hot stove. I wanted to say sorry, I didn’t mean to pull away, but the moment was gone.
My eyes flipped open. It was brutally dark – no trace of dawn. Something was pressing on my chest. I opened my mouth to scream, and felt something soft touch my face. I smelt fishy breath. I reached and flipped on the bedside light. Hamlet. He looked into my eyes, purred and kneaded my face. I released my breath.
I’d been released late the night before into the caring arms of my Mum. The medical people had confirmed I wasn’t bleeding from my brain or anywhere more vital, but had told me to come back if I experienced any of a long list of symptoms. They’d allowed me out on the basis that Mum stayed with me overnight and checked I was still breathing and at least normally coherent in the morning.
For a few minutes I lay staring at the ceiling, trying to absorb Hamlet’s feline calm. What would have happened if the dog hadn’t turned up at the top of those steps? Had someone been coming for me? Was it something to do with the Hamilton case?
I slid out from under the duvet and eased myself into a sitting position. I reached for the bedside table and grabbed my painkillers, feeling my brain bounce within my skull when I moved. I gulped down two of the super-strength pills the hospital had doled out.
I crept down my sloping floorboards to dig out clean clothes, feeling like I was on the high seas. The lack of right angles in my crumbling, ancient house didn’t help. Bending over was the worst – my sense of balance was gone and my brain was clearly a little too big for my skull.
Mum was asleep in the spare room, but I could do without her fretting and forcing gallons of tea down me. Besides, it was stupidly-early o’clock, so I left her to it and tottered downstairs and into the kitchen. Hamlet followed me and bumbled around while I made tea, then followed me through to the living room at the front of the house. The heating hadn’t come on yet and it was bone-numblingly cold, but by the time I’d sunk onto the sofa, I was too exhausted to get up again and do anything about it. Besides, Hamlet had parked himself on me and it was a life rule of mine not to move when catted.
A lump of plaster was coming away from the wall in the damp corner. I sighed, reached for the remote and stuck the TV on with the sound down low, praying for a programme that didn’t involve educationally challenged people from Essex copulating on a remote island.
I reached into my bag and fished out the magazine Grace had given me what seemed like weeks ago. Her disturbing but gorgeous jewellery would be a good distraction.
‘Ugh.’ I dropped the magazine. It wasn’t about her jewellery – it was a religious thing, the lead article, ‘How to be a Godly Business Woman’. I kicked it aside and closed my eyes. The pavement rushed towards me. My insides felt untethered as if I was in a lift going down too fast. The memory of the flashback shimmered like a distant threat.
I forced myself to think about the Hamilton case. Pressed my fingers to my temples and started mentally sifting through the evidence. I took a deep breath and realised I was feeling better.
My gut told me it wasn’t suicide. Of course I could never admit that to Richard – he’d accuse me of being illogical. I’d argue it was my subconscious pulling together all the threads and seasoning them with years of experience. I could point him to numerous articles in New Scientist about the supremacy of intuition when there were lots of factors to consider, but if I did, he’d throw something at me. Probably a cactus. Cacti were his thing.
I searched my memory for the word Fiona had mentioned from the paper in Kate Webster’s fire. Tithonus. Why would Peter have scrawled that name on a piece of paper which his wife seemed so keen for me not to see? I reached for my laptop, prised open the lid, and googled it. This was what I needed – to focus on work.
I took a slug of tea and scrutinised the search results. According to the Greek myth, Tithonus was a Trojan, who was kidnapped by Eos (clearly a proto-feminist, reversing traditional gender roles) to be her lover. Eos asked the Gods to make Tithonus immortal. But she only asked for immortality and not eternal youth, so poor Tithonus got older and older but never died. I read that, Tithonus indeed lived forever… but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs… she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs. In some accounts, he eventually turned into a cicada, eternally living, but begging for death to overcome him.
I shuddered, put the laptop down and manoeuvred Hamlet onto my knee. I leant and breathed in his subtle, nutty cat smell. What a terrible story. Poor Tithonus, shut away, suffering behind closed doors so nobody had to witness his torment. It was kind of what Mum had admitted wanting to do with Gran. It sickened me, but I knew it was in me too – the desire to shut away anything too painful to confront.
Hamlet, with blatant disregard for my emotional needs, climbed off my knee and wandered through to the kitchen in the hope of a snack. I followed him through, dished out something exotic and organic for him, and made more tea for myself.
I leant against the sink and stared out into my garden. Took in the cracked patio splattered with puddles, the lawn tangled with weeds, the sprawling hedges, the wisteria that scaled the back wall of the house and leant over as if it was trying to escape into next door’s better-cared-for environment. I noticed the little organised patch I’d created two weekends ago. Dug nicely and planted with three robust, un-killable shrubs. They were looking good.
The sun emerged from behind a slab of cloud, all bright and surprising, beaming through the dust and cobwebs on the kitchen windows and casting shadows on the black-and-white tiled floor.
I spun round, wincing at the pain in my head and hip. Nobody was after me. And I would not let the flashbacks return. I was fine. I’d carry on working and forget all this ever happened. I left Mum an appreciative note and set off for work.
*
I hobbled down the corridor and into Richard’s room. My ankle had flared up in sympathy with my head, and I must have cut a pretty sad picture.
Richard was at his desk, poring over something which he hastily shoved in a drawer. He was shielded by piles of documents, all neatly stacked and aligned in rows in front of him. Each pile was topped with a tiny cactus in a pot, like a prickly paperweight. It was very strange, but we’d got used to it. He looked up at me, but his shoulders stayed low, giving him the appearance of a giant turtle. He invited me to sit opposite him in a psychologically disadvantageous lower chair.
‘Yes. Meg. I wasn’t expecting you in. And seeing you now, you’d better get off home.’
‘I’m fine. I just want to look into the Hamilton case a bit more. Can