The other detective was less convinced. In places the tracks were obliterated, they crossed and disappeared and some could have been from the day before, and while new snow had fallen, it’d been an inch or two at most.
The cause of death had been confirmed. Em had died from a bleed on the brain caused by a blow to her head, this and hypothermia. It would have taken her a few hours to die. She would not have been in pain. But would she have known? Would Em, lying there, have known she was dying, known that she was alone?
I wanted to take a knife and cut the thought out of myself. To go further, to find the home of grief itself, the site where it was lodged and hack it out of my body before it killed me. In the middle of the night, I thought about joining Em, and the thought of being dead gave me comfort, gave me relief and allowed me to sleep. When I awoke it was to all the terror of a nightmare, but the thing you were scared of, already happened.
The detectives wanted to know what I thought she was doing out there.
“Was she leaving? Had she gone for another walk? Perhaps to meet someone? Or was it another game?” The necklace had been in Em’s coat pocket. Detective Tailor slid it over the desk in a plastic Ziploc bag. I looked at it dully.
“She must have come and taken it from where I left it on the rug, after David and I had gone back up, after Rob had gone to bed.”
What about this game? The detectives knew about Mortimer and the diamonds. It was odd, wasn’t it? The parallel—that was the word Detective Vincent used, parallel. Who had started it, all this business with the necklace? And would I say I took it seriously, more seriously than the others, so much so that I had risked my life running over a half-frozen lake? He’d even dug out a statement I’d given to the Marlborough police when I was fifteen and they’d caught me climbing on top of the supermarket.
“You like games, don’t you, Andrea? You said that was part of a game. But they have a tendency to get out of hand, don’t they? Some games, that is.”
“We used to play cops and robbers too,” I said.
“And which were you?” he asked.
“I was always a detective. I thought they were the clever ones.”
Detective Tailor went back to asking how much we’d all had to drink, whether there had been any drugs. If Em had argued with anyone, if anyone could have wanted to hurt her? Had we fallen out? Was she trying to walk home?
I couldn’t help them. Even if I could, it wouldn’t have brought Em back.
Detective Vincent caught me up on the steps outside. His demeanor was different outside the interview room, softer, like he’d been putting on a show and now it was over. A family was smoking furiously on the pavement: the parents, two older boys, and a small scowling creature who was eyeing the cigarettes jealously.
“My wife made me give up,” Vincent said. “I don’t know what it is about it that I miss. Do you mind if I ask you a question? It’s not related. Your mum used to be mixed up with Joe Hind.”
I nodded.
“Do you know where he is?”
“In hell, I hope.”
“We found his car a few years ago burned out in a wood, but no sign of Joe for some time now. Wanted on a number of charges. A couple of them related to young women like yourself. Know anything about that? You all right?” Vincent put a hand out to steady me but too late. I fell against him.
“Is he dead?”
“You’re all right. You’re all right. There you go.” Vincent glanced over at the family, but they were not looking at us. “No one knows where Hind went, and there were plenty of people interested.”
My knees seemed trustworthy again and I let go of his arm.
“What’s going to happen now?” My voice was small and childish.
“Go home. Have a cup of tea,” Vincent said. He turned to go and then stopped. “No idea why she was wearing your coat, I suppose?”
“We always borrowed each other’s clothes,” I said.
“Look after yourself, Andrea,” he called after me.
* * *
The inquest would take months and return an open verdict. I didn’t go to the final hearing. I didn’t see Zack or Priss or Rob again. Nor David. I thought he might show up but I was wrong again. The only one I saw was Alice. It was a few days after Christmas. She was sitting in her car in the car park behind Waitrose. The snow had all melted and lay in slushy pools full of floating, bloated fag ends.
Alice rolled down the window. We exchanged a few blunt words. I walked closer to the car but she rolled the window back up before I got there. I wished Marcus was there, the low voice and restraining hand. But Marcus was staying at his mum’s.
She started the engine and I went and stood in front of the car. It was a neat little Volkswagen, all shiny and red, a gift no doubt. I felt like a shark circling a diving bell. There are times when anger makes you feel superhuman, capable of tearing metal. Alice revved the engine.
“Go on then,” I mouthed.
Bless her, I could see she really wanted to. She had more than a touch of crazy. When I stepped aside, she drove off riding the clutch. A shitty driver in a car someone bought her. I wished her ill and then I stopped wishing her ill and started crying.
* * *
Marcus didn’t come and he didn’t phone. I had left a message with his mum, but something in her voice stopped me calling back. In the run-up to the funeral, I went to see Peter, calling on him at his parents’ house as of old. We sat on the stone wall that enclosed the graveyard.
“Are they going to put her here?”
“I think so.”
Grief was making ghouls of us. Peter’s face was the color of a dead tooth. I was wearing the clothes I had slept in, the same clothes I had been wearing the day before.
“Have you seen Marcus?”
“Once,” he said.
“How is he?”
“He’s angry. He’s not thinking straight.”
“Should I go and see him?”
“I’d leave it a bit.”
I nodded. There was something I wanted to ask him.
“Pete, at the manor that summer, were you and David … I mean were you fucking him?”
Peter got to his feet.
“No, Andy. Don’t worry. You got there first.”
I stayed sitting on the wall, the cold sinking into me, staring him in the eye.
“She was wearing my coat.”
Peter gave me what I can only call a strange look.
“What would you have done if I’d said yes, Andy?” Then he walked quickly away before I could answer.
The millennium dawned. I slept through it. Back at work, I didn’t see Marcus either. He was on-site, I was told, and he stayed there. But he came to the funeral. Peter was back at Oxford by then. He took the train down for the day, and during the service we stood, the three of us, in a line. I could feel Peter trembling on one side, Marcus as hard as wood on the other.
Songs from the old lady choir, all in tears, a eulogy from Em’s younger sister, Faye, Peter’s dad leading us out into the graveyard, the bit with the dirt. The startling stab of rage—that I was expected to say goodbye to her, now, with all these people watching, that I was expected to say goodbye to her forever, and then another stab, this time with Em herself. Em, you prick, you total prick. What were you thinking? Look what you’ve done to me! And you’re going to do it forever!