‘Definitely prints that aren’t yours on your knife,’ she goes on. ‘The same recent fingerprints on your fire escape, back door, window frames and throughout your flat.’
This is not good news.
‘No match on the system that we can find.’
This might be good news.
‘But Ezzy Sheeran’s prints aren’t on the system,’ she says. ‘She was wearing gloves when she came at you. And we found nothing on her belongings.’
‘Is she still presumed dead?’ Joe asks, because he knows he must.
Delilah’s face is grim. ‘She is. But I don’t need to tell you there’s some distance between presumed dead and a body in the mortuary. She was slippery as an eel, that one.’
‘Can you tell anything from the prints?’ he asks. ‘I heard you can identify gender, age, history of drug use, that sort of thing.’
Delilah sighs. ‘You’re talking about technology that won’t be in common use for years yet. I can request advance fingerprint screening but it costs an arm and a leg and I can’t see it being approved for a break-in.’
She falls silent for a moment, thinking. ‘If I can demonstrate a link between the attack on you in April and the break-in, then I might have more of a chance. It will take a while though.’
‘Has Ezzy actually been seen?’ Joe asks. ‘Any remotely possible sightings?’
Delilah shakes her head.
‘It can’t be her,’ he says.
‘No, it’s more likely to be one of the other nutters you make your living from. It could even be one of the nutters you spend most evenings of the week with and who don’t even pay you for your time. Are you seeing them tonight?’
‘Mum, how many times—’
Her mug lands on the table a little too fast and tea spills over the edge. ‘I know,’ she snaps. ‘The homeless need help and there’s practically none available from the state. And the mentally ill are far more likely to harm themselves than others. I know all this, Joe. You’ve told me till I’m sick of hearing it. And I’m sure it’s all true. Until they do harm others. Until they harm you.’
‘Nothing happened, Mum.’
‘Somebody broke in here and helped themselves to one of your knives while you were sleeping. I’d call that something. I want to put a camera on the back of the building.’
‘OK.’
Joe sees his mother’s surprise that he has agreed so quickly. She doesn’t know, because he won’t tell her, that his ability to sleep for more than a few fitful hours has abandoned him since the incident.
‘Nice flowers,’ she says, as she picks up her mug again and wrinkles her nose. ‘Powerful scent.’
‘Sorry, Mum, too much on my mind. Thank you, they’re lovely.’
The mug of tea makes its way back down to the table. ‘What are you talking about?’ Delilah says.
Joe nods down at the flowers he’s just learned are called scented stocks. ‘Thank you, for the flowers,’ he repeats. ‘I’m not sure I can make that any clearer.’
Delilah glares at the coffee table as though it has suddenly become a crime scene. In a slow, low-pitched voice she says, ‘What on Earth makes you think they’re from me? When have I ever sent you flowers?’
‘They were waiting by the internal front door when I got home on Monday. You and your lot were here for most of the day. There was no card, so I assumed you’d left them. To cheer me up.’
Delilah’s face is hard as stone. ‘If I thought you needed cheering up, I’d tell you a joke. And I didn’t come here on Monday. I couldn’t get out of a meeting.’
Joe wonders if it is possible to feel any more of a fool.
‘Are you telling me someone came into the house, while my frigging people were here, and left you flowers?’ Delilah gets to her feet. ‘Jesus wept, Joe.’
She leans down, as though to lift the flowers and stops herself. ‘Did they come wrapped?’ she says. ‘Have you still got the cellophane?’
‘Kitchen bin,’ he tells her.
She strides from the room, pulling disposable gloves from her bag. He hears her rummaging around in the kitchen, the sound of the bin lid swinging, then she is back, with the florist’s wrapping.
‘They’re from the flower shop on Chesterton Road.’ She pulls the flowers from the vase. ‘I’ll go round tomorrow myself. And I want a burglar alarm installing in this place.’
‘It’s against the terms of the lease.’
‘Bollocks to that.’
Joe sighs. ‘I’ll talk to the management company.’
‘How did the bugger get in the building?’
‘The other tenants aren’t that hot on security. It’s possible someone in one of the other flats buzzed them in. And if your lot were coming and going most of the day, the front door could have been left open.’
Delilah looks ready to rip the flowers into pieces. ‘I can’t frigging believe this. I don’t know who I’m more livid with, you or the idiots I sent to check the place out.’
‘Mum, they’re only flowers. I’m fine.’
Delilah takes a deep breath. ‘Can you stay away from the homeless for a while?’
‘These people depend on me.’
‘Your kids depend on you.’
Joe is astonished to see tears in her eyes. He had no idea his mother could cry.
‘I depend on you,’ she says.
Joe takes the flowers from his mother and pulls her into his arms. They stand together for some time. He isn’t entirely sure who is comforting whom. He also knows that the entire time he is in the church hall this evening, talking to Dora, and Michael, and whoever else wanders in, his mother will be in her car, outside, watching over him.
37
Felicity
Felicity returns to work after her appointment with Joe. She has several outstanding projects to close if she is to travel to South Georgia before the summer is out, and she is more productive when the office is empty. She works until nearly ten, when it is almost completely dark outside and when she suddenly becomes aware that the lights in her large, open-plan office make her very visible to anyone outside.
You think there’s any place on Earth he won’t find you?
She calls down to the front desk to check security are in place, but even though her call is answered immediately, she isn’t reassured. She decides to call it a night.
She locks her car doors the second she is inside, but still her heartbeat increases each time she has to stop at lights or pedestrian crossings.
He’s getting closer.
Outside her house, she sits in her car for some time, watching the rear door of her property. She sees nothing to cause her alarm and so plucks up courage and leaves her car. It is a beautiful summer evening, rich with scent and bird song and she feels a moment of anger that she is too afraid to enjoy it.
There is no one in her courtyard.
She makes for the large kitchen window, intending to peer inside and see if the triangle of cans is still behind the door but stops, feet away. Someone has been here. Someone has drawn, in black paint, on the glass of her kitchen window. A simple, cartoon-style drawing. Two large upright ovals with a single black dot in each. Cartoon eyes. The paint is on the outside of the glass, which is better she supposes, than being on the inside, but the message is as plain as if it had been written in words. Someone is watching her.