The attic door was shut. His bedroom door below was shut.
He began to type.
12
Wednesday, 6 June
ONCE THE OFFICIAL post-mortems and secondary, independent examinations had been concluded, Famie attended funerals in Brighton, Keswick, Penarth, Croydon and Hammersmith. They had been, she thought, Methodist, humanist, Catholic, Anglican, and one she wasn’t sure about. She was aware of the continuing media outrage, had seen headlines and caught the occasional news bulletin, but as far as possible she kept her music playing. The endless speculation that followed an atrocity had always seemed to her one of the most demoralizing features of modern news reporting. In the absence of anything new to focus on, the screens and airwaves overflowed with a dizzying array of fools and liars. Famie resolved to avoid them all. Her ‘Classical Chill’ playlist, all forty-three hours of it, had become her panic room. She visited often.
The police had called once. Two detectives from the Met had asked her the most cursory of questions about the Investigations team and what they might have been working on. Famie found herself apologizing for being of so little help. One of them had left his card.
The final service, just over two weeks on from the attacks, was Mary Lawson’s, and it was the one she was dreading the most. With the others, the grieving families were unknown to her, but Mary’s was different. Famie had met her children, Freddie and Ella, at their house, bought them presents for their last birthdays. After writing them both letters about their mother, she had briefly considered asking Charlie back before calling Tommi and Sam instead.
Famie hauled on her ‘uniform’ one more time. Knee-length black shift dress, black beret. They travelled together to the Northamptonshire village of Ashby St Ledgers, ‘population one hundred and seventy-three’, declared Tommi, reading from his phone.
‘Not today,’ said Sam, eyes on the traffic jam they’d just joined. ‘If we make it in time, it’ll be many times that.’
‘And all of them journalists,’ said Famie. ‘Lucky Ashby St Ledgers.’
They crawled through the village, along a twisty, narrow road lined with coach houses, thatched cottages and Land Rovers. One-way traffic all the way to the church. They were directed along a grassy track to an adjoining bone-dry and virtually grassless field. Billows of dust enveloped the queues of cars, directed into lines by a teenage boy in an orange beanie hat. Famie edged her Volvo X40 saloon up against a hedge.
‘Apart from this god-awful knot in my stomach,’ she said, ‘for all the world this feels like we’re going to Latitude.’
‘Just without the designer beer tents,’ said Tommi, opening his door.
Famie checked the dashboard thermometer. ‘Thirty-four degrees. Christ, this is going to be tough.’
They joined the stream of mourners who were making their way to the church, shuffling back along the track. Low, ancient walls revealed a small graveyard. A few headstones were adorned with flowers. Most were bare.
The TV trucks had been lined up in a tight formation in front of the church’s simple wooden gate. ‘Open daily’ said a sign. A short path cut through the graveyard to the porch, its ironstone walls glowing in the sunshine. Famie hesitated, the knot tightening. She took a deep breath and stepped inside. The cool air was a relief and carried with it the omnipresent church smells of damp wood and dusty books.
A solemn woman nodded at them. ‘Out of service sheets, I’m afraid,’ she stage-whispered. ‘Last seats on the back pew.’
Tommi stood, Sam and Famie sat. No one spoke. The only sounds came from the fifteenth-century pews which creaked as their occupants tried and failed to find a comfortable position. Famie forced herself to face the front. Mary’s coffin rested on trestles and was topped with a rose, lily and ivy wreath spelling ‘MUM’. Freddie and Ella sat either side of their father, his arms draped around them both.
The vicar arrived. Another salesman. They sang, they prayed, they sang again. Mary’s widower managed a few words of a eulogy which had to be completed by a friend.
So much crying, thought Famie. I’ve heard so much crying.
The committal was an old-fashioned burial at the back of the church, out of sight of the cameras. Famie held back, reluctant to encroach on the family’s grief, but when eleven-year-old Ella, her face a study of stoicism, waved at her, she melted. Pulling Sam and Tommi with her, Famie forced herself to the graveside. It was a smaller party now, maybe thirty strong. Two weathered and worn old crosses stood nearby. Here, the grief was intense. It ran through every clenched hand, every tear-lined face. Famie was overwhelmed. The knot in her stomach finally unwound, and the tears flowed. She sobbed from the pit of her stomach. It was a convulsion. She felt Sam and Tommi support her, their hands hooking under her arms, lifting her gently. She steadied herself. Surely it would be over soon.
The priest read on. ‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’
Famie opened her eyes.
‘Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days: that I may be certified how long I have to live.’
Ella and Freddie were lined up by the graveside. The sight of them, faces now screwed up in grief, not wanting to throw their handful of earth on their mother’s coffin, was, finally, more than Famie could take. She ran. She ran and sobbed, ran and raged, ran and cursed. Tommi and Sam caught up with her eventually but by then she was almost at the car park and they knew better than to talk to her. She slowed, they all slowed. They walked to the car in silence.
Sam noticed the envelope first. ‘Someone’s left a message,’ he said.
A blue envelope had been tucked under the right windscreen wiper. They all peered at it. It had ‘Famie Madden’ typed on it.
‘What the fuck …’ she said, tugging it from under the rubber. Welcoming the distraction.
Sam and Tommi pushed closer as she opened the envelope. Inside, a single sheet of white paper, folded once. She pulled it out. Unfolded it. It contained two lines of double-spaced typewriter script.
Famie read out loud. ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.’ She looked at Tommi, then Sam. ‘Huh?’ she said.
‘Well at least it’s not a parking ticket,’ said Sam.
13
THE RETURN JOURNEY was a lighter affair. Three quarter-pounders and a pile of fries sorted their post-funeral hunger and when Famie offered Sam and Tommi drinks at her flat, they accepted. She found a new bottle of gin, some tins of tonic, and filled a bowl with some ice.
‘Knock yourself out,’ she said.
Famie opened the lounge windows wide to the early evening breeze and the stale, oppressive heat in the flat eased considerably. She sat on the sofa, grabbing her laptop as she propped herself up. From her pocket, she fished out the envelope.
‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,’ she read again. ‘Any takers?’ She looked up at Sam and Tommi, measuring tonic into three tumblers, her fingers poised above the keyboard.
‘Sounds vaguely familiar,’ muttered Sam. ‘Line from a film maybe?’ He handed Famie her drink.