“She’s fifty,” Egg said.
“Yeah, exactly, but just because she’s old, doesn’t mean she couldn’t have killed him. She’s . . . she’s seriously damaged, you know? I know, I know what you’re thinking, you’re looking at me like, look who’s talking, but sometimes it takes one to know one. Did you know she says she was abducted by a serial killer once? That she wrote a book about it? She’s”—Laura drew little circles in the air with her forefinger, pointing at her temple—“she’s fucking nuts.”
The detectives, both of them, were leaning back in their chairs, their arms crossed. For a moment, Laura seemed to have stunned them into silence. Eyebrow was the first to recover. “This key you say she has, she—”
“Had, not has. I got it back from her.”
“You got it back from her? Yesterday, is that right? When you went to her boat, when you attacked her?”
“When I what? No, I didn’t attack her, I didn’t—”
“Ms. Lewis made a complaint against you, Laura,” Eyebrow said. “She—”
“Oh, now this is bullshit. This is such bullshit. I did not attack her! She pushed me! Look!” Laura pointed to the bruise on the side of her face. “She pushed me, I fell, but . . . but that’s not even the point, is it?” Laura turned to Nervous Guy. “Shouldn’t you be doing something? Saying something?” She poked the plastic bag containing the knife with her finger. “Are my fingerprints on there? They’re not, are they?”
“We’re still carrying out tests.”
“Tests? For fingerprints?” She spluttered a derisive laugh. “You’ve found fuck all, haven’t you? Look, are you going to charge me with something or not? Because if you’re not—”
“We are going to charge you, Laura.”
Hopes, dashed. “But . . . but the key,” Laura said. “Doesn’t that say anything to you?”
“You had motive, means, and opportunity,” Eyebrow said firmly, ticking items off on her fingers. “You lied to us about the seriousness of your altercation with Daniel. His blood was found on your clothing. The murder weapon was found in your possession.”
“It wasn’t in my possession.” Laura started to cry. “The key, it must be . . . please.” She looked at Egg, who looked as though he might be about to cry too. He wouldn’t meet her eye; he looked down at the desk and then over at Nervous Guy.
“We’ll take her down to hear the formal charge now,” he said.
“No, please,” Laura said again. She held out her hands to Egg. She wanted to beg him, she wanted to fling herself at his feet, to offer herself to him, but there were other people in the room now, people in uniforms, someone helping her out of her chair. They were gentle enough but the gentleness made it worse; she started to push them away, started to fight.
“Laura.” She could hear Egg’s voice, concerned, reprimanding. “Laura, come on, don’t do this.” But she wanted to do this, she wanted to fight, she wanted them to grab her, to throw her to the ground, to knock her out. She wanted oblivion.
THIRTY
Carla had changed her outfit twice, she had started and abandoned the letter she was writing to Theo three times, and finally, on the fourth draft, she thought she’d got it right. Instead of just doing a flit, she’d decided that she would go round to his for dinner after all, she would stay the night, as she usually did, and in the morning she’d slip away, leaving the letter on his desk.
She had a car booked to take her to Kings Cross station at eleven thirty the following morning, allowing ample time for her to retrieve from Hayward’s Place the things that she had stupidly taken across and left there—the dog’s lead, the letters, and the notebook—things she could not bear for Theo to find. She didn’t want him to have to face reality as she did; he didn’t have her constitution. And look, after all, what it had done to her.
* * *
What a pity that Daniel wasn’t doing a bit more with his talents! That was what Carla was thinking on the day that she took the notebook from the boat, as she paged through it, sitting on her sofa at home. He drew so beautifully, rendered facial expression so vividly. He captured movement, he registered nuance, he was empathetic on the page in a way he never seemed to achieve in real life.
She felt guilty for thinking this, guilty for looking at the notebooks at all—Daniel had always been clear that they weren’t for other eyes, that he drew for himself. A confidence issue, Carla had assumed, although now she wasn’t so sure. She felt distinctly uneasy as she dwelled on the pages on which her own image appeared, because she knew for sure now something that she’d only suspected in the past, that there was something wrong with the way Daniel loved her. Worse, she was afraid that the way she loved him was somehow wrong too. She felt all these things—guilt and unease and fear—and yet she couldn’t stop turning the pages, because what he had drawn was beautiful.