She shook her head, looked him dead in the eye. “Cuckold,” she said. Egg pursed his lips, nodding slowly. He turned to look back at the picture.
“Well,” he said. “Well.”
“I’m a vulnerable adult,” Laura said once more, and the detective sighed.
“No, you’re not,” he said wearily. He turned away from the photograph and lowered himself heavily onto her sofa. “You live alone, you have a part-time job at the Sunshine Launderette on Spencer Street, and we know for a fact that you have been interviewed by the police on a number of occasions without an appropriate adult present, so let’s just leave that one, shall we?” There was an edge to his voice, his clothes were crumpled, and he looked very tired, as though he’d had a long journey, or a short night’s sleep. “Why don’t you sit down? Tell me about Daniel Sutherland.”
Laura sat down at the little table in the corner of the room, the one where she ate her dinner while she watched TV. For a moment she felt relieved; she shrugged her shoulders up against her ears. “What about him?” she asked.
“You know him, then?”
“Obviously I do. Obviously he’s complained to you about me. Which is bullshit, can I just say, because nothing happened and, in any case, he started it.”
Egg smiled. He had a surprisingly warm smile. “Nothing happened but he started it?” he repeated.
“That’s right.”
“And when did this nothing happen,” Eyebrow said, wandering into the room from the kitchen, “that he started?” She sat down next to her colleague on the ugly pleather two-seater sofa. Side by side, they looked ridiculous—little and large, him long and lean, Lurch to her fat little Fester. Laura smirked.
Eyebrow didn’t like that; her face darkened as she snapped: “Is something funny? Do you think there’s something amusing about this situation, Laura?”
Laura shook her head. “Fester,” she said, smiling. “You’re like Uncle Fester, but with hair. Has anyone ever told you that?”
The woman opened her mouth to speak but Egg, deadpan, cut her off. “Daniel Sutherland,” he said again, louder this time, “didn’t tell us anything about you. We came to speak to you because we lifted two sets of fingerprints from a glass which we found in Daniel’s boat, and the set that wasn’t his, was yours.”
Laura suddenly felt cold. She rubbed her clavicle with her fingers, clearing her throat. “You lifted . . . what? You lifted fingerprints? What’s going on?”
“Can you tell us about your relationship with Mr. Sutherland, Laura?” Eyebrow said.
“Relationship?” Laura laughed despite herself. “That’s a bit strong. I fucked him twice, Friday night. Wouldn’t really call it a relationship.”
Eyebrow shook her head, in disapproval or disbelief. “And how did you meet him?”
Laura swallowed hard. “I met him, because, you know, sometimes I help out this lady, Irene, she lives on Hayward’s Place, you know, just over by the church there, on the way to the little Tesco. I met her a few months back, and like I say I help her out from time to time because she’s old and a bit arthritic and forgetful and she had a bit of a fall a while back, twisted her ankle or something, she can’t always get to the shops. I don’t do it for money or anything, although she does tend to bung me a fiver every now and again, just for my time, you know, she’s nice like that. . . . Anyway. Yeah, Dan—Daniel Sutherland—he used to live next door, he hasn’t done for ages but his mother still lived there, at least until she died, which was when we met.”
“You met him when his mother died?”
“After,” Laura said. “I wasn’t actually in the room when she croaked.”
Eyebrow glanced at her colleague, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at the family portrait again, a sad expression on his face.
“Okay,” Eyebrow said, “okay. You were with Mr. Sutherland on Friday, is that right?”
Laura nodded. “We went on a date,” she said, “which for him meant two drinks in a bar in Shoreditch and then back to his crappy boat for a shag.”
“And . . . and he hurt you? Or . . . pressured you into something? What did he start?” Egg asked, leaning forward, his attention fully focused on Laura now. “You said he started something. What was that?”
Laura blinked hard. She had a memory, startlingly clear, of the look of surprise on his face as she went for him. “Everything was fine,” she said, “we had a nice time. I thought we had a good time.” Out of nowhere, she blushed; she felt an intense burst of heat spreading from her chest to her neck and up to her cheeks. “And then, he’s suddenly all like, cold or whatever, like he doesn’t even want me there. He was . . . offensive.” She looked down at her bum leg, sighed. “I have a condition. I’m a vulnerable adult. I know you said I wasn’t but I am. Vulnerable.”