She had convinced herself of all this, reassured herself, certain now that telling him about the dog would be the right thing to do for her—it would have the twin benefits of punishing Myerson while at the same time easing her burden. So, fists determinedly clenched at her side, jaw set firm, she marched up to the steps from the towpath and around the corner to Noel Road, where she came to an abrupt halt.
There he was, at the top of the steps outside his front door, looking furtively this way and that, scanning the pavements anxiously, his eyes meeting hers and widening in sudden astonishment before, flanked by two uniformed police officers, he began to make his way down the steps and into a waiting car.
Off they went. Miriam, her heart beating fit to burst, could scarcely believe her eyes. Had she won? Had some justice been done, at last?
She stood there, so astounded for a moment by what she had witnessed that she almost forgot to feel elated, but then that moment passed, and she felt her confusion giving way to happiness, a smile spreading over her face, and she raised both hands to her mouth and started to laugh. She laughed and laughed, a strange sound even to her own ears.
When she recovered, she noticed that someone was watching her, a man across the street, a little farther down the road. An older man, in a wheelchair, with a shock of white hair on his head. Then he wheeled himself down off the pavement and looked up and down the road as though he were about to cross; Miriam thought for a moment that he was going to come over and talk to her, but a car pulled up, one of those large taxis, and the driver got out and helped the man into the back of the car. The taxi swung out into the road, performing a wide U-turn.
As the car drove past, Miriam’s eyes met those of the man in the car, and all the hair stood up on the back of her neck.
THIRTY-FOUR
Everything is material. And comedy equals tragedy plus time. Isn’t that how it goes? Sitting in a stuffy room faced by two detectives, Theo wondered bitterly just how much time would need to pass before what had happened to him—the death of his child, the subsequent disintegration of his marriage—would become funny. It had been fifteen years since his son died, after all—shouldn’t it be just a little bit funny by now?
Bullshit.
As for everything being material, he was finding it hard to make mental notes of his surroundings, all of his observations turning out to be banal: the room was gray, boxy, it smelled like an office—bad coffee, new furniture. The only sound he could hear was an insidious white-noise hum overlaid with the rather nasal breathing of Detective Chalmers opposite.
In front of him, on the table between him, Chalmers, and Detective Barker, was a knife in a plastic bag. A small knife, with a black wooden handle and a dark substance staining the blade. A small chef’s knife. His small chef’s knife, not lost in the chaos of the cutlery drawer after all.
When they placed the knife on the table in front of him, Theo’s heart sank with the realization that this was not going to be material. This wasn’t going to be a funny story he told later on. It was going to be a very, very long time indeed before this became comedy.
“Do you recognize this, Mr. Myerson?” Detective Chalmers asked him. Theo peered at the knife. Many thoughts came into his head, all of them stupid. He heard himself making a small hmmm noise, which was also stupid. No one looked at an object and said, hmmm. They said yes, I recognize that or no, I don’t recognize that, but in this case, the latter course of action was not open to him, because he was well aware that if the police were presenting this knife to him at this moment, they must know he recognized it.
Think fast think fast think fast, Theo thought, which was irritating, because it stopped him from thinking anything other than the word fast. Think something other than fast, for God’s sake.
The knife was his, and they knew it—they had not connected it to him by accident. So, that was that, wasn’t it? This, Theo thought, is the end. The end of the world as he knew it. And as the song goes, he felt fine. The odd thing was, he actually did feel fine. Well, perhaps fine was a stretch, but he didn’t feel as bad as he’d expected to feel. Perhaps it was true, what they say—whoever they are—that it’s the hope that kills you. Now that there was no longer any hope, he felt better. Something to do with suspense, he supposed. Suspense is the agonizing thing, isn’t it? Hitchcock knew that. Now the suspense was over, now he knew what was going to happen, he felt shocked and sad, but he also felt relieved.
“It’s mine,” Theo said quietly, still looking at the knife, rather than the detectives. “It belongs to me.”