Myerson shuffled along the bed so that he was no longer sitting next to her feet but at her side. He reached over and—she could scarcely believe this—took her hand. “I have his email address,” he said. “The police will be able to trace him using that. I can give them the letters, I can explain, we can explain—we can explain everything.” His eyes met hers. “Everything.”
Miriam withdrew her hand. Everything? He was offering, Miriam understood, an apology. An acknowledgment. If they went to the police with these letters, they would have to explain how it was that Theo came to be their recipient, how it was that the two of them deduced that only one man on earth could know about that song, about its significance, and in doing so, Theo would have to unmask himself; he would have to acknowledge Miriam as the inspiration for his story. She would get everything she wanted.
She blinked slowly, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No, that won’t do.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. She propped herself up on her elbows. “You won’t contact the police, you’ll contact him. Respond to his questions. Some of his questions, in any case.” She paused for a moment to think things through. “Yes, you will get in touch with him, apologize to him for neglecting his letters. Arrange a meeting.”
Theo nodded, his lips pursed, rubbing his head. “I could do that. I could ask him to meet me, to talk about his questions. And when he comes, the police will be there, they’ll be waiting.”
“No,” Miriam said firmly. “No, the police won’t be waiting.”
For a long moment, Theo held her gaze. Then he turned away. “All right,” he said.
THIRTY-NINE
There she was, in the back bedroom of Irene’s house, looking at the neatly made single bed, a bright yellow towel folded neatly at its foot. There was a wardrobe and a bookcase and a bedside table on which Laura had placed the defaced photograph of herself with her parents. She looked at it a moment before turning their faces to the wall.
From downstairs, she could hear Irene’s surprisingly girlish laughter. She was listening to something on the radio, a program where people had to talk for as long as they could without repeating themselves or hesitating. Laura found it mystifying but it cracked Irene up, which was in itself hilarious.
Once Laura had finally finished unpacking her things—she didn’t own much, but she was doing everything one-handed—she sat down on the bed, propping herself up against the wall. Picking idly at the cast around her wrist, the edge of which was starting to fray, she listened to people moving about on the other side of the wall, their voices a low murmur. The house—Angela’s house—was up for sale, and there was a constant stream of viewers, none of whom had yet made an offer. Or so the agent had told her. “Rubberneckers,” he’d complained to her when she met him outside in the lane, smoking furiously, “collecting material for their poxy true crime podcasts.”
A few of them had knocked on Irene’s door, but Laura had seen them off. They’d had real reporters coming too, but Irene wasn’t talking to anyone. She’d done her talking, to the police. She’d done the listening too, and the recording—Laura was insanely, stupidly proud of her; she felt prouder of her than she’d ever felt of a member of her own family. Laura had even started calling her Miss Marple, although Irene had put a quick and surprisingly irritable stop to that.
Now, in between listening to things on the radio and reading her books and helping Laura deal with all the legal stuff she had to do, her personal injury compensation claim and her forthcoming court appearance and all that, she talked about the two of them taking a trip. She’d always wanted to go to a place called Positano, apparently, which is where they set that film about Hannibal Lecter. Or something like that.
Laura said she couldn’t afford to go on holiday, or not until she got her compensation money anyway, but Irene said it wasn’t a problem. “We had savings, William and I,” she said, and when Laura said they couldn’t spend that, Irene just tutted.
“Why ever not? You can’t take it with you.”
Laura had to sit down for a moment; she felt quite light-headed. Low blood sugar, maybe, or perhaps it was the dizzying effect of watching her horizons, narrowed for so long, expanding once again.
* * *
They weren’t going anywhere just yet. Laura was still recovering from a concussion and a cracked rib and a seriously mashed-up left hand. That girl, the big one with the nose ring, she’d stuck her great big size-ten foot on it and stamped away. “Twenty-seven bones in the hand,” her doctor had told her, pointing to the image on the screen to show her the extent of the damage, “and you’ve broken fifteen. You’re very lucky—”