They follow him down the hallway and back into the open-plan living room. ‘Oh,’ he says lightly. ‘Here they are. You left them charging in the kitchen. We must all have been very, very drunk last night to have been that organised. Go,’ he says, ‘go and sit on the terrace. I’ll bring breakfast out to you.’
They sit side by side on the sofa. The sun is shining on the other side of the riverbank now, picking out the windows of the houses on Cheyne Walk.
She feels Miller move closer to her. ‘It doesn’t wash,’ he hisses in her ear. ‘I don’t buy the “I was drunk so I locked you in your bedroom without telling you” story. And I don’t buy the mobile phone thing either. I was drunk last night, but I remember my phone being in my hand when we went to bed. I smell a rat.’
Libby nods her agreement. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Something doesn’t quite add up.’
She switches on her phone and calls Dido. It goes through to her voicemail. ‘It’s a long story,’ she says. ‘But I’m still in Chelsea. Would you be able to ask Claire to talk to the Morgans when they come in at ten? She has all the details. And the newest quotes are on the system. They just need to be printed off. And I’ll be in way before my next meeting. I promise. I’m so sorry, I’ll explain everything when I see you. And if I’m not in by ten thirty, call me. If I don’t answer’ – she looks quickly behind her where she can see Phin still behind the kitchen counter, slicing bread – ‘I’m in Battersea in an apartment block directly opposite the house. OK? I don’t know what number it is. But I’m about the tenth floor up. I’ll see you soon. I’m sorry. And bye.’
She ends the call and looks at Miller.
He looks at her from the corner of his eye and smiles gently. ‘I won’t let anything bad happen to you,’ he says. ‘I’ll make sure you get to work for your next meeting. Alive. OK?’
A wash of affection floods through her. She smiles and nods.
Phin appears with a tray and places it in front of them. Scrambled eggs, smashed avocado sprinkled with seeds, a pile of dark rye toast, a pat of white butter and a jug of iced orange juice. ‘How good does this look,’ he says, handing out plates.
‘It looks amazing,’ says Miller, rubbing his hands together before starting to pile toast on to his plate.
‘Coffee?’ offers Phin. ‘Tea?’
Libby asks for coffee and tops it up with milk from a jug. She picks up a slice of toast but finds she has no appetite.
She looks at Phin. She wants to ask him something about the story he’d told them last night but she can’t quite get a grip on it; it keeps moving out of touching distance. Something to do with a woman called Birdie who played the fiddle. Something to do with a cat. Something to do with a list of rules and a pagan sacrifice and something really very bad to do with Henry. But it’s all so vague that it’s almost, she ponders, as though he’d never told them anything at all. Instead she says, ‘Do you have any pictures of you all when you were children?’
‘No,’ he replies apologetically. ‘Not a one. Remember, there was nothing in the house when we left. My father sold everything, every last shred. And whatever he didn’t sell, he dumped on charity shops. But …’ He pauses. ‘Do you remember a song? From the eighties called … No, of course you won’t, you’re far too young. But there was a song by a band called the Original Version? It was number one for weeks the summer before we came to live in the house. Birdie, the woman I was telling you about last night. She was in the band for a while. Birdie and Justin both were. And the video was filmed in Cheyne Walk. Do you want to see it?’
Libby gasps. Apart from the photo of her parents in their evening clothes in Miller’s Guardian article, this will be the closest she’ll have been to getting a sense of the place she came from.
They move into the living room and Phin connects his phone to the huge plasma TV screen. He runs a YouTube search and then presses play.