‘Yes?’ she said, drawing on the cigarette and exhaling the smoke towards the ceiling.
Lanigan held up his shield. ‘Detective Investigator Lanigan and Detective Investigator Bootle. Are you Mrs Fernanda Revere?’
She shook her head, as if she was tossing imaginary long tresses of hair from her face. ‘Why do you need to know?’
‘Is your husband here?’ Lanigan asked patiently.
‘He’s playing golf.’
The two police officers stared around the room. Both were looking for photographs. There were plenty, over the fireplace, on tables, on shelves. But all of them, so far as Pat Lanigan could ascertain in a quick sweep, were of Lou and Fernanda Revere and their children. Disappointingly, there were no pictures of any of their friends – or associates.
‘Will your husband be home soon?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Two hours, maybe three.’
The officers exchanged a glance. Then Lanigan said, ‘OK, I’m sorry to have to break this to you, Mrs Revere. You have a son, Tony, is that right?’
She was about to take another drag on her cigarette, but stopped, anxiety lining her face.
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve been informed by the police in Brighton, Sussex, in England, that your son died this morning, following a road traffic accident.’
Both men sat down, uninvited, in chairs opposite her.
She stared at them in silence. ‘What?’
Pat Lanigan repeated what he had said.
She sat, staring at them like an unexploded bomb. ‘You’re shitting, right?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Pat said. ‘I’m very sorry. Do you have someone who could come round until your husband gets home? A neighbour? Friend?’
‘You’re shitting. Yeah? Tell me you’re shitting.’
The cigarette was burning down. She tapped some ash off into a large crystal ashtray.
‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Revere. I wish I was.’
Her pupils were dilating. ‘You’re shitting, aren’t you?’ she said after a long silence.
Pat saw her hands trembling. Saw her stab the cigarette into the ashtray as if she was knifing someone. Then she grabbed the ashtray and hurled it at the wall. It struck just below a painting, exploding into shards of glass.
‘No!’ she said, her breathing suddenly getting faster and faster. ‘Nooooooooooooooo.’
She picked up the table the ashtray had been on and smashed it down on the floor, breaking the legs.
‘Noooooooo!’ she screamed. ‘Noooooooo! It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me!’
The two officers sat there in silence, watching as she jumped up and grabbed a painting off the wall. She then jerked it down hard over her knees, ripping through the face and body of a Madonna and child.
‘Not my Tony. My son. Noooooooooooo! Not him!’
She picked up a sculpture of a tall, thin man holding dumbbells. Neither officer had any idea who the sculptor was, or of its value. She smashed its head against the floor.
‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘Get out, get out, get out!’
22
Tyler sat hunched over the pine kitchen table in his grey school trousers, with his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and his red and grey uniform tie at half-mast. On the wall-mounted television he was watching one of his favourite episodes of Top Gear, the one in which the team wrecked a caravan. The sound was up loud.
His straight brown hair fell across his forehead, partially shading his eyes, and with his oval wire-framed glasses several people said he looked like a young Harry Potter. Tyler had no problem with that, it gave him some kudos, but he reminded Carly much more of her late husband, Kes. Tyler was like a miniature version and, as the microwave pinged, she fought back tears. God, how she could have done with Kes now. He’d have known what to do, how best to deal with this mess, how to make her feel a little less terrible than she did at this moment. She removed the plate.
‘Elbows off!’ she said.
Otis, their black Labrador-something cross, followed her across the tiled floor, ever hopeful. She set the plate down in front of her son, grabbed the remote and muted the sound.
‘Meatballs and pasta?’ Tyler said, screwing up his face.
‘One of your favourites, isn’t it?’ She put down a bowl of salad beside him.
‘I had this for lunch today at school.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘They make it better than you.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘You told me always to be truthful.’
‘I thought I also told you to be tactful.’
He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’ Then he prodded a meatball suspiciously. ‘So, how’m I going to get to school tomorrow?’
‘You could walk.’
‘Oh great, thanks a lot.’ Then he perked up. ‘Hey, I could bike!’
The idea sent a chill through her. ‘No way. You are so not biking to school. OK? I’ll sort out a taxi.’
Otis stared up at Tyler expectantly.
‘Otis!’ she warned. ‘No begging!’
Then she sat down next to her son. ‘Look, I’ve had a shit day, OK?’
‘Not as shit as that cyclist, right?’
‘What’s that meant to mean?’
Tyler suddenly stood up and ran towards the door, yelling, ‘I bet he didn’t have a drunk for a mother.’ He slammed the door behind him.
Carly stared at the door. She half rose from the chair, then sat back down. Moments later she heard the furious pounding of drums upstairs. Otis barked at her, two woof-woofs in quick succession. Waiting for a titbit.
‘Sorry, Otis, not feeling great, OK? I’ll take you for a walk later.’
The smell of the meatballs was making her feel sick. Even sicker than she already felt. She got up, walked over to the door and opened it, ready to shout up the stairs at Tyler, but then thought better of it. She sat back down at the table and lit a cigarette, blankly lip-reading the Top Gear characters as she smoked. She felt utterly numb.
The phone rang. Sarah Ellis. Married to a solicitor, Justin, Sarah was not just her closest friend, she was the most sensible person Carly knew. And at this moment, on the day her world had turned into a nightmare – the worst since the day she’d been told that her husband was dead – she badly needed sensible.
‘How are you, Gorgeous?’
‘Not feeling very gorgeous,’ Carly replied grimly.
‘You were on television – we just saw you on the local news. The accident. The police are looking for a white van. Did they tell you?’
‘They didn’t tell me much.’
‘We’re on our way over with a bottle of champagne to cheer you up,’ Sarah said. ‘We’ll be with you as soon as we can.’
‘Thanks, I could do with the company – but the last thing I need is a bloody drink.’
23
Cleo was asleep in the hospital bed. The sleeve of her blue hospital gown had slipped up over her elbow and Grace, who had been sitting beside her for the past hour, stared at her face, then at the downy fair hairs of her slender arm, thinking how lovely she looked when she was asleep. Then his eyes fell on the grey plastic tag around her wrist and another coil of fear rose inside him.
Wires taped to her abdomen were feeding a constant flow of information into a computer at the end of the bed, but he did not know what the stuff on the screen meant. All he could hope was that everything was OK. In the weak, stark light and flickering glow of the television she looked so pale and vulnerable, he thought.
He was scared. Sick with fear for her.
He listened to her steady breathing. Then the mournful sound of a siren cut the air as an ambulance approached somewhere below. Cleo was so strong and healthy. She looked after herself, ate the right stuff, worked out and kept fit. Sure, before she had become pregnant she liked a drink in the evening, but the moment she knew she was expecting, she had reduced it right down to just the occasional glass, and during the past few weeks she’d dutifully cut even that out completely.