Carmen got up from the armchair. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
She walked across the room and out into the corridor, where there was a door beneath the stairs. She knew where what she was looking for was kept. She remembered everything to do with her only husband.
Her only man.
And there it was, when she opened the door, a trunk full of things low in price but big in value. She snapped open the lock and lifted the lid. What she was looking for was on top of everything else, wrapped in a light cloth. She took out the package, removed the cloth, and looked at the object for a moment. There was a bitter taste in her mouth, the taste of the tenderness this strange relic aroused in her. She also took out an old photograph, from around the period when Mitch had disappeared.
Then she went back to the living room and showed her two visitors what she had brought with her. It was a dark wooden frame inside which, lying on a green cloth under glass, was a braid of fair hair.
Carmen smiled at the memory.
‘When Mitch started work,’ she said, speaking with the same clarity with which she was reliving the episode, ‘he cut his hair, which he used to wear in a pony tail. Before he did that, I gathered it into a braid and had it framed as a souvenir. You can take this. If you can find any of the bulbs, you can get DNA from hair.’ Then she handed Vivien the photograph. ‘And this is a photograph of my husband. One of the last.’
Carmen saw a hint of self-satisfaction on Vivien’s face. She had noticed that, all this time, the man had remained silent, looking at her intensely with those dark eyes that seemed to dig deep inside her. She had told herself that, of the two, the woman was the one who called the shots.
Vivien took the photograph and placed it beside her on the couch. ‘A couple more things, if you don’t mind.’
She took an object from the inside pocket of her jacket. She held it out and Carmen saw that it was a document holder.
‘Did this belong to your husband?’
Carmen took it in her hands and examined it carefully. ‘No, I really don’t think so. It isn’t his style. He only had things with the Harley brand name on them.’
‘Have you ever seen this person?’
Carmen looked at the photograph Vivien handed her, a photograph of a dark-haired young man and a big black cat posing for the camera.
‘No, never.’
As Vivien put the objects back in her pocket, Carmen had the impression that what she had just said had disappointed the detective but not surprised her.
‘As far as you know, did anything strange, anything out of the ordinary ever happen in your husband’s work? Anything he may have told you about, maybe not thinking it was that important.’ She gave Carmen time to think, then said to encourage her, ‘For obvious reasons I can’t tell you anything, but I want you to know that it’s extremely important.’
There was a hint of sadness in her tone, which conveyed a sense of anxiety to Carmen.
She thought it over for a while, then made a resigned gesture with her hands. ‘No. Mitch may have been wild in the past, but we led a quiet life. Every now and again he saw his old friends, the Skullbusters I mean, but apart from a couple of nights when he came back home with a few too many beers under his belt, he was a hard worker, always did what he was told. At home he didn’t talk much about his work. He played with Nick all the time.’
Vivien was about to reply when they were interrupted by the noise of a key in the lock and the front door opening. They stopped talking and listened to footsteps in the corridor that seemed more eloquent than words. Carmen’s daughter appeared in the doorway of the living room.
She had short hair made spiky with gel, heavily made-up eyes, purple lipstick and black half-gloves on her hands. Her jeans seemed a couple of sizes too big for her and she had on a short T-shirt that left her pierced navel exposed.
She didn’t seem surprised to find her mother in the company of two strangers. She looked smugly at the strangers, then at her mother.
‘You didn’t have to call the cops. You know I always come back.’
‘They aren’t-’
‘They have cop written all over their faces,’ the girl said, more bored than upset, and looking away as she put her key in her bag. ‘You think I was born yesterday?’ Then she looked at her mother again. ‘Anyway, the bad girl’s come home again, so your two bloodhounds can go back where they came from. And tell them if they don’t have a search warrant, they can’t take anything from this house, not even a tablecloth.’
Carmen saw a shadow descend over Vivien’s eyes. As if she already knew this situation, as if she had already lived through it before.
‘We aren’t here for you,’ Vivien said to Allison, forcing herself to be patient. ‘We’re here because we had some news for your mother.’
But Allison had already turned her back on them, as if the conversation didn’t interest her. She disappeared round the corner, leaving only the sound of her voice.
‘Who the hell cares?’ she said, as she climbed the stairs to her room. Before too long, cutting through their silence and embarrassment, the noise of a door being slammed came from upstairs.
Carmen didn’t know what to say. It was Vivien who spoke first. The scene she had just witnessed seemed to inspire a new familiarity in her.
‘Carmen, can I go up and say a few words to your daughter?’
Carmen was startled for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘I’m afraid they may be rather rough words,’ Vivien added.
‘I see. Well, I don’t think they’ll do her any harm.’
Vivien stood up.
Carmen gave her a small, knowing smile. ‘First room on the right, at the top of the stairs.’
Vivien disappeared behind a corner, knowing that what she was about to say was something it was right to say to that person at that moment.
The man who had introduced himself as Russell assumed an expression of slightly forced irony. Up until now he had remained silent but when he spoke, his voice was exactly as Carmen had expected it to be.
‘Vivien is a very determined woman.’
‘So I see.’
‘And also very direct, when she wants to be.’
With a touch of self-satisfaction, Carmen agreed. ‘I’m sure she is.’
They sat there in silence until Vivien returned. She had not been gone for long. Calmly, she sat down again on the couch.
‘It’s done. She’ll have slightly red cheeks for the next few hours, but she ought to have understood the way things are.’
She took out her business card and placed it on top of the Sudoku magazine. Carmen saw her pick up the felt-tip that was next to it and write something on the back. Then she leaned towards her and held out the card.