“I really don’t know what to make of this, sir. We’ve already run a quick check and you are who you say you are—your identity tallies with what you’ve told me—but do you have any evidence that you own the house? As I said earlier, I was present when the Corbeaus moved in; I even helped them shift an old fridge out into the drive.”
“That was my old fridge,” said Robert, once again on the verge of tears.
“Listen, I’ve spoken with the estate agent, and I know those people bought the place. I honestly don’t know what to tell you. You seem like a reasonable man, but you must realize how unreasonable this all seems. I mean, show me the deeds with your name on them and I’ll reconsider my position, but until then I’m afraid that I’ll have to issue you with a formal warning. Please, stay away from the Corbeaus, or I’ll be forced to arrest you.”
The room was suddenly airless. Robert’s head began to throb. “The deeds are in an oak writing desk in the spare room: the third drawer down, in a manila folder marked PROPERTY SALE. Go round there and take a look.” He stared at Sergeant McMahon, trying to appeal to the man’s sense of fair play.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll have a little word with Nathan Corbeau. I’m sure he’ll let me see the necessary paperwork, and all this will be cleared up. In the meantime, I suggest you and your family check into the Collingwood Hotel. It’s a nice place, reasonable rates, and right here in town. So you don’t have to go back out there to Oval Lane. Do we understand each other?”
Robert looked down at his hands. They were clenched tightly into fists, the knuckles white. He looked back up again, at McMahon, and nodded once. “Yes, we understand each other,” he said, in a hoarse whisper.
He felt empty. Not even his fear remained.
1:00 P.M.
They found the Collingwood Hotel with ease. It was situated a few hundred yards along from the police station, and had a huge vacancy sign hanging above the door.
“Looks cosy,” said Sarah, not even glancing at the place. It was the first thing she had said since they left the station, and Robert decided to go with the flow and see where it went.
“Yes,” he said, pulling on the handbrake. “I’m sure it’ll be fine until all this crap gets cleared up.”
“Why are we staying here, Dad? Who were those awful people?” Molly’s voice was strained; she was on the verge of cracking. He could tell. He could always tell.
“Don’t you worry, love, we’ll be fine. All we have to do is prove we bought the house, and then they’ll be out of there. Sergeant McMahon is looking into it now.”
Sarah let out a long, slow breath. When he glanced at her, he saw her eyes were closed. Her lips were pinched shut. Despite the somewhat hardened expression, she was beautiful. He had never stopped thinking so, even as she lay in a north London hospital bed, her face swollen with bruises and those full lips shredded by her attacker’s cheap gold rings.
“We’ll be fine,” he repeated, but this time to Sarah, to his wife.
She did not respond to his assurance.
“Come on, then. Let’s make the best of this, eh? A night or two in a hotel won’t kill us.” These false high spirits were making his head ache. His eyes began to water. He gripped the bridge of his nose between two fingers, squeezed, and then quickly got out of the car. He heard the car doors open and then slam shut behind him, but did not turn around to watch as the others followed him. Instead he kept squeezing his nose as he walked toward the hotel entrance, his vision wavering and his legs refusing to move properly.
Several stone steps led up to an old-fashioned revolving door. Glass doors flanked the central entrance, and Robert chose the left one, but the kids hit the revolving door and giggled as it spun them around and spilled them into the lobby. Sarah used the right-hand door; Robert could not help but take it as a form of silent rebuke.
Behind a high check-in desk there sat an old woman with headphones in her ears. She took off the headphones as Robert approached the desk, smiling distractedly. “Hello there,” she said, turning off the iPod she had pulled from the breast pocket of her white blouse. “Sorry. I was listening to the football.”
“I was wondering,” said Robert, bellying up to the desk. “Could we check in for two or three nights?”
The old woman consulted the large leather-bound book on the desk, looked back up, and nodded. “Room 216 suit you? Second floor. And it’s a family room with a nice view of the town square.” She held out a pen and rotated the guest book so he could sign. The page was empty; no other names adorned the fine-ruled page.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to carry your own bags. Our porter is in hospital having his gallstones removed.”
Behind him, Connor giggled. Molly shushed him.
“That’s fine. We don’t have many bags.” He did not know why he had lied. Of course, they had the bags from their two-week holiday, and the tent was stashed in the roof-rack storage container. “Just a couple of overnight bags. I’ll get them later.”
After giving his credit card details, Robert took the key and led the way up the wide staircase to the second floor. The place had clearly been nice once, but a lack of regular maintenance had ensured the hotel was now going to seed. Paper was curling on the walls, the carpets were worn in places, and the banister in the stairwell was loose.
“We won’t be here long,” he promised the kids, as he reached the top of the stairs and made his way along the landing to their room.
The room itself was clean, but basic. There were three beds—a double, a single, and a fold-out divan—and a large wardrobe. A set of drawers was positioned behind the door, with a television set on top, and an old armchair sat forlornly in the bay window. The en suite bathroom was spacious, but again it showed signs of general wear and tear: a cracked tile, damp stains in one corner, a broken window latch.
“I’ll go and get our cases—the small ones, with the toiletries. If we need anything else, we can just get it as and when.” He smiled. No one returned the gesture.
Robert went back down to the car. The street seemed filled with light as he opened the boot and extracted the luggage: enough light to fill his senses, but with little heat behind it. There were not many people around, and those few pedestrians he did see ignored him, as if he were an extra in the movie of their lives. Cars passed slowly on the main road, obeying the speed limit. The place was almost too quiet to be real.
He carried the bags back up to the room. When he tried to get back inside, the door got stuck in the frame. He pushed; Sarah pulled from the other side. The kids laughed. Eventually the door lurched open and he sprawled into the room, almost dropping the bags.
“Can we go and explore?” Molly was excited, and Robert thought it best to try and maintain her good mood.
“Yes,” he said. “But I want you back here in exactly one hour, and do not get into any trouble. I mean that…”
The kids slunk from the room, and then, when the door closed, he heard them running for the stairs. At least they were upbeat; that meant one less thing to worry about.
He sat on the bed next to Sarah. She shifted along, away from him, and stared at the blank television screen. He saw her face reflected there; saw the way her body had stiffened and her hands lay dead in her lap.
“What’s going on, Rob?” Her shoulders began to shake. The shock of what had happened back at the house on Oval Lane was finally setting in, and her reaction was extreme. “This is too much. Just too damn much.”
He reached out to her, but she pulled away, twisting her body out of his grasp.