Michael rounds the corner into the room. Matty is sitting on the bed. He has one arm round his brother, and with the other hand, he's pushing a spoon at his mouth. Something pink and sticky. There are huge gouts of it smeared all over Zachary's face, and he's squealing and twisting away, his body rigid.
`Jesus Christ!' yells Michael. `What the fuck are you doing?'
He yanks Matty aside and grabs Zachary.
`How much did you give him?'
Matty shrinks back against the wall. `Not much.'
Michael looks at him; his heart is pounding with ambulances, 999 calls, stomach pumps `“ `How much is `њnot much`ќ?'
Matty shrugs.
Michael lurches forward and grabs Matty by both shoulders. `How much? This is important `“ can't you understand that?'
Matty is squirming. `You're hurting me.'
`I'll hurt you even more if you don't tell me the truth,' shouts Michael, shaking his son. `How much did you give him?'
`Just one spoon,' mutters Matty, sullen now.
`You're absolutely sure?'
The boy nods. He's not looking at his father.
Michael slowly releases his hold. He hadn't realized his grip was so tight.
He goes back to Zachary and takes him on his lap. The little boy is grizzling and grinding his eyes with his fists. There's a smell of pee.
`What's all the noise?'
Michael swings round. Sam is standing in the doorway, steadying herself against the door frame.
`Nothing,' Michael says quickly. `I just spilled some Calpol, that's all.'
She looks at Matty, then at her husband, and frowns a little. `You sure?'
`Absolutely,' says Michael, smiling reassuringly. `There's nothing to worry about. We're all fine, aren't we, Matty?'
Matty is clearly very far from fine, but his mother doesn't seem to have the strength to argue.
`OK,' she says, and trails off back to her room.
Michael puts Zachary back into bed and turns to his oldest son.
`I didn't mean to shout at you, but you have to understand, Calpol is not like juice `“ it's medicine. You can't give it to him `“ not ever. Only Mummy and I can do that. Is that clear?'
Matty flickers a glance at his father, then nods briefly. His face is tight and closed.
It's only much later, when he finally gets to his desk and manages to start on the draft that he should have submitted to his publisher three months ago, that Michael realizes. In all the chaos and the panic, Matty never apologized. Not once.
He never said sorry for what he had done.
There's a small crowd gathered by the beach now. The police cars have their lights flashing. Two officers are trying to load the man from the hut into the back of one of the cars, and Somer is leaning against the litter bin doing her best to get the sick off her clothes. Though that, as Gislingham puts it, with his characteristic eloquence, is a bit like pissing on a blast furnace.
Saumarez comes across the road from the police car.
`I'm not sure how much good that tissue is doing,' he says, eyeing her.
She makes a face. `Yeah, well, that'll teach me.'
Gislingham finishes talking to one of the officers and comes back towards them. `Looks like our man is a well-known local rough sleeper. Goes by the name of Tristram, apparently.'
Saumarez smiles. `Yeah, well, we have a better class of tramp round here.'
Gislingham ignores him. `You coming?' he asks Somer, perhaps a little pointedly.
`Tell you what,' says Saumarez, turning to Somer, `why don't you come with me and we can stop off at my house `“ you'll go past the door anyway so it's not out of your way. It'd mean you could clean up a bit.'
Somer glances at Gislingham. `Is that OK with you, Sarge? To be honest, I doubt you want to sit in a car with me all the way back to Oxford smelling like this.'
`OK,' says Gislingham reluctantly, though even he can't argue with that. He's nearly gagging three feet away. `I'll follow you. Just as long as it doesn't take too long. We've wasted enough bloody time today already.'
Unlike the outside, the inside of Saumarez's Land Rover is impeccably clean. Which, in Somer's experience, has to be a first. Not just for male police officers but men in general. Even Fawley has crap in his car. Ten minutes after leaving the beach they're slowing down and turning on to what looks like nothing more than a farm track. Low trees, a ploughed field, wire fencing. There's no sign of habitation at all.
`This is why I have this car,' says Saumarez, as they jolt into a rut. `You need a four-by-four to get up and down here in winter.'
It's a steep unmade drive for the first hundred yards and suddenly the trees open out and Somer can see an area of gravel and a line of white single-storey houses. A wooded slope down to the water on one side; on the other, and far closer, the power station: vast unforgiving blocks of concrete and a chimney towering above. And beyond all that, in the distance, the oil refinery, as large as a small town. Metal chimneys bristling with lights and gantries. Low white gas canisters dotted like a gigantic draughts board. Plumes of smoke against the indigo sky.
Saumarez gets out and comes to join her. `What do you think?'
`I can't decide if it's beautiful or obscene.'
He laughs. `Me neither. It's one reason why I live here. Stops me getting complacent. And, of course, it's cheap. Most people don't consider that to be much of a view.'
When he opens the front door, ducking to get inside, she realizes that what had looked like three or four cottages is actually one. Someone `“ Saumarez? `“ has knocked them all together into one huge open-plan space. Stone fireplaces, piled logs, stripped floors, tongue-and-groove walls. White and shades of grey. Pale stripes. Mirrors with driftwood frames.
`I like it,' she says, suddenly aware how filthy she is.
Saumarez is busy turning on the lights. `The bathroom's through at the back,' he says, gesturing. `If you want a shower there are towels, and I can find you something to wear.'
It's all a bit clichГ©d `“ how many romcoms has she seen with a scene just like this? `“ but ten minutes later she opens the bathroom door gingerly to find a T-shirt on the floor outside. Not one of his, that's for sure. She does what she can with her hair and ventures back out. Through one of the windows she can see Gislingham standing by his car, talking on the phone. Probably telling Fawley what a fuck-up she made sending them on a 2oo-mile round-trip for nothing.
`All done?' asks Saumarez, from the other side of the room.
`Thanks for the shirt.'
`Not mine, as you've probably guessed.'
`Thank your girlfriend then.'
He smiles. `My daughter. My eldest daughter, to be precise. Olivia is only ten. But Claudia's nearly as tall as you. Or she was last time I saw her.'
`Pretty names.'
He gives a sardonic smile. `My wife's choice. She said I'd have called them Girl A and Girl B given half a chance.'
`Do they live a long way away?' she asks, wondering about that `last time'.
`Vancouver far enough for you?'
There's something in his face now and she bites her lip. `Sorry `“ I didn't mean `“'
`It's not a problem. Not for me anyway. I miss them, but it's a fabulous opportunity. I grew up on an island twelve miles long. I want wider horizons for my girls.'
He sees her eyes stray towards the window and laughs. `Everyone does that `“ assumes I must mean the Isle of Wight `“ but it was actually Guernsey. A lot smaller and a lot further away.'
`How often do you get to see your daughters?'
He shrugs. `We Skype every week and I get to be Hero Dad once a year when they come over. It works. OK, it's not quite what I had in mind when they were born, but it works.'
There's a knock on the door then and Saumarez opens it to Gislingham, who makes a great show of looking at his watch.