‘No need. The blood didn’t stain the polished floorboards. I only had to buy a new rug.’
He was being deliberately prosaic because he had seen now that she was having trouble, and this was his way of helping her. She grimaced in acknowledgement. She had killed the man, but in self-defence, when she disturbed him after he’d half-killed Brock. He’d had a blade-she pictured it now, glittering in his hand-and she’d been unarmed. The only weapon available had been the long fork with which Brock toasted bread and crumpets on the gas fire, and with which she had finally, unavoidably, stabbed the man in the throat.
Her eyes turned to the mantelpiece above the fire, and it was hanging there.
‘Christ, Brock,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve still got the bloody toasting fork.’
She took a gulp of her wine, the glass trembling wildly in her hand.
‘You didn’t tell the children, did you?’
‘No. Are you sure you’re all right, Kathy? Maybe a brandy would be better?’
She shook her head, trying to find words of conversation. She wanted him to talk, about anything else. ‘So, what’s with the compost heap?’
‘Ah yes, I’ve been sitting here for much of the day contemplating that’-he waved a hand at the debris- ‘trying to learn the appropriate lessons.’
Kathy noticed a half-empty bottle of whisky and an empty glass on a side table, and wondered just how much help he’d had in his contemplation.
‘What is it?’
‘It is, or was, my prize bonsai. Juniperus chinensis, Chinese juniper. It was started from advanced stock on VJ Day, nineteen forty-five, by my father. About the only thing of his that I still possessed, that and the bonsai tools. He was an enthusiast, a great admirer of Japanese culture.’
‘So what happened to it?’
‘Two children by the name of Stewart and Miranda. They thought I was getting a bit too pally with their grandmother-’
‘Suzanne is their grandmother?’
‘Yes, of course. You didn’t think they were ours, did you? Anyway, they decided to terminate their visit by doing something so unspeakable that I’d be forced to kick them all out. Quite smart really, for eight and five years old respectively.’
‘And did you? Kick them out?’
‘No, of course not. But the plan worked anyway. Suzanne was so mortified that she insisted on taking them away. I told her not to be so daft, but she wouldn’t stay. I think it was the cold-blooded way they did it that bothered her most. I’d told them about the tree, and they knew it meant something to me. They got up very early this morning and went out to the yard, uprooted it, brought it in here and systematically chopped it up with the bonsai tools. Quite an effort. They owned up to it straight away. Wanted me to see how incorrigible they would be.’
He reached over with the bottle and refilled Kathy’s glass.
‘I wish they hadn’t chosen that spot to do it,’ she said. ‘But why were they so upset at the idea of you and their gran?’
‘Their father ran away with some woman a couple of years ago, and then their mother went off the rails a bit. You know, feelings of rejection, depression, guilt…’
‘Yes…’ Kathy sipped her wine.
‘Then some rich bloke came along. Offered her a great time on some Greek island, but kids not welcome. So she got her mum to take them, just for a week or two. That was a year ago.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. So men are very bad news. They break up the family. Destroy their security. It had happened twice, and they weren’t going to let it happen again. They were going to hang on to their gran at all costs. Can’t really blame them, can you? Poor Suzanne. She tries so hard to do the right thing.’
‘You’re not going to give up, are you?’ Kathy said, surprising herself with the force of her question.
‘Give up? No. But I’d better let things calm down. Be patient.’
‘Maybe you can be too patient…’ she said, then stopped herself. ‘Anyway, that’s sad. And you’ve been sitting here working this out.’
‘Oh, it didn’t take long to work it out. No, mostly I’ve been sitting here wondering what else it can tell me.’
‘What else?’
‘Well, their story is Naomi’s story, isn’t it? Parents don’t cope, grandparents have to take over. It’s not uncommon. There’s a lot of it about these days.’
Kathy said nothing. In a way it was her story too.
‘But it brought it home to me what it does to the kids. They took quite a risk, after all. They could have alienated their grandmother and made her side with me. But they had to trust that they weren’t too late. They were prepared to do almost anything to hang onto her, what was left of their family.’
‘And Naomi?’
‘Yes, Naomi… A very determined young woman, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Tough, her grandparents called her.’
‘Tougher than them, certainly. They’re quite frail, aren’t they? While Naomi goes out to work to buy them lottery tickets, to keep alive their impossible dream of getting out of that estate and living in a cottage by the sea.’
‘I’m not sure…’ Kathy said tentatively. The wine and the shock on an empty stomach were making her feel dizzy, and she was becoming increasingly uncertain that she was following Brock’s train of logic, or even that there was one.
‘Where it takes us? Well, it took me somewhere I should have gone long ago. Do you remember the picture of Naomi’s elder sister on the wall of the Taits’ sitting room?’
‘Er… with the two dogs?’
‘Yes, that’s it. I got to wondering about the dogs.’
‘The dogs?’ Kathy stared at him, quite lost now.
‘Mmm. Goodness, we’ve nearly finished this bottle already, and I haven’t got a thing for you to eat. I was going to take you and Leon out to dinner somewhere. What do you think?’
‘I’m not sure I could get up from this chair and go out into that cold night again,’ Kathy said.
‘Pizza?’
‘That sounds good.’
‘Excellent.’
Brock got to his feet and went over to the phone. The pizza delivery number was on one of a number of cards pinned above it. It looked well thumbed, Kathy noticed.
‘So…’ Brock settled himself again in front of the fire. ‘The sister, Kimberley, I looked up her record.’ He waved a hand at the computer.
‘Drugs, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, possession and supply. Also theft, from her employer, a veterinary practice.’
‘A vet?’ Kathy looked up sharply.
‘Hence the dogs, presumably. Perhaps the picture was taken at her work.’
‘Not the ketamine?’
‘Exactly. As well as cash, her employers accused her of stealing certain animal drugs: Stenbolol, an anabolic steroid, as well as a consignment of Ketapet which was never traced. She was also found to have supplied amphetamines and Ecstasy to two other employees.’
‘You think Naomi took over her sister’s drugs and sold them at Silvermeadow?’
‘I’m getting the batch numbers checked. If it is the same stuff, it’s just possible that Kimberley herself supplied Speedy before she was caught, but Naomi seems more likely. We know that she knew all about ketamine, and she knew Wiff.’
‘Yes.’ Kathy remembered how shocked both Naomi and Lisa had been when she’d told them the name of the drug they had found in Wiff ’s den. ‘She told me that Wiff was selling ketamine for someone else.’
‘Maybe he was buying it for someone else, from her.’
‘Naomi was supplying to Wiff and Speedy? And Kerri too?’
Brock stared at his glass. ‘That was the other reason I was feeling glum when you arrived, Kathy.’
They went over it again and again as they worked through the pizza and the second bottle, but got no further than the conviction that Naomi knew more than she’d let on. Finally Brock wiped his mouth and said, ‘I was sceptical at first, Kathy, but now I’m prepared to believe that you may be right, that everything is connected to everything else. That place… Bo Seager described it as a dream that had turned sick, and it is a bit like that. Like one of those buildings that gets legionnaires’ disease in its air-conditioning, or golden staph in its plumbing. Only this isn’t a virus. Once upon a time they’d have probably called in an exorcist to purge it. Now they give it to us.’