‘Aren’t we going to go now?’ he asked.
‘No. Let’s stay a little longer.’
He got up and went on a brief tour of exploration. Even when he was out of sight, I could hear the echo of his footsteps as he ran backwards and forwards. It was one of those sounds — like the ringing of Mrs Gordon’s doorbell — which drew attention to the surrounding silence. I made no attempt to follow him but continued to sit there thinking about Stacey.
Benjamin broke in upon my thoughts by tugging at my sleeve and saying, ‘William. William.’
I looked up.
‘What?’
He seemed on the verge of asking a question, but after a short pause he ran off giggling instead. Eventually he came and sat beside me again. I put my arm around him and when the weight of his body started to feel heavy I assumed he had fallen asleep. But then he said it again.
‘William.’
‘What?’
‘Why were you crying in the back room?’
I glanced down at him, although for some reason I wasn’t surprised by the question. His eyes were wide and enquiring.
‘Well — without wishing to sound patronizing, I don’t think you’d understand.’
‘Men don’t usually cry,’ he said; but he said it to himself, as though, having decided that he wasn’t going to get a truthful answer out of me, he was pursuing his own train of thought. ‘Dad never cries. At least, only once, and that was Mum’s fault.’
‘Oh?’ I said, mildly curious. ‘Why was that?’
‘She had a fling.’ Benjamin was very matter of fact about this, and went on, ‘She told Dad about it, and they had an argument, and he cried.’
I would never, never have believed that anything could make Tony cry. I tried to picture him in tears, weeping on Judith’s shoulder, with Benjamin standing by the door, grave, unseen and watchful. It was the first time I had ever tried to picture Tony in a domestic setting; away from the piano.
‘Was it something like that?’ Benjamin asked.
‘Well… yes,’ I said, exasperated to find how good he was at drawing out confidences. ‘I’ve been having a bit of trouble with a woman, if you must know.’
Benjamin paused, his mind busily running through the possibilities.
‘Is it Auntie Tina?’
I shook my head.
‘You don’t know her. Her name’s Madeline.’
As concisely as I could, I gave Benjamin a resumé of our affair, culminating in the scene at the party last night. Then we both fell silent. I thought, Well, at least that’s shut him up.
‘Is she tall?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘How tall is she?’
‘I don’t know… slightly above average, I suppose.’
‘And what about Piers?’
‘I suppose you’d call him tall. Six-one, six-two — something like that.’ Suddenly I lost patience. ‘Look, if you’re suggesting that…’
Benjamin said nothing.
‘Well, I suppose it’s a thought…’
He got up.
‘I’m cold. Let’s go home and have dinner.’
He took me by the hand and we left the church, threading our way through the still backwaters of Shadwell, each absorbed in our thoughts. Benjamin was humming a tune to himself — it was ‘I’m Beginning to See the Light’, now I come to think of it, in his father’s favourite E flat — and I was wondering, ridiculous though it seemed, and however hard I tried to fight against it, whether there might have been an absurd grain of truth in his theory. If it was the truth, it was a bitter one; but in a way, I felt comforted. Any explanation was better than none, after all.
I didn’t attempt to play the piano again that day. When we got back to Tony’s house we had some lunch and then watched television and played video games. I let Benjamin decide everything, except that I insisted on watching the local news bulletin. There was no mention of the murder. Perhaps time was not running out quite as fast as I’d thought.
Tony and Judith returned at about half past four. They seemed to have had a good time, and they could tell that Benjamin had enjoyed his afternoon with me, so they were profuse with their thanks. So much so, in fact, that Judith offered me a lift back to the flat.
‘It’s no trouble,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s ages since I saw Tina properly.’
They must have been confused by my hesitation, but I think you can see why the prospect alarmed me. In my mind I had already put together a probable sequence of events which would have enabled the police to trace my address almost immediately. Chester and the band would have arrived at the recording studio; they would have waited for Paisley and me to turn up, with mounting impatience; finally Chester would have gone back to the house, swearing under his breath, only to find the place swarming with policemen. He would have been taken down to the station for questioning, and inevitably he would have told them that I was the last person to have seen Paisley alive. He would have given them my name, and told them where I lived. Without a shadow of a doubt, the police would be waiting for me at the flat.
But then, hadn’t I decided to give myself up anyway? Wasn’t that why I had come round to Tony’s house in the first place? I’d felt that I needed his help to go through with it at the time, but now, after a few hours’ rest, and after talking to Benjamin, I was stronger, clearer in the head, and I knew that I could do it alone. It would be a shock for Judith, admittedly; but at least her sister would be there (Tina would be worried already, with policemen coming round and asking where I was) and they could be of some comfort to each other until the whole business was cleared up.
And so I accepted her offer, and together we drove back to the Herbert Estate: Judith doing her best to make conversation, and me just gripping the sides of my seat tighter and tighter, my nervousness increasing steadily until by the time we were within a mile of our destination, I couldn’t stop shaking. I nearly shouted out loud when we turned into the estate and the first thing I saw was a police officer standing on the balcony outside our flat. There were two police cars parked by our staircase as well. Even though I had been expecting it, it was a terrifying sight.
‘Oh God,’ said Judith. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Stay here,’ I said, once she’d parked the car. ‘I’ll go and see what the matter is.’
‘No, I’m coming with you.’
We climbed the staircase and were stopped outside my door by a constable.
‘Do you live at this flat?’ he asked.
I nodded, told him my name, and said: ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking, but really I had nothing to do with it. I’m absolutely appalled by what happened and I can explain every — ’
‘It’s all right,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You’re not under any suspicion.’
‘I’m not?’
I couldn’t possibly describe the relief that flooded through me when I heard these words. It was so overwhelming that I barely listened to him as he continued: ‘We just need you to answer a few questions, that’s all. It’s a messy business, this kind of thing, but it happens all the time, and the young lady’s not in any danger any more — ’
‘Young lady?’
He stared at me.
‘That’s right. Young lady. You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’
He took me inside, where there were two more police officers going through the contents of Tina’s room. Apparently she had telephoned the ambulance service earlier that afternoon, to tell them that she had taken an overdose.
Judith took it very well, considering.
‘We get dozens of these things,’ said the constable. ‘Literally dozens every week.’ He was making a cup of tea for Judith, who sat, too shocked to move, at the kitchen table. ‘It’s a simple cry for help, really. Pure attention-seeking.’ He gently handed her the mug, and said: ‘Excuse me a moment, will you? Nature calls.’