[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Might the police have taken the glasses away?Joe had been the last to die, her mother had been the first, the inquest had found.Her father had been the last to be shot, and all while Esme lay on her bed with her hands over her ears.BOOM.Alison squeezed her eyes shut.In her head she saw a leg outstretched, mud and dust on his shoe, his shirt pulled out, blood … but nothing told her definitively what she wanted to know, the impression was of chaos.She tried to remember, until her head hurt.Someone had wrapped her in a blanket and taken her away.Later, Sarah Rutherford had asked her where she had gone, which rooms she had entered, had asked her over and over and then she couldn’t think.Now, she knew, she hadn’t gone into the living room.She put her hand to the photograph, the bloody imprint in the doorway; she thought of the policemen moving between the rooms.Blood on their shoes?There had been a raw mark on her father’s neck.Had they seen that? They must have seen that.She couldn’t remember if he had glasses on.Did it make a difference? She closed her eyes and tried, she set herself back against the wall in her hall, she saw the hands reaching down the gun’s stock, she saw his callused thumb.The blood.She saw no glasses, she saw no broken glass.She upended the envelope and a card slid out.DS Sarah Rutherford.A mobile number.She took out her phone.Startled, she saw she’d missed a call, Kay had called, just after one in the morning.Her friend Kay who inhabited the other universe that was London, had phoned when Alison had been dead to the world.Something began, it ticked down, something from last night.Paul putting her to sleep.A face in the dark that had made her think of that other fire, and her mother crying over the newspaper at the kitchen table.It was six thirty, the phone said.Too early to call but she had no choice.How long till Paul woke? This car was the only private place she had.That other universe was too distant and Alison dialled not Kay’s but Gina’s number, and waited.Beyond the misted car window a white shape drove in through the gate, the gravel crunched.Alison stayed very still, the phone ringing at her ear.Hang up, hang up.Too late.She wedged the phone under her ear and in a panic stuffed the photographs back in the envelope, leaned down to put it back where she’d hidden it.She couldn’t go back inside carrying it.What if— There was a click as someone picked up.‘What the fuck.’ Gina sounded drugged.‘I’m sorry,’ Alison muttered.The decorator’s van had pulled up, on the far side of the drive, close to the hotel.He couldn’t see her from the driver’s seat, because she couldn’t see him.No one got out.Gina coughed painfully.‘What do you want?’‘The couple whose baby died in the fire,’ said Alison, dogged.‘Did he have a fight with my dad?’ There was a silence, that grew longer.‘The baby’s father? What did his wife say to the police? After the … after the shootings.Did she talk to them?’‘Christ, how should I know?’ said Gina.‘He was dead by then.The baby was dead.Why would it have anything to do with … with that? Just leave it.’ There was a warning note in her voice.‘There’s no one else to ask,’ said Alison.With a finger she rubbed a window in the misted glass.The door of the decorator’s van was still closed.‘Does he help you?’ she said.‘Simon? Does he give you money?’‘I don’t want his money,’ said Gina flatly.‘He’s a creep.’Mads and Letty had had a biological father.From what Polly said, he knew they existed, at least.Mightn’t he have come looking for them? There was a silence from Gina.‘Can I phone you later?’ said Alison, pleading.‘Whatever,’ said Gina, and she was gone.In the ringing silence Alison felt abruptly alone.Only she wasn’t – there was the decorator’s van.Joe had hated her kissing Simon Chatwin.It had been Joshua that had told him.That was why the dream had seemed real – there had been a fight on the beach.They’d gone down there for one of those barbecues to mark the tail end of the summer – she and Joe and Joshua and Danny, Martin too grown-up to come, who else? – only this time she should have stayed away, she wasn’t a kid sister any more, she was something trickier.A fight between Joe and Joshua, and Danny had been trying to break it up, and she had burrowed down in the sand dunes so as not to hear, only she did hear.Joshua saying, in that voice, jeering, Your sister.Angry.Your sister with her tongue down his throat.The way they’d looked her over when she laid down her bike in the grass had been down to that.Joshua must have been out on the marsh watching, out in his boat or messing about in the mud.He must have seen the decorator arrive, seen him lean down, his hand on the back of Esme’s neck, seen her look up at him.Shut up, shut up, Joe had said, his voice thick.Don’t say that.And for a moment Alison thought, was that him, then, watching me when I went back to the house, was it only yesterday? But of course it hadn’t been Joshua yesterday, because he was dead.He’d been dead before Joe, before all of it.Dead by the side of the road on a November night, while Esme sat in front of the fire with the twins and Dad kept disappearing into the kitchen.Drinking standing up at the counter, down in one.In the car’s front seat she blinked through the glass, jolted back to the present as Simon Chatwin climbed out of his van and walked around to the back of the hotel.Hold on, she thought as she watched the set of his shoulders, saw his stiff hair that had been gold now streaked grey.Hold on.Her mother had worn those heels before.Simon Chatwin had been in the yard more than once.The time he’d kissed her, what had he been doing there? She’d thought he’d come for her, she thought he must have seen her gaze at him as he sat on the shingle running a rag over his windsurfer, he must have registered her hanging about outside the pub on warm Saturday evenings.Months before, though, before Esme had grown fascinated by him, when he’d been just some bloke, he’d been there.Hanging about in the yard as she came back from school, she’d pushed past him into the kitchen and there her mother had stood, tall and awkward in the high heels at the counter.Lipstick.Waiting for someone.He was back, opening the rear of the van.He mustn’t see her.The doors clanged shut again and he was walking with a ladder, slowly.He disappeared again around the hotel’s veranda to the back.Taking her chance, Alison was out of the car and running across the gravel, swinging through the heavy door and past Jan looking up in surprise from the reception desk.Upstairs, Paul was still asleep.As she set her mobile down quietly Alison saw that clutched with it in her hand was Detective Sergeant Sarah Rutherford’s card.Chapter Twenty-oneIt hadn’t exactly been a tactic, asking him to come for a walk with her.Coming back into the hotel room after breakfast that morning – Christian silent on another table over a sheaf of newspapers and a laptop, barely raising his head to acknowledge them – Paul had gone straight over to the little desk as if to get back down to work again himself.She saw him frown down at the words on top of the file.Alison wondered what he was thinking.Didn’t he even wonder what she got up to? Where she went, in his little car, to another world of police stations and ring roads, a world clogged and dirty as mud? When she made excuses, disappeared – this morning heading back upstairs from the dining room before they’d even sat down returning only as the full English arrived – what did he think? Perhaps he knew.She dismissed the idea, only not completely [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl centka.pev.pl
.Might the police have taken the glasses away?Joe had been the last to die, her mother had been the first, the inquest had found.Her father had been the last to be shot, and all while Esme lay on her bed with her hands over her ears.BOOM.Alison squeezed her eyes shut.In her head she saw a leg outstretched, mud and dust on his shoe, his shirt pulled out, blood … but nothing told her definitively what she wanted to know, the impression was of chaos.She tried to remember, until her head hurt.Someone had wrapped her in a blanket and taken her away.Later, Sarah Rutherford had asked her where she had gone, which rooms she had entered, had asked her over and over and then she couldn’t think.Now, she knew, she hadn’t gone into the living room.She put her hand to the photograph, the bloody imprint in the doorway; she thought of the policemen moving between the rooms.Blood on their shoes?There had been a raw mark on her father’s neck.Had they seen that? They must have seen that.She couldn’t remember if he had glasses on.Did it make a difference? She closed her eyes and tried, she set herself back against the wall in her hall, she saw the hands reaching down the gun’s stock, she saw his callused thumb.The blood.She saw no glasses, she saw no broken glass.She upended the envelope and a card slid out.DS Sarah Rutherford.A mobile number.She took out her phone.Startled, she saw she’d missed a call, Kay had called, just after one in the morning.Her friend Kay who inhabited the other universe that was London, had phoned when Alison had been dead to the world.Something began, it ticked down, something from last night.Paul putting her to sleep.A face in the dark that had made her think of that other fire, and her mother crying over the newspaper at the kitchen table.It was six thirty, the phone said.Too early to call but she had no choice.How long till Paul woke? This car was the only private place she had.That other universe was too distant and Alison dialled not Kay’s but Gina’s number, and waited.Beyond the misted car window a white shape drove in through the gate, the gravel crunched.Alison stayed very still, the phone ringing at her ear.Hang up, hang up.Too late.She wedged the phone under her ear and in a panic stuffed the photographs back in the envelope, leaned down to put it back where she’d hidden it.She couldn’t go back inside carrying it.What if— There was a click as someone picked up.‘What the fuck.’ Gina sounded drugged.‘I’m sorry,’ Alison muttered.The decorator’s van had pulled up, on the far side of the drive, close to the hotel.He couldn’t see her from the driver’s seat, because she couldn’t see him.No one got out.Gina coughed painfully.‘What do you want?’‘The couple whose baby died in the fire,’ said Alison, dogged.‘Did he have a fight with my dad?’ There was a silence, that grew longer.‘The baby’s father? What did his wife say to the police? After the … after the shootings.Did she talk to them?’‘Christ, how should I know?’ said Gina.‘He was dead by then.The baby was dead.Why would it have anything to do with … with that? Just leave it.’ There was a warning note in her voice.‘There’s no one else to ask,’ said Alison.With a finger she rubbed a window in the misted glass.The door of the decorator’s van was still closed.‘Does he help you?’ she said.‘Simon? Does he give you money?’‘I don’t want his money,’ said Gina flatly.‘He’s a creep.’Mads and Letty had had a biological father.From what Polly said, he knew they existed, at least.Mightn’t he have come looking for them? There was a silence from Gina.‘Can I phone you later?’ said Alison, pleading.‘Whatever,’ said Gina, and she was gone.In the ringing silence Alison felt abruptly alone.Only she wasn’t – there was the decorator’s van.Joe had hated her kissing Simon Chatwin.It had been Joshua that had told him.That was why the dream had seemed real – there had been a fight on the beach.They’d gone down there for one of those barbecues to mark the tail end of the summer – she and Joe and Joshua and Danny, Martin too grown-up to come, who else? – only this time she should have stayed away, she wasn’t a kid sister any more, she was something trickier.A fight between Joe and Joshua, and Danny had been trying to break it up, and she had burrowed down in the sand dunes so as not to hear, only she did hear.Joshua saying, in that voice, jeering, Your sister.Angry.Your sister with her tongue down his throat.The way they’d looked her over when she laid down her bike in the grass had been down to that.Joshua must have been out on the marsh watching, out in his boat or messing about in the mud.He must have seen the decorator arrive, seen him lean down, his hand on the back of Esme’s neck, seen her look up at him.Shut up, shut up, Joe had said, his voice thick.Don’t say that.And for a moment Alison thought, was that him, then, watching me when I went back to the house, was it only yesterday? But of course it hadn’t been Joshua yesterday, because he was dead.He’d been dead before Joe, before all of it.Dead by the side of the road on a November night, while Esme sat in front of the fire with the twins and Dad kept disappearing into the kitchen.Drinking standing up at the counter, down in one.In the car’s front seat she blinked through the glass, jolted back to the present as Simon Chatwin climbed out of his van and walked around to the back of the hotel.Hold on, she thought as she watched the set of his shoulders, saw his stiff hair that had been gold now streaked grey.Hold on.Her mother had worn those heels before.Simon Chatwin had been in the yard more than once.The time he’d kissed her, what had he been doing there? She’d thought he’d come for her, she thought he must have seen her gaze at him as he sat on the shingle running a rag over his windsurfer, he must have registered her hanging about outside the pub on warm Saturday evenings.Months before, though, before Esme had grown fascinated by him, when he’d been just some bloke, he’d been there.Hanging about in the yard as she came back from school, she’d pushed past him into the kitchen and there her mother had stood, tall and awkward in the high heels at the counter.Lipstick.Waiting for someone.He was back, opening the rear of the van.He mustn’t see her.The doors clanged shut again and he was walking with a ladder, slowly.He disappeared again around the hotel’s veranda to the back.Taking her chance, Alison was out of the car and running across the gravel, swinging through the heavy door and past Jan looking up in surprise from the reception desk.Upstairs, Paul was still asleep.As she set her mobile down quietly Alison saw that clutched with it in her hand was Detective Sergeant Sarah Rutherford’s card.Chapter Twenty-oneIt hadn’t exactly been a tactic, asking him to come for a walk with her.Coming back into the hotel room after breakfast that morning – Christian silent on another table over a sheaf of newspapers and a laptop, barely raising his head to acknowledge them – Paul had gone straight over to the little desk as if to get back down to work again himself.She saw him frown down at the words on top of the file.Alison wondered what he was thinking.Didn’t he even wonder what she got up to? Where she went, in his little car, to another world of police stations and ring roads, a world clogged and dirty as mud? When she made excuses, disappeared – this morning heading back upstairs from the dining room before they’d even sat down returning only as the full English arrived – what did he think? Perhaps he knew.She dismissed the idea, only not completely [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]