The match burnt to his fingers. He dropped it hastily. The instant passed and he thought of Helen. He felt a searing within him because he couldn’t remember what this moment clearly demanded that he remember: When had he first kissed Helen?
He couldn’t recall and, worse, he didn’t know why he couldn’t recall. They’d known each other for years before their marriage, for he’d met her when she’d come to Cornwall in the company of his closest friend during one holiday or another from university. He may have kissed her then, a light touch on the lips in farewell at the end of that visit, a lovely-to-have-met-you gesture that meant nothing at the time but now might mean everything. For it was essential in that moment that he recall every instance of Helen in his life. It was the only way he could keep her with him and fight the void. And that was the point: to fight the void. If he floated into it, he knew he’d be lost.
He said to Daidre Trahair, who was only a silhouette in the gloom, “We should go. Can you lead us out?”
“Of course I can,” she said. “It shouldn’t be difficult.”
She found her way with assurance, one hand moving lightly along the tops of the molluscs on the wall. He followed her, his heart pulsing behind his eyes. He believed he ought to say something about the moment that had passed between them, to explain himself in some way to Daidre. But he had no words, and even if he had possessed the language necessary to communicate the extent of his grief and his loss, they were not necessary. For she was the one to break the silence between them, and she did so when they emerged from the cave and began to make their way back to the car.
“Thomas, tell me about your wife,” she said.
Chapter Sixteen
LYNLEY FOUND HIMSELF HUMMING IN THE SHOWER THE NEXT morning. The water coursed through his hair and down his back, and he was in the middle of the waltz from Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty before he stopped abruptly and realised what he was doing. He felt swept up in guilt, but it lasted only a moment. What came on its heels was a memory of Helen, the first one he’d had since her death that made him smile. She’d been completely hopeless about music, aside from a single Mozart that she regularly and proudly recognised. When she’d heard The Sleeping Beauty in his company for the first time, she’d said, “Walt Disney! Tommy, darling, when on earth did you start listening to Walt Disney? That seems entirely unlike you.”
He’d looked at her blankly till he’d made the connection to the old cartoon, which he realised she must have seen while visiting her niece and nephew recently. He said solemnly, “Walt Disney stole it from Tchaikovsky, darling,” to which she replied, “He didn’t ever! Did Tchaikovsky write the words as well?” To which he had raised his head ceilingward and laughed.
She hadn’t been offended. That had never been Helen’s way. Instead, she’d lifted a hand to her lips and said, “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? You see, this is the reason I need to keep buying shoes. So many pairs end up in my mouth and my saliva ruins them.”
She was completely impossible, he thought. Engaging, lovely, maddening, hilarious. And wise. Always, at heart, wise in ways he would not have thought possible. Wise about him and wise about what was essential and important between them. He missed her in this moment, yet he celebrated her as well. In that, he felt a slight shift within him, the first that had occurred since her murder.
He returned to his humming as he toweled himself off. He was still humming, towel wrapped round his waist, when he opened the door.
And came face-to-face with DS Barbara Havers.
He said, “My God.”