All of the family? Ben wanted to know. Because his wife was in bed and his daughter was off on a bicycle ride. He felt this last made Kerra sound heartless, so he added, “Stress. When she feels pressure, she needs an outlet.” And then he felt he’d said too much.
They would get to the daughter later, Hannaford told him. In the meantime, they would wait while he roused his wife. This was preliminary stuff, she added. They would not take up too much of his time just now.
Just now meant there would be a later. With the police, what was implied was generally more important than what was said.
“Where are you with the investigation?” he asked.
“This is the first step, Mr. Kerne, aside from forensics. They’re beginning with fingerprints: his equipment, his car, the contents of his car. They’ll move on from there. You”?and with a gesture that took in the hotel and obviously meant everyone within it?“will need to be fingerprinted. But for the moment, it’s questions. So if you’ll fetch your wife…”
There was nothing for it but to do as she requested. Anything else and he’d look uncooperative, so Dellen’s state couldn’t be allowed to matter.
Ben went up the stairs instead of taking the lift. He wanted to use the climb to think. There was so much he didn’t want the police to know, consisting of matters both buried and private.
At their bedroom, Ben knocked on the door softly, but he didn’t wait to hear his wife’s voice. He went into the darkness and moved towards the bed, where he switched on a lamp. Dellen lay as she’d lain when he’d last seen her. She was supine, one arm crooked across her eyes. Next to her on the bedside table were two bottles of pills and a glass of water. The glass’s rim bore a crescent of red lipstick.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, but she didn’t alter her position although her lips moved convulsively, so he knew she wasn’t asleep. He said, “The police have come. They want to talk to us. You’ll have to come down.”
Her head moved fractionally. “I can’t.”
“You must.”
“I can’t let them see me like this. You know that.”
“Dellen?”
She lowered her arm. She squinted in the light and turned her head away from it and from him. “I can’t and you know it,” she said again. “Unless you want them to see me like this. Is that it?”
“How can you say that, Dell?” He put his hand on her shoulder. He felt the answering tension run through her body.
“Unless,” she said again and she turned her head towards him, “you want them to see me like this. Because we know you prefer me this way, don’t you? You love me this way. You want me this way. I could almost think you arranged Santo’s death just to send me in this direction. It’s so useful to you, yes?”
Ben rose abruptly. He swung round so that she might not see his face.
She said at once, “I’m sorry. Oh God, Ben. I don’t know what I’m saying. Why don’t you leave me? I know you want to. You’ve wanted to forever. You wear our marriage like a hair shirt. Why?”
He said, “Please, Dell.” But he didn’t know what he was asking her for. He wiped his nose on the arm of his shirt and went back to her. “Let me help you. They’re not going to leave till they’ve spoken to us.” He didn’t add what he also might have told her: that the police were likely going to come back later to talk to Kerra and they could as well talk to Dellen then. That, he determined, could not be allowed to happen. He needed to be there when they spoke to Dellen, and if the investigators came back later, there was always a chance they’d catch Dellen alone.
He went to the wardrobe and pulled clothes out for her. Black trousers, black jersey, black sandals for her feet. He sorted out underwear and carried everything back to the bed.
“Let me help you,” he said.