‘Yeah. It’s rough. And now I have to wait and see who they’re going to pair me with. I don’t think they’ll put me with a rookie because of the whole disciplinary-issues thing. So I’m guessing it will be someone from another district.’
Sam had been up in front of the disciplinary committee twice since we had been together. I had been responsible for at least one of those and felt the reflexive twinge of guilt. ‘You’ll miss her.’
‘Yup.’ He looked a bit battered. I wanted to reach through the screen and hug him. ‘She saved me,’ he said.
He wasn’t prone to dramatic statements, which somehow made those three words more poignant. I still remembered that night in bursts of terrifying clarity: Sam’s gunshot wound bleeding out over the floor of the ambulance, Donna calm, capable, barking instructions at me, keeping that fragile thread unbroken until the other medics finally arrived. I could still taste fear, visceral and metallic, in my mouth, could still feel the obscene warmth of Sam’s blood on my hands. I shivered, pushing the image aside. I didn’t want Sam in the protection of anyone else. He and Donna were a team. Two people who would never let each other down. And who would probably rib each other mercilessly afterwards.
‘When does she leave?’
‘Next week. She got special dispensation, given her family circumstances.’ He sighed. ‘Still. On the bright side, your mum’s invited me to lunch on Sunday. Apparently we’re having roast beef and all the trimmings. Oh, and your sister asked me round to the flat. Don’t look like that – she asked if I could help her bleed your radiators.’
‘That’s it now. You’re in. My family have you like a Venus flytrap.’
‘It’ll be strange without you.’
‘Maybe I should just come home.’
He tried to raise a smile and failed.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Go on.’
‘I don’t know … Feels like I just lost my two favourite women.’
A lump rose to my throat. The spectre of the third woman he’d lost – his sister, who had died of cancer two years previously – hung between us. ‘Sam, you didn’t lo–’
‘Ignore that. Unfair of me.’
‘I’m still yours. Just at a distance for a while.’
He blew out his cheeks. ‘I didn’t expect to feel it this badly.’
‘I don’t know whether to be pleased or sad now.’
‘I’ll be fine. Just one of those days.’
I sat there for a moment, watching him. ‘Okay. So here’s the plan. First you go and feed your hens. Because you always find watching them soothing. And nature is good for perspective and all that.’
He straightened up a little. ‘Then what?’
‘You make yourself one of those really great bolognese sauces. The ones that take for ever, with the wine and bacon and stuff. Because it’s almost impossible to feel crap after eating a really great spaghetti bolognese.’
‘Hens. Sauce. Okay.’
‘And then you switch on the television and find a really good film. Something you can get lost in. No reality TV. Nothing with ads.’
‘Louisa Clark’s Evening Remedies. I’m liking this.’
‘And then …’ I thought for a moment. ‘… you think about the fact that it’s only a little over three weeks until we see each other. And that means this! Ta-daa!’ I pulled my top up to my neck.
With hindsight, it was a pity that Ilaria chose that exact moment to open my door and walk in with the laundry. She stood there, a pile of towels under one arm, and froze as she took in my exposed bosom, the man’s face on the screen. Then she closed the door quickly, muttering something under her breath. I scrambled to cover myself up.
‘What?’ Sam was grinning, trying to peer to the right of the screen. ‘What’s going on?’
‘The housekeeper,’ I said, straightening my top. ‘Oh, God.’
Sam had fallen back in his chair. He was properly laughing now, one hand clutching his stomach, where he still got a little protective about his scar.
‘You don’t understand. She hates me.’
‘And now you’re Madam Webcam.’ He was still laughing.
‘My name will be mud in the housekeeping community from here to Palm Springs.’ I wailed a bit longer, then started to giggle. Seeing Sam laugh so much it was hard not to.
He grinned at me. ‘Well, Lou, you did it. You cheered me up.’
‘The downside for you is that’s the first and last time I show you my lady-bits over WiFi.’
Sam leant forward and blew me a kiss. ‘Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘I guess we should just be grateful it wasn’t the other way around.’
Ilaria didn’t talk to me for two whole days after the webcam incident. She would turn away when I walked into a room, immediately finding something with which to busy herself, as if by merely catching her eye I might somehow contaminate her with my penchant for salacious boob exposure.
Nathan asked what had gone down between us, after she pushed my coffee towards me with an actual spatula, but I couldn’t explain it without it sounding somehow worse than it was, so I muttered something about laundry and why we should have locks on our doors, and hoped that he would let it go.
4
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Hey, Stinky Arsebandit Yourself,
(Is that how a respected accountant is really meant to talk to her globetrotting sister?)
I’m good, thanks. My employer – Agnes – is my age and really nice. So that’s been a bonus. You wouldn’t believe the places I’m going – last night I went to a ball in a dress that cost more than I earn in a month. I felt like Cinderella. Except with a really gorgeous sister (yup, so that’s a new one for me. Ha-ha-ha-ha!).
Glad Thom is enjoying his new school. Don’t worry about the felt-tip thing – we can always paint that wall. Mum says it’s a sign of his creative expression. Did you know she’s trying to get Dad to go to night school to learn to express himself better? He’s got it into his head this means she’s going to get him to go tantric. God knows where he’s read about that. I pretended like she’d told me that was definitely it when he called me, and now I’m feeling a bit guilty because he’s panicking that he’ll have to get his old fella out in front of a room full of strangers.
Write me more news. Especially about the date!!!
Miss you,
Lou xxx
PS If Dad does get his old fella out in front of a room full of strangers I don’t want to know ANYTHING.
According to Agnes’s social diary, numerous events were highlights of the New York social calendar, but the Neil and Florence Strager Charitable Foundation Dinner teetered somewhere near the pinnacle. Guests wore yellow – the men in necktie form, unless particularly exhibitionist – and the resulting photographs were distributed in publications from the New York Post to Harper’s Bazaar. Dress was formal, the yellow outfits were dazzling, and tickets cost a pocketful of small change under thirty thousand dollars a table. For the outer reaches of the room. I knew this because I had started researching each event that Agnes was due to attend, and this was a big one not just because of the amount of preparation (manicurist, hairdresser, masseur, extra George in the mornings) but because of Agnes’s stress level. She physically vibrated through the day, shouting at George that she couldn’t do the exercises he’d given her, couldn’t run the distance. It was all impossible. George, who possessed an almost Buddha-like level of calm, said that was totally fine, they would walk back and the endorphins from the walk were all good. When he left he gave me a wink, as if this were entirely to be expected.
Mr Gopnik, perhaps in response to some distress call, came home at lunchtime and found her locked into her dressing room. I collected some dry-cleaning from Ashok and cancelled her teeth-whitening appointment, then sat in the hall, unsure what I should be doing. I heard her muffled voice as he opened the door: ‘I don’t want to go.’
Whatever she went on to say kept Mr Gopnik at home way after I might have expected. Nathan was out so I couldn’t talk to him. Michael stopped by, peering around the door. ‘Is he still here?’ he said. ‘My tracker stopped working.’
‘Tracker?’