Scrapes of furniture being moved, muffled voices through walls, feet going up and down the stairs. It went on and on. I knew I should be hungry and so should Hugo, but neither of us suggested making lunch.
At some point, after what felt like days, Rafferty knocked on the door. “Sorry, quick question,” he said. He had an armful of large brown paper bags with clear windows running down the sides. “Who owns these?”
He spread out the bags on the rug for us to inspect. “I think this is mine,” Hugo said, pointing at what looked like a heavy khaki jacket, big pockets, worn and dirt-smudged. “I haven’t seen it in years. Where was it?”
“Do you remember when you got it?”
“Goodness . . . twenty years ago, it must be. I used to wear it for gardening, back when my parents were alive and we took that stuff more seriously.”
“When did you see it last?”
“I have no idea,” Hugo said tranquilly. “A long time ago. Do you need it?”
“We’re going to have to take all of this, yeah.” Rafferty watched to see what we thought of that. His stubble had darkened, giving him a dashing renegade look. When neither of us said anything: “We’ll give you a receipt. Any of the rest ring a bell?”
“That was mine,” I said, pointing to my old rugby jersey. “Back in school. And that”—a red hoodie—“that could’ve been mine too, I’m not sure? And I think those”—grubby pair of thick-soled black creepers—“were maybe Leon’s? And that was sort of everyone’s”—a cobwebby blue sleeping bag. “For when we slept out in the garden, when we were kids, or later for if friends stayed over. I don’t know about that”—a maroon wool scarf, dusty and bobbled. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”
“Nor do I,” Hugo said, holding on to his desk so he could lean over to examine it more closely. “It might have been Leon’s, I suppose. Or it might have belonged to one of your friends. Teenagers strew things everywhere they go, don’t they?”
“We’ll ask around,” Rafferty said. “The good news is, we’re done here. The lads are packing up, and then we’ll be out of your hair. Thanks for all your patience over the last—”
Downstairs, the front door slammed and Melissa’s voice, fresh as summer, called out, “Hi, I’m home! Oof, this rain, it—” There was a startled silence.
“That’s Melissa,” I said, standing up. “I’d better—” and while I was getting down to her and trying to explain what was going on, the cops came clumping down the stairs with their evidence bags and their cameras and whatever else, and Rafferty and Kerr shook all our hands on the doorstep and made more meaningless noises about how much they appreciated our cooperation, and then the door closed behind them and they were gone, leaving the three of us finally alone in the sudden high-ceilinged emptiness of the house.
We went out onto the terrace to face the damage. The rain had stopped, just a haze in the air and the occasional leaf-drip rattling through a tree. That last strip of grass and poppies was gone: the garden was mud, nothing left but the lines of trees backed up against the side walls in what looked like a doomed last stand, broken by the jagged crater—shockingly wide and deep—where the wych elm had been. The uprooted bushes were lined up considerately along the back wall, in case we had plans for them. In one corner of the terrace was a neat pile of stuff the cops had apparently found along the way: shards of old china glazed in pretty blue and white patterns, a dirt-caked Barbie, a plastic seaside spade, an ornately whorled iron bracket thick with rust. The smell of turned earth was overwhelming, almost too rich and wild to breathe. In the furrows, tiny movement everywhere: worms curling, woodlice scurrying, ants clambering. At a safe distance from us, a couple of blackbirds and a robin darted and pecked.
“We’ll replant the bushes tomorrow,” Melissa said. “And I can ring the garden center and have them come and put in grass, the sod or whatever they—”
“No,” Hugo said gently. “Leave it.”
“Toby and I will look after it, you won’t have to—”
He reached out and put a hand on her head, lightly. “Shhh. We’ve had enough comings and goings.”
After a moment she took a breath and nodded. “We’ll do the bushes. And get some new plants.”
“Thank you, my dear. That would be wonderful.”
We stood there for a long time, while the birds and the insects went about their business and the leftover raindrops ticked in the trees. The air was thin and chilly and the light was turning gray, but none of us could seem to find a reason to move.
Seven
Halfway through the next morning Leon showed up, and Susanna not long after. Hugo had gone for a nap and I had been wandering around the house picking up knickknacks and putting them down again, unable to settle to work or anything else, so I was relieved to see them, but that didn’t last. Rafferty and Kerr had been to see Susanna that morning and Leon the night before; they were both on edge, in their different ways, and for some reason I couldn’t work out Leon was in a bad mood with Susanna. “I rang you,” Susanna said to him, slinging her jacket over the back of a kitchen chair. “Like five times. I was going to give you a lift here.”
Leon was unloading the dishwasher, banging plates down on the counter with unnecessary force, and didn’t look up. “I got the bus.”
“I thought you wanted to talk to me.”
“I did. Last night. So I could tell you what the cops asked me.”
“Sallie had had a nightmare. I was dealing with that. And I didn’t need to know what they’d asked you. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“It would have made a difference to me. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, we can talk now,” Susanna said coolly. “Outside, though. I want a smoke. Is that coffee still hot?”
“Yeah,” I said, passing her a cup from the cupboard where I was putting the dishes away. “Jesus, Leon, keep it down. You’ll wake Hugo.”
“No I won’t. He’s miles away.” But he toned down the banging. “What does Tom think about all this?” he asked Susanna. “Is he having fun?”
Susanna poured herself coffee from the pot on the stove and headed to the fridge for milk. “He’s fine with it.”
“I bet he’s going out of his tiny mind. This is probably the scariest thing that’s ever happened to him, isn’t it, except for the time he went wild and went an extra stop on the bus without paying and the inspector got on and he nearly shat himself—”
“You,” Susanna said crisply, without turning from the fridge, “don’t have the faintest clue about Tom. It would take a whole lot more than this to make him lose his mind. Unlike some people.”
“Ooo,” Leon said, into the chilly silence that followed.
“How’s Carsten doing?” I asked. Whatever this was, I didn’t feel like dealing with it. Between the bad nights and the Xanax I was exhausted, a thick leaden exhaustion that I’d thought I’d left behind in my apartment, and my head hurt in a petty nagging way that wasn’t quite worth a painkiller.
Leon grimaced. “He keeps wanting to come over. I keep saying no, because I’m not having him anywhere near this mess. He’d go all overprotective and get stroppy with the cops.” A snide look under his lashes at Susanna, who was unlikely to suffer from spousal overprotectiveness and who ignored him. “I’ve never gone this long without seeing him. Not since the day we met. I hate it.”
“You can just go home, you know,” Susanna pointed out. “Any time you want.”
“No I can’t. Not now. It’ll look like I’m doing a runner because I’ve got something to hide.”
“It’ll look like you’re going home. To your boyfriend and your job. Like you were going to anyway.”
“No thanks.”
“Well then.” Susanna dug a packet of Marlboro Lights out of the depths of her bag. “Come on.”