‘In the afternoon, about three o’clock. You’re not busy?’ It was a question but only just.
‘I can make time,’ she said. ‘We could meet for coffee at Chez Gaston on North Parade – do you know it? It’s a few minutes’ walk from Fyfie—’
‘I’ll come to the house,’ he said, and before she could reply, ‘I’ll see you then – three tomorrow.’ He hung up without saying goodbye.
Fifteen
As Rowan reached for the box inside the wardrobe, the spring in the chair seat gave way under her back foot. Without thinking, she grabbed at the shelf but the whole wardrobe came with it, empty hangers ringing in alarm. It loomed over her, poised at tipping point; time stopped. By some miracle, she regained her balance and shoved her shoulder against it as hard as she could. It smacked the wall, tottered, then rocked heavily back into position, hangers jangling. Looking down, she saw that the floor was visibly higher at the wall than at the wardrobe’s front feet. It was a great lump of Victorian hardwood, a thug of a piece of furniture: it could have killed her. It certainly would have broken bones. Pulse beating in her head, she stepped gingerly down from the chair. The hangers chimed – next time, next time – as she transferred her weight back to the floor.
On top of the box was the velvet pouch with the silver locket she’d inherited from her grandmother and her mother’s single string of pearls. She never wore them so they were visible, a girl in pearls she was not, but occasionally, if she was wearing a high-necked jumper, she put them on just to have them next to her skin. They’d been too precious to risk leaving in London.
Setting the bag aside, she put the box on the bed and lifted the lid off, feeling the little whoomph of suction. She’d thrown away the postmarked envelope but she’d kept Marianne’s card and put it in here with the sketches; it had seemed the best place.
I need to talk to you.
Holding the card with both hands, she stared at the words as if they would tell her something new. Just as when she first saw them, they seemed to pulse with energy.
Why, Marianne? she asked. Was it Cory? What does he know?
As she put on her make-up, she rehearsed her answers again as if she were getting ready for an interview. ‘Girding your loins?’ said a dry voice, and Rowan smiled at the mirror. They’d come across the expression in an old translation of the Aeneid.
She looked better today, at least. Nights of broken sleep had made her feel sick with tiredness, and needing a clear head, she’d come looking in the bathroom cabinet last night for antihistamines or Nytol to help knock her out. Instead, among a clutch of pill pots, she’d discovered a tub of Ambien with Marianne’s name on it. The bottle had contained twenty-eight pills, the label said, one per night as needed for sleep, but when Rowan tipped the contents on to her palm, there were only five tablets left. It was dated last month. She’d put four pills back in and swallowed the other. When she’d turned off the light twenty minutes later, sleep came almost immediately, heavy hands pressing her body down into the darkness.
Ten to three. In the kitchen, she made sure that nothing telling would come up if she had to open her computer and then, to be safe, she cleared her search history.
Coming back upstairs to the first floor, she opened the door to Seb and Jacqueline’s old bedroom. She’d been in when she’d searched the house but only briefly; that Marianne didn’t use it had been obvious at once. Time seemed to have stopped here, too. Nothing was new or perishable, there were no magazines or house plants, but it didn’t have the same museum feel as the study, the reverence implied by the order and cleanliness there. This room was clean, dusted regularly, but the air felt old, trapped unstirring, and though the curtains in the big bay window were open, the light was oddly muted, as if it came filtered through gauze.