‘That was years ago, for God’s sake – we were teenagers.’ Stay calm – don’t get distracted. ‘Who do you sell them to?’ she said. ‘Obviously Greenwood doesn’t know anything about it.’
Turk rolled his eyes as if she were the one beneath contempt. Turning, he went down on his haunches and picked up the sketches that were spread on the floor. Rowan saw an arm, the nape of a neck beneath a low bun, the charcoal silhouette of one of the earlier girls, who had just enough meat on the bone still to appeal to a buyer appreciative of a nubile female body. She watched as he dropped them into the carrying case and clipped it shut.
‘Were you threatening her, Peter?’ she said.
‘What?’ He looked up from stuffing the case into his rucksack.
‘Were you threatening Marianne? Frightening her.’
He zipped the bag shut with a furious flourish and slung it over his shoulder. She felt the air stir as he pushed past her towards the stairs. ‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you’re fucking insane.’
Rowan sat in the dark. She’d been here for hours – she’d watched the last of the light slip away across the floor like the hem of a wedding dress. On the arm of the sofa, her phone started ringing, startling in the silence, but the number on the screen was Cory’s again. She let it ring out.
This was how she’d felt years ago, when she’d left Fyfield Road for the last time. Vulnerable as a hermit crab yanked from its borrowed shell, soft flesh exposed to the predators that moved like clouds through the water overhead. She felt like she’d been kicked in the heart.
The bells of St Giles struck ten and the boiler clicked off. Why had Adam left so abruptly? Why hadn’t he called? If they were strangers, people who’d met in a bar, she’d understand but with their history, the way things were, it didn’t make sense.
I’ll ring you. When? Had he meant later, when Turk had gone? Or had it just been a formula, a way to make an easy exit? She felt a wave of self-disgust. Who was behaving like a teenager now, picking over his every word for indications that he really did like her? Every word she could remember, anyway, through the fug of booze. Was that what it had been for him, a drunken hook-up? Perhaps – the kinder interpretation – he’d just been looking for comfort with someone who’d loved Marianne like he had. But no: hadn’t he said that Mazz knew the kiss years ago would mean something to him? Hadn’t he said they would always associate getting together with her death? Oh, for God’s sake, Rowan, just stop.
A darker thought: what if Turk had done what he’d threatened and called him? Maybe he had warned Adam off. But what could he have said? That she’d always loved the Glasses and been grateful for their affection? Adam knew that. And he knew who made the running last night. She hadn’t set out to ‘get her claws into’ him.
She couldn’t wait to be shot of you. The look on Turk’s face as he’d spat it at her. A leech – was that really how he’d seen her, a disgusting formless creature that latched on to others and sucked? No, it wasn’t true; it just wasn’t. Turk was on the defensive, lashing out. The Glasses had been fond of her – they’d told her, they’d shown her. They’d given her a lot, it was indisputable, but it hadn’t always been one-way traffic.
At quarter to eleven, the landline rang. Adam had called on the house number when he’d asked her out to dinner; she stood quickly and ran upstairs.
‘Where have you been? I’ve been calling your cell all day.’
Cory.
‘I left it at a friend’s house last night.’
‘I couldn’t get hold of you. It was just luck I remembered Marianne called me from this number once when she dropped her phone in a taxi. I’ve had to go back through my call history and . . .’
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘It’s late. I was on my way to bed.’
‘I have an idea. I’m not sure, at this stage, it’s really just a . . .’
‘What?’ She cut him off.
‘Marianne told me her father had affairs. You knew that, right?’
A cold hand reached between Rowan’s ribs and took hold of her heart.
‘What if it wasn’t an accident?’ he said. ‘The death she was talking about. I’ve been over everything again and again and I keep coming back to her breakdown when Seb died. I read a rumour online that there was a woman involved – that Seb was drunk out of his mind over losing a woman. What if that had something to do with it? What if this woman he loved didn’t break up with him but died?’
When she spoke again, Rowan’s voice seemed to come from a long way away. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’
Twenty-two