“What do you mean?” Roland was frowning. “What kind of past?”
“He was convicted of hacking, at seventeen. He got sent to… I’m not sure, actually. Some kind of juvenile prison, I think. Then he was banned from using computers for a few years. But it was years ago—like fifteen years or something. I truly can’t see how it could have any kind of repercussions today.”
Hel sat, silent, chewing her lip. Then she shook her head.
“No, I can’t see it either. Which is why I’m worried.”
“What do you mean?” Her concern was infecting me, giving me a strange, ominous feeling, which in turn translated into a prickle of anger. “I feel like you’re talking in circles, Hel. Spit it out, whatever it is.”
“Look.” Hel put down her glass again with a thunk. “There are two kinds of people who hire contract killers. People mixed up in organized crime—and spouses. And since Gabe has no connection with organized crime…”
My jaw had dropped, and it took me a long moment to find my voice. When I did, it shook with fury.
“What the fuck are you saying, Hel?”
“Keep your voice down, you’ll wake the girls,” Hel said in a low whisper. “And don’t be stupid. Of course I wasn’t suggesting you took out a contract on Gabe, that’s absurd. I would never even think such a thing. But look at the facts—you’ve got no alibi. Your phone was switched off. There’s no sign of breaking and entering. It looks like Gabe either let a stranger into the house—which frankly seems unlikely—or someone gave them a key. And then you waited half an hour to call the cops.”
“I told you—” I broke in, but Helena spoke over me, her voice hard, as if she was trying not to let her feelings get the better of her.
“I know, Jack. I know. And I understand completely—but I’m extremely worried the police aren’t going to. If they ask to speak to you again, I think you should take a lawyer.”
I was silent for a moment, considering what Hel had just said. Stacked up like that, it did sound bad. But surely, surely no one could believe I would kill Gabe? What motive could I possibly have?
“What do you think?” I said at last to Roland. “You’re a solicitor. Is Hel right, should I take someone? I mean, surely it’ll look worse if I turn up with a lawyer in tow? Like I have something to hide.”
“I think she is right, I’m sorry,” Roland said. “Crime’s not my area, but I’m pretty sure that’s what my colleagues would say. I can give you some names if you want.”
“I don’t need a fucking lawyer!” I exploded. The tears were back, prickling at the edges of my eyes, making me irrationally furious with Helena and Roland, who were only trying to help. This wasn’t their fault—none of it was their fault. But I wanted very much to lash out at someone. I wanted to hurt someone—and if it couldn’t be them, it would probably be myself. “This is ridiculous.” The sobs were rising up now, threatening to choke me, and I stood, pushing my plate away, suddenly too tense and full of pent-up grief and rage to sit, pretending everything was fine.
“I know.” Hel stood up too, facing me. “I know, Jack. It’s ridiculous—and ridiculously unfair and it’s just—it’s just unbelievably shit that this has happened, to anyone, but to you and Gabe in particular.” Her voice was choking up, but she forced herself on. “But I’m just—you’re all I’ve got left, Jack. I don’t want you to take any risks with this, do you understand? And I’m worried for you—I’m really, really worried. So please, if you get asked to come in again, call a lawyer. Yes?”
I felt my rage deflate inside me like a pricked balloon, leaving only an intense weariness, close to despair. I felt my shoulders droop.
“Okay,” I said, the anger suddenly trickling away. Maybe it was the unintentional pathos of Hel’s cry, You’re all I’ve got left, Jack. Because the thing was, it wasn’t true—for Hel at least. She had Roland, and the girls, and her work. Yes, we were the last members of the family we had grown up with—our parents and grandparents all gone, no aunts or uncles, only each other. But she had made her own family, a new one—with a future that was bright and beautiful and loving. And until yesterday, I had been in the process of doing the same thing.
But not anymore. Now Gabe was dead, and with him, that future had been ripped away.
“Okay. If they ask me in again, I’ll call a lawyer. I promise.”
“Thank you,” Hel said. She put her arms around me. “Thank you, Jack. I’m sorry, I know I’m being a mama hen, but you’ll always be my little sister. I love you.”
I shut my eyes, pressing my forehead into her shoulder.
I love you too, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t make my throat form the words. I could only stand there, holding Hel, trying not to think about everything I’d lost.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6 MINUS SIX DAYS
I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night, having spent all of the previous day passed out in Hel’s spare room, but when I finally went up the stairs at just gone midnight, I did. It wasn’t good sleep, though—the room was hotter than I was used to at home, and I tossed and turned, running from someone or something who chased me, doggedly, relentlessly, never letting me escape.
One of the twins woke in the night with a bad dream and called out for Hel, and I woke too, blinking and dazed, listening to the wailing cries and trying to piece together who and where I was. It didn’t hit me this time, the reality of Gabe’s death. Instead it was already there, hanging over me like a weight that had never left. It was like the specter I had been running from all night but had never managed to outpace.
Sometime later I woke again, this time to the noise of a school day kicking off. Filtering up from the bedroom below, I could hear Kitty, the younger of the twins, complaining about putting on her school top. It was scratchy, she said. She didn’t like the label. And downstairs Roland had the radio on, the faint sound of Radio 4 coming up the stairwell.
Dragging myself upright, I reached automatically for my phone—and then remembered it was with the police. Damn. For a long moment I sat there, pulling myself together mentally and physically, and then I grabbed the borrowed robe off the bottom of the bed and padded downstairs for breakfast.
“Jack!” Roland was at the counter, doling out sandwiches into Tupperware boxes while tapping at his phone. “Good morning! How did you sleep?”
“Okay,” I said. It was a lie, but he didn’t need to know the truth. “Thanks. Can I… should I help myself?”
“Yes! Please. Sorry, it’ll calm down in a sec. This is peak pre-school madness, but we’ll be out the door in a few minutes. You’re coffee in the mornings, aren’t you? You know where it is.”
He nodded at the tall larder cupboard in the corner. Glancing up at the clock, I saw it was ten past eight. Later than I’d thought.
As I spooned out coffee into the pot, I heard the sound of pounding footsteps on the stairs and Millie, the older twin, burst into the kitchen sobbing.
“Daddy! Kitty got toothpaste on my top!”
“Okay, okay, calm down, it’s not the end of the world.” Her father lifted her up onto his knee, dabbing with a kitchen towel until the stain was just a pale shadow against the royal blue. “Good as new.”
“But I can still see it!”
“You’ll be fine, sweetie. Right, shoes on. Where’s Kitty?”
“Here!” Kitty clattered into the kitchen, shoes already on, hair plaited, evidently determined to expunge the toothpaste accusation by being the perfect schoolchild. She looked at me without any surprise at seeing her aunt, gray faced and bleary eyed at the kitchen counter. “Hello, Auntie Jack! I did my shoes myself.”
“They’re on the wrong feet, pickle,” Roland said patiently, kneeling down to help Kitty swap over her red buckled shoes. At the sight of the shoes, my heart contracted. They were so little—each one small enough to fit in Roland’s palm. Kitty stood, staring down intently as Roland refastened her straps, as if to check that he was doing it correctly. Then he straightened.
“Right. All set? Book bags?”
“Yes,” the twins chorused.
“Water bottles?”
Kitty didn’t have hers, and there was a moment of panicked hunt, this time with Kitty on the verge of tears before Helena came running down the stairs with it in her hand.
“Got it! It had rolled under the bed. Right, go, go! You’ll be late!”
There was a chorus of “Bye, Mummy; bye, Auntie Jack,” and another brief threat of tears from Kitty, who had apparently thought Hel was walking them to school… and then the door closed behind them, and Hel let out a sigh of relief.