‘You’ll have to visit us,’ Mr Ross says. ‘We’ve got a tractor, Solomon. Do you like tractors? I could take you on a ride in it.’
Sol looks up at his grandfather. Manon has been observing her nephew and he seems to have got around the difficulty of this social occasion by ignoring these elderly interlopers entirely. But the tractor is too much. He is awed by chunky vehicles. Manon has become accustomed to screeching to a halt in the car and bellowing, ‘DIGGER!’ She’s even found herself doing this when no one is strapped into the back seat.
‘Yes,’ Mr Ross is saying, and his whole face crinkles in a most kindly way, ‘a real tractor. Brum brum! Would you like that, Solly?’
‘Tractor,’ says Solly. He swills words, like a wine taster. ‘Too-day’ and ‘birf-day’ and ‘Babe Buntin’ when they’re reading Each Peach Pear Plum.
‘Tractor,’ says Mrs Ross, with a look of wonderment. ‘Oh he’s wonderful,’ she says to Ellie. ‘You are wonderful,’ she says to Solly.
Ellie smiles at them but Manon thinks it is brittle. Then Ellie leaves the room. She has not sat down since they arrived, first making the tea, searching for biscuits, asking where they’d like to sit, plumping cushions, offering to open or close windows, put the fire on. In and out of the room. It has reached such a pitch of fidgetry that Manon is concerned her sister is being rude. As Ellie makes for the door, she hisses, ‘Can’t you sit down for one fucking minute?’
‘Fresh pot,’ Ellie says.
Manon frowns, nods at the olds. Perhaps it is next to the Rosses’ stillness that Ellie seems manic and incapable of contemplation.
‘She’s off again!’ Manon says to the room, as Ellie bustles out with the teapot.
Sol starts to fuss and whine. Mrs Ross immediately pitches onto her knees on the floor next to him, proffering him another block for his tower.
‘You really should stay here with us,’ Manon says. ‘It’d be no trouble.’
‘We don’t like to be a burden,’ says Mr Ross. ‘It’s a nice place, where we’re staying. Mrs Linton, she cooked a full English this morning. Not that we felt like it. We’ll go home tomorrow, I think. Police – well,’ he nods at Manon, ‘you’ll know better than me. But they can’t see a reason for us to hang on.’
The double meaning of those last words seems to suspend in the silence that follows.
Solly’s whining is increasing, harder to mollify because really, he needs a nap but doesn’t always take one (Ellie and Manon are clinging on, resolutely putting him to bed at lunchtime in the vain hope of retaining their midday hiatus). Sol is doubly exhausted by all the tension between the adults; tired from being lapped up by his grief-stricken stranger-grandparents.
‘I’m going to have to put this one to bed in a minute,’ says Ellie, bustling back in with the teapot.
‘I think we’ll go back for a nap too, Gareth, shall we?’ says Mrs Ross. ‘We didn’t sleep much last night.’
‘Won’t you have a fresh cup first?’ asks Ellie.
‘No thank you,’ says Mrs Ross. They have risen. ‘I wish I’d brought him a present. I didn’t know …’
‘No need for presents,’ Ellie says, stiffly.
‘You will let us see him, won’t you?’ Mrs Ross says. ‘We don’t expect anything from you, only to see him and to get to know him. We can help you, in holidays and things. It can’t be easy, having him on your own. Although I know you’ve got …’ She trails off.
Ellie blusters her way through the departures, avoiding eye contact. ‘Well, it was nice to meet you.’
Busying herself with Solly.
Hiding behind Solly.
Manon cannot understand it. These are visibly good people in search of a connection.
‘What the fuck was that all about?’ she says, after the front door has closed and after a respectful beat of silence so the Rosses can be safely out of earshot.
Ellie has Sol on her hip, stroking his forehead.
‘Language,’ Ellie says. ‘I’m going to put him down.’
‘My not tired,’ says Solly, through the oval of a yawn.
Davy
He’s standing in front of a Georgian townhouse with a polished brass plaque saying Dunlop & Finch. The black gloss door is adorned with a wreath of greenery and red berries. Davy thinks it looks like a traditional Christmas card image. His two detective constables flank him and Davy presses the buzzer.
They are buzzed into a hallway with black and white floor tiles. An enormous ornate mirror hangs on one wall. An oversized vase of white lilies fills the air with heavy perfume. The DCs – two lads who have been seconded to him from team two and whom he barely knows, follow him into reception. On the train, Davy was anxious to brief them thoroughly. ‘You’re looking for strains and pressures on the victim, any fallings-out, office politics which might’ve got out of hand. Any backstory which colleagues were aware of – girlfriends, friendships gone awry.’ The DCs were too relaxed to his mind and he didn’t want to join in their banter during the rest of the journey, preferring to read his case file or gaze out of the window; making notes in his hardback notebook when questions occurred to him that he must not forget.
They are met with hushed tones from the receptionist. ‘Ah yes, of course, take a seat.’
Davy remains standing and is annoyed when his DCs take up chairs.
A woman in a pencil skirt and tucked-in shirt comes to fetch them, leading them up a carpeted staircase with a polished banister. ‘It’s so terrible,’ she says as she leads. ‘We’re all in shock.’
After some preamble and apportioning of interviews, Davy takes Giles Carruthers.
He is shown into a bright room with a large desk in front of the window. Around the fireplace is an arrangement of deep armchairs at the centre of which is a square coffee table set with a silver coffee set.
‘I’m in shock,’ Giles says. ‘We all are. Can’t believe it to be honest.’
He wears an impeccable suit of darkest navy and his white shirt shines brightly against it. Cufflinks. A slight tan. After some generalities about his friendship with Ross, their positions in the firm, Davy says, ‘Was there much rivalry between the two of you? I understand you held equal positions as vice presidents, below van der Lupin.’
Giles says, ‘I wouldn’t call it rivalry. Look, we were up against each other but it was all friendly stuff. Coffee?’
Davy demurs. He doesn’t like to take anything from anyone when he’s on the job, not so much as an orange juice. Even coffee, with those sugar crystals that are all different shades of brown, like semi-precious stones. When his dad had taken him out once as a kiddie, Davy had rolled them against his teeth secretly.
‘Markus – van der Lupin, our boss – he likes to foster a bit of competitiveness. Thinks it gets the best out of us. Happens all the time in the City. Jon-Oliver and I were your classic public school boys, you know?’
Davy nods. Smiles. Not a clue, he thinks.