When Modan’s stock of questions appears to dwindle to nothing, I look across at Ms. Streeter. Her neat, cropped head gives me a little nod, which I interpret to mean I’ve done well. I’m surprised to see we have been here for over an hour and a half, but not surprised to feel exhausted. Ten minutes of Modan’s questions does that, let alone ninety minutes.
“Bien,” says Modan. He closes his notebook and stands, adjusting the cuffs of his suit. “Merci. Most helpful, Miss Channing.” He turns his charming smile on me, and it is charming. I want to laugh at myself. How is it that he can pose the danger he does, and yet I am not immune to his appeal? “That is all. For now.”
For now. I look at Ms. Streeter, but she’s already charging into battle. “My client has been nothing but thoroughly cooperative from the start of this process.”
“Your client forgot to mention Class A drugs on several occasions.” Modan is smiling, but his eyes are steely.
“Understandable given there’s no relevance to the murder investigation and she was anxious not to get a friend into trouble. It’s certainly not a case of obstruction of justice. Your continued interest in my client without any evidence to link her to the murder is bordering on harassment. It’s disrupting her business and putting enormous stress on her, and I’ll be extremely happy to explain that in detail to a judge. So I suggest you either charge her with something or leave her be.”
Stress. I blink at the stark reference and open my mouth to protest but then shut it again silently. In truth I’m a good bit further down the line than stressed, and perhaps this is not the time to display a stiff upper lip. I glance round quickly for Severine and find her loitering near the doorway, drawing lazily from a cigarette. The smoke curls upward, partially obscuring a no smoking sign stuck to the wall. I know she stood there deliberately, and I fold my lips to stifle a grin.
Modan is not in the least bit fazed by Ms. Streeter’s attack. “Noted,” he says, deep lines bracketing his smiling mouth. He turns to me, and the smile drops, though the lines remain. I feel him assess me, though again, I see a kindness in his eyes that confuses me. “I truly do hope you are not too . . .”—he clicks his tongue briefly in frustration, searching for the word—“agitated by the situation. You have been most helpful.”
I look at Ms. Streeter again, completely nonplussed. She smiles back encouragingly, with a slight air of satisfaction, as if this is all a game and it has played out exactly as she expected. Modan, too, seems satisfied. I’m the only one in the room who doesn’t have the script. Well, Severine, too, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t need to care about anything now. Not for the first time I wonder why she cares to hover around me.
I don’t go back to my office afterward. I should—of course I should; there is plenty to do—but I can’t focus. I can’t even care that Caro will win today. I call Julie and tell her I’m feeling unwell, which I most definitely am, and that she should cancel my appointments and calls, and then I head for the tube. Severine joins me; she’s been sticking very closely to me today. I can’t imagine that’s a good sign vis-à-vis my mental state, but there’s something comforting about her presence, so I’m certainly not going to complain. I think carefully about my route home, determined to be conscious of it; on the packed train, I look around at the individuals with the trappings and cares of their lives on display in their clothing, their bags, their faces buried in newspapers and Kindles and phones. That one with the Financial Times must be a banker, I think, and perhaps that one an accountant, but it’s nothing but a label. I cannot imagine their lives. I cannot think of anything but the wreckage of my own.
I wish Tom was with me. It’s not a physical wish—though a strong arm wrapped round me certainly wouldn’t go amiss right now. No, I wish Tom was with me metaphorically: I wish I could reach inside myself and know as an absolute truth that Tom is always there for me, that Tom is mine. But Tom is going back to Boston—I’d have heard from him by now if he’d changed his mind about that—and I’m sitting alone on a tube.
Of course, I’m not completely alone. There’s Severine.
My flat feels cold when I get inside, but the thermostat needle points exactly where it normally does, and I realize it’s me that feels cold. Perhaps I really am getting a virus. I should have a bath and go to bed, but I know I won’t sleep well. Still, I can’t think of anything else to do, so I start to run the hot tap into the tub, then drift into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. It takes me a moment to notice an odd buzzing noise above the sound of the kettle boiling, and even longer to identify it as someone at the front door. I open the door cautiously. The burly chap who lives in the flat across the hallway—Ben, I think he is—is at the door, looking mildly impatient.
“These came for you,” he says, pushing a tall flower box into my arms. “Sorry, got to dash.”
“Oh,” I say blankly. “Thank you,” I call after him, but he’s already taking the stairs two at a time, and simply raises a hand in acknowledgment without turning around. I close the door and put the box on the table, ripping open the top in a quest to find a card. It’s nestling inconspicuously among the heads of white lilies interspersed with some pretty green foliage, my name written on the envelope in curly, unmistakably feminine handwriting, presumably by a woman in the flower shop. For a moment I don’t dare open the envelope. There is only one person I want these to be from; until I open the card there is still that possibility.
Act like yourself, I admonish myself. You don’t believe in putting things off.
So I slide a finger under the lip of the envelope and rip it open to pull out a small square card with the flower shop’s logo on one side. On the other, it says, in the same jarring curly writing:
Kate,
I thought about it. I’d like to try.
Tom x
Something inside me leaps. I read it again, and again, and then I find a smile is spreading across my face. There’s a fizzing running through me that I don’t recognize, a lightness, as if I could float upward.
Happiness, I realize. It’s been a long time.
I reach for my phone to call Tom, to thank him for the beautiful flowers, but there’s another buzz from the front door. Tom in person? But I know that’s too hopeful; he wouldn’t expect me to be home and in any case he would have called first. Severine is leaning against the door when I get there, blocking me from opening it. I gesture her out of the way, but she remains in place, her dark eyes fixed on me expressionlessly. The buzzer sounds again. I sigh and reluctantly swing the door open through Severine and have the disconcerting experience of seeing her face replaced by the dark wood and then by the face of the last person I expected to see on my doorstep.
Caro.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Caro.
It is Caro, but for a moment I’m thrown, disorientated by the flash of Severine, then the door, then who? For a moment it could be . . . But no, it’s Caro, encased in a smart dark coat and wearing a very trendy trilby that hides the dirty blond of her hair. She has unusually dark skin and eyebrows for a blonde; with her hair hidden one might easily mistake her for a brunette. Something jerks in the recesses of my mind. I find I’m staring at her.
“Well,” says Caro, and the moment she speaks she is Caro; all suggestions of anything otherwise are swept away. I pull myself together. There is something in her eyes, some sly satisfaction that has me on guard—more on guard, that is. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Actually, Caro, I’m really not feeling well.” I’ve kept the door only a couple of feet ajar: enough not to be rude, but not wide enough to invite an entrance. “Didn’t Julie call you?” But Julie must have called her, otherwise Caro would have expected me around this time at her offices . . .
“She did. I thought any combination of these might help.” She holds up a bottle of wine, a packet of Lemsip and some handbag-sized tissues.