It came away shiny with moisture and Edie licked it off, again and again and again.
How could she have forgotten the water on the sides of the jug? How could she have wasted it? All this time those few precious drops had been evaporating.
She winced at a sudden cramp in her stomach. It went on and on, and left her breathless.
She lowered herself on to her bed and lay on her side with her knees drawn up.
She waited it out.
She waited for everything. For the door to open; for the man to return. For more water. For more water. More water.
She waited so long that she fell asleep, and dreamed of ice cubes clinking softly in a glass.
The first sip was heaven.
The liquid gushed over long-dry lips like a flash flood across a cracked and dusty riverbed.
The tongue fizzed in gratitude.
The palate swelled in relief.
The throat opened to welcome it home like the prodigal son.
Before the mouth was even full, the rest of the body was tingling and alert to the onrushing paradise.
Heaven on Earth.
Marvel put down the pint of bitter and felt that he had found his way home.
38
ANNA WAS PUTTING the baby to bed when somebody knocked. At first she didn’t even know where the sound came from. They rarely had visitors, and never bought anything that required delivery.
She frowned and went into the kitchen.
The knock came again and she went warily down the stairs to the front door.
It was DCI Marvel. The shoulders of his coat were damp, even though it was no longer raining. It made her wonder how long he’d been out, or how far he had walked.
‘Mrs Buck,’ he said, ‘I need to speak to you.’
He was drunk. Not rolling drunk, but she could tell.
Anna stared at him. He looked unwell. His face was pale and his eyes were red and tired, although that might have been from the cigarette smoke that curled up into them on this damp, windless night.
But there was something else in his eyes that told her that refusing him entry was not going to work.
‘James will be home soon,’ she said cautiously.
‘That’s OK.’ He shrugged and stepped forward, so she stepped backwards, and all of a sudden he was in the house.
‘I won’t be long,’ he said, and looked up the stairs as if to remind her where they were supposed to be going.
‘Can you take your shoes off, please?’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘I’m on official police business.’
‘Really?’ she said, and he took off his shoes.
She gestured for him to go first. On the way up the stairs she noticed that his right sock had a hole in one heel.
‘In here?’ he said at the kitchen.
‘If you like,’ she said.
He sat at the table and she put down a saucer for his ash.
‘You’ve cleaned up the paint.’
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘It took a while.’
He looked around and said nothing. Anna knew she should offer him a cup of tea, but she didn’t want to encourage him.
‘So,’ she said bluntly, ‘what do you want?’
He sat for a moment, silent, eyes narrowed by smoke.
‘Earlier today, Richard Latham told me Edie Evans has been dead from the start.’ He turned up his palms. ‘I mean, I don’t believe any of this psychic bullshit. Never have, never will. But …’
He stopped.
Anna didn’t know what he wanted her to say, so she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
He nodded slowly, and said thank you, and Anna realized with surprise that he felt he deserved that sympathy.
Which somehow made him deserving of it.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.
‘Please.’
She put the kettle on and the little kitchen with the black windows was suffused with the subliminal thrum of water.
They didn’t speak again until she put two mugs on the table and sat down opposite Marvel.
‘What made you think she wasn’t dead?’
Marvel shook his head. He flushed. He was embarrassed, she could see.
‘Just hope,’ he said. ‘But it felt more … substantial than that. More rational.’ He sipped his tea and cupped his hands loosely around the mug. ‘Now it just seems a bit stupid.’
Anna suddenly felt very close to DCI Marvel.
He went on, slow and measured, ‘Latham said she died a month or so after being taken. That means that all the time I’ve spent looking for her and thinking about her and wondering where she is and how she is – fifteen months! – has been a waste of time. Because she’s fucking dead!’ He threw up a hand and jolted tea out of his mug on to the table. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
Anna got a cloth and wiped up the spill. ‘Your time wasn’t wasted,’ she said.
‘You don’t think so?’
She looked into her tea. ‘I think about Daniel all the time. I wonder how he is, what he’s doing, whether he’s thinking about me, how he’s changing, how tall he is now, whether his clothes still fit him or whether someone has bought him new ones …’
She caught her voice before it could break and gave a tremulous smile at the bittersweet pleasure of her own imagination.
‘Thinking about him keeps him alive for me,’ she said. ‘Thinking about him gives me hope, and hope keeps me alive for him.’
Marvel stared at her. He lit another cigarette. He used matches, not a lighter, and the delicious, dangerous smell of sulphur hung over them for a moment, before the dull and dirty smoke took over.
He clamped the cigarette between his lips and leaned sideways so he could take something from the inside pocket of his coat.
Anna averted her eyes. She knew what it would be. ‘Please don’t ask me to look at her picture,’ she said in a rush.
‘Why not?’
‘It hurts.’
‘How can it hurt?’
‘I don’t know, but it does. Here.’ She cupped her belly.
‘Latham wouldn’t look at it either,’ said Marvel. ‘Even after I offered him a deal.’
‘But if you’ll never believe in psychic powers, what was the point of asking him to look at it?’