The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

Ramsey Campbell Ra*e

You’re joking, Laura. You’re just doing your best to madden your mother and me. You’re not going out like that either.”

“Dad, I’ve already changed once.”

“And not for the better, but it was better than this. Toddle off to your room again and don’t come back down until you’ve finished trying to provoke us.”

“I’ll be late. I am already. There isn’t another bus for an hour unless I go across the golf course.”

“You know that’s not an option, so don’t give your mother more to worry about than she already has. You shouldn’t have wasted all that time arguing.”

“Wilf — ”

“See how your mother is now. Perhaps she can be permitted a chance to speak before you have your next say. What is it, Claire?”

“I think she can probably go like that rather than be waiting in the dark. I know you’d give her a lift if you weren’t on patrol. I only wish I could.”

“Well, Laura, you’ve succeeded in getting round your mother and made her feel guilty for not being able to drive into the bargain. I’m sorry, Claire, that’s how it seems to me, but then I’m just the man round here. Since my feelings aren’t to be allowed for, I’ll have to try and keep them to myself.”

“Thanks, mum,” Laura said swiftly, and presented her with a quick hug and kiss. Claire had a momentary closeup of her small pale face garnished with freckles above the pert snub nose, of large dark eyes with extravagant lashes which always reminded her how Laura used to gaze up at her from the pram. Then the fourteen-year-old darted out of the room, her sleek straight hair as red as Claire’s five years ago swaying across the nape of her slim neck as her abbreviated skirt whirled around the inches of bare thigh above her black stockings. “Thanks, dad,” she called, and was out of the front door, admitting a snatch of the whir of a lawnmower and a whiff of the scented May evening.

Wilf had turned his back as she’d swung away from her mother. He sat down heavily in the armchair beside the Welsh dresser on which ranks of photographs of Laura as a baby and a toddler and a little girl were drawn up. He tugged at the knees of his jogging pants as he subsided, and dragged a hand across his bristling eyebrows before using it to smooth his graying hair. “Better now?” said Claire in the hope of dislodging his mood.

He raised his lined wide face until his Adam’s apple was almost as prominent as the two knuckles of his chin. “I was serious.”

“Oh, now, Wilf, I really don’t think you can say your feelings are swept under the carpet all that much. But do remember you aren’t the only — ”

“About how she dresses, and don’t bother telling me you used to dress that way.”

“I could again if you like.”

“I’m still serious. You were older, old enough your parents couldn’t stop us marrying. Besides which, girls weren’t in the kind of danger they are these days.”

“That’s why we have folk like you patrolling. Most people are as decent as they used to be, and three of them live in this house.”

He lowered his head as if his thoughts had weighed it down, and peered at her beneath his eyebrows. “Never mind hiding in there,” she said with the laugh she had increasingly to use on him. “Instead of thinking whatever you’re thinking, why don’t you start your patrol early if you’re so worried and see her onto the bus.

“By God, you two are alike,” he said, slapping his thighs so hard she winced, and pushed himself to his feet.

“That’s us women for you.”

The front door thumped shut, and Claire expelled a long breath through her nose. If only he wouldn’t disapprove quite so openly and automatically of all that Laura was becoming — “What’s wrong?” she blurted, because he had tramped back in.

“Nothing you’ve spotted.” He played the xylophone of the stripped pine banisters as he climbed the stairs to the parental bedroom. She’d begun to wonder what was taking him so long when he reappeared, drumming his fingernails on his neighbourhood patrol badge, which he’d pinned to his black top over his heart. “Found it in with your baubles,” he said. “Now maybe I’ve some chance of being taken notice of.”

In the photograph he seemed determined to look younger, hence threatening. It still made her want to smile, and to prevent herself she asked “Who’s out there at the moment, do you know?”

“Your friend Mr Gummer for one.”

“No friend of mine. He’d better not come hanging round here if he sees you’re away.”

“You’d hope putting on one of these badges would make him into a pillar,” Wilf said as he let himself out of the house.

Claire followed to close the filigreed gate at the end of their cobbled path after him, and watched him trot along the street of large twinned houses and garages nestling against them. Perhaps she was being unfair, but Duncan Gummer was the kind of person — no, the only person — who made her wish that those who offered to patrol had to be vetted rather than merely to live in the small suburb. Abruptly she wanted him to show himself and loiter outside her house as he often found an excuse to do while he was on patrol: she could tell him she’d sent Wilf away and see how he reacted. She had a vision of his moist lower lip exposing itself, his clasped hands dangling over his stomach, their inverted prayer indicating his crotch. She wriggled her shoulders to shrug off the image and sent herself into the house to finish icing Laura’s cake.

She was halfway through piping the pink letters onto the snow-white disc when she faltered, unable to think how to cross the t of “Happy Birthday” without breaking her script. How had she done it twelve months ago and all the times before? She particularly wanted this cake to be special, because she knew she wouldn’t be decorating many more. Perhaps it was the shrilling of an alarm somewhere beyond the long back garden with its borders illuminated by flowers that was putting her off, a rapid bleeping like an Engaged tone speeded up. She imagined trying to place a call only to meet such a response — a sound that panic seemed to be rendering frantic. Nervousness was gaining control of her hands now that Wilf had aggravated the anxiety she experienced just about whenever Laura left the house.

She’d spent some time in flexing her fingers and laying down the plastic tool again for fear of spoiling the inscription — long enough for the back garden to fill up with the shadow of the house — before she decided to go out and look for him. Laura would be fine at the school disco, and on the bus home with her friends, so long as she’d caught the bus there. Having set the alarm — she needn’t programme the lights to switch themselves on, she would only be out for a few minutes — Claire draped a linen jacket over her shoulders and walked to the end of the road.

The Chung boys were sluicing the family Lancia with buckets of soapy water and a great deal of Cantonese chatter. Several mowers were rehearsing a drowsy chorus against the improvised percussion of at least two pairs of shears. The most intrusive sound, though not the loudest, was the unanswered plea of the alarm. When Claire reached the junction she saw that the convulsive light that accompanied the noise was several hundred yards away along the cross street, close to the pole of the deserted bus stop at the far end, against the baize humps of the golf course. As she saw all this, the alarm gave up. She turned from it and caught sight of Wilf.

He mustn’t have seen her, she thought, because he was striding away. Shrunken by distance, and obviously unaware that his trousers were a little lower than they might be — more like a building worker’s than any outfit of the architect he was — he looked unexpectedly vulnerable. She couldn’t imagine his tackling anyone with more than words, but then members of the patrol weren’t supposed to use force, only to alert the police. She felt a surge of the old affection, however determined he seemed these days to give it no purchase on his stiff exterior, as she cupped her hands about her mouth. “Wilf.”

At first she thought he hadn’t heard her. Two mowers had travelled the length of their lawns before he swung round and marched towards her, his face drawn into a mask of concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I hope. I just wanted to know if you saw her onto the bus.”

“She wasn’t there.”

“Are you sure?” Claire couldn’t help asking. “She’d have been in time for it, wouldn’t she?”

“If it came.”

“Don’t say that. How else could she have gone?”

“Maybe she got herself picked up.”

“She’d never have gone in anybody’s car she didn’t know, not Laura.”

“You’d hope not. That’s what I meant, a lift from a friend who was going, their parents, rather.”

The trouble was that none of Laura’s friends would have needed to be driven past the bus stop. Perhaps this had occurred to Wilf, who was staring down the street past Claire. A glance showed her that the streetlamp by the bus stop had acknowledged the growing darkness. The isolated metal flag gleamed like a knife against the secretive mounds of the golf course. “She should be there by now,” Claire said.

“You’d imagine so.”

It was only a turn of phrase, but it made her suspect herself of being less anxious than he felt there was reason to be. “She won’t like it, but she’ll have to put up with it,” she declared.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m going to phone to make sure she’s arrived.”

“That’s — yes, I should.”

“Are you coming to hear? You aren’t due on the street for a few minutes yet.”

“I thought I’d send your favourite man Mr Gummer home early. You’re right, though, I ought to be with you for the peace of mind.”

If he had just the average share, she reflected, she might have more herself. It took her several minutes to reach the phone, as a preamble to doing which she had to walk home not unduly fast and unbutton the alarm, by which time there was surely no point in calling except to assure herself there wasn’t. The phone at the disco went unanswered long enough for Wilf to turn away and rub his face twice; then a girl’s voice younger than Claire was expecting, and backed by music loud enough to distort it, said “Sin Tans.”

“Hello, St Anne’s. This is Laura Maynard’s mother. Could I have a quick word with her?”

“Who? Oh, Lor.” As Claire deduced this wasn’t a mild oath but a version of Laura’s name, the girl said “I’ll just see.”

She was gone at once, presumably laying the receiver down with the mouth toward the music, so that it amplified itself like a dramatic soundtrack in a film. Claire had thought of a question to justify the call and no doubt to annoy Laura — they’d established when she must be home, but not with whom or how — when the girl returned. “Mrs Maynard,” she shouted over an upsurge of the music, “she’s not here yet, her friend Hannah says.”

“You obviously wouldn’t know if her bus happened to run.”

“Yes, Hannah was on it, but it was early at Lor’s stop.”

“I understand,” said Claire, compelled to sound more like a grown-up than she felt. “Could you ask her to ring home the moment she gets there? The moment you see her, I mean.”

“I will, Mrs Maynard.”

“Thanks. You’re very — ” The line went dead, and Claire hung up the receiver beside the stairs, next to the oval mirror in which Wilf was raising his hunched head. Two steps like the heaviness of his expression rendered palpable brought him round to face her. “She’s not there, then,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“Not much we can do, is there? Not till she gets home, and then I’ll be having a good few words.”

“Don’t work yourself up till we know what happened. You always assume it’s her fault. I may just nip out to see. ”

“I can look if you like while you’re waiting for her to call. See what?”

“She’ll speak to the machine if we aren’t here. I know she wouldn’t go across the golf course by herself, but maybe someone she knew went with her if they missed the bus too. If anyone’s still playing I can ask if they saw her. It’s better than sitting at home thinking things there’s no need to think.”

“I’ll come with you, shall I? If there are any golfers they may be miles apart.”

He so visibly welcomed being motivated that she couldn’t have refused him. “You set the lights and everything while I go on ahead,” she told him.

The twilight was quieter, and almost dark. The mowers had gone to bed. Though she could hear no sound of play from the golf course she made for it, having glanced back to see that Wilf was following, far enough behind that she had a moment of hoping a call from Laura had delayed him. By the time he emerged from their street Claire was nearly at the bus stop.

Smaller flags led away from it, starting at the first hole. The clubhouse was nearby, though screened by one of the thick lines of trees that had been grown to complicate the golf. Claire heard the whop of a club across the miles of grass and sandy hollows, and the approach of a bus, reminding her that it was at least an hour since Laura had left the house. “Come on, Wilf,” she urged, and stepped off the concrete onto the turf.

Tines of light from the clubhouse protruded through the trees; one thin beam pricked the corner of her eye. A stroke that sounded muffled by a divot echoed out of the gloom. “I’ll find them,” she called, pointing towards the invisible game, “while you see if anyone at the clubhouse can help. Show them your badge.”

Her last words jerked as she began to jog up a slope towards a copse. Having panted as far as the clump, she glanced at Wilf. “Get a move on,” she exhorted, but her words only made him turn to her. She waved him onward and lurched down the far side of the slope.

Her cry brought Wilf stumbling towards her, halting when she regained her balance. “What now?” he demanded, his nervousness crowding into his voice. “What have you — ”

“Nearly fell in a bunker, that’s all,” she said, grateful to have an excuse for even a forced laugh. She took a step which placed the bulk of the copse between her and Wilf and cut off the light from the clubhouse, and looked down.

This time she didn’t cry out. “Wilf,” she said with the suddenly unfamiliar object she used for speech; then she raised her voice until it became part of the agony she was experiencing. “Wilf,” she repeated, and slid down into the bunker.

The slope gave way beneath her feet, and she felt as if the world had done so. The darkness that rose to meet her was the end of the lights of the world. It couldn’t blind her to the sight below her, though her mind was doing its best to think that the figure in the depths of the sandpit wasn’t Laura — was the child of some poor mother who would scream or faint or go mad when she saw. None of this happened, and in a moment Laura was close enough to touch.

She was lying face down in the hollow. Her skirt had been pulled above her waist, and her legs forced so wide that her panties cut into her stockinged legs just above the knees. The patch of sand between her thighs was stained dark red, and the top of her right leg glistened as if a large snail had crawled down it. Her fists were pressed together above her head in a flurry of sand.

Claire fell to her knees, sand grinding against them, and took hold of Laura’s shoulders. She had never known them feel so thin and delicate; she seemed unable to be gentle enough. As Laura’s face reluctantly ceased nestling in the slope, Claire heard the whisper of a breath. It was only sand rustling out of Laura’s hair — more of the sand which filled her nostrils and her gaping mouth and even her open eyes.

Claire was brushing sand out of Laura’s eyelashes, to give herself a moment before the glare of her emotions set about shrivelling her brain — she was remembering Laura at four years old on a day at the seaside, her small sunlit face releasing a tear as Claire dabbed a grain of sand out of her eye — when she heard Wilf above the bunker. “Where are — ” he said, then “Oh, you’re — What — ”

She shrank into herself while she awaited his reaction. When it came, his wordless roar expressed outrage and grief enough for her as well. She looked up to see him clutching at his heart, and heard cloth tear. He was twisting the badge, digging the pin into his chest. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “That won’t help.”

He wavered at the top of the bunker as if he might fall, then he trudged down the outside of the hollow to slither in and kneel beside her. She felt his arms tremble about her and Laura before gripping them in a hug whose fierceness summed up his helplessness. “Be careful of her,” she hardly knew she said.

“I did it.”

She almost wrenched herself free of him, his words were so ill-chosen. “What are you saying?”

“If I hadn’t made her miss her bus by going on at her. ”

“Oh, Wilf.” She could think of nothing more to say, because she agreed with him. His arms slackened as though he felt unworthy to hold her and Laura; she couldn’t tell if he was even touching her. One of them would have to get up and fetch someone — he would, because she found she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Laura to grow cold as the night was growing. But there was no need for him to go. Someone was observing them from above the bunker.

The emotion this set off started her eyes burning, and she might have scrambled up the slope to launch herself at the intruder if he hadn’t spoken. “What are you people up to in there? This is private property. Please take your—” His voice faltered as he peered down. “Dear Christ, what’s happened here?” he said, and was irrelevant to her fury — had been as soon as she’d grasped he wasn’t the culprit. Nothing but finding them might bring to an end the blaze of rage which had begun to consume every feeling she would otherwise have had.

“Mrs Maynard.”

She could pretend she hadn’t heard, Claire thought, and carry on plodding. But a supermarket assistant who was loading the shelves with bottles of Scotch and gin nodded his head at her. “There’s a lady wants to speak to you.”

“Mrs Maynard, it is you, isn’t it? It’s Daisy Gummer.”

Claire knew that. She was considering speeding her trolley out of the aisle when her exit was blocked by a trolley with a little girl hanging onto one side — a six- or seven-year-old in the school uniform Laura had worn at that age. Claire’s hands clenched, and she swung her trolley round to point at her summoner.

Mrs Gummer was in her wheelchair, a wire basket on her lap. The jacket and trousers of her orange suit seemed designed to betray as little of her shape as possible. Her silver curls were beginning to unwind and grow dull. Her large pale puffed-up face made to crumple as her eyes met Claire’s, then rendered itself into an emblem of strength. “Has to be done, eh?” she declared with a surplus of heartiness. “It’s not the men who go out hunting any longer.”

The little this meant to Claire included the possibility that the old woman’s son wasn’t with her, not that his absence was any reason to linger. Before Claire could devise a reply that would double as a farewell, Mrs Gummer said “Still fixing up people’s affairs for them, are you? Still tidying up after them?”

“If that’s what you want to say accountants do.”

“Nothing wrong with using any tricks you know,” Mrs Gummer said, performing a wink that involved pinching her right eye with most of that side of her face. “Duncan’s done a few with my money at his bank.” As though preparing to reveal some of them, she leaned over her lapful of tins. “What I was going to say was you keep working. Keep your mind occupied. I wished I’d had a job when we lost his father.”

“That would have helped you forget, would it?”

“I don’t know about forget. Come to terms would be about the size of it.”

“And what sort of terms would you suggest I come to?” Claire heard herself being unpleasant, perhaps unreasonable, but these were merely hints of the feelings that constantly lay in wait for her. “Please. Do tell me whatever you think I should know.”

The old woman’s gaze wavered and focused beyond her, and Claire had an excuse to move out of the way of whoever was there. Then she heard him say “Here’s the soap you like, mother, that’s gentle on your skin. Who’s your friend you’ve been talking to?”

“You know Mrs Maynard. We were just talking about. ” Apparently emboldened by the presence of her son, Mrs Gummer brought her gaze to bear on the other woman. “How long has it been now, you poor thing?”

“Three months and a week and two days.”

“Have they found the swine yet?”

“They say not.”

“I know what I’d do to him if I got hold of him, chair or no chair.” Mrs Gummer dealt its arms a blow each with her fists, perhaps reflecting on the difficulties involved in her proposal, before refraining from some of another wink as she said “They’ll be testing the men round here soon though, won’t they? It isn’t just fingerprints and blood these days, is it?”

The possibility that the old woman was taking a secret delight in this sickened Claire, who was gripping her trolley to steer it away when Duncan Gummer said “I shouldn’t imagine they think he’s from our neighbourhood, mother.”

He’d taken his position behind the wheelchair and was regarding Claire, his eyes even moister than his display of lower lip. “They’ve told you that, have they?” she demanded. “That’s the latest bulletin for the patrol.”

“Not officially, no, Mrs Maynard. I’m sure Mr Maynard would have told you if they had. I was just thinking myself that this evil maniac would surely have had enough sense, not that I’m suggesting he has sense like ordinary folk unless he does and that’s part of how he’s evil, he’d have kept his, his activities well away from home, would you not think?” He looked away from her silence as a load of bottles jangled onto a shelf, and let his lip sag further. “What I’ve been meaning to say to you,” he muttered, “I can’t blame myself enough for not being out that night when I was meant to be on patrol.”

“Don’t listen to him. It’s not true.”

“Mother, you mustn’t — ”

“It was my fault for being such a worn-out old crock.”

“That’s what I meant. You weren’t to know. You mustn’t take it on yourself.”

“He thought I was turning my toes up when all I was was passed out from finishing the bottle.”

“Can’t be helped,” Claire said for the Gummers to take how they liked, and turned away, to be confronted by the liquor shelves and her inability to recall how much gin was left at home. She was letting her hand stray along the relevant shelf when Mrs Gummer said “You grab it if that’s what you need. I know I did when his father left us.”

Claire snatched her hand back and drove her trolley to the checkout as fast as the shoppers she encountered would allow. She couldn’t risk growing like Mrs Gummer while Laura went unavenged. Time enough when the law had taken its course for her to collapse into herself. She arranged her face to signify that she was too preoccupied to talk to the checkout girl, and imitated smiling at her before wheeling out the trolley onto the sunlit concrete field of the car park.

Tasks helped advance the process of continuing to be alive, but tasks came to an end. At least riding on the free bus from the supermarket to the stop by the golf course was followed by having to drag her wheeled basket home. She might have waited for Wilf to drive her if waiting in the empty house hadn’t proved too much for her. His need to go back to work had forced her to do so herself, and on the whole she was glad of it, as long as she could do the computations and the paperwork while leaving her colleagues to deal face to face with clients. She didn’t want people sympathising with her, softening the feelings she was determined to hoard.

As she let herself into the house the alarm cried to be silenced before it could raise its voice. Once that would have meant Laura wasn’t home from school, and Claire would have been anxious unless she knew why. She wouldn’t have believed the removal of that anxiety would have left such a wound in her, too deep to touch. She quelled the alarm and hugged the lumpy basket to her while she laboured to transport it over the expensive carpet of the suddenly muggy hall to the kitchen, where she set about loading the refrigerator. She left the freezer until last, because as soon as she opened it, all she could see was Laura’s birthday cake.

She’d thought of serving it after the funeral, but she would have felt bound to scrape off the inscription. That still ended at the unfinished letter — the cross she had never made. She’d considered burying the cake in the back garden, but that would have been too final too soon; keeping it seemed to promise that in time she would be able to celebrate the fate of Laura’s destroyer. She reached into its icy nest and moved it gently to the back of the freezer so as to wall it in with packages. While Wilf rarely opened the freezer, she could do without having to explain to him.

He ought to be home soon. She might have made a start on the work she’d brought home from the office, except that she knew she would become aware of trying to distract herself from the emptiness of the house. She wandered through the front room, past the black chunks of silence that were the hi-fi and video-recorder and television, and the shelves of bound classics she’d hoped might encourage Laura to read more, and stood at the window. The street was deserted, but she felt compelled to watch — to remember. Remember what, for pity’s sake? She’d lost patience with herself, and was stepping back to prove she had some control, when she saw what she should have realised in the supermarket, and grew still as a cat which had seen a mouse.

“Wilf?”

“Love?”

“What would you do. ”

“Carry on. We’ve never had secrets from each other, have we? Whatever it is, you can say.”

“What would you do if you knew who’d, who it was who did that to Laura?”

“Tell the police.”

“Suppose you hadn’t any proof they’d think was proof?”

“Still tell them. They’ll sort out if there’s proof or not. If you tell them they’ll have to follow it up, won’t they? That’s what we pay them for, those that do, that you haven’t fixed up not to pay tax.”

“I’d be best phoning and not saying who I am, wouldn’t I? That way they can’t find out how much I really know.”

“Whatever you say, love.”

He had to agree with her, since he wasn’t there: he’d left home an hour ago to be early at a building site. She couldn’t really have had such a conversation with him when he would have insisted on learning why she was suspicious, and then at the very least would have thought she was taking umbrage which in fact she was too old and used up to take. She knew better, however. If Duncan Gummer had been as obsessed with her as she’d assumed him to be, how could be have needed his mother to identify her at the supermarket? Now Claire knew he’d used his patrolling as an excuse to loiter near the house because he’d been obsessed with Laura, a thought which turned her hands into claws. She had to force them to relax before she was able to programme the alarm.

The suburb was well awake. All the surviving children were on their way to school; a few were even walking. The neighbourhood’s postman for the last four months had stopped for a chat with a group of mothers being tugged at by small children. Less than a week ago Claire would have been instantly suspicious of him — of any man in the suburb and probably beyond it too — but now there was only room in her mind for one. She even managed a smile at the postman as she headed for the golf course.

The old footpath, bare as a strip of skin amid the turf, led past the first bunker, and she made herself glance in. It was unmarked, unstained. “We’re going to get him,” she whispered to the virgin sand, and strode along the path to the main road.

A phone box stood next to the golf course, presenting its single opaque side to a bus stop. Claire pulled the reluctant door shut after her and took out her handkerchief, which she wadded over the mouthpiece of the receiver. Having typed the digits that would prevent her call from being traced, she rang the police. As soon as a female voice, more efficient than welcoming, announced itself she said “I want to talk about the Laura Maynard case.”

“Hold on, madam, I’ll put you through to — ”

“No, you listen.” Now that she was past the most difficult utterance — describing Laura as a case — Claire was in control. “I know who did it. I saw him.”

“Madam, if I can ask you just to — ”

“Write this down, or if you can’t do that, remember it. It’s his name and address.” Claire gave the information twice and immediately cut off the call, which brought her plan of action to so definite an end that she almost forgot to pocket her handkerchief before hanging the phone up. She stepped out beneath a sky which seemed enlarged and brightened, and had only to walk to the stop to be in time for an approaching bus. As she grasped the metal pole and swung herself onto the platform of the bus she was reminded how it felt to step onto a fairground ride. “All the way,” she said, and rode to the office.

“Claire? I’m back.”

“I was wondering where on earth you’d got to. Come and sit and have a drink. I’ve something I’ve been wanting to — ”

“I’m with someone, so — ”

“Who?”

“No need to sound like that. Someone you know. Detective Inspector Bairns.”

“Come in too, Inspector, if you don’t mind me leaving off your first bit. I don’t suppose you’ll have a drink.”

“I won’t, thanks, Mrs Maynard, not in the course of the job. Thank you for asking.”

She wasn’t sure she had — she was too aware of the policeman he’d made of himself. His tread was light for such a stocky fellow; the features huddled between his high forehead and potato chin were slow to betray any expression, never including a smile in her limited experience, but his eyes were constantly searching. “Do have one yourselves,” he said.

“I’ll get them, Claire. I can see you’re ready for a refill.”

“You’ll have the Inspector thinking I’ve turned to the bottle.”

“Nobody would blame you, Mrs Maynard, or at any rate I wouldn’t.” Bairns lowered himself into the twin of her massive leather armchair and glanced at Wilf. “Nothing soft either, thanks,” he responded before settling his attention on Claire.

She smiled and raised her eyebrows and leaned forward, none of which brought her an answer. “So you’ll have some news for me,” she risked saying.

“Unfortunately, Mrs Maynard, I have to — ”

Wilf came between them to hand Claire her drink on his way to the couch, and in that moment she wished she could see the policeman’s eyes. “Sorry,” she said for Wilf as he moved on, and had a sudden piercing sense that she might be expected to apologise for herself. “You were saying, please, go on.”

“Only that regrettably we still have nothing definite.”

“You haven’t. Nothing at all.”

“I do understand how these things seem, believe me. If we can’t make an immediate arrest then as far as the victim’s family is concerned the investigation may as well be taking forever.”

“When you say not immediate you mean. ”

“I appreciate it’s been the best part of four months.”

“No, what I’m getting at, you mean you’ve an idea of who it is and you’re working on having a reason to show for arresting him.”

“I wish I could tell you that.”

“Tell me the reason. Us, not just me, obviously, but that’s what you mean about telling.”

“Sadly not, Mrs Maynard. I meant that so far, and I do stress it’s only so far, we’ve had no useful leads. But you have my word we don’t give up on a case like this.”

“No leads at all.” Claire fed herself a gulp of gin, and shivered as the ice-cubes knocked a chill into her teeth. “I can’t believe you’ve had none.”

“We and our colleagues elsewhere questioned everyone with a recorded history of even remotely similar behaviour, I do assure you.” The policeman looked at his hands piled on his stomach, then met her eyes again, his face having absorbed any hint of expression. “I may as well mention we received an anonymous tip last week.”

“You did.” Claire almost raised her glass again, but wasn’t sure what the action might seem to imply. “I suppose you need time to get ready to follow something like that up.”

“It’s been dealt with, Mrs Maynard.”

“Oh.” There was no question that she needed a drink before saying “Good. And. ”

“We’re sure it was a vindictive call. The informant was a woman who must bear some kind of grudge against the chap. Felt rebuffed by him in some way, most likely. She didn’t offer anything in the way of evidence, just his name and address.”

“So that’s enough of an excuse not to bother with anything she said.”

“I understand your anger, but please don’t let it make you feel we would be less than thorough. Of course we interviewed him, and the person who provided his alibi, and we’ve no reason to doubt either.”

Claire had — Mrs Gummer had admitted to having been asleep — but how could she introduce that point or discover the story the old woman was telling now? “So if there’s no news,” she said to release some of her anger before her words got out of control, “why are you here?”

“I was wondering if either of you might have remembered anything further to tell me. Anything at all, no matter how minor it may seem. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed to start us filling in the picture.”

“I’ve told you all I can. Don’t you think I’d have told you more if I could?”

“Mr Maynard?”

“I’d have to say the same as my wife.”

“I’ll leave you then if you’ll excuse me. Perhaps it might be worth your discussing what I asked when I’m gone. I hope, Mrs Maynard. ” Bairns was out of his chair and had one foot in the hall before he said “I hope at least you can accept we’re doing everything the law allows.”

She did, and her rage focused itself again, letting her accompany him to the gate and send him on his way. The closing of his car door sounded like a single decisive blow of a weapon, and was followed by the reddening of the rear lights. The car was shrinking along the road when she saw Duncan Gummer at the junction — saw him wave to Bairns as if he was giving him a comradely sign. The next moment his patrolling took him out of view, but she could still see him, as close and clear in her mind as her rage.

“Who is this? Hello?”

“It’s Claire Maynard.”

“It wasn’t you that kept ringing off when my mother answered, was it?”

“Why would I have done that, Mr Gummer?”

“No reason at all, of course. My apologies. It’s got us both a little, well, not her any longer, she’s sound asleep. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to discuss an idea I had which I think might be profitable.”

“I don’t normally talk business outside business hours, but with you I’m happy to make an exception. Would you like to meet now?”

“Why don’t you come here and keep me company. We can talk over a couple of drinks.”

“That sounds ideal. Give me ten minutes.”

“No more than that, I hope. And I shouldn’t bother troubling your mother if she needs her sleep.”

“Don’t worry, I’m with you. Softly does it. I’m all in favour of not disturbing anyone who doesn’t have to be.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Claire said with a sweetness she imagined she could taste. It made her sick. She heard him terminate the call, and listened to the contented purring of the receiver, the sound of a cat which had trapped its prey. When she became aware of holding the receiver for something to do while she risked growing unhelpfully tense she hooked it and went to pour herself a necessary drink.

She loaded ice into the tumbler, the silver teeth of the tongs grating on the cubes, then filled the remaining two-thirds of the glass almost to the top. More room needed to be made for tonic, and she saw the best way to do that. The tumbler was nearly at her lips when she opened the gin bottle and returned the contents to it. She mustn’t lose control now. To prove she had it, she crunched the ice cubes one by one, each of them sending an intensified chill through her jaw into her skull until her brain felt composed of impregnable metal. She had just popped the last cube into her mouth when she saw Gummer’s glossy black Rover draw up outside the house. She bit the cube into three chunks which she was just able to swallow, bringing tears to her eyes. They were going to be the last tears Gummer would cause her to shed, and her knuckles dealt with them as she went to let him in before he could ring the bell.

Whether his grin was meant to express surprise or pleasure at her apparent scramble to greet him, it bared even more of his lower lip than usual until he produced a sympathetic look. “I’m glad you felt able to call,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, indeed,” he said as though to compliment her on being reasonable, and she had to turn away in order to clench her teeth. “Close the door,” she said once she could.

The finality of the slam gave her strength, and by the time he followed her into the front room she was able to gaze steadily at him. “What’s your taste?” she said, indicating the bottles on the sideboard.

“The same as you’ll be having.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a large one,” she told him, and managed to hitch up one corner of her mouth.

“You’ve found me out.”

Whatever answer that might have provoked she trapped behind her teeth as she busied herself at the sideboard. Perhaps after all she would have a real drink instead of pretending a tonic was gin; his presence was even harder to bear than she’d anticipated. Already the room smelled as though it was steeped in the aftershave he must have slapped on for her benefit. When she moved away from the sideboard with a glass of gin and tonic in each hand she found him at the window through which she didn’t know how many times he might have spied on Laura. “Please do sit down,” she said, masking her face with a gulp of her drink.

“Where will you have me?”

“Wherever you’re comfortable,” said Claire, retreating to the armchair closest to the door. As she’d handed him his glass she’d touched his fingertips, which were hot and hardly less moist than his underlip. The thought of them on Laura almost flung her at him. She forced herself to sit back and watch him perch on the edge of the nearer end of the couch.

“Strong stuff,” he said, having sipped his drink, and put it on the floor between his wide legs. “So it’s a financial discussion you’re after, was that what I understood you to say?”

“I said profitable. Maybe beneficial would have covered it better.”

“Happy to be of benefit wherever I can,” Gummer said and showed her the underside of his lip, which put her in mind of a brimming gutter. “Do I recall the word company came up?”

“Nothing wrong with your memory.”

“I wouldn’t like to think so. Not like my mother’s,” he said, and glanced down between his legs while he retrieved his glass. Once he’d taken another sip he seemed uncertain how to continue. She wanted him in a state to betray himself by the time Wilf came back. “So what kind of company do you prefer?” she said.

“Various. Depends.”

“Whatever takes your fancy, eh?”

“You could say that if the feeling’s mutual.”

“Suppose it isn’t reciprocated? What happens then?”

“Sometimes it is when you dig a bit deeper. You think there’s nothing, but if you don’t let yourself be put off too soon you find what the other person’s feelings really are.”

Claire brought her glass to her mouth so fast that ice clashed against her teeth. “Suppose you find you’re wrong?” she said, and drank.

“To tell you the truth, and I hope you won’t think I’ve got too big a head, so far I don’t believe I ever have.”

“Would you know?”

“I’m sorry?”

Claire lowered her glass with as much care as she was exerting over her face. “I said, would you know?”

“I hope so this far.”

His gaze was holding hers. He still thought they were discussing a possible relationship. While she swallowed an enraged mirthless laugh she won the struggle to form her expression into an ambiguous smile. “So what are your limits?”

“There’s always one way to find out,” he said, and revealed his wet lip.

“You don’t think you should have any.”

“As long as one takes care, and we know to do that these days. It isn’t as though one’s committed.”

“Wouldn’t it come down to not being found out even if you had a partner? I know you’re good at not being.”

“As good as I need to be, right enough.”

That was almost too much for Claire, especially when, having planted her glass on the carpet to distract herself, she looked up to be met by the sight of his dormant crotch. Wilf ought to be home in a few minutes, she reminded herself. “And what age do you like best?” she managed to ask.

“Nothing wrong with a mature woman. A good deal right with her, as a matter of fact, and if I may say so — ”

“Nothing wrong about younger ones either if you’re honest, is that fair?”

“I won’t deny it. Teaching them a thing or two, that’s pretty special. There again, and you’ll tell me if I’m flattering myself, sometimes even when it’s a lady of our generation — ”

“You bastard.”

“Forgive me if I expressed myself badly. It wasn’t meant as any kind of insult, I do assure you. Mature was what I meant, not so much in years as — ”

“You swine.”

“I think that’s a little much, Claire, may I call you Claire? I’m sorry if you’re touchy on the subject, but if you’ll allow me to say this, to my eyes you —”

“I remind you of a younger woman.”

“My feelings exactly.”

“A young girl, in fact.”

“Ah.” He faltered, and she saw him realise what he could no longer fail to acknowledge. “In some ways that’s absolutely true, the best ways, may I say, only I suppose I thought that under the circumstances —”

“You loathsome filthy stinking slimy pervert.”

She saw his lip draw itself up haughtily, and was reminded of a snail retreating into its shell. “I fear there’s been some misunderstanding, Mrs Maynard,” he said, and rose stiffly to his feet. “I understand your being so upset still, but my mother will be wondering where I am, so if you’ll excuse me — ”

Claire was faster. She swung herself around her chair with the arm she’d used to shove herself out of it, and trundled the heavy piece of furniture into the doorway. Having wedged it there, she sat in it and folded her arms. “I won’t,” she said.

“I really must insist.” He held out his hands as if to demonstrate how, once he crossed the yards of carpet, he would grasp her or the chair. “I’m truly sorry for any error.”

“You think that should make up for it, do you?”

“To be truthful, I don’t know what more you could expect.”

He didn’t believe he had been found out, she saw — perhaps the idea hadn’t even occurred to him. “Maybe you will when you see your mistake,” she said and made her arms relax, because her breasts were aching as they hadn’t since they were last full of milk.

“It’ll be easiest if you tell me.”

“You think I should make it easy for you, do you?” Her mouth had begun to taste as foul as her thoughts of him, and she would have swallowed more than the taste if her glass had been within reach. “Try this for a hint. Maybe you should have kept your mother out of my way.”

“You’ve drifted away from me altogether. Let me suggest in your interest as much as mine — ”

“Or found a way to stop her talking. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”

“Some understanding can usually be reached if it has to be. I assume that when you decide to let me go you won’t be telling — ”

“Like Laura never did.”

“Well, really, Mrs Maynard, I must say that seems rather an unfortunate — ”

“Unfortunate!” Claire ground her shoulders against the chair rather than fly at him — ground them so hard that either the chair or the doorway creaked. “That’s your word for it, is it? How unfortunate would you say she looked the last time you saw her?”

He took a breath to give Claire yet another swift response; then his mouth sagged before clamping shut. He rubbed the side of one hand across his lips, and she imagined how he might have wiped his mouth as he sneaked away from the golf bunker. She stared at his face to see what would come out of it next, until he spoke. “It was you.”

This was far less than the response she wanted, in fact nothing like it, and she continued to stare at him. “It was you who kept ringing off, wasn’t it, till I was there to answer. What didn’t you want my mother to hear?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have rung off. For all I know she’s good at keeping secrets, especially if she thinks she’s protecting her son.”

“Why should she think — ” His eyes wobbled and then steadied as though Claire’s gaze had impaled them. “My God, that was you as well. You didn’t just call us.”

“Seems as though I might as well have.”

“You tried to put the police onto me.”

“If only they’d done their job properly. You wouldn’t be here now. You’d be somewhere, but I’d have to put up with that being less than you deserved, I suppose. Only you are here, just the two of us for the moment, so — ”

Gummer turned to the window as if he’d observed someone — Wilf? The street was quiet, however, and it occurred to her that he was considering a means of escape. She lurched out of the chair and grabbed the bottle of gin by its neck. “Don’t bother looking there. You’re going nowhere till I’ve finished with you,” she said.

“Mrs Maynard, I want you to listen to me. I know you must — ” He was almost facing her when he stopped and rubbed his lip and gave her a sidelong look. “Finished what exactly?”

“Guess.”

“I don’t believe I have to. Profitable was what you said this was going to be when you rang, wasn’t it? If I may say so, God forgive you.”

“You mayn’t. You’d better — ”

“Whatever you think about me, you were her mother, for heaven’s sake. You’re expecting me to pay you to keep quiet, aren’t you? You’re trying to make money out of the death of your own child,” he said, and let his mouth droop open.

It was expressing disgust. He was daring to feel contemptuous of her. His wet mouth was all she could see, and she meant to damage it beyond repair. She seemed less to be raising the weapon in her hand than to be borne forward by it as it sailed into the air. His eyes flinched as he saw it coming, but his mouth stayed stupidly open. She had both hands on the weapon now, and swung it with all the force of all the rage that had been gathering for months. “Claire,” he cried, and tried to dodge, lowering his head.

For a moment she thought the bottle had smashed — that she would see it explode into smithereens, as bottles in films always did when they hit someone on the head. Certainly she’d heard an object splintering. When his mouth slackened further and his eyes rolled up like boiled eggs turning in a pan she thought he was acting. Then he fell to a knee which failed to support him, and collapsed on his side with a second heavy thud. As if the position had been necessary for pouring, a great deal of dark red welled out of his left temple.

When it began to stain the carpet she thought of moving him or placing towels under his head, but she didn’t want to touch him. He was taken care of. She peered at the bottle, and having found no trace of him on it, replaced it on the sideboard before returning to her chair. She supposed she ought to move the chair out of the doorway, not least to bring her within reach of her drink, but the slowness that had overtaken her since the night she’d found Laura’s body was becoming absolute, and so she watched the steady accumulation of the twilight.

In time she had a few thoughts. If Mrs Gummer was awake she must be wondering where her son was. She’d had decades more of him than Laura had lived, and soon enough she would learn he was only a lump on the floor. Claire considered drawing the curtains, but nobody would be able to see him from the pavement, and in any case there was no point in delaying the discovery of him. The discoverer was most likely to be Wilf, who would still have to live here once she was taken away, and she oughtn’t to leave him the job of cleaning up after her, though perhaps the carpet was past cleaning. When she narrowed her eyes at the blind mound of rubbish dumped in her front room, she couldn’t determine how far the stain had spread. It annoyed her on Wilf’s behalf, and she was attempting to organise and speed up her thinking sufficiently to deal with it when she saw him appear at the gate.

It wasn’t guilt which pierced her then, it was his unsuspecting look — the look of someone expecting to enjoy the refuge of home at the end of a long day. He couldn’t see her for the dimness. He wasn’t as keen-eyed as a patrolman should be, Claire found herself thinking as she stumbled to face the chair and drag it out of the doorway. That was as much as she achieved before he admitted himself to the house. “Claire?” he called. “Sorry I was longer than I said. Some old dear thought a chap was acting suspicious, but when I tracked him down would you believe he was one of our patrol. Where are you?”

“In here.”

“I’ll put the light on, shall I? No need for you to sit in the dark, love.” He came into the room and reached for the switch, but faltered. “Good Lord, what’s. who. ”

Claire found his hand with one of hers and used them to press the switch down. “My God, that’s Duncan Gummer, isn’t it?” he gasped, and his hand squirmed free. “Claire, what have you done?”

“I hope I’ve killed him.”

Wilf stared at her as if he no longer knew what he was seeing, then ventured to stand over the body. He’d hardly begun to stoop to it when he recoiled and hurried to draw the curtains. He held onto them for some seconds, releasing them only when their rail started to groan. “Why, Claire? What could — ”

“It wasn’t half of what he did to Laura.”

“He — ” Wilf’s face convulsed so violently it appeared to jerk his head down as he took a step towards Gummer. Claire thought he meant to kick the corpse, but he controlled himself enough to raise his head. “How do you know?”

“His mother lied about his alibi. Either she said she was awake when she was asleep or she knew he wasn’t at home when he said he was, when — when he. ”

“All right, love. It’s all right.” Wilf veered around the body and offered her his hands, though not quite close enough for her to touch. “How did you find that out?”

“She let it slip one day and he tried to shut her up.”

“Why couldn’t you have told the police?”

“I did.”

“You — oh, I get you.” He was silent while he dealt with this, and Claire took the opportunity to retrieve her glass, not to finish her drink but to place it out of danger on the sideboard. Gummer’s body seemed such a fixture of the room that she was practically unaware of blotting out her sense of it as she picked up the glass. The clunk of the tumbler on wood recalled Wilf from his thoughts, and he said almost pleadingly “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What would you have done?”

He stepped forward and took her hands at last. “What do you think? When the police didn’t listen, probably the same as you. Only I wouldn’t have done it here where it can’t be hidden.”

“It’s done now. It can’t be helped, and I don’t want it to be.”

“I wish to God you’d left it to me.” He stared around the room, so that she thought he was desperate for a change of subject until he said “What did you use?”

“The gin. The bottle, I mean. It did some good for a change.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

Nevertheless he relinquished one of her hands. Before she knew what he intended, he was hefting the bottle as though to convince himself it had been the weapon. “Don’t,” she protested, then saw her concern was misplaced. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Your fingerprints would be on it anyway.”

“So would yours.”

“What are you getting — ”

“Just listen while I think. We haven’t much time. The longer we wait before we call the police, the worse this is going to look.”

“Wilf, it can’t look any worse than it is.”

“Listen, will you. We can’t have you going to prison. You’d never survive.”

“I’ll have to do my best. When everyone knows the truth — ”

“Maybe they won’t. You used to think he was sniffing round you. Suppose that got out somehow? I know how lawyers think. They’ll twist anything they can.”

“He wasn’t interested in me. It was Laura.”

“You say that, but how can you prove it in court? Your instincts are enough for you, I know that, for me too if I even need to tell you. But they won’t be enough if his mother sticks to her story, and if your lawyer tried to break her down too much think how that would look, them harassing an old woman with nobody left in the world.”

“All right, you’ve shown me how wrong I am,” Claire said, feeling not far short of betrayed. “Any suggestions?”

“More than a suggestion.”

He reached out and drew his hand down her cheek in a slow caress as he used to when they hadn’t long been married, then patted her face before sidling around her into the hall. She had no idea of his intentions until he unhooked the phone. “Wilf — ”

“It’s all right. I’m going to make it all right. Hello.” Though he was gazing so hard at her it stopped her in the doorway, the last word wasn’t addressed to her. “Detective Inspector Bairns, please.”

“Wilf, wait a minute. Ring off before he can tell who you are. Don’t stay anything till we’ve — ”

“Inspector? It’s Wilfred Maynard. I’ve killed the man who took our daughter from us.”

Claire grabbed the doorframe as her knees began to shake. She would have snatched the phone from him if it hadn’t been too late. Instead she sent herself into the room as soon as she felt safe to walk. She could hardly believe it, but she was hoping she hadn’t killed Gummer after all. She fastened her fingertips on the wrist of the sprawled empty flesh. She held it longer than made sense, she even said a prayer, but it was no use. The lump of flesh and muscle was already growing cold, and there wasn’t the faintest stirring of life within.

“I’ll be staying here, Inspector. I give you my word. I wouldn’t have called you otherwise,” she heard Wilf say. She walked on her unwieldy brittle legs into the hall in time to see him hang the receiver. “Wilf,” she pleaded, “what have you done?”

“Saved as much that we’ve got as I could. I know I can take prison better than you can. Quick now, before they come. Help me get my tale straight. How did you bring him here? Was he just passing or what?”

She thought of refusing to answer so that Wilf couldn’t prepare a story, but the possibility that their last few minutes together might be wasted in arguing was unbearable. “I called him at home.”

“Will Mrs Gummer know?”

“He said she’d be wondering where he’d got to.”

“You hadn’t long come in from gardening, had you? Did anyone see him arrive?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Just say he stopped when he saw you gardening and you invited him in. And when you’d both had a drink you accused him over Laura, and I came home just in time to hear him say what?”

“I don’t know. Wilf — ”

“ ‘You can’t prove anything.’ That’s as good as a confession, isn’t it, or it was for me at any rate. He was shouting, so he didn’t hear me, because I let myself in quietly to find out what the row was. How many times did you hit him?”

“Do you have to be so calculating about it? I feel as if I’m already in court.”

“I have to know, don’t I? How many times?”

“It just took the once.”

“That’s fine, Claire. Really it is.” He offered her his hands again, and finding no response, let them sink. “It’ll be manslaughter. I heard Laura’s name and him saying you couldn’t prove it, and that was enough. There was a moment when I lost control, and then it was done and there was no turning back. That’s how it must have been for you, am I right? They’ll believe me because that’s how these things happen.”

He must be trying to live through her experience, but she felt no less alone. “Do they, Wilf?”

“Wait, I’ve got it. They’ll believe me because I couldn’t have had any other reason to kill him. It’s not as though I could have imagined anything was going on between you two, even if you did imagine he fancied you.”

Even in the midst of their situation, that felt cruel to her. “Thank you, Wilf.”

“I have to say it, haven’t I? Otherwise they might get the wrong idea. Look, there’s a good chance the court will be lenient, and if it isn’t I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a public outcry. And I can’t imagine I’ll have too bad a time of it in jail. It’s his kind that suffer the worst in there, not the ones who’ve dealt with them.”

“You sound as though you’re looking forward to being locked up.”

“What a thing to say, Claire. How could anyone feel like that?”

As she’d spoken she’d known the remark was absurd, yet his need to persuade her it was made it seem less so. “Why would I want anything that’s going to take me away from you?” he said.

Claire had a sense of hearing words that didn’t quite go with the movements of his mouth. No, not with those — with his thoughts. Before she could ponder this, she heard several cars braking sharply outside the house, and a rapid slamming of at least six doors. “Here they are,” Wilf said.

The latch of the gate clicked, and then it sounded as though not much less than an army marched up the path. The doorbell rang once, twice. The Maynards looked at each other with a deference that felt to Claire like prolonging the last moment of their marriage as it had been. Then Wilf moved to open the door.

Bairns was on the step, and came in at once. Five of his colleagues followed, trying to equal his expressionlessness, and Claire didn’t know when the house had felt so crowded. “He’s in the front room, Inspector,” Wilf said.

“If you and Mrs Maynard would stay here.” Bairns’ gaze had already turned to his colleagues, and a nod sent two of them to stand close to the Maynards. He paced into the front room and lingered just inside, hands behind his back, as a prelude to squatting by Gummer’s body. He hardly touched it before standing up, and Claire felt as if he’d confirmed her loathing of it. “I must ask you to accompany us to the police station, Mr Maynard,” he said.

“I’m ready.”

“You too, Mrs Maynard, if you will. You’ll understand if I ask you not to travel in the same car.”

“In that case do you mind if I give my wife a cuddle, Inspector? I expect it may be her last for a while.”

The policeman’s impassiveness almost wavered as he gave a weighty nod. Wilf took hold of Claire’s shoulders and drew her to him. For a moment she was afraid to hug him with all the fierceness in her, and couldn’t quite think why. Of course, he’d scratched himself with his patrolman’s badge that night on the golf course. The scratches would have healed by now, not that she had seen his bare chest for years. When he put his arms around her she responded, and felt him trying to lend her strength, and telling her silently to support his version of events. They remained embraced for a few seconds after Bairns cleared his throat, then Wilf patted her back and pushed her away gently. “We’d best get this over and done with then, Inspector.”

Bairns had been delegating men to drive the Maynards. He directed an unambiguously sympathetic glance at Claire before turning a more purposeful look on Wilf. Wilf was going to convince him, she thought — had already convinced him. She had never realised her husband could be so persuasive when he had to be. She saw him start towards the front door, matching his pace to that of his escort as though he was taking his first steps to his cell. Her sense of his persuasiveness spread through her mind, and in that instant she knew everything.

“I’ll drive you whenever you’re ready, Mrs Maynard,” a youngish policeman murmured, but Claire was unable to move. She knew why Wilf had seemed relieved at the prospect of the sentence he was courting — because he’d been afraid he might be jailed for worse. Everything made its real sense now. Nobody had been more obsessed with the way Laura dressed and was developing than Wilf. Claire remembered accusing Gummer of being attracted to a girl as a preferred version of an older woman she resembled. The accusation had been right, but not the man.

“Mrs Maynard?”

She saw Wilf’s back jerking rhythmically away from her, and imagined its performing such a movement in the bunker. For a moment she was certain she could emerge from her paralysis only by flying at him — but she was surrounded by police who would stop her before she could finish him off, and she had no proof. She’d nursed her rage until tonight, she had hidden it from the world, and she could do so again. She felt pregnant with its twin, which would have years to develop. “I’m ready now,” she said, and took her first step as her new self.

Wilf was being handed into the nearest police car as she emerged from the house. Shut him away, she thought, keep him safe for me. His door slammed, then the driver’s, but apart from a stirring of net curtains the activity went unacknowledged by the suburb. As Claire lowered herself stiffly into the next car, Wilf was driven off. One thing he needn’t worry about was her confirming his tale. She would be waiting when he came out of prison, and she could take all that time to imagine what she would do then. Perhaps she would have a chance to practise. While she was waiting she might find other men like him.