And now there is blood under his bedroom window.

  She glances up at Georgia. Georgia’s cheeks are pink from the heat of the oven, from the effort of getting the butter and sugar to combine. She has a hank of hair hanging across her face which she blows out of the way from the side of her mouth.

  Cate leans towards her and pushes the hair behind her ear for her. Georgia drops a kiss on to Cate’s hand and says, ‘Thank you, Mum.’

  They exchange a look. Cate knows they’re both thinking the same thing.

  Saffyre Maddox might be dead and their neighbour, who might have killed her, could have killed Georgia, too.

  But now the police have him in custody and they are safe: they are making a cake.

  33

  SAFFYRE

  Christmas Day last year was good.

  Lee came over with the family, Aaron cooked amazing food, a mix of British Christmas fare and things I’ve been told my grandma used to cook for Christmas lunch: baked macaroni, sweet potato pie. We drank rum punch with umbrellas and tinsel in it and did karaoke with the machine Lee brought over and the tree looked amazing and we put a fake fire on the plasma screen and it really was, in spite of Granddad not being there, a proper Christmas Day.

  I was so fat and tipsy and sleepy after that I didn’t even really want to go outdoors. I felt quite grounded that evening with my big belly in my comfy chair on the eighth floor. I just sat and rubbed my stomach and watched my little cousins playing with their new things. I’d spent months and months by then following Roan and his family and his lover around and to spend a day connecting to people in a real and proper way felt like magic. Maybe if I could have held on to that feeling, the sense that I belonged in that world, that I was meant to be there and not somewhere else, then maybe everything else would have been different.

  But for one day at least, I was chilled, I was present. It was nice.

  The day after Boxing Day I started getting really antsy again. The flat was so hot and there was this awful feeling of confinement in the block, like we were all gerbils locked up in tiny boxes. The sun was out and I put on my snow boots with my pyjama bottoms, tied back my hair and threw on my Puffa. I looked rough but I didn’t care, I just needed to get out.

  I called in on Jasmin. She looked rough too. We both laughed about how shit we looked, how fat we were. She came out for a walk with me and we went to Starbucks on Finchley Road and sat on the sofa there just chatting. I had half an eye on the big plate-glass window on to the street, just in case I saw anyone I knew walk past. Then she said she had to get back because she had family staying and she was supposed to be around and I walked her home and then it was already starting to get dark, that stupid moment in the middle of winter when you’ve only been awake a few hours and the sky suddenly turns dirty yellow and the bare trees turn into black skeletons and night-time lands bang slap middle of the day.

  I turned and looked back at the estate, at the top floors of my block. All the windows glowed different colours and flashed with Christmas lights. It looked warm up there. It looked pretty.

  I shivered slightly and, instead of going home, I turned and walked up the hill towards the village.

  Hampstead village looked like a life-size snow globe at this time of year with all the trees wrapped up in white lights. I liked walking up there for the exercise really; it’s uphill the whole way from my flat so it’s good aerobically. After two days sitting in my flat eating Ferrero Rocher it felt great to have the cold air passing in and out of my lungs, to feel my blood whooshing through my veins. I should have run it really, but I’m built for many things and running is not one of them.

  It was busy in the village: the sales had started already and the shoppers were out in force. I peered into shop windows at things I couldn’t afford and didn’t need. The shop for yoga mummies with the hundred-pound leggings. Designer tile shops, designer paint shops, a shop selling just one brand of cooking pan in about twenty different colours: Le Creuset. I didn’t quite understand Hampstead, but I liked it.

  I was about to head right up to the other end of the village, to the very top of the hill where the air is thinner, where the Heath begins with its raggedy entryways and endless vistas and its futuristic view of the pointy glass towers all the way over the other side of London, and I turned, and as I turned I saw that I was face-to-face with a man and that man was Roan.

  I wasn’t wearing my hood up so he recognised me immediately and for a tiny beat it was a bit awkward. He was wearing a cloth cap and a padded coat and was carrying a huge Reiss carrier bag with the word ‘Sale’ printed on it in red. He hadn’t shaved and looked kind of bizarre.

  He said, ‘Hi, Saffyre. Wow, how are you?’

  ‘I’m good. I’m good,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

  He glanced down at his big bag. ‘I’m great. Just exchanging a gift that didn’t fit.’

  ‘From your wife?’ I said, before I could check myself.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and I noticed his smile set like cement. ‘Yes. Too big. Unfortunately.’

  I nodded encouragingly and smiled.

  ‘And you?’ he said. ‘You’re OK?’

  ‘Yeah. Well, my granddad died.’ I shrugged. ‘A couple of months ago. So that was bad.’

  ‘Oh, Saffyre, I’m really sorry to hear that.’

  ‘You know,’ I said. ‘One of those things, isn’t it? People die.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, people die, that is true. But it is horrible. I’m very sorry for your loss. I know how close you all were. How are you coping?’

  ‘Well, you know, in some ways it’s easier? Because Aaron doesn’t have to do so much cooking and caring and stuff. But in other ways, it’s shit really, because my family is just too small now. It’s too, too small.’

  I said this lightly, like maybe it was a joke, but I think it came out more emotional than I intended because Roan put his hand on my arm and looked at me with great concern and said, ‘Do you think you need to talk this through with someone?’

  I thought, Ha, yeah, right, because you did such a good job of fixing me last time I came to you broken, didn’t you?

  But I kind of laughed it off. ‘No, honestly. It’s all good. Just takes a bit of getting used to.’ Then there was a brief pause and I said, ‘How’s the family?’

  He made a weird shape with his mouth and nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We’re all good.’

  And then – and there’s no point telling me that I shouldn’t have done this because it’s too late now, I did it, it’s done – I looked him hard in the eye and I said, ‘How’s Alicia?’

  Strike me down dead. Whatever. He deserved it. Standing there in his poncey cap with a coat in a bag that his wife bought him because she stupidly thought he was her loyal husband, not some horny sex beast.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said, and I could see the panic swimming about in his eyes, like tiny tadpoles.

  ‘How’s Alicia?’ I asked again, and then I got the adrenaline rush to my heart as my brain finally caught up with what my mouth was doing. ‘Your colleague.’

  He nodded, then shook his head and said, ‘Sorry? But how do you know Alicia? Have you been back to the clinic?’

  I just shook my head and smiled at him.

  I could see him scrambling for the next thing to say or do and I decided that now was the time to step away from the hand grenade I’d just unpinned. I said, ‘Anyway, nice seeing you, Roan. Have a happy holiday.’

  He turned as I left and said, ‘But, Saffyre – what did you mean by that?’

  ‘Can’t stop. Must dash.’

  I walked that last leg of the hill at about a hundred miles an hour. Dainty trees full of twinkly white pom poms. Restaurants full of rich people. I passed art galleries, estate agents, nail bars with pink chandeliers. It was properly dark by the time I got to the top. I stood with my hands on my hips and looked down, my breath coming in and out of me so loudly I could hear it.

  34

  Owen is in a room with pale blue walls, a plate-glass window on one side, a tall thin window on the other with opaque, textured glass and three vertical white metal bars.

  In front of him are DI Currie and another detective, a man called DI Jack Henry. He’s wearing a really nice blue suit with a tight white shirt underneath. He has blond hair, like DI Currie, and is about the same age as her; they look strangely like a couple, as if they’ve just ordered pizzas in a branch of Zizzi’s and are trying to think of something to talk about.

  ‘So, Owen.’ DI Currie smiles at him, running a fingertip over her paperwork. ‘I’m really grateful to you for agreeing to come at such short notice and for being so cooperative. Thank you.’

  Owen says, ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘We’ll try to keep this as short as possible. I’m sure you’ve got things you need to be getting on with. But we do, just for your information, have a warrant to keep you for questioning for twenty-four hours. So if there’s anyone you need to talk to, just let us know and we can contact them for you. OK?’

  She smiles again.

  Owen nods.

  ‘So,’ she begins, after setting the machine to record. ‘Owen. Let’s go back to the night of February the fourteenth, if you don’t mind. I know we’ve already spoken about this, but just for the sake of our recordings, so we have it on record. You went out that evening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And where did you go?’

  ‘I went to an Italian. On Shaftesbury Avenue.’

  ‘And who were you with?’

  ‘I was with a woman called Deanna Wurth. On a date.’

  ‘So, you had a drink?’

  ‘I had a few drinks.’

  ‘How many, would you say, roughly?’

  ‘We shared a bottle of champagne and then a bottle of red wine. And a cocktail. I’m not really a big drinker, so that was quite a lot for me.’

  ‘Gosh,’ says DI Currie. ‘I’d say that was quite a lot for anyone!’ She exchanges a look with DI Henry, who shakes his head and smiles.

  ‘So,’ she continues. ‘You weren’t sober when you got home?’

  ‘No. I was really quite drunk.’

  ‘And this was what time?’

  ‘Roughly eleven thirty. Maybe later.’

  ‘And what did you do when you got home? Could you talk us through that again please? How did you get home?’

  ‘I got the Tube to Finchley Road. Then I walked to my house, via Winterham Gardens.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I saw the person in the hoodie outside the house opposite. I went indoors. I went to bed.’

  ‘And just going back, if you don’t mind, to your walk from the Tube station that night?

  Owen blanches slightly at the hazy memory of a woman, her fearful gaze on him, her finger over the emergency icon on her phone screen.

  ‘Did you perhaps see anyone when you were walking home?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Yes or no, please, Mr Pick.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, I didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘What about this lady?’

  DI Currie passes him a photograph. It’s an attractive young woman in what looks like an official company portrait. She has long blond hair and is wearing a red blouse.

  He shakes his head, rubs his chin nervously. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I don’t know her.’

  ‘Well, this lady lives two doors down from you. And she says on the night in question that you physically threatened her at around midnight. That you attempted to block her path. That you called her “a bitch”. She says she felt very, very intimidated by you and nearly called the police.’

  Owen inhales deeply. ‘That’s not what happened.’

  ‘OK, so you do remember this lady.’

  ‘Well, I do now. I just didn’t recognise her from that photo. But I remember her being there. She was staring at her phone. She didn’t see me coming. And it was her who got in my way. She was rude to me. I was just defending myself. Reacting to her rudeness. For God’s sake.’ He tuts and folds his arms petulantly.

  ‘OK, so you’re heading home. You have a contretemps with this lady. You see the young girl outside your neighbour’s house at about midnight. Can you describe it for us now? Whatever you can remember about that?’

  He sighs. ‘I mean, I don’t even know any more. It was late. It was dark. I was still quite drunk. It could have been anything.’

  ‘Just try, Owen, please. Thank you.’

  ‘I saw …’ He pauses, tries his hardest to put himself back there, outside his house, the chill air of his breath around him. ‘A figure. With a hood. Slim. Not tall. Not short. I thought it was a man at first. They were staring ahead, at the top of the footpath, by the gate. They had their hands in their pockets so their elbows were sticking out like this.’ He makes pointy wings of his own elbows. ‘And then, after about a minute – less, half a minute – they turned slightly towards me, and I saw then that it was probably a girl. With kind of …’ He searches for the right word. ‘Puffy hair.’

  ‘Puffy? You mean like Afro-Caribbean type of hair?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I don’t really know what that means.’

  ‘OK. So you saw this figure. And then what happened?’

  Owen shakes his head gently, searching his memory for the moment that came after the girl’s eyes met his. But there’s nothing there.

  He shakes his head properly. ‘Nothing happened. I saw her and then I went straight indoors.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I got into bed and I fell asleep.’

  ‘Did anyone see you coming back in?’

  ‘No, not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘We’ve asked the neighbours in your building and none of them recall hearing the door close at that time of night.’

  He blinks. ‘I don’t see …’ he begins. ‘They were probably all asleep. Why would they hear the door go?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Pick. But it’s a big heavy door. And it does make quite a loud bang when it’s shut.’

  He blinks again and shakes his head. ‘Not really,’ he says.

  ‘Well,’ says DI Currie, ‘I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.’ She glances at the other detective. ‘OK, I think DI Henry has a few questions too. Are you OK? Can I get you some more water? A hot drink? Anything to eat?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No, thank you.’

  DI Henry opens his notes. He clears his throat and he says, ‘So, your neighbours across the street, the, er, the Fours?’

  Owen shakes his head.

  ‘Cate and Roan Fours.’

  ‘No, I don’t know who they are.’

  ‘OK, well, they live in the house across the street where you say you saw a figure on the night of the fourteenth.’

  He nods. ‘Right.’ He knows who they’re talking about now. That family. The Lycra dad and the nervous wife and the over-confident daughter and the gangly boy. ‘The ones with the kids?’

  ‘Yes, the ones with the kids, that is correct. How would you say your relationship with them is?’

  ‘I don’t have a relationship with them.’

  ‘Dr Fours says that you once accosted him in the street when he was out for a run; he said you were rather drunk and asking him strange questions.’

  Owen repositions himself in his chair. ‘What has this got to do with …?’

  ‘Well, nothing directly, Mr Pick. But tangentially, we are forming a picture here.’

  Owen breathes in sharply as he realises what is happening. He is being led by this pair of bland, blond, cookie-cutter human beings down an opaque, twisting path towards incriminating himself.

  ‘You know what,’ he says. ‘I think maybe if you’re not going to be asking me anything to do with actual evidence of me having done anything wrong and you’re just going to talk about things I may or may not have said to my neighbours three weeks ago, then maybe I should have a lawyer. Please.’

  The blond twins look at each other and then back at him. ‘Of course, Owen. Absolutely. Do you have a number I could call?’

  ‘Mr Barrington Blair. Barry. I think he works in the West End somewhere. Soho, that sort of area.’

  ‘Great, we’ll get someone to call him now. In the meantime, maybe we’ll take a short break.’

  They shuffle their papers together. DI Henry straightens his jacket, his collar. DI Currie touches the back of her complicated hairstyle, pressing a loose strand into place. Owen wonders if they’re real people, or very sophisticated androids.

  ‘Someone will bring you something to eat, Owen. Just hold tight.’

  And then Owen is alone. He stretches his legs out and crosses them at the ankle. He scrapes a piece of encrusted food off the cuff of his jumper. He suddenly thinks that there may be a row of police officers and detectives sitting on the other side of the plate glass watching him so decides to move about as little as he possibly can.

  A moment later a young uniformed policeman comes in with a couple of sandwiches and a paper cup of tea.

  ‘Tuna,’ he says. ‘Or chicken Caesar wrap?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Owen replies.

  ‘I’ll leave both,’ he says. And then he gives him the tea and leaves the room.

  ‘How long?’ Owen calls towards him through the crack in the door.

  The boy reappears. ‘No idea,’ he says chirpily. ‘Sorry.’

  There’s nothing in this room to look at. Nothing to distract him. He looks at his fingernails, he fiddles with his hair, tries to straighten his stupid asymmetric fringe. He touches the scab on his forehead. He crosses and uncrosses his legs. Time passes in long, hollow moments, stretched out of all shape by the weirdness of the scenario.

  He pulls one of the sandwiches towards him. Tuna mayo and cucumber. He hates tuna and he hates cucumber and it’s brown bread, which he’s never actually eaten. He doesn’t even look at the other one; he knows he won’t like it.