“It was all a long, long time ago now,” I said. “You were only a baby when the fire broke out, when I lost them all.”
“You rebuilt her room and made it a replica of what it was before, saving the things which could be saved. Why did you do that?” she asked, sounding more determined now that she’d managed to open me up.
I groaned. “I shouldn’t have moved your hand.”
“Please, Nick.”
“Perhaps I should move mine – that usually makes you speechless.”
“You really won’t tell me?”
I sighed, turning now onto the dual carriageway. “I didn’t cope well with the guilt, all right? I lost everybody I loved, and even some that I didn’t love, but Louisa...she was my world. I failed her. The loss of all her trinkets and toys and clothes – there were so many that I could only recall a few – only symbolised everything that had been snatched from her, as well as from me.
“She lost her life, and all trace of herself with it. I re-created it to try and set things right, but I only created a shrine to a woman who could never come back. An empty set-design without the actress present. A doll-house without its dolls. I moved myself to the attic room to avoid that vacant, artificial replica, but I left it there nonetheless, just in case...”
“In case you found another doll to fill it?”
“Grace.”
“It’s all right, sir.”
“You aren’t a doll any more than Louisa was, and you’ve already become such a part of the house that you almost eclipse any impact she had on the place. You didn’t know that, did you?”
Grace’s mouth was parted in awe, her eyes misting over as she watched the traffic.
“Louisa never wanted to work with me. She found it far too gruesome. She wasn’t like you, not one little bit,” I said, desperate for Grace to focus on their differences. “Shecould never have handled this kind of work.”
“All those child-like things...the doll house, the rocking horse...did she still...?”
I smiled grimly. “No, she didn’t play with them. She just liked to look at them. She brought them from home. Louisa was...she was fragile. Child-like. She sought comfort in those things, fearful of growing up. You and I had our difficulties in our pasts, and they hardened us, forged us into something much tougher – but that isn’t the case with everyone.
“Louisa was beaten to a pulp by her upbringing. She was...god, I can’t say it, not in this van, not now. Maybe not ever. They would burn her with their lighters, they’d heat up pokers and knives and scorch her skin. I took her away from all that. She was the same age as you, a broken thing, unable to regulate her own turmoil into something resembling a functioning emotion. She came to me when one of her torturers died. Her father. We communicated, we...we connected. I fell in love with her darkness, Grace. I adored her tortured soul. I thought I could help her, but I couldn’t, and then I lost her forever. The point is that there are similarities, Grace, in circumstance and in age and in all manner of things, but you are no replacement. You are Crowthorne’s future, if you wish to be. Louisa is its past.”
Grace nodded her head thoughtfully, though I could see she was filled with questions that I would never answer. What she said next sent a shiver throughout my body.
“The fact she died in a fire, when she’d been tortured with flames, scorched with hot knives by her family...oh, sir. I can only imagine the heartache it left you with,” shesaid.
Tears pricked my eyes, but I willed them away.
“My perceptive apprentice,” I said, after a moment.
I hoped to change the subject, leaving her satisfied that I had answered just a little and sated some of her curiosity. “Now listen, Grace. I...back at that apartment, I asked you to wait outside. I wanted to deal with the body myself, get him bagged up – ”
“I would have dearly loved to have helped you,” said Grace, sounding sombre despite the annoyance I could sense from her. She felt I’d robbed her of an opportunity to remove a body from its death place. I knew she’d have loved it, but it was out of the question.
“The biohazard removal team were already inside when I got there. They deal with difficult circumstances such as this one, when a body has been left to decay in situ for weeks or months, leaving fluids and pathogens which could be harmful if anyone should come into contact with them. Their job is to leave the site decontaminated, disinfected, and safe, after a complicated death,” I said, glancing at her in the rear-view all the while.
She frowned, deep in thought, as she fiddled with her hands in her lap.
“Anyway, the team helped me to remove the body from the scene for transportation, while they stayed behind to clean the apartment. It wasn’t something I wanted you to see just yet, in case it traumatised you.”
Grace laughed, then, startling me. I let my eyes drift momentarily from the road to look at her directly.
She pressed three fingers to her mouth to stifle her laughter, her shoulders shuddering, avoiding my gaze asshe watched the traffic going by.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
She cleared her throat, an amused smirk still teasing the corners of her mouth.
