Page 310 of These Tears

The charges have multiplied as the seized records have been examined. His palette of crimes had been rich in colour, ranging from fraud, conspiracy, trafficking and enough connected offences for Conall to develop a nervous twitch whenever anyone says the words additional disclosure.

The case against Elias over Isak and Melody’s deaths came to its conclusion after Cromwell’s associates were taken into custody and blamed one another while admitting involvement in the fire and other illegal things. That removed what little doubt remained about who committed the murders and set fire to the estate, at least.

It was almost sad when Elias confessed he was glad it was over, but ashamed that he felt no grief for the people he had lost. I wish I could blame him, but Arthur had spent a lifetime destroying him, Isak had chosen Cromwell over him, and whatever Melody once represented in his life died beneath everything she had done to him. There truly was nothing left to mourn except the people they might have been.

And there is another matter to add to the list: Elias is the sole shareholder of Crane Logs & Timber.

That sentence had settled over lunch like a bad smell.

My foot conquers the topmost stair as I mull over it.

While the company is profitable on paper, with legitimate contracts, functioning mills, warehouses and employees who just want to put bread on the table, the name now comes stitched to police raids and drugs and smuggling and other things.

Conall had carefully presented each option of what Elias could do with it, as if discussing the disposal of a body no one wished to acknowledge is still warm.

Elias listened, asked mostly about the employees and said nothing about the money.

Which means Scruffy Bear will spend the next several months pretending the decision does not weigh on him while covertly ensuring no innocent person loses a wage because of the chaos.

He’s already decided to sell what remained of the estate – the cradle of his demons. He plans to donate the proceeds to organisations supporting children in care.

And yes, that decision was followed by the words of two or three dead philosophers – none of them Nietzsche, so I suppose that counts as more progress.

I run one hand along the banister before releasing it.

A very small portion of the money will go to MacLeish. Elias wasn’t too happy with that, but he is a smart man – Dougal had done a good job spreading the news and distributing the recording. He’s already published three articles and discovered adjectives no respectable editor should allow near a headline.

Sindre has been advised, in terms I assume were legally vivid, to stop helping.

He has not officially agreed, though.

And Skeever has entirely disappeared from the face of the earth.

At any rate, we’ve done most of what we were supposed to do here: hearings, statements and a good number of journalists to sour the idea of ever reading another headline again.

I pass the photograph Anna hung above the landing table. One of my old black-and-white studies of rain trembling along the ribs of a dead leaf.

I don’t remember giving it to her.

There are more frames along the corridor than there were when I lived here. Anna had clearly raided the boxes from my basement and populated the walls with pieces of my abandoned life.

I reach my bedroom and stop in the doorway as if burned by the sight inside.

Elias is sprawled across the bed with one arm folded behind his head, long legs crossed at the ankles and hanging off the edge of the mattress – because beds in the UK are not made to fit feral bears.

His gaze goes from the smaller frames beside the wardrobe – pictures of my family and versions of me that existed a long time ago – to the paper in his hand.

Sámediggi answered my email yesterday and I printed it out so that he could frown at it properly.

The old grant is gone – nine months of silence will do that – but Aila has invited me to submit the project under a different programme. A smaller winter exhibition first, followed by the longer cultural photography work in spring.

It will mean a lot of travel. Long days away from the cabin; a life that is mine even while it remains tangled with his.

‘Are you sure about this?’ he asks, making a face as though life had handed him lemons again.

He reads the printed email for the n-th time. His jaw tightens when he reaches the dates, but he does not tell me it’s impossible. He does not ask where he fits into the itinerary or begin inventing reasons why it would be unsafe.

Progress occasionally looks like a six-foot-six man saying nothing while his teeth attempt to grind themselves into dust.