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I’m still wearing my coat and I take it off just so I don’t have to look at her. I spot the Seattle Times on the desk and hold it up to Bruno with a fake smile. “Did you see the review, Bruno?”
“Yes. I’m very pleased. Shall we go this way?” He indicates the corridor.
“You go,” I say, licking a finger and unfolding the paper, as if finding the review again was important right now. “I’ll open up the gallery.”
“We still have half an hour, Laura,” Bruno says.
Andrew Dore isn’t just from the insurance company, he is anassessorfrom the insurance company, which I interpret as aninvestigatorfrom the insurance company. Bruno takes his place at the table and pulls out a chair next to him for Summer. Andrew Dore stands at one end, I sit opposite Bruno and Gavin hesitates, then takes the obvious seat next to me, but I get the weird feeling he’d rather not sit there.
Andrew Dore spreads out photographs over the table, big close ups of the old, scratched up, lock. I don’t even remember someone from the insurance company being there that day, taking photographs, but then I don’t remember much about that day. Just a blur of panic. I do remember what I did, however. In fact, I remember that part so well that it engulfs me, making it hard to breathe.
“Okay if I record this?” Andrew Dore says, putting his phone down on the table. Everyone says, yes, except me. I say it eventually, just later than everyone else.
“So one point we’d like to clear up today…” He taps on his iPad. “We spoke to your security company and they say the alarm never went off.”
Gavin and I look at each other. “Well, it wouldn’t have,” I say.
“What do you mean, Laura?” Andrew Dore asks.
I can feel my heart beating in my throat. “The alarm. I didn’t turn it on.” I turn to Gavin. “You said you were coming back.”
Gavin raises both hands, palms out. “Whoa, hang on, Laura! I said Imightcome back! I said I wasn’t sure, remember? We went over this, Laura! Remember?”
“Yes, I know, but you said…” I let the sentence die. But it doesn’t matter what he said. He’s right, we went over this when the police were here. The point is, I was the last one here. I should have set the alarm on. Even knowing Gavin was coming back, I should not have left the gallery without setting the alarm, even for fifteen minutes. The truth is, I forgot. My mind was on Charlie and…I don’t know. I just forgot. Just like I forgot about having the lock fixed.
“I just want to be clear here,” Gavin says, as if he hadn’t been clear enough. He turns to Bruno, then to Andrew Dore. “This has nothing to do with me. I wasn’t even here, okay? I left at lunchtime to go to the printer—” He starts counting on his fingers “—to go over the exhibition catalogue, then to the post office, then I went to the bank—”
“I know,” I interrupt. “I didn’t mean to imply…”
That’s also what I said last time, when we went over this with the police.I didn’t mean to imply…Except then, as now, I do mean to imply. I feel the same wave of resentment I did then that I am left to shoulder the responsibility for what happened, when in fact,you were supposed to come back, Gavin! That’s what you said! None of this would have happened if you’d come back as you said you would!
“Good,” Gavin says. “So don’timply.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Okay,” Andrew Dore says. “I’m not sure why that didn’t make it in the initial report. The other thing I’d like to discuss is this.” He taps on the photographs. “The lock. It wasn’t just tampered with; our experts believe it was made to look that way. This is why we have reason to believe this was an inside job. We’re looking into that now. The police are aware of it also, so don’t underestimate what I mean by an inside job. It’s still a robbery. It still attracts a jail sentence.”
I am boiling, and my hairline prickles with sweat. I rub my face and groan that this is insane! Bruno argues that it couldn’t possibly be an inside job.It’s just us here, Gavin is my nephew, Laura is a long-term trusted employee, there is no way on earth either of them would do such a thing!
You can almost hear the click of the cogs turning in the collective brains in the room, and all three men turn to look at Summer. I don’t.
She laughs. “I didn’t do anything! I was just there! Waiting for Laura! It’s not my fault the door was open!”
And I’m thinking,shut up! Just shut up!I will her to look at me, but she doesn’t, her eyes are darting between Andrew Dore and Bruno, her voice rising with panic.I have nothing to do with this!
“No, of course not,” Bruno says, squeezing her shoulder.
Then Summer does the most horrible thing. She leans forward and cranes her neck to stare right at me across the table, across Bruno, her eyes pantomime-wide in an expression that screams,Aren’t you going to say anything?And I am reminded how young she is, so young that she believes her message is discreet. That she thinks it’s nothing to have an affair with your boss’s boyfriend. That the world belongs to her and everything in it is hers for the plucking.
Bruno rubs her back and says, “It’s all right, Summer. We trust you. Don’t we, Laura?”
Before I have time to answer, he taps his finger on one of the photographs. “Nobody thinksyoudid this.”
“No, of course not,” I say. “I mean wedotrust you, completely.”
“I really don’t think it’s fair to put this on Summer,” Gavin says. “Summer came at nine o’clock because that’s what Laura told her to do. She didn’t know no one would be here. It’s Laura’s fault she was late.”
I look at Gavin with surprise, but he won’t look at me. I am reminded of the many times I tried to make overtures with him, start conversations, ask for his opinion on a particular piece of art. More often than not he would grunt something in reply and now, I finally articulate what I’ve always suspected: Gavin doesn’t like me.
