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Tom’s clothes fill six boxes. She tapes them up so moths can’t get at them and carries them to the guest bedroom where she has access to the attic. Standing well back, she holds her breath and hits the wall button that controls the attic ladder. It doesn’t work. She tries again and this time the ladder shoots down very quickly and she’s glad she wasn’t in its way. That could do someone some damage, she thinks.
She climbs up cautiously, hefting the first box into the attic space then retrieving the others and shoving them in too. She considers leaving them like that, but her perfectionism kicks in and she climbs up into the attic with the intention of stacking them tidily.
The big box in the middle of the attic gives her pause.
She’s never seen it before. Surely, Tom would have told her if he was putting anything up here. He knows she’s particular about how they store things.
She examines the box. It’s unmarked. She pulls back the lid flaps and at first isn’t at all sure what she’s seeing, but she quickly realises and tears at the box until it’s in shreds, and standing proud in the middle of the attic is the replica sheep she longed to have. It’s beautiful. Tom must have bought it for her as a surprise. She throws her arms around its thick neck and sheds a few tears, but mostly, she thinks about how lovely Tom was, and how their child will love this as much as she does.
Getting the sheep down from the attic isn’t easy. She manages it after some cursing and grunting and feels satisfied when it’s safely on the landing. ‘There,’ she tells it. ‘You don’t have to live in the attic any longer. We can find you a proper home now.’
She looks up. It must have been even more of a pain to get it up there, she thinks as she presses the button that will draw up the ladder and watches it judder slowly back into place. And as she does, her eyes light on the ladder’s metal feet, and she wonders, just for a moment, if one of them could have caused Tom’s head injury. Perhaps he didn’t stand well enough out of the way when the ladder came down.
But she shakes her head. No. It can’t be that doing such a wonderful thing could have caused him an injury. That wouldn’t be right. Life isn’t that unfair.
86
ONE MONTH LATER
Jen
Hal mutters as he steps out of the coffee shop.
‘What is it?’ Jen asks.
‘They never get my name right. It’s the simplest name in the world, but everybody loves to overcomplicate.’
He shows her his cup. ‘HAIL’ is written on the side of it.
‘All hail Hal,’ she says.
‘If only,’ he says. She hears a bitter edge in his voice. They’ve drawn a blank on the Tom Booth case. They never found Olly Palmer, and nor did they find any evidence that he murdered Tom Booth, but he’s still wanted as a person of interest. Jen’s hopeful he might turn up somewhere. They also haven’t been able to make any progress with regard to Kitty Ellis. And they didn’t find Patrick Young, either. She wonders where he went. They won’t follow up because he ceased to be a person of interest, but Hal warned Nicole to remain wary of his intentions.
Anna Creed called Hal and apologised for harassing him about the grave site at the plague pit at Lancaut. She said she was spooked, that she didn’t know what had got into her. It was just a fantasy. Jen knew what she and Finn saw there, and she told Hal. He wanted to examine the site forensically to see if a body had been buried there, but without anyone looking for Kitty Ellis, and the fact that there were human remains there already, he was leaned on by his superiors to drop it. The press tired of the story after reporting that Olly Palmer had vanished. It disappeared into the news cycle like everything else.
A few small loose ends got tied up. They learned the name of the man suspected of stalking Martha Hayward and stealing her ‘Sadie’ business cards. He was a Bristol University student called Ben Padden, but there was no need to track him down. There was still a lack of clarity over how Tom got her card, as she insisted that she didn’t give any out at the Maserati event, but, again, it wasn’t something they would be pursuing. Jen understands that there are some things you never get to know.
She has marvelled at the fact that Sasha is still living with Anna Creed at the Manor, even if Sasha is in the Coach House now and Anna back in the Manor. Sasha really is a friend, Anna told her. Olly coerced us both. Jen can’t understand it. That’s not the story the journal told. She puts it down to Stockholm Syndrome, to the general craziness of human beings. She warned Anna to look after herself but could do nothing more.
Hal and Jen have ended up feeling that something great was almost within their grasp with this case, that it could have been a career-defining moment for them both, Hal especially, but it slipped through their fingers.
She feels they did good work, that you can’t win them all, but it got under Hal’s skin. He can’t stand the thought of Olly Palmer out there somewhere, having got away with this. What he needs, she thinks, is another case to get his teeth into. He’s despondent about his chances of working on something meaty after this failure, but she’s sure he will. Talent will out.
They walk back to the car. He’s frowning. He seems to live in a permanent state of discontent at present. She wants him to relax, to recognise what he has achieved, to look forward to what he will achieve. One failure shouldn’t bring anyone down.
‘It just feels odd to me, all those women living together at Lancaut,’ he says.
She thinks about this. ‘Lancaut’s a strange place, that’s for sure. But trauma can bond people. And they’re in separate houses.’
He stares through the windscreen. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I think about it too much. I can’t let it go. It makes me uneasy, for some reason.’
He reaches to start the ignition and, before she can stop herself, a question pops out.
‘Would you like to go on a date with me?’
His hand drops back onto his lap, and she waits for his rebuff.
‘I know it’s not strictly allowed,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. Forget it.’
