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‘Please thank her for me and thank you for bringing it.’
The silence is awkward; it lasts a little too long. Nicole tries to keep the smile on her face. Why won’t they go away, now?
‘We met Patrick,’ Olly says.
She’s interrupted by her phone ringing. ‘I should probably check—’ she says and pulls it from her back pocket. It’s the police. Her heart skips a beat. ‘I’m sorry. I need to get this.’
She steps into the house, pulling at the door, but it doesn’t close completely behind her. Never mind, she thinks, they’ll get the hint and leave anyway.
‘Hello,’ she says. Instinctively, she takes a seat on one of the chairs by the fireplace in the atrium, preparing herself for the emotional blow of whatever they might tell her. She puts the call on speaker.
‘Hi Nicole, it’s Hal Steen. Just a quick call to ask you a question, if you don’t mind?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘We have a report back on possible causes for the injury to Tom’s head.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she says.
‘Our pathologist thinks it was the result of an impact from something made of metal, with a sharpish edge. Usually, thepathologist will suggest a possible weapon. Often, the details visible in injuries correlate with specific weapons, like, for example, a baseball bat, and in this case, she has a few ideas, but none of them fit the injury perfectly. We wondered if you could think of anything in your household that might match the description.’
‘A weapon?’ she asks. ‘But he must have tripped and fallen. Perhaps it was a rock. Or the tiles on the side of the pool.’
‘The science is suggesting that it’s not that. Can you think of anything?’
‘Describe it again.’ She shuts her eyes and breathes in and out deeply. This is horrible news. He repeats himself and she tries to focus but she can’t think of anything.
‘I have no idea,’ she says. ‘How can they be sure it wasn’t something around the pool?’
‘It’s believed to be metal. They’re firm about that.’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispers. ‘I’m sorry.’
Steen pauses, before saying, ‘If you think of anything, will you let us know?’
‘Of course.’ She stands, the phone in her hand, and walks into the living area. She touches the little row of ornaments displayed on a shelf: sheep. Her favourite animal. In pride of place. They were the sweetest gift from Tom.
She tries to imagine what he might have been doing the morning he died, to visualise him moving through this space. He usually spent his Saturday mornings lounging in his sweats, maybe taking a slow walk around the house or grounds, a cup of coffee in hand. He would have lined up his sports viewing for the weekend, skimmed the news. Since the win, that’s howhe spent most mornings if they weren’t expecting anyone at the house. She goes to the windows, where he loved to stand, and looks out. The sun is a white shimmer high above the cliffs, its harshness subduing the woodland greens, but scattering glinting shards across the surface of the river where it’s visible through the trees.
‘Thank you,’ Detective Steen says. ‘We didn’t locate anything at the house which could have delivered his injury, which suggests that whatever hurt Tom might have been brought to your home and taken away afterwards.’
‘You mean by a person?’ she asks. ‘Someone hit him?’
‘Possibly,’ he says. ‘But the injury is likely not the cause of his death. Water was found in Tom’s lungs, suggesting that he was alive when he entered the pool.’
‘He drowned?’
‘That’s the official cause of death. But the injury is significant. It caused a small area of bruising to his brain.Ifit can be proved that he fell and drowned as a result of that injury andifthe injury was inflicted on him by someone else, that could result in a charge of manslaughter, possibly murder.’
It’s a lot for Nicole to take in. ‘Significant’ would seem to her to be an understatement when Tom’s dead, lying in a morgue somewhere. She hopes they sewed him up neatly and with care. She would love to see him, to tend his body herself, however damaged it is. She might ask if that’s possible.
Since she was a child, Nicole has wanted to nurture. There was only one person who didn’t fall into that category, she thinks, and that was Tom’s granny. Nicole tried to like her and in Granny’s later years to look after her, but Granny made itclear from the start that she thought Nicole was competition and she had an acid tongue. Nicole never let on to Tom, but Granny’s death, when it came, had been a relief. She felt too guilty to say it and couldn’t even bring herself to point out that Granny was getting on and her demise was undoubtedly a respite from burgeoning medical needs that would have caused her suffering and burdened them. Tom wouldn’t have wanted to hear it.
‘Have you found out anything about the card you showed me?’ she asks. ‘Sadie’s Massages.’
‘Not yet. We’re still looking into it. There are a lot of Sadies who offer massages. We’re sifting through them.’
Steen reminds her that she can phone his colleague Jen if she needs anything or has questions.
