Hemlock and Roses

d joke in three days," Morrow

had a personal grievance. Iris had her feet braced against the footwell and her phone pressed to her ear, on ho

es, Morrow. You just

me

tes refuse to

ris

know that he knew nothing

almost smiled. It was the first time in three d

nd laughed so hard at her own jokes that she snorted, and then laughed harder because she'd snorted. When she smiled, it pulled higher on the left than the right, and a dimple appeared in her left cheek that she'd spent her whole

een cold. She hadn't slept. Somewhere between a wet teacup and a burn scar, the light

pipes

ecurity. We've got him. Gate 23, the 21:05 to Zur

ked the t

d," she said. "And

too shiny. The announcements echo off glass and steel and arriv

n both hands. He was sixty-three, silver-haired, expensively tanned, in a navy cashmere overcoat that had cost more than Iris's car. He h

by the window, pretending

said quietly. "Frightene

r, and she put on her friendliest face: the one that had once got a full confession out of a man wh

sorry to interrupt yo

ooke

ing she had ever se

r cup slipped through his fingers and hit the floor, and coffee spread across the shining tiles in a d

Ashby said. "

opped w

I'm only h

kwards, the holdall toppling. His voice cracked high and t

was there in two long strides, one big hand raised, palm out, using the voice he ke

staring past Morrow's shoulder, straight at Iris, and his eyes wer

the coffee on the floor, a few dark drops on the toe of her sh

e couldn't think what else to do with it. "I think you've mistak

It wasn't relief. It was a horror tha

t me," he

N

Then he began to laugh: a thin, aw

d to Morrow. "Ask

lass until he was sitting on the floor of Gate 23, put his face in his h

at. "That's all. Seven years of guilt, a dead colleague, a bad conscience, and then h

rro

ur dad. Same eyes

y father," Iris said.

s cigarettes, remembered he'd quit, and put them bac

mplaint after the fire. It went nowhere, but technically it's stil

t her watch. 9:47. "And drive

ten o'cloc

as Vane charged

d, and start

d wine. She was fifty-eight, with a sharp silver bob and a sharper mouth, and the kind of stillness that made junior barrister

s someone's dead, I'm

Iris said. "That's

twitched. She

he slate floor, and she laid it out the way she would have laid it out for a room of first-years: one step at a

know that, because at 11:24 he makes a two-minute call from his ow

to make me answer ever

p, and leaves by a fire-escape window that a man who sorted his pills by the day of the week would never have left unlatched." Iris held up one finger. "The only physical evidence against Vane is a tuning fork he openly admits leaving with Crane, alive,

t down

aying cha

tomorrow morning, you'll be telling that third person they've got away with it." Iris paused. "And you'll be the DA who charged a

chen clock ticked. The cat jumped

te more. If you can't bring me your third person by Thursday mo

nk y

is. You look like someone's

me. She went bac

nd the corridor lights flickered the way they always did after twelve

old herself a dozen sensible things on the walk from the car park. None of them expla

ross his eyes. He sat up the moment the door opened.

tomorrow," Iris said. "You

ut a long, slow breath, and she understood

nk y

ned against the doorframe. She was suddenly so tired she could h

m sharpened. "I

Not Did he talk? Not What di

said. "Very frightened."

went

she'd said wet. But this was different. This was the stillness o

did. He told Morrow to ask me what I'd done." She tried to laugh and didn't quite manage it. "I've never m

thumb moved slowly over the back of his r

st. "Frightened men say the cruellest thin

ng to say. A kind thing

oke. And somewhere at the back of her mind, the part of her that never

he was lying,"

umb st

"So when I tell you that a man has accused me of something terrible, a normal person would say, He's lying. You said, It doesn't

er deciding to say it, and it sat strangely in her mouth, like a w

ked up

y for the expression on his face, as if she had reached into his chest witho

ris," he sa

you have said ten thousand times. Withou

r in the flickering ligh

e what he was doing, and picked up the folded grey bla

he said. "And you d

hroat was bare above the collar of her coat, and the s

couldn't have explained why her

," she said, and lef

cked off her shoes, and stood in the kitchen in her stockinged feet without turning on the ligh

2 a

rning. Fift

t of habit, thumbed through her calls to s

had

from her phone at 2:13 on Monday morning. The night

a

tared

ause she'd been awake for two days, and she had slept like a stone until her alar

calling her father

er talking to him

, rang him half-asleep about the case, and forgot. It was the ki

eached for another glass, and in the faint blue light from

s a teac

own. Was

ss, the way it clung to the back of her throat. She did not own a teapot. She had never

she opened the cupb

ack of the shelf, sat a small bl

l G