Hemlock and Roses

throw the t

ds and thought about dropping it into the bin, hard, so that it broke. Then she put it at the very back of the cupboard,

very light in the flat swi

her pho

a

f a man halfway down his first cup of the day. "I won't keep you. I just

up very

ther n

huckled. "Two o'clock, was it? Rambling about Walter Crane and Linden Hall.

e cupboard door.

the board that year. Whether I'd kept the old minu

e said.

haven't you? Ever since you were a girl. You'd lose an afternoon here and there. Your

went ve

at

et me in, still in your dressing gown. I left you a tin of Earl Grey and washed up a cup before

osed he

r father's warm voice, the voice that had been explaining the world to her since before

don't drin

of it." He sounded amused. "Have a cup

sat for a long time wi

emembered it going off. She remembered lying there for one long, heavy

t remember

ad, a gold tooth he was enormously proud of, and a laugh that could be heard on the third floor. He did the crossword in pen

uick qu

his newspaper. Then the smile faltered. "H

Tues

rse." He folded the

n to see me? An older man. Tall, silver h

me in between midnight and when Darren took ove

M

bit before four." He shrugged. "I figure

floor tilt very slig

say any

e and was only now surfacing. "Called me Mr. Okafor, actually. Which was weird. You've never called me Mr. O

ired," I

t longer than was comfortable.

o the door when h

n. I almost said something." He rubbed the back of

. She sat in the multi-storey under the precinct, engin

says he came at half pa

nobody came in betwe

not both

f them i

n doing a long shift, and people made mistakes. Her father was a careful man who had never to

never accepted the simpler answer just because it was simpler, sa

ht, then you let him

ain at half past two in the morning, without a

e that sounded like her

el. They were shaking. She loo

lipstick in the wing mirror, and went upstairs to work. Because there were for

sibly nervous, with a very good suit and a very bad haircut, and he l

o Detective Inspector M

sultant on

He cleared his throat. "He w

ow, shoulders hunched, the expensive silver hair uncombed. He didn

f the observation room and

near the end, Ashby leaned forward and said something too qu

ut the door and stood w

nsurance. But he wants immunity on the fraud, and protection, and h

tion fr

r. He seemed to be

But he gave me a

r m

He said, Tell her to stop asking qu

idn't

opped. "Is there somethin

lobby, frowning. You walke

she

four years of working wi

always let things go with her: carefully, like a man set

her sole, stitched welt. A handmade Oxford, they reckon. And the heel's worn in a particular way: a man who drags his left foot s

who does his o

say it m

nothing at all. She thought

ing her father polish his shoes. Black leather. Handmade. He did it every week, slowly and beautifully, the brush moving in long, even strokes until

s injury, he

own. She put it some

your shoes, Mor

n.

son," s

on police bail at ten p

e file needed collecting at four. She stood by the front doors with her coat buttoned correctly this time, and a scarf, and when he came d

her and

ead back. The grey sweater was frayed at both cuffs. He hadn't shaved in three days, and the dark stubble made his face look thinner and h

essor

s anyone pic

N

here to go? Your fl

ated. "It's across the

ining,"

lways r

he car, M

knees and his eyes on the road, and when she switched the radio on he didn't ask

nce unbearable. Within fiv

mes and was currently on a regime of mints so strong they'd once made a suspect cry. She told him about the boy in her lecture who had falle

small car in the rain with a man accused of murder, the lights inside her were flickering b

s, the corner of his mouth moved. And she found he

word and came back two minutes later with a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water. He put the

t's

en't eat

you possibl

ch, and then at him, and it occurred to her that the only per

d been dead f

t was the best thing sh

uth bank, up four flights of iron stairs that rang under their feet l

ed on the

n off and their insides laid bare: rows of felt hammers, rows of gleaming strings, delicate and terrible as the ribs of a whale. A workbench ran the length of one wall, and every tool on it l

the bench hung a lon

ng softly in the half-light. Each one hung from its own small brass h

xcept

e hook was empty. The label ben

of a tuning fork in a plastic evidence bag. A pair

it on the back of the door, filled a kettle at the small sink in the corner,

a," he said. "You

do

in the inte

adn't. But she was no longer certain of

against the window, under a heavy grey dust cover. Something about the way the cover had been folded, neatly, carefully, co

is one

She hadn't heard

es

I see

ng p

ri

his mouth, the way you say a wo

e," sh

es where hands had rested over decades. She raised the fallboard. The keys

heet of brittle manuscript paper, was

he had known the programme on Walter Crane's wall: a col

. Young Artists' Ev

th fingers that di

a quick, slanting, joyful hand. The I at the end was crossed with a small five-poin

for a whole hall full of strangers, but one day I'll

her han

bly, impossibly,