Кара Хантер - No Way Out

There's a flicker of unease round the room at that. They're remembering what Boddie said: Zachary could have been dead before the fire even started. And suffocation is one of the commonest ways women kill their children.

`You're talking about post-partum psychosis ,' says Somer, slightly abruptly. ` Not post-natal depression. Samantha was never diagnosed with PPP.'

`All the same `“' begins Baxter, but she doesn't let him finish.

`Post-partum psychosis almost always starts within two weeks of having the baby. Zachary was three. The number of cases where PPP comes on without warning that long after birth is vanishingly small.'

Baxter looks from me to Somer. `Could her post-natal depression have turned into this PPP? Is that possible?'

She shakes her head. `No. They're entirely different. And the one doesn't lead to the other.'

`So if Samantha really was seeing things, it wasn't down to that?'

`Not that, no. I guess the medication she was on may have been a factor. But even if that were true, there's a huge leap from seeing ghosts to deliberately killing the entire family.'

There's something in her face `“ the way she says it `“ that stifles further disagreement. I just wish I had her certainty.

25 June 2017, 4.30 p.m.

193 days before the fire

23 Southey Road, Oxford

Sam can tell at once something's up.

`I brought you a beer,' she says carefully, easing the bottle on to the edge of the desk. The study is a beautiful space at this time of year, the glass doors open to the garden and the light and the scent of cut grass. A red admiral butterfly has landed on the printer and is opening and closing its wings in the warmth. But her husband is frowning.

`What is it?'

He makes a face. `Just Philip. He emailed to say he'll be here on the 13th July.'

`How long is he staying?'

`He says two days, but you know him. It could just as easily be two weeks.'

`Well, we can hardly say no `“ what with `“'

`I know, I know,' Michael says tetchily.

Sam bites her lip. She knows better than to offer any defence for Philip. Last time she tried she found herself on the wrong end of a twenty-minute tirade about what a waster he is, bumming about the world from one tropical beach to the next and never being around to do any of the heavy lifting. Like Dad's funeral. Like getting Mum into a home. The first time Michael ever really opened up to her had been about Philip. They'd only been together about six weeks and up till then his whole persona had been so carefully crafted she was beginning to think he was too good to be true. Always courteous, always patient, always considerate. And then she got to his flat early one night to find him on the phone to his father. He'd rung home to tell him he was about to get his first article published in an academic journal, but by the time he finished the call he was almost in tears.

`What do I have to do?' he'd said. `Philip's the one who flunked even getting in to Oxford. Philip's the one who's never bothered doing a proper day's work in his life because he's been living off money my grandfather left him. Philip should be the disappointment. And yet to listen to my father you'd think I was sleeping rough under Charing Cross station.'

She'd remonstrated, sitting close, her arm round him.

`He's so proud of you. You know he doesn't mean it.'

He'd looked up at her, angry through the tears. `Oh yes he does. It's always Philip this and Philip that. All the time I was growing up Dad called him Pip. He'd tousle his hair and say he had `њgreat expectations`ќ. It was years before I knew what he was getting at `“ and all that time I thought it meant that he had higher hopes of Philip than he did of me. I don't think he had the first bloody idea the impact something like that can have.'

Her heart had broken, then, for the sad little boy he had been and the furiously ambitious man he'd turned that into. And she'd felt, as she never had with Michael before, that she was the strong one `“ she was the one with something to give, the one to protect, not be protected. It was the first time she'd ever felt that. And it would be the last.

Somer stops by her desk to collect the bag of shopping she left there at lunchtime. Some of the fruit has rolled out under her chair, and she has to get down on her hands and knees to retrieve it. When she finally straightens up she's surprised to find Quinn standing there. She's flustered a moment, conscious that she's red in the face and her hair has come loose.

`Can I help you?'

He looks diffident. A word she's never associated with him before.

`I just wanted to check you were OK.'

She stares at him, not sure she heard him right. `Why wouldn't I be?'

He shrugs. `It was just, well, what you were saying back there. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere `“ you know `“ personal.'

She hesitates, not sure she wants to open up on this. At least to him. But there's something in his face.

`My sister had it `“ has it,' she says eventually. `Post-natal depression, I mean. It's been tough. On all of us.'

He nods.

`And there's such a terrible stigma attached to it, even now. Far too many women don't come forward and get help because they're worried about what people will say. They're frightened they'll be labelled as bad mothers or `њhysterical`ќ or one of those other words men only use about women and never about other men.' She stops, aware she's even redder in the face now.

`I know,' he says quietly. `About PND. My mother had it.'

Now that really does floor her. She opens her mouth, then closes it again.

`You never mentioned it. When we `“'

He shrugs. `Like you said. There's still a lot of prejudice. And ignorance.'

And it must have been even worse a generation ago.

`They ended up sectioning her,' he says, reading her thoughts. `My dad had to cope for six months with a newborn baby and an eight-year-old. He didn't know what'd hit him.'

He looks up, meeting her eyes properly for the first time.

`You were only eight?'

He smiles weakly. `Dad kept telling me I had to be a big boy. That he had enough to worry about without me acting up. No one in the family ever spoke about it. It was as if she'd done something shameful. Or criminal. It was years before I found out what had really happened.'

She nods, struggling to find the right thing to say. But it explains a lot about Quinn. His strident self-sufficiency, his intolerance of weakness, his inability to admit any vulnerability.

`Anyway,' he says, straightening his shoulders a little. `I just wanted to check.'

He starts to go, but she calls him back. `Quinn?'

He turns. `Yeah?'

`Thank you. For telling me. That can't have been easy.'

He shrugs. `No worries.'

And then he's gone.

11 July 2017, 10.23 a.m.

177 days before the fire

23 Southey Road, Oxford

`Hi,' says Philip, when she opens the door. `I got back to Poole a bit earlier than I expected.'

She's only seen him once or twice since the wedding, where he'd been, rather to her surprise given Michael's loud and frequent reservations, an exemplary best man.

He's thinner than when she last saw him, but it suits him. Sun-bleached hair, a deep tan, shirt open just a bit too far. There's a heap of dusty rucksacks and duffel bags at his feet. A black cab is just turning out of the street on to the Banbury Road.

He sees her face and looks sheepish. `Sorry. I know I'm a couple of days early. But if it's a problem I can leave all this crap here and lose myself for an hour or two.'