Ben McPherson - A Line of Blood

‘Mr Mercer, that would be a very different kind of investigation, and I don’t anticipate that.’

‘Meaning?’

‘You can draw your own conclusions.’ She smiled, that expression of concern again.

‘OK, so what happens now?’

‘We’ll be in touch. Unless of course you or Max wish to access any of the support services we have spoken about.’

‘No. Thank you.’

‘And I must ask you to remain in the country. You will need to reconsider your American trip.’

‘What?’

‘We’d like you to remain in the country.’

‘But you just said, or heavily implied that I, or rather that the investigation wasn’t …’

She cut across me. ‘Mr Mercer, you are helping us with our enquiries.’

‘But I’m not a suspect.’

‘Not at this stage.’

We ended the meeting, and she left me at the kitchen table, paralysed by my thoughts.

There was a thing, then. Some thing has happened.

It was the water that stirred me. For a moment I was sure I was wrong, that the tap in the neighbour’s kitchen could not be running. Then I knew that it was, and wondered why the sound troubled me.

I shook myself from my trance, became aware of my legs, rose slowly, trying to rub the sleep from them as I moved towards the wall that divided our house from the neighbour’s.

Water. Definitely water.

I put my right ear to the wall. Short percussive bumps. In pairs. And the water was still running.

I moved slowly to the sink, tipped wine from yesterday’s glass, shook out the last drops, and returned to the wall that divided our house from the neighbour’s. I placed the base of the glass against the wall, and put my ear in the bowl of the glass. Again those short percussive bumps. The sound was no clearer than before. I moved my head away, looked at the glass. Wasn’t this the way it was done? I turned the glass around, put my ear to the base of it; the sound was still no clearer. Pairs of percussive bumps. Still the sound of the water through the pipes.

I put the glass down on the table, and returned to the wall, cupped my ear to its smooth white surface with my hands.

A bump. A metallic crash. No second bump this time.

A woman’s voice. A cry of frustration.

I thought for a moment of Millicent, but why would Millicent be in the neighbour’s house?

I opened the front door and went out into the street.

‘Look, sir, look.’

Mr Ashani was standing on the pavement outside our house. He nodded towards the dead man’s house and made to speak, but I smiled and tapped him on the elbow, walked past him to the neighbour’s front door. Then I saw what Mr Ashani had meant me to see.

A locksmith had fitted two small steel plates, one to the door, one to the frame. They had buckled slightly, as if under force, and the padlock that had held them had given. Someone had placed the lock on the low wall in front of the house, as if meaning to replace it.

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Indeed,’ said Mr Ashani.

‘No yellow tape, though.’ Perhaps the police weren’t thinking murder after all.

‘In this country, sir, police tape is blue and white.’

‘Well,’ I said, and folded my arms.

Mr Ashani shot me an uncertain half-smile and went back into his house.

I rang the dead neighbour’s bell. The door opened. I guessed at once that she was his sister. She was tall, and a little too slight for her frame. Her skin was very pale, and her brown hair hung crisply at her shoulders: the kind of woman my mother would describe as willowy. The kind of daughter my mother’s friends had. Pretty, in other circumstances.

‘Alex,’ I said. ‘I live next door.’

I looked past her. From here I could not see the sink, though I could hear the tap running in the kitchen. I could see the source of the crash, though. She had pulled a drawer out of its mount, and the sides had come away from the base as it landed. Impractical slivers of stainless steel were strewn across the kitchen floor. I guessed that the flat ones were knives, the curved ones spoons. The forks seemed to have only two prongs.

The words Crime Scene flashed across my mind. She doesn’t know.

‘I was making a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Trying to. Would you like one?’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

She stood, uncertain, as if waiting for me to say more.

Don’t go in .

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry to ask you this, but you have spoken to the police?’

She nodded, and pushed the corners of her mouth inwards. ‘But not since the night. Not been feeling very sociable. Haven’t been charging my phone.’ There was a glassy look to her eyes, and I could see she badly wanted not to cry.

‘I don’t think you should be in there just now,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Why not?’

Because the police think I might, just possibly, have killed your brother.

‘Did you force the lock?’

She nodded. Etiolated, I thought. You wouldn’t think there was enough strength in those narrow shoulders.

‘I think the police fitted it,’ I said.

‘I slightly realised after I’d done it,’ she said. ‘Stupid, isn’t it, what grief makes you do?’

She looked at me and smiled, as if that explained it.

‘I think you need to turn off the tap and leave.’

‘Couldn’t you just come in while I get myself sorted out?’

‘I’m sorry, no. Is that your bag?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘You can come and sit with me, if you like.’

Mr Ashani must have been watching. He sprang from his house, and had his hand on my arm before I reached my front door.

‘Mr Ashani.’

‘Mr Mercer, I must speak with you.’

‘I’m a little busy just now, Mr Ashani.’

‘I wish to discuss with you what kind of man this was.’

Leave us alone.

‘I’m expecting his sister for tea. Perhaps we could talk later?’

‘This is a discussion we must have, Mr Mercer.’

For a while I didn’t think she would come. I made coffee and tidied up a little. I could still hear the tap running through the wall, and I guessed from the tiny scraping sounds that she was picking up the cutlery and trying to replace the drawer. Eventually she turned off the tap, and a minute after that she was sitting at our kitchen table.

Her name was Rose, and her hands shook as she drank her coffee. Her lower left arm was covered in silver bracelets, which glinted as she moved: a soft metallic sound, like breath. Why hadn’t I noticed before?

I suggested she speak to the police. I hoped they wouldn’t reveal that I was under suspicion, because there was something genuine about her, and I wanted her to like me. Even in her grief she was sweet and self-deprecating and funny.

‘Was it you who found him?’ she asked after a while.

‘Yes. And my son. We were looking for the cat.’

She nodded as if that explained it.

‘Thanks.’

We sat and drank coffee in silence. Then she asked if I minded if she smoked. ‘In the garden, I mean. Would that be OK?’

‘You don’t need to go in the garden.’

She produced a packet of Kensitas Club and offered me one. She took out a silver lighter and tried to light my cigarette, hand shaking.

‘You’re not really a smoker, are you?’ I said.

‘It’s that obvious?’

‘Girls like you don’t smoke Kensitas Club.’ I sniffed the cigarette in my hand. ‘And these are stale. You nick them from a party?’

The sadness lifted from her, and she smiled, making light.

‘Busted.’ A glint in her eye. More than just a nice English girl, then.

‘Want a proper cigarette?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’