Emma is due out of school. Standing on my own I watch the mothers and grandmothers arrive.
‘Billy wasn’t at school today,’ says Emma, when she falls into step beside me. ‘I think he was sick.’ Then she adds, ‘I think I should be allowed more sick days, otherwise it isn’t fair.’
‘You shouldn’t want to be sick.’
‘I don’t want to be sick. I just want the sick days.’
Charlie gets home just after four. She doesn’t mention Gordon Ellis but I know his arrest must have been texted, tweeted and talked about at school. She makes herself toast and jam for afternoon tea.
‘How are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘You want to talk about anything?’
‘Nope.’
‘Are you sure?’
She rolls her eyes and goes upstairs.
At six o’clock I walk the girls down to the cottage. Julianne is home. She’s showered and changed and is cooking dinner. Her wet hair hangs out over her dressing gown.
‘I saw you today,’ she says. ‘What was Sienna doing in court?’
I don’t know how much I should tell her. Nothing is probably safest.
‘Ronnie Cray wanted to show her something.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t really tell you.’
Julianne gives me one of her looks. It reminds me of how much she hates secrets. Then she shakes it off, refusing to let me spoil her good mood.
‘Well, my job is done,’ she says, sounding pleased. ‘Marco finished testifying. He was amazing. They threw everything at him. They tried to confuse him and trick him and say he was lying. It was horrible. I hope the jury saw it. I hope they hated that lawyer for what he did.’
‘He was doing his job.’
‘Don’t defend him, Joe. I know you’re a pragmatist, but don’t defend someone like that.’
She takes Emma’s schoolbag from me. I’m standing in the kitchen, which seems to lurch suddenly and I stagger sideways. Julianne grabs me and I straighten.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I haven’t slept.’
Mr Parkinson is shape-shifting on me, messing up my reactions to the medications. The segues between being ‘on’ and ‘off’ my meds have become shorter.
Julianne makes me sit down and begins scolding me about not taking care of myself. At the same time she fills the kettle and makes me a cup of tea.
Wanting to change the subject, I tell her about Annie Robinson, keeping one eye on the stairs in case Charlie overhears me. At six o’clock we turn on the TV to watch Gordon Ellis answering questions on the steps of Trinity Road.
‘I can’t believe he really did it,’ says Julianne. ‘And I let Charlie babysit for him.’
‘You weren’t to know.’
She shivers slightly and her shoulder brushes mine.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I ask.
‘What’s that?’
‘Judge Spencer - what’s he been like?’
She looks at me oddly. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘Do you think he’s favouring one side or the other?’
‘Why?’
‘It’s just a question.’
She studies me momentarily, knowing that I’m holding something back.
‘He’s a grumpy old sod, but he seems pretty fair. He’s very nice to the jury. I think he feels sorry for them. It’s a pretty horrible case . . . seeing those photographs of burnt bodies.’
‘Has he disallowed any evidence?’
‘I don’t get to hear the legal arguments.’
‘What happens now?’
‘The prosecution has finished. The defence begins calling witnesses tomorrow.’ Julianne turns down the volume. ‘I just hope they get found guilty and Marco can get on with the rest of his life.’
‘What is he going to do?’
‘He wants to go to London. Friends have offered to put him up and help find him a job. He’s applied for university but that’s not until the autumn.’
For a few moments we sit in silence. Julianne picks at lint from the sleeve of her sweater.
‘Would you like to have dinner with us?’ she asks. ‘Or maybe you’d prefer to go home and sleep?’
‘No.’
She stands and pirouettes away from me before I try to read anything into the invitation. Summoning the girls, she serves dinner and we sit together at the table like a proper family, or like proper families in TV commercials for Bisto and frozen vegetables. It feels familiar. The familiar is what I crave.
It cannot last, of course. Charlie has homework. Emma has bedtime. Julianne says I can read Emma a story but I fall asleep halfway through it. An hour later, Julianne shakes me awake, holding her finger to my lips.
The dishwasher is humming as I come downstairs. The TV turned down low.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said about the divorce,’ I say.
Julianne closes her eyes and opens them again, looking in an entirely different direction. She elevates her face. ‘And?’
‘I think you think it’s going to change things, but you don’t get rid of baggage, you take more on.’
‘You might be right.’ She doesn’t want an argument.
‘Do you want to remarry?’
‘No.’
‘So why?’
‘I don’t feel married any more.’
‘I do.’
Julianne pushes bracelets up her forearm. ‘Do you know your problem, Joe?’
I know she’s going to tell me.
‘You want everything to seem perfect and to seem happy and you’re willing to let “seem” equal “be”.’
Her admonishment is intimate and so laced with melancholy it leaves me nothing to say.
‘You don’t have to go home,’ she says. ‘You can sleep on the sofa.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re exhausted and some nights I get a little scared on my own.’
‘Scared?’
She slips her hand down my forearm and hooks her fingers under my palm. ‘I can have bad dreams too.’
My head is vibrating. The sensation comes and goes every few seconds. Opening my eyes, it takes me a moment to recognise my surroundings. I am on the sofa in the cottage.
I remember Julianne giving me a pillow and blankets, watching the news and feeling a sense of helplessness. Problems in Gaza, global warming, the credit crisis, ozone holes, soaring unemployment, casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan . . .
I don’t remember turning off the TV or the hallway light. Julianne must have decided not to wake me. I do remember dreaming of Annie Robinson’s breasts encased in a lace bra.
The vibrations begin again. My mobile phone is wedged between my head and the armrest of the sofa.
I press green. It’s Ronnie Cray.
‘Where are you?’
‘What is it?’
‘Ellis is on the move.’
My mind is issuing orders. My feet take a little longer to obey. Navigating through the darkened house, splashing water on my face, lacing my shoes. Suddenly, all thumbs, I can’t make the loops and knot the laces.
Julianne appears at the top of the stairs in a thin cotton night-dress. The light behind her paints her body in a silhouette that would make a bishop break his vows.
‘What is it?’ she asks.
‘Go back to bed. I have to go.’
‘This is what I don’t like, Joe.’
‘I know.’
Two unmarked police cars are waiting outside. Monk holds open a rear door. Ronnie Cray is inside, talking on her mobile. She hasn’t been to sleep since yesterday.
We travel in silence along Wellow Road towards Radstock and then take a series of B-roads heading west. Kieran the tech is sitting in the front passenger seat, fiddling with an earpiece and tapping on a keyboard. The surveillance vehicles are colour-coded dots on a satellite map displayed on a laptop screen.