McDunn inspects the drawers built into the divan bed. I look in the built-in wardrobe, sliding my mirrored image out of the way, my heart in my mouth.
Clothes. Just clothes, hats and a few boxes.
We go to the main bedroom. I try not to think about what we were doing here the last time I was in this room. I have that roaring noise in my ears again and I've got a cold sweat and I feel like I could just collapse at any second. I have a weird, invasive feeling, being here with the detective inspector, clumbering around the expensively delicate domesticity of this house with no William or Yvonne here.
I look in the dressing room while McDunn checks under the bed, then looks out onto the balcony. I open the dressing-room wardrobes. Lots of clothes. I pull them back, hands shaking.
Nothing. I put the mirror doors back. I walk towards the bathroom. I put my hand on the door; a pale, pastel light shines from the room as the door starts to open.
"Cameron?" McDunn says, from the bedroom. I retreat, padding through, leaving the door half-open. He's looking out the window towards the drive. He glances at me, nods. "Car."
I go to the window; a red BMW325. Yvonne's car.
It's as if the car's hesitating, just in front of the drive, put off by the patrol car and the unmarked Cavalier parked in front of the garage.
Then it parks across the bottom of the drive, blocking our way out but leaving an escape route for itself. McDunn looks suspicious but I feel relieved. If Andy was here, he's long gone; that's an Yvonne move.
And it's her. Sweet Jesus, it's her, it's her, it's her. She gets out of the car holding a big black torch about two foot long, her face set in a frown. She's wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a sweatshirt. She's had her hair cut again. Her sharp, lean-featured face is un-made-up and looks aggressively distrustful. She looks wonderful.
"That Mrs Sorrell?" McDunn says quietly.
"Yes," I say, on an outrush of breath, something in me easing. I want to cry. Yvonne looks away up the drive as another patrol car swings in. She puts the torch away as the car pulls to a stop and two uniformed officers get out. She walks up to them, nodding back to the house.
"Let's get down there and see what she's got to say, shall we?" McDunn says.
We go past the dressing-room door. "Just a minute," I say. McDunn waits as I go through the dressing room. I press the door to the bathroom open. The pale light spills out onto me.
Nothing. I look in the shower, the Jacuzzi, the bath. Nothing. I take a swallow and a deep breath and join McDunn to head downstairs.
"Cameron!" Yvonne says as we get to the bottom of the stairs. She's putting a newspaper and a couple of pints of milk down on the telephone table. The two cops from the second car are behind her. She glances at McDunn then comes up to me, hugs me, holding me tight. "Are you all right?"
"Fine. Are you?"
"Yes," she says. "What is all this? Somebody from the paper said you were the man they were holding for all those murders." She pulls away, still with one arm round my waist. "Why the police?" She looks at McDunn.
"Detective Inspector McDunn," he says, nodding. "Good afternoon, Mrs Sorrell."
"Hello." She looks at me, stepping back but still holding my hand, searching my face. "Cameron, you look…" She shakes her head, sucking on her lips. She looks around and says, "Where's William?"
McDunn and I exchange looks. Detective Inspector Burall comes downstairs, saying, "Nothing up there…" as he sees Yvonne.
She lets go of my hand, taking a step back and looking around at all of us, as the cop from the first patrol car comes into the hall from the study, and I see her gaze falling on my transparently gloved hands, and on the hands of the other men.
There's an instant when I suddenly see her as a young woman in her own home, surrounded by all these men who've invaded it, just turned up uninvited; all bigger than her, all strangers except for one she's been told might be a serial killer. She looks wary, angry, defiant, all at once. My heart feels fit to melt.
"Was your husband here when you left, Mrs Sorrell?" McDunn asks, in a comfortingly natural voice.
"Yes," she says, still looking round us all, settling on me, evaluating, enquiring, before looking back to McDunn. "He was here; I only left about half an hour ago."
"I see," McDunn says. "Well, he's probably popped out for a moment, but we had a message that there might be some problem here. We took the lib —»
"He's not in the garden?" she asks.
"Apparently not, no."
"Well, you don't just "pop out" from this estate, Detective Inspector," Yvonne says. "The nearest shops are ten minutes" drive away, and his car's still there." She looks at the cop who was upstairs. "You've been searching for him, searching the house?"
McDunn is all charm. "Yes, Mrs Sorrell, we have, and I apologise for this invasion of privacy; it's entirely my responsibility. The investigation we're involved in is a very serious one, and the tip-off we had was from a source that has been reliable in the past. As the house was open but apparently unoccupied, and we had reason to believe there might have been a crime committed I thought it right to enter, but —»
"So you haven't found him," Yvonne says. "You haven't found anything?" She looks, suddenly, small and frightened. I can see her fighting it, and I love her for it, and want to hold her, shush her, comfort her, but another part of me is full of a terrible jealous despair that the person she's so concerned about is William, not me.
"Not yet, Mrs Sorrell," McDunn says. "What was he doing when you last saw him?"
I see her swallowing, see the tendons on her neck stand out as she tries to control herself. "He was in the garage," she says. "He was going to take the Honda out — the wee tractor — and sweep up leaves in the back garden."
McDunn nods. "Well, we'll just have a look, shall we?" He looks at the two cops who've just arrived and holds up one hand, flexing it. "Gloves, lads."
The two cops nod and head back for the front door.
The rest of us troop towards the garage, through the hall and the kitchen. My feet feel like they're wading through treacle and that roaring noise is coming back. I try not to start coughing.
McDunn stops at the utility room. He looks slightly embarrassed. "Mrs Sorrell," he says, smiling. "I couldn't ask you to put a kettle on, could I?"
Yvonne stands looking at him. She looks hard and suspicious. She swivels on her heel and marches towards the work surface where the kettle is.
McDunn opens the door into the garage and I see the Mercedes and I'm thinking, The car; the boot of the car. I see the packing cases; Christ, there too.
I don't feel so good. I start coughing. McDunn and the officers look in the packing cases and the car, and it's like they're not seeing the big black wheelie bin. I stand to one side and lean against the wall, listening to them talk, watching them open and lift and peer, and that big black bin is just standing there, ignored, bulking dark against the light of the day outside where a breeze stirs, swirling dust and leaves into the air, pushing a few of the leaves onto the white-painted garage floor. McDunn looks under the car. Burall and the other cop are removing some of the packing cases and tea chests against the wall to look in the ones beneath. The two cops from the second patrol car are walking up the drive, pulling on plastic gloves.
I push myself away from the wall when I can't take it any longer, just as Yvonne comes into the garage from the house; I stagger across to the fat, chest-high bin. I can feel the others looking at me and sense Yvonne behind me. I'm coughing as I put my hand on the bin's smooth plastic handle. I lift it.
A rotting, fishy smell comes out, faint and tinged with other scents. The bin is empty. I stare into it, perversely shocked, reeling back. I let the lid fall.