I checked the window frame to see if I could spot any scratch marks, any pattern in the peeling paint that might suggest he hadn’t actually jumped. That he’d toppled out, made one last despairing grab. There was nothing, but that didn’t mean a lot. Life isn’t like the movies. Things don’t happen in slow-mo, and the reason accidents happen is that by the time they start happening, it’s already too late. Lean a little too far when you’re nine stories up …
It hit hard. A low blow that convulsed my gut. Nine stories mightn’t sound like much, not until you’re up there looking down. My head spun, and I closed my eyes against the dizzying drop. That and the possibility of glimpsing the ghostly outline of a body in freefall, arms and legs flailing in a tangled whirl as they sought purchase from the pitiless air.
Except I hadn’t seen Finn fall. He’d dived. Streamlined and arrow-straight.
But it wasn’t his jumping, or diving. It didn’t matter a damn how he’d gone. What sickened me was his going, stepping off knowing what he knew was nestled in Maria’s belly and growing.
I eased back in, slow, no sudden moves. Slid down on the couch, a hot sweat prickling my hair.
Sure, you could say, if you really wanted to exonerate him, that Finn jumped not knowing what he’d be missing. That he was to be pitied for that.
Not me.
Finn Hamilton was dead because he was a selfish prick, period.
I sat there staring blindly and tried to put myself in his place, perched out on that ledge, but it wouldn’t come. Not with children’s laughter on the breeze and Ben down below. Not with-
It was tucked away in the corner, partly wedged behind a stack of landscapes. His first ever portrait, maybe. Even from across the room I could tell it was a pretty good likeness. Up close, when I’d tugged it free, and even splashed as it was with red paint, the canvas ragged where it had been slashed with a blade, you could see he’d caught Maria’s wicked smile, the mischief in her eyes.
So you believe he was distraught about her infidelity …
The sweat dried cold so fast I almost heard it tinkle. It wasn’t exactly a suicide note, but it’d confirm Saoirse Hamilton’s suspicions, and her prejudice to boot. Guts bubbling, I took the palette knife and dug in under the frame, sliced the canvas out. There was a moment’s relief when I rolled up the canvas, blotting out the sight of those mischievous eyes, but then the disgust roiled up in a wave, setting my guts a-chunder. I barged through the bathroom door with seconds to spare, puke spattering the toilet seat and the cistern, each successive heave yielding less and less, and there wasn’t a lot down there to begin with, just bile and black coffee. Finally I was empty and retching dry.
I knelt there with my elbows on the rim, too weak to rise, heart pounding.
Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.
That most simple and profound of symphonies, soundtrack to the seven billion or so miracles wandering the only lump of rock and water capable of hosting them for about six trillion miles in any direction.
What a waste.
I washed my face, gargled away the taste of bile, then wadded some handfuls of toilet-paper and wiped down the cistern, the spatters on its seat. Flushed the toilet and went back out into the studio, closed the window, hurrying to leave now, the big room suddenly claustrophobic and closing in, its silence so complete I could hear the crackle of static electricity as the carpet fibres crushed beneath my-
No clanking. No Tom Waits growl.
The toilet hadn’t flushed.
I went back into the bathroom, thinking I’d jammed up the toilet with the wadded papers, but no. Which meant something was interfering with the mechanism inside the cistern.
I was betting on a pair of infrared binoculars.
I lost.
The cistern was empty, unless you counted cistern-like stuff such as water and an overflow tube and the filler valve and a red plastic float. Definitely no binoculars.
Slowly, I depressed the handle, flushing again. Everything worked as it should, the red float descending, the flush valve rising.
The water didn’t stir.
I tried again. This time a single bubble rose to the surface.
I rolled up a sleeve, slipped my hand under the mechanism, finger-tipping my way around the base of the cistern. It felt pretty rough, for porcelain. Dimpled and slightly spongy.
Aeroboard, yeah. A false bottom.
Underneath, waterproofed in cling-film, a narrow padded envelope.
The chances of it being what I was looking for were slim. Who writes a suicide note and hides it away under a false bottom in a toilet cistern?
The screak was the fire-escape door opening. I stuck the package into the waist of my pants, leaving my shirt untucked to cover the damp stain, and braced myself for some of Tohill’s TLC.
But when I popped my head out of the bathroom, it was only the cop.
‘What’re you doing up here?’ she said. ‘The dog’s downstairs.’
‘Sure, yeah. But I got caught short, y’know,’ I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, ‘and the bog downstairs doesn’t work.’
‘So you came all the way up here.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
The faint flush at her cheekbones told me no, that she’d been sneaking off into the weeds behind the PA.
‘Out,’ she said.
‘I should flush first,’ I said, and ducked back into the bathroom, fitting the cistern lid back in place under cover of the clanking and growling. Then I hustled out into the studio, patting my stomach to disguise the bulge beneath my shirt. ‘Shouldn’t have had that curry last night,’ I winced. ‘It’ll be a danger to shipping, that.’
Her mouth twisted in disgust, and I slipped by her out onto the fire escape. ‘Listen,’ I said as she pulled the door to behind us, ‘I wouldn’t fancy both our chances on this.’ I gave the guardrail a hefty tug, let her see it wobble. ‘Ladies first, though.’
‘I’d say we’ll be okay together,’ she said. ‘You go on ahead.’
She was saying the right things but sounding tight about it, tense. It could’ve been the prospect of descending the fire escape, sure, and it might have been that she’d rang it in, been told to keep me close until back-up arrived.
Both, probably.
‘Fair enough,’ I said, and took off. Two steps at a time, then three.
‘Hey,’ she called, but by then I was two flights below her and moving a lot faster than she was willing to risk. She was still halfway down when I hit the ground at a sprint. I slid into the driver’s seat of the Mini-Cooper, blowing like a surfacing whale. Reversed back, slammed the Mini into first, put the boot down in a tight curve. Glanced in the rear-view.
No Ben.
I jammed on, gravel crunching. Leaned back to see if he’d lain down, was taking a nap.
Heard a horn parp.
Finn’s Audi. Ben frowning. Wondering why I was leaving in such a hurry.
A smart kid, though. I wished his teachers had been there to see him clock it all at once.
Me, barrelling out of the Mini Cooper and brandishing the Adidas hold-all, waving him across to the passenger seat. The cop red-faced as she hurried around the corner of the PA, radio clamped to her ear.