‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘Shall I send the brats on a sleepover?’
‘Why not? Either that or we can just lock ‘em in the cellar till we’re done.’
The Soave seems to have gone already, though she doesn’t remember it going down. Weak, watery stuff, made for girls, not pros. She rolls off the bed and checks the fridge. A half-bottle of chilled Beaujolais and some vodka miniatures. She checks the card, and sees that the wine is £11.25. Holy cow. She’d have picked something up at Londis when she was in there, but she’d promised herself that tonight was going to be a dry night, after the other day. Hadn’t been planning on spending the afternoon with someone she once committed a murder with, of course. She shrugs and cracks the screw-top, pours half the bottle into her toothmug. I’ll think about my drinking tomorrow. No one’s going to begrudge me a glass or two tonight.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘I was wondering…’
‘Uh-huh?’ The wine is sour and thin. She’s never liked Beaujolais. Really has to want a drink to want to drink it. Takes another gulp and screws her face up as she swallows. I know what he’d say if he was here in the room. Sometimes, this staying-away thing’s a blessing.
‘I was wondering maybe if I oughtn’t to be retraining. I don’t know how much longer I can fool myself that I’m going to get back into what I used to do. And we can’t carry on like this for ever.’
She thinks. ‘It’s a thought, I guess. No luck today then?’
‘No. Nothing.’
They’re silent for a moment, then, ‘I hate this,’ he says. ‘I hate being a useless appendage. I never thought I’d be on the scrapheap at forty-two. It wasn’t the plan.’
‘Oh, Jim. You’re not. You’re not either of those things. I wouldn’t know what to do without you. You know that, don’t you?’
She hears him sigh.
‘We’ll get through this,’ she assures him, and refills her glass. ‘It’s not for ever. There’s more to come, I promise you.’
She’s got beeps. Takes the phone away from her head and sees that it’s a withheld number. ‘I think that’s work,’ she tells him. ‘I’d better go.’
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Call me back later?’
‘I’ll try, darling. We’ll talk about this when I get home, OK?’
‘OK,’ he says, small-voiced.
‘I love you,’ she says, automatically.
‘Love you back,’ he replies automatically. They don’t even think about what they’re saying any more, when they say it.
She sends him away, picks up the line. ‘Kirsty Lindsay?’
‘What time do you go to bed?’ Stan asks.
She doesn’t even blink at the overfamiliarity; knows he’s talking about her paper’s initial print deadline. ‘First edition’s about eleven-thirty,’ she says. ‘Why?’
‘FYI,’ he says, ‘the name’s Stacey Plummer. The girl. And the cops have taken some man in for questioning.’
‘What for?’ She’s alert, back on the job, the wine draining from her brain as though someone’s pulled a plug. ‘Do you know? What did you hear?’
‘Something to do with fingerprints in the mirror maze. Ones that shouldn’t have been there. Employee at Funnland, apparently, but not to do with that bit of it.’
‘Ah, shit.’ She subsides. ‘There must be hundreds of prints in that room. It’s a public space, for God’s sake.’
‘Apparently not,’ says Stan. ‘They have someone standing on the door handing out plastic gloves. Obvious, really. I’d never thought about it; the place would be covered in handprints in minutes if they didn’t. So, no, actually. It’s got fewer prints than your average surgical suite. Just the odd wodge of snot at waist height where some kid’s slammed into a mirror. And according to my source, the cleaning supervisor’s a real dragon lady and cleans the room herself. There’s not been a smudge in there since the millennium.’
‘Your source?’
‘Security guard. Jason Murphy. Drinks in the Cross Keys.’
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Thanks.’
‘Talking of which, I’m going down there,’ he says. ‘Pub nearest Funnland. See if I can pick anything up. See you there?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she says. ‘I’m going to make a few phone calls first. Stacey Plummer?’
‘Yup. Double “m”, no “b”.’
‘Ta,’ she says. ‘I owe you.’
‘Buy me a drink.’
He hangs up. She speed-dials through to the paper, to tell them to hold off on her copy.
Chapter Twenty-four
In for questioning. What does that mean, ‘in for questioning’? Does it mean he’s under suspicion? Is it the same as ‘helping the police with their enquiries’, or is it more definite, something that follows on from that? Amber racks her brain to remember what was said of herself and Jade all those years ago and realises that, shut away in the police station at Banbury, they had had no idea of what was going on in the outside world. Behind those walls, before the crowds saw the six o’clock bulletin and began to gather – shellsuits and placards and broken house-bricks, the good people of Oxfordshire showing their solidarity with the Francis family – it had just been them and the impassive policemen and the sincere social workers and Jade’s mum bawling in the hall (her own, in transit to their Far East resort, took three days to be found and return) and Romina pacing and fiercely smoking and, later, solicitors. It had only been when her lawyer had suddenly stopped her and advised her to take care what she said that she had realised that they weren’t getting out of there, that they weren’t part of the routine; that the police had known all along that it was them, and were just waiting for their versions to crack apart.
She prowls the house like a caged animal, afraid to go outside, afraid to show her face in case the news has got round the estate. Which it will have. They couldn’t have been more public about how they went about it if they’d tried. And of course they probably were trying, she thinks. Five women are dead, and all they seem to have done is hold press conferences. It’s no good just doing something; they need to be seen to be doing something. The frisson of murder always turns to outrage against the police if they are too slow to point the finger.
What does it mean, in for questioning? Do they know something I don’t know? About Vic? Have I been blind?
Mary-Kate and Ashley trot up and down at her heels, shadowing her as she walks. He’s been gone sixteen hours now. Sixteen hours. That’s not a cup of tea and a quick chat, is it? Christ, what I would do for a cigarette. Five years without them, and the longing is just as ferocious. She wonders if Jackie has left any behind and finds herself turning over the kitchen drawer in search of a pack, though she knows he would long since have found and disposed of it if she had. Damn it, Vic. Day after day I’ve gone without sleep. What have you done to me?
He hasn’t done anything. Amber, what are you like? There are a million reasons why his prints would be in there. He works there just like you do, for God’s sake. He could have come in looking for you. He could have gone in to get out of the rain. They could have been there for years: maybe you’re not as thorough a cleaner as you think you are.
It can’t be him. Not Vic. Something like this can’t happen more than once in a lifetime, can it? Not unless you’re doing something to make it happen.
But she knows it can. A murderer has precisely the same chance of winning the lottery as any other ticket holder. Is just as likely to be struck by lightning, or be gunned down by terrorists, or succumb to swine flu. Defying the odds does not, in itself, confer protection against it happening again. And she’s watched enough Jeremy Kyle and Trisha to know all about self-esteem, to know that people without it invite trouble into their lives without even realising they’re doing so. No, she thinks. No, that’s not me. It can’t be. There’s another explanation. There has to be.