Letters To My Daughter's Killer - [6]

‘What? When?’

‘Wednesday night. There’d been a break-in at number eight on Tuesday.’ Two doors down. ‘Lizzie saw someone in our back garden.’

‘Was it Litton?’

‘She said not, not tall enough, more like a kid, she thought, though she didn’t see his face,’ Jack says. ‘The police came round on the Thursday morning – I told them then.’

‘Have they caught him?’

‘We never heard anything.’

I rub my forehead. Could it be this prowler and not Litton?

‘They always look at the husband, don’t they?’ he says.

My stomach turns over. ‘They have to. They can’t possibly think…’ Shock stings around my wrists.

‘No,’ he says, ‘they know I wasn’t there. But having to go over it and over it. I tried to wake her…’ He puts the mug on the floor, covers his face, shoulders shaking.

I go to him, sit on the arm of the sofa and hug him tight.

Light steals into the room, hurting my eyes.

Kay comes back; she hasn’t slept either. Is she used to it – all-nighters for work?

‘Did they say how she died?’ I ask Jack. I know there was blood. Too much blood.

‘They said the post-mortem would confirm it.’ Jack’s mouth trembles as he speaks. ‘Blunt trauma?’ He looks at Kay, as if checking he’s said it correctly.

‘Blunt force trauma,’ she says. ‘That’s what we think at the moment.’

‘With what?’ I can’t imagine.

Did you bring a weapon with you? A baseball bat or a cosh of some sort? Then it occurs to me that perhaps you used your fists. That feels worse. Was it the first time you’d killed someone? And why pick Lizzie? What did you come to the house for? Money? To steal? To rape? How did you get in?

I go outside for air, out the back. The garden glitters with dew, spiderwebs and lines hang on the shrubs around the border. The air is damp and cool and my windpipe hurts as I draw some in. A pair of coal tits are on the peanut feeder in the magnolia tree. The sky is blue, blushing pink in the east. That slice of moon still visible. Milky stalks out and sits under the tree. The tits ignore him. How can it all be here, just so? It all feels too bright and clear, too high-definition, as though I’ve wandered on to a film set.

On the roof of the terraced row at the back, three magpies bounce and chatter. A crow joins them, edging along to the chimney, then another. And two more. A murder of crows. The phrase springs unbidden, a booby trap, like some ghastly practical joke my mind plays on me.

I’m aware of commotion from inside. Then Tony is here, coming out of the patio door, and Denise behind him. Tony is shaking his head as he reaches me; he embraces me, a hard, swift pressure before he steps back. And it’s all I can bear. Resisting the sense memory of a thousand other hugs, his height, his bulk a comfort. Before I know it I’m hugging Denise, who’s not laughing now. We’ve never touched before, not even a handshake.

We’re a similar height, Denise and I. Both with that padding that comes with middle age. Even if my arms and legs retain their original shape, my belly sticks out and my bum seems to have doubled in size. Denise is chunkier than me, fatter in the face too. She smells of perfume, roses and gardenia, and a trace of tobacco smoke.

As I pull back, we share a look, acknowledging a new settlement. I nod my thanks. I’ve never seen her without make-up on. It’s just one in a whole stream of firsts in the wake of what has happened.

We go inside. Tony can’t sit still. Like me he prowls and patrols, pausing to sweep both hands over his head and clutch at his hair. It’s a gesture that makes me think of screaming. Of that Munch painting.

Once I’ve told Tony and Denise everything I can, which is precious little, he fires one question after another at Kay. What are you doing to catch who did this? How did he get in? Did the neighbours see anything? Was it a burglary? Can’t they use dogs or something? Have you found Broderick Litton? What about this prowler? He looks older, wrinkled face, pot belly. His hair is thick and wavy still, although there’s lots of grey and white among the original bronze colour.

Kay’s answers are honest, considered, all disappointing.

He shakes his head, scowling, his mouth tight. He is angry and he is impotent.

Denise doesn’t say much, but periodically she goes and touches him, clutches his hand, puts her palm on his chest. Calming him.

I look away.

Florence wakes and sits on Jack’s lap. She’s subdued, she must be bewildered; my house isn’t that big, and it’s full of people, including Kay, who she’s never met before.

‘Kay?’ I take her into the kitchen. ‘What do we tell Florence?’

‘Jack says she didn’t see anything?’ Kay checks.

‘That’s right; well,’ I amend, ‘as far as he knows.’ He was out at the gym so it’s possible Florence could have seen or heard something. There must have been some noise. Things were broken, weren’t they? Why do I think that? My impression of their living room is so sketchy, like a painting where the central subject is clear but everything beyond it is smudged and out of focus.

‘She needs to know,’ Kay says, ‘the simple facts. She might not understand.’