Shaking with fury, Rowan spun around. ‘I said no. No. What about that do you not understand? What the fuck is wrong with you?’
Afterwards, in the relative sanctuary of the café in the vaults of St Mary’s Church, Rowan was angry with herself. Why had she lost control? Why had she let herself? The very last thing she needed now was a journalist who thought she had something to hide. Since seeing her with Adam yesterday, the woman had clearly gone back and looked at all the paparazzo’s pictures from the funeral, not just the ones that had made it into the paper. She’d seen the one he’d snapped from his car window. What if she talked to him, found out that Rowan had tried to buy the pictures, stop them being published?
But in the scheme of things now, that was a minor problem.
A murder inquiry. Too high on the head; not naturally occurring along the riverbank; it looks like the blood ran down – the phrases landed on her again like blows, every one of them evidence of how badly she’d messed things up, how vulnerable she’d left herself.
Was there any way it could be all right now? The pieces were gathered: between them – Adam and the police – they had them all. Rowan imagined them as a reflection on water, like the leaves and the sky on the river the day she had gone to the houseboat alone, a swimming, shimmering, fragmented image. All it needed was for the light to catch it a certain way.
And if they had everything, she had nothing left. Just like in those final days with Cory, she’d used her resources.
The newspaper she’d bought was open on the table but she couldn’t read. She’d chosen the café because it was close to the library – it was plausible she’d take a break here – but after the waitress cleared away two cups of cold coffee almost untouched, she started to feel conspicuous. She put her coat back on, stuffed the paper into her bag and left.
As she climbed the stairs out of the vaults to street level, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket again and again. Outside in Radcliffe Square, she looked at it: six missed calls, all from Adam’s mobile.
Light-headed, hot then cold, she rounded the corner into Brasenose Lane and leaned against the railings while she waited for a wave of nausea to pass. Before her heartbeat had regulated itself again, the phone buzzed in her hand. Adam. She took a deep breath and answered.
‘Where are you?’ he said. ‘I’ve been calling and calling; your phone went straight to voicemail.’
‘I’m in Radcliffe Square – I’ve just come outside.’
‘What college are you at?’ he said.
‘Sorry?’ Momentarily, she was confused: here was her college, Brasenose. It was directly behind her.
‘I said, what college are you at, in London?’
Rowan felt her gorge rise, cold sweep across her body, and she swallowed down hard. ‘Why?’ she said.
‘Grange rang to ask.’
The afternoon passed in a blur, a series of images and locations that left only the shallowest impressions. Her old haunts: Blackwell’s, Waterstones, Queen’s Lane Coffee House for a bowl of soup she barely touched. Just before four, cold and exhausted, she went to the Odeon on George Street, bought a ticket for the next film starting and hid in the dark.
Should she run, she asked again; get in the car? But if she disappeared now, the police would alert the ports, have her stopped at the border. And she couldn’t even try without going back to the house – her passport was there, up on the top shelf of the wardrobe with her mother’s pearls; she’d left them there when she’d moved the box.
And yet perhaps, still, she was jumping the gun. Grange’s question might not mean anything more than that he was compiling facts. Due diligence. And the police hadn’t called her today. In fact, since Adam’s calls, her phone hadn’t rung once.
The film played out in front of her, animated wallpaper, while she went back and forth, desperate and hopeful, terrified and resolute. At half-past six, however, the credits ended and the lights came up. She made up her mind: one last try.
Forty
Even a week ago, she wouldn’t have believed that going back to Fyfield Road – to Adam – could fill her with such dread. As soon as she saw the house, however, the feeling intensified. She knew he was there, he’d told her he would be, and yet the house was dark. If he’d had to leave for any reason, she thought, he would have texted – Gone to buy wine. Back in ten – but when she checked her phone, there was no message.
The moon slipped between a gap in the clouds, sending a momentary gleam across the house’s blind eyes. It was still early, not even seven, but with the emptiness of the street, the absence of any human-made sound, it felt like the small hours. The only movement came from the wind that shivered the leaves on the evergreens, rattled the thin branches of the willow that bowed its head on the drive.