“How would you know about that?” The question came out precipitately. Kerra regretted it the moment she spoke.

“About what?” Alan looked confused. He’d been speaking meditatively, and her question appeared to have disrupted his chain of thought.

“About the pieces my mother is in?”

“As I said, I heard her. I’d gone up because no one was about and we’re at the point when we have to decide whether we’re still taking bookings or throwing the whole thing into the rubbish.”

“Concerned about that, are you?”

“Shouldn’t we all be?” He leaned back in his chair. He looked at her squarely. He folded his hands over his stomach, and he spoke again. “Why don’t you tell me, Kerra?”

“What?”

“I think you know.”

“And I think that’s a trap.”

“You were at Pink Cottage. You went through my room.”

“You’ve got a good landlady.”

“What else would you expect?”

“So I suppose you’re asking me what I was looking for?”

“You told her you left something; I assume you left something. But I can’t work out why you didn’t ask me to fetch it here for you.”

“I didn’t want you to bother.”

“Kerra.” Huge breath drawn in, huge breath expelled. He slapped his hands onto his knees. “What in God’s name is going on?”

“Excuse me?” She managed arch again. “My brother’s been murdered. Does something else need to be ‘going on’ for things not to be quite as you’d like them?”

“You know what I mean. There’s what happened to Santo and God knows that’s a nightmare. And a gut-ripping tragedy.”

“Nice of you to add that last bit.”

“But there’s also what’s happened between you and me and that-whether you want to admit it or not-began the same day as what happened to Santo.”

“Murder happened to Santo,” Kerra said. “Why can’t you say that, Alan? Why can’t you say murder?”

“For the obvious reason. I don’t want you to feel worse than you already feel. I don’t want anyone to feel worse than they already feel.”

“Anyone?”

“Everyone. You. Your dad. Your mum. Kerra-”

She got to her feet. The postcard was singeing her skin. It begged to be withdrawn from her pocket and flung at him. This is it demanded an explanation. But the explanation already existed. Only the confrontation remained.

Kerra knew who needed to be on the other side of that confrontation, and it wasn’t Alan. She pardoned herself and she left her office. She used the stairs rather than the lift.

She entered her parents’ room without knocking, the postcard in her hand. At some point in the day the curtains had been opened, so dust motes swam in an oblong of weak spring sunlight. But no one had thought to open the window to refresh the rank air. It smelled of perspiration and sex.

Kerra hated the smell, for what it stated about her parents and the stranglehold one had upon the other. She walked across the room and shoved the window open as wide as she could get it to go. Cold air swept in.

When she turned, she saw that her parents’ bed was lumpy and the sheets were stained. A pile of her father’s clothes lay on the floor, as if his body had dissolved and left this trace of him behind. Dellen herself was not immediately evident, until Kerra walked round the bed and found her lying on the floor, atop a considerable pile of her own clothing. Red, this was, and it seemed to be every article of crimson that she possessed.

For only an instant as she gazed down upon her, Kerra felt renewed: a bulb’s single flower finally being released from both the soil and the stalk. But then her mother’s lips worked and her tongue appeared between them, French kissing the air. Her hand opened and closed. Her hips moved then rested. Her eyelids twitched. She sighed.

Seeing this, Kerra wondered for the first time what it was actually like to be this woman. But she didn’t want to entertain that thought, so she used her foot to flip her mother’s right leg roughly off her left leg. “Wake up,” she told her. “It’s time to talk.” She gazed at the postcard’s picture to gain the strength she needed. This is it her mother’s red writing said. Yes, Kerra thought. This was definitely it. “Wake up,” she said again, more loudly. “Get up from the floor.”

Dellen opened her eyes. For a moment she looked confused, until she saw Kerra. And then she pulled to her the garments nearest her right hand. She clutched these to her breasts and, in doing so, she uncovered a pair of shears and a carving knife. Kerra looked from these to her mother to the clothes. She saw that every item on the floor had been rendered useless through slashing, slicing, hacking, and cutting.

“I should have used them on myself,” Dellen said dully. “But I couldn’t. Still, wouldn’t you have been happy had I done it? You and your father? Happy? Oh God, I want to die. Why won’t anyone help me die?” She began to weep tearlessly and as she did so, she drew more and more of the clothing to her until she’d formed an enormous pillow of ruined clothes.

Kerra knew what she was meant to feel: guilt. She also knew what she was meant to do: forgive. Forgive and forgive until you were the incarnation of forgiveness. Understand until there was nothing left of you except that effort to understand.

“Help me.” Dellen extended her hand. Then she dropped it to the floor. The gesture was useless, virtually noiseless.

Kerra shoved the damning postcard back into her pocket. She grabbed her mother’s arm and hauled her upwards. She said, “Get up. You need to bathe.”

“I can’t,” Dellen said. “I’m sinking. I’ll be gone soon enough and long before I can…” And then a wily shift, perhaps reading from Kerra’s face a brittleness of which she needed to be wary. She said, “He threw out my pills. He had me this morning. Kerra, he…he as much as raped me. And then he…And then he…Then he threw out my pills.”

Kerra shut her eyes tight. She didn’t want to think about her parents’ marriage. She merely wanted to force the truth from her mother, but she needed to direct the course of that truth. “Up,” she said. “Come on. Come on. You’ve got to get up.”

“Why will no one listen to me? I can’t go on like this. Inside my mind is a pit so deep…Why won’t anyone help me? You? Your father? I want to die.”

Her mother was like a sack of sand and Kerra heaved her onto the bed. There Dellen lay. “I’ve lost my child.” Her voice was broken. “Why does no one begin to understand?”

“Everyone understands.” Kerra felt reduced inside, as if something were simultaneously squeezing her down and burning her up. Soon there would be nothing of her left. Only speaking would save her. “Everyone knows you’ve lost a child, because everyone else has lost Santo, too.”

“But his mother…only his mother, Kerra-”

“Please.” Something snapped within Kerra. She reached for Dellen and pulled her upright, forcing her to sit on the edge of the bed. “Stop the drama,” she said.

“Drama?” As so often had happened in the past, Dellen’s mood shifted, like an unanticipated seismic event. “You can call this drama?” she demanded. “Is that how you react to your own brother’s murder? What’s the matter with you? Have you no feelings? My God, Kerra. Whose daughter are you?”

“Yes,” Kerra said. “I expect you’ve asked yourself that question a number of times, haven’t you. Counting back the weeks and the months and wondering…Who does she look like? Who does she belong to? Who can I say fathered her and-this would be critical, wouldn’t it, Dellen?-will he believe me? Oh, p’rhaps if I look pathetic enough. Or pleased enough. Or happy enough. Or whatever it is that you look when you know you’ve got to explain some mess you’ve made.”

Dellen’s eyes had grown dark. She’d shrunk away from Kerra. She said, “How can you possibly say…?” and her hands rose to cover her face in a gesture that Kerra assumed was meant to be read as horror.