‘Oh, Davy!’ She stared at me, biting her lip and putting up a hand to brush my hair from my forehead. I forced myself not to flinch. ‘I’ve been worrying about you.’

‘No need. See? Instead of going to work this morning, like I should have done, I went shopping. Take a look.’ I handed her the box.

Her eyes widened. ‘Lolita’s?’ she said. ‘You’ve bought me something from there? Why, it must have cost you a fortune.’

‘You’re worth it,’ I said.

She lifted the lid, gave a little gasp, and drew out a lacy black négligée. Definitely not her style.

‘Why, it’s -’

‘Do you like it? Hang on. You don’t want to know the price!’ I leaned forward, snatched the receipt out of the box and crumpled it in my hand. I was definitely slipping. She could have looked at it and seen it wasn’t bought today, after all.

‘Like it? Nobody’s ever given me anything like this before.’

‘I should hope not. You’re my girl.’

She threw her arms round me once more, but I disengaged myself. ‘I should go,’ I said. ‘I’ll be in trouble at work as it is.’

‘You mean, you’ve just come to give me this and now you’re going all the way back?’

‘I wanted to see you,’ I said. ‘Shall we meet later?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said exultantly. ‘Yes. Thank you, Davy. I’m bowled over, honestly. I can’t believe it. And just when I was thinking you’d gone off me.’

I left the gallery. One more thing. I passed several shops, then entered a pâtisserie I had noticed earlier. There were fruit cakes, birthday cakes, cakes with teddy bears and cartoon characters. All the sugar and bright colours made me feel nauseous. I chose a chocolate cake, heavy and rich and thick with shavings of chocolate on top; chocolate with added chocolate. Just the thing for a celebration.

Chapter Forty

When I arrived home, Miles was there, which was definitive proof that there was a God. Or definitive proof that there wasn’t a God. One of the two. He was sitting in the kitchen writing urgently on a scrap of paper. He looked up absently. ‘Hi, Davy,’ he said.

‘I thought you and Leah were at work,’ I said.

‘I changed my mind. And she had to fetch something from her place,’ he said. ‘I think she was going to her office after that, though.’

Even better. He knew she was going home and nobody else did. The cardboard box containing the cake was fastened with golden ribbon that curled at the end. The knot was too tight to unravel, so I cut it with kitchen scissors. I placed the cake on a plate. Miles pulled a face. ‘What the hell’s that?’

‘I saw it in a shop window,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t resist it. People might like it with their coffee. You want some coffee?’

‘If you’re making it.’

I filled the kettle and switched it on. I had brought the knife with me and now I unwrapped it, then placed it next to the cake. I saw it was still marked with Leah’s blood. I tore off two sheets of kitchen roll. With one I held the handle and with the other I wiped it so that most of the dark stain was removed, but not all. I took the packet of ground coffee from the fridge and spooned it into the cafetière. When the coffee was made, I took two mugs to the table and sat opposite Miles. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘There’s all sorts of stuff to sort out with the house,’ he said. He gulped at the coffee. ‘Thanks.’

‘Where’s Mick?’ I asked.

‘I haven’t seen him,’ said Miles.

‘There doesn’t seem to be anybody around,’ I said.

I needed to know if Miles had seen anybody who could give him a solid alibi. ‘I think I heard Dario upstairs,’ he said. ‘Everybody else is out.’

He carried on writing, columns of figures, then he sighed and drew a line through them.

‘I’m sorry if I’m interrupting you,’ I said.

‘No, it’s not that,’ he said. ‘It’s the money. Maybe you can sort it out between yourselves.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be getting much,’ I said.

Miles gave an unhappy shrug. He got up and walked round the kitchen. ‘It wasn’t meant to happen this way,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know how to stop it. Everything I do seems to make it worse.’

‘Have a slice of cake,’ I said. ‘That’ll make you feel better.’

He managed a sort of laugh. ‘It’s a bit early for me,’ he said.

‘That’s not very grateful of you,’ I said.

‘Later, maybe,’ he said distractedly. ‘I mean, you know that Astrid and I have a history. And Leah’s not exactly a diplomat.’

‘While you’re over there could you cut me a slice?’ I said, breaking his flow.

‘What?’

‘Cake.’

Miles looked confused. ‘Oh, all right.’ He picked up the knife and cut me a slice, then one for himself. ‘You’ve tempted me.’ He took a bite and pulled a face. ‘Bloody hell, that’s rich.’

‘Good, though,’ I said.

A few minutes later Miles left the kitchen and I heard the front door slam. I wiped the chocolate cake from the blade of the knife and put it back in the plastic bag. There was no sign of Dario or Mick. Miles’s room was a mess. Leah had been moving in while everybody else was moving out. There were piles of her clothing on the floor, makeup and little glass and plastic bottles on every surface. I pulled some drawers open in Miles’s desk. The bottom one contained old photographs and postcards, a tennis trophy from his schooldays, a couple of old electric plugs. In the end, I pushed the carrier-bag containing the knife between the two mattresses, which is where people hide things in films and where they always get found.

After I left Miles’s room I phoned Melanie at work. I told her I loved her, that I wanted to see her and that she should come straight over here after work. I wanted to see her and talk to her about things. She was so happy and excited that she was almost laughing and crying at the same time. I could hear sounds coming from Dario’s room but I didn’t want to talk to anybody at that moment so I went upstairs and lay on my bed. For a few hours I had felt completely focused. Now I felt the way I did when I came back from the dentist and the anaesthetic was wearing off. For hours there had been a numbness but now there was a prickly feeling in my head as the real world forced its way in.

By now Astrid would know. The police would know. If I’d done something really, really, obviously stupid, if I’d dropped something, left something of myself, it was too late to do anything and soon there’d be a knock on the door. Now the police were investigating three murders and it was going to be a huge deal. My head hurt. There was what had happened and there was what I had made it look like. I had to keep them separate. Now experts would be picking over every detail, every thread. I had only one advantage. They would be looking for something clever, something logical, or perhaps something insane that linked them. But I wasn’t clever and I wasn’t logical and I wasn’t insane. They were just linked by bad luck. Had I blunderingly created a trail that was impossible to follow? Except for Astrid. It always came back to her.

I felt so tired. I just wanted to go back in time to before I’d done all this. But I couldn’t go back in time, so I would need to draw a line under it, get away and start again. Start again. Again. In the meantime, I would have to live through the pantomime once more. How would it happen? Who would find out first? I imagined that Astrid would get her one phone call and would ring up the house. Mick or Dario would answer and they would spread it with that excitement, that sparkle in the eyes, that jolt of electricity people have when they’ve got really bad news to tell you. Suddenly I realized I had to get out of the house. I couldn’t be here when the first news arrived, when people were huddling around, snatching at fragments, speculating about what exactly might have happened.

I ran down the stairs, nodding at Dario on the way. He asked me if I could give him a hand. I shook my head. I told him somebody had rung me. I had urgent work to attend to.