I see that I have lost Gibbs somewhere along the way. Keep it simple. "Tims no more a killer than Lauren is," I say.

"Have you ever met Jason Cookson?"

"No. Youre right. I know nothing about him. If I could take back what I said about him, I would."

"Its always easier to believe that the people we dont know and dont care about are the evil ones," says Gibbs.

"I dont care about Lauren," I say indignantly. "Saying she cant be a killer is hardly a declaration of undying love."

"'Undying love. Thats an interesting phrase." Gibbs leans back in his chair. "What made you think of it?"

"My ambition to find new and inventive ways of being sarcastic," I say flatly.

"Tell me about your relationship with Tim, aside from him being your accountant."

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) Tears flood my eyes, spill over. "I cant," I whisper.

"You said Lauren seemed frightened of you at Dsseldorf Airport, when you first spoke to her."

Did he mean to help me out with that swift change of subject? Im grateful for it either way. "Yes. I gave her a fairly ruthless pep talk at the boarding gate. She was yelling at the airport staff, yelling at other pa.s.sengers, at anyone who told her something she didnt want to hear. Except me. Soon as I weighed in, the fight went out of her. It was instant. She just stood there and looked at me as if she couldnt believe I was talking to her. I dont know if it was surprise or horror or what, but direct contact with me was a problem for her. It makes sense now, but it didnt at the time. Then later, when I b.u.mped into her in a corridor, after . . ." I break off.

"After what?"

He doesnt need to know about the pregnancy test. "After wed been told to go to Departures and wait for the coach," I say. "She ran away from me as if I was chasing her, which I then did."

Gibbs frowns and looks at his notes again. "She ran away, but then a few minutes later she threw herself into your arms, told you shed helped to frame a man for murder, and ordered you to look after her all the way back to Combingham."

"Yes. It makes no sense."

"I wouldnt say that." Gibbs stands, walks over to the window. He b.a.l.l.s his hands into fists and presses them against the gla.s.s as if hes getting into position for smashing it. "It makes sense if her feelings about you are mixed. She wants to get near you, or else whys she there?"

He must be right. But why? Why shadow me all the way to Dsseldorf and back? How did she know about me? Did she hear Tim mention my name?

"Shes on that flight because of you, and frightened in case you find out her reason for being in Germany, which is that youre in Germany. Last thing she wants is a confrontation."

"Then what does she want?"

"Lets stick to questions we can answer," says Gibbs. "Was she on your morning flight as well?"

"That was the impression I got. She had no suitcase with her, so she hadnt been away overnight, and she mentioned having seen me in the morning. Theres only one Combingham-to-Dsseldorf flight on a weekday morning-the one I was on, the seven a.m."

"Can you think, off the top of your head, how she might have known you were planning to go to Germany yesterday, and your flight times?"

"I have a blog," I say, embarra.s.sed. Thats right: I cant communicate with the man I live with, so I compensate by oversharing on the Internet. "Its mainly about sciencey, techy stuff, but it has my schedule on it." So that Tim can keep track of what Im doing. So that one day, if he ever wants to, he can be waiting for me at the airport when my plane lands. "And for light relief, and because its become a thing now and my regular readers like it, it also has a lot of me exaggeratedly moaning about having to get up early in the morning to fly to various places. Including Dsseldorf."

"Name?"

"You know my . . . oh, right, the blog. Gaby Struthers dot com forward slash blog."

"What line of work are you in?" Gibbs asks.

I hate answering that question unless I can do it properly. Its difficult to summarize, and Im too pa.s.sionate about my work to skirt over any of the details. "At the moment Im part of a company called Rawndesley Technological Generics. Were working with a German company on a new product. Hence yesterdays trip."

"New product as in something youve invented?"

"Something were trying to invent."

Gibbs walks back to the table and sits down. "What?" he asks.

"Is it relevant?"

He shrugs. "Im interested in people who invent things. Ive never had the urge myself. Everything I want exists already." Something flickers across his face: a problematic or unhappy thought. His strained smile immediately afterward convinces me that I didnt imagine it. "Ive always reckoned people who invent things are trying to make life too complicated, but thats probably just me."

"Lucky the person who dreamed up the wheel didnt agree with you," I say.

"Thats different. Im not saying nothing ever needed to be invented. It was different in the old days, before we had everything we needed."

Is he being serious? "So you wouldnt bother to invent intelligent string, then?" As if youd have a hope in h.e.l.l of succeeding.

"Whats that?" Gibbs asks.

"What it sounds like. Imagine being able to wrap one piece of string around a box, say, and have the string measure the dimensions of the box."

"Is that what your company makes? Intelligent string?"

"Were trying. Were not quite there yet." We need another twenty million pounds worth of investment. Fancy chipping in?

Gibbs looks annoyed. "Ive seen string," he says. "How dyou make it intelligent? Its just string."

Im too tired to explain that what my colleagues and I are struggling to create is not the kind of string hes picturing, that you buy in a ball from the hardware shop. If I did, hed probably ask me why I call it string when it isnt. "I need to sleep," I say. "Can I . . . How soon can I talk to Tim?"

"Thats for HMP Combingham to decide," says Gibbs. "Thats where hes remanded."

The word makes my heart thud like a dropped lead ball.

Tim. In jail. Because Francines dead. If I could get in, I would: live there with him forever if I had to.

Where are these thoughts coming from? Who is the person having them, this doormat who would sacrifice everything shes worked for to live in prison with a man who rejected her? I dont recognize myself as me anymore.

Gibbs hands me a hanky from his trouser pocket. "What are you thinking about thats made you start crying?" he asks.

I dont need to tell him about the red whirlwind, which isnt really red, or made of wind. Hes not my shrink, or my friend. Im thinking that I was doing so well. Id done an expert job of flattening everything down, sweeping it out of the way. And now its ruined. Lauren Cookson ruined it, and I hate her. I hate her for making me feel like this again, when I thought Id beaten it.

I am not, in fact, thinking at all. Things are crashing through me: that would be a more accurate way to describe it. "Whats the nearest hotel to the prison?" I ask, standing up. I suddenly cant bear to be in this cramped room for another second.

"Arent you going home?" Gibbs jolts to his feet. Is he about to grab me and force me down into my seat?

"Yes. Right." I dab at my eyes with the hanky. "I have to go home first."

I have to go home so that I can tell Sean Im leaving.

8.

11/3/2011.

"Theres no need to visit me as often as you do," Tim Breary said to Simon.

"From your point of view."

"I wouldnt presume to speak from yours." Breary smiled. He and Simon were in the room at HMP Combingham known unofficially as "the parlor." It was s.p.a.cious, newly decorated, comfortably furnished, and only ever used by top-ranking prison staff for important meetings-apart from now. Simon had asked for it for this interview, and been surprised to get it. He was hoping that a change from the usual gray dingy backdrop to his standoffs with Tim Breary would make all the difference.

Breary seemed not to have noticed the new setting. "Im not bored or lonely in here, and I wont be, however long I stay," he said. "Ive made a couple of friends and Im reading a lot, even for me. Dan and Kerry have very kindly donated more books to the library than the poor orderly in charge knows what to do with." If Breary was trying for a neutral expression, he was failing. He looked pleased with himself. "A handful of recidivist offenders have been introduced to the early works of Glyn Maxwell that otherwise might not have been," he said.

Simon a.s.sumed Glyn Maxwell was a poet. Everyone Breary mentioned who wasnt his dead wife or Dan or Kerry Jose was a poet.

"'Dont forget," Breary said in his quoting voice, which was both louder and gentler in tone than the voice he used to admit to killing Francine. "'Nothing will start that hasnt started yet. / Dont forget / It, its friend, its foe and its opposite."

"Ill bear it in mind." Simon was determined not to become impatient. Suspects often talked nonsense as a way of warding off questions they didnt want to answer, but Breary didnt have the standard bad att.i.tude. His manner toward Simon was almost . . . "caring" had to be the wrong word, but it was close to that. Simon was becoming increasingly convinced that Brearys aim was not to obstruct but to entertain and communicate-to make a connection of some kind. And his nonsense wasnt nonsense, though it risked sounding as if it was. Simon found he wanted to dismantle each interview once it was over, a.n.a.lyze it line by line. Was Brearys cryptic approach a way of denying or disguising the need to connect?

Dont forget / It, its friend, its foe and its opposite.

Everything about the man sitting opposite him puzzled Simon and had from the start. Breary was a comfortable actor, reveling in the ongoing performance that was his everyday behavior, yet he seemed entirely genuine at the same time. How was that possible? His articulate charm wasnt smarmy in the way that it easily might have been. There was something restful about being in a room with him. Even when he was determinedly withholding information, there was still the sense that, in his presence, what you were hoping for might happen. Totally false, based on nothing. Simon could well believe that Breary had persuaded some of the more easily led s.c.r.o.t.es that they were as interested in the early poems of Glyn Maxwell as they were in where their next heroin fix was coming from.

Today, Brearys projected bonhomie was more palpable than usual. He seemed less guarded than when Simon had spoken to him previously. Was it the room, with its chairs arranged in a friendly semicircle? Simon was glad hed requested it. He wanted Breary relaxed and expansive, imagining hed got away with pretending to be a murderer.

Simon was certain he was nothing of the sort, and he was prepared to sit here all day-all night too, if he had to-in order to hear Breary admit as much. Hed switched off his phone, and relished the idea that Sam Kombothekra would by now have contacted Charlie to ask why Simon hadnt turned up for work and discovered that, as far as Simon was concerned, Sams perfidy had released him from his contractual obligations to Culver Valley Police for as long as he wanted that release to last. Proust wouldnt see it that way, but Simon had another trump card lined up for that round of the game.

"Ive been doing a bit of writing myself," Breary said. Then he smiled. "Dont worry, I make sure to tear up all my creations once theyre finished. That would really be inflicting violence on the world, if I were to unleash my mediocre words."

When Simon didnt answer, Breary looked at the empty armchairs that dotted the s.p.a.ce between them, as if he might get a reaction from them instead. Three empty green chairs. Francine Breary, Dan Jose, Kerry Jose. The other players, the absent ones. Simon wondered about the peripherals, Lauren and Jason Cookson. They lived with the Joses, had both been in the house when Francine was killed. No empty chairs for them.

All five-Breary, the Joses and the Cooksons-had separately said, when asked, that it was unusual for the five of them and Francine all to be at home at the same time. Tim Breary, by his own account, had chosen a moment when the house was at its fullest to murder his wife, except his story was that he hadnt chosen, hadnt thought about it at all; hed found himself doing it, without warning or antic.i.p.ation, for no reason he was aware of.

"What have we done to deserve so much extra visiting time?" he asked Simon. "Is it you or me thats getting special treatment? Ah, thats your shy face. That means it must be you. Are you going to let me in on your secret?"

"If you let me in on yours," Simon deflected. He hated the idea that he had a "shy face," and that Breary recognized it. He was embarra.s.sed by the preferential treatment he received from HMP Combingham, and a couple of other prisons too. When Charlie teased him about what she insisted on calling his celebrity status, he usually left the room. It didnt stop her. Next time she tried it, Simon would tell her Tim Breary had never heard of him, so his reputation couldnt be as powerful as she liked to pretend it was.

"Why did you kill your wife?"

"Ive already told you: I dont know. I wish I did. Id like to be able to help you, but I cant."

Prison wasnt normally good for anybody, but Breary looked no more undernourished or sunken-eyed in here than he had as a free man. Odd. Usually, the s.k.a.n.ky estate lowlifes held up better; it was less of a change for them. Upper-middle-cla.s.s professionals tended to deteriorate rapidly, mentally and physically.

Not Tim Breary. His eyes glowed with what Simon wanted to call antic.i.p.ation, though he wasnt sure he could justify the choice of word; it was no more than a half-formed impression. Brearys skin too looked particularly buffed today, as if whatever gave skin its nourishment had spruced it up from within. It was frustrating not to be able to reach inside the mans head and uncover the cause of his well-being, drag it out into the light.

"Are you pleased Francines dead?"

"A new question. Excellent." Breary seemed to be giving the matter some thought. "No," he said eventually. "No, Im not pleased."

"You seem it."

"I know," Breary agreed. His smile faded, as if the discrepancy bothered him as much as it did Simon. "Maybe . . . maybe one day I will be, but at the moment Id rather . . ." His words trailed off.

"Rather someone hadnt killed her?"

"Id rather I hadnt killed her. Death should happen naturally. And I say that as someone who once cut his wrists and ankles open."

This was news to Simon. He made sure to show no shock. "And as someone who, more recently, murdered his wife?"

"Yes. I didnt think that worth adding because you know about it already." The first hint of irritation from Breary. "Theres no point trying to catch me out. You wont succeed."

"You say death should happen naturally, yet you took a pillow, put it over your wifes face and smothered her."

"No mystery there. I acted in a way that was out of kilter with my beliefs, as Ive been doing for most of my life. Ive always thought it polite: a way of showing courtesy toward the dearly held principles of others, if I deny my own. The spirit of family-hold-back, rolled out across the plain of ethics, if you like."

Simon didnt. Was Breary crazy? No, that was too easy. "Why did you cut your wrists and ankles open?"

Breary frowned. "Do we need to concern ourselves with that?" He said it as if it was Simon rather than himself who he was tactfully trying to spare.

"Id like to know."

"I did it and shouldnt have done it for the same reason: the world is better off if I have no influence on anything or anybody in it. Thats the dilemma of those of us who know we dont matter. Are we more influential if we commit an act of violence to remove ourselves once and for all, or if we do our best to fade into the background?"

Simon tried to picture the foreground capable of making Breary fade. He failed. There werent many people whose conversation was so unpredictable, or so dramatic.

"'You send an image hurrying out of doors / When you depose a king and seize his throne," Breary said, proving Simons point. "'You exile symbols when you take by force."

"Whats that?"

Breary held up a finger to indicate that he hadnt finished. "'And even if you say the powers your own, / That you are your own hero, your own king, / You will not wear the meaning of the crown."

"Did you write that?"

"I dont have that kind of talent. A poet called Elizabeth Jennings wrote it."

"What does it mean? Not about kings," Simon clarified. "About you. What made you think of it, in connection with cutting your wrists?" The suicide attempt was something new and solid, he told himself: consolation for the stalemate on Francines murder. He made a mental note to ask Dan and Kerry Jose about it.

"It means what I said before," said Breary. "Let nature take its course. Take no lives-your own or anyone elses. Dont force the world to do your bidding, dont unseat a monarch and try to take his place. 'You will not wear the meaning of the crown."

"Like you arent wearing the meaning of HMP Combingham?" said Simon. "Youve deposed a murderer and seized his throne. Or hers. Was that what you meant? That you might get a life sentence, but itll be easy for you to serve the time, knowing that its meaning-the punishment aspect-doesnt apply to you?"