Bloodline

With two and a bit bottles accounted for between them, Chamberlain said, ‘I told you how grateful I was for this, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, and you didn’t have to.’

‘I meant it, and you know it’s not just about the money.’

‘A chance to stay in a hotel, whatever… I know.’

‘I needed the break, Tom,’ Chamberlain said. ‘We both know the cancer’s coming back and I know Jack’s only trying to make the best of things, but we’re just drifting along, bored and talking rubbish like a pair of stupid teenagers.’

‘But it’s better to be… positive, surely?’

She shook her head, adamant. ‘The pretending’s doing my head in, tell you the truth. He’s doing my head in.’

Thorne took a deep breath. He was finding it increasingly hard to put the words in the right order. ‘I don’t quite know what you-’

‘I’m not saying I want to leave, anything like that.’

‘OK, because I thought you meant-’

‘It’s just that I want to slap him silly sometimes.’

Thorne was about to laugh, but Chamberlain cut him off.

‘Does that sound horrible?’

Thorne could manage no more than a shrug, a puff of boozy breath.

‘We were walking the dog the other week,’ Chamberlain said, ‘and obviously Jack needs to stop quite a bit and catch his breath. I just have to stand and wait, you know, listening to him wheezing and watching the dog disappear until he’s ready to carry on. So I was standing there this one day, thinking, I can run, you know? I can still run.’ She smiled sadly at Thorne. ‘Still got two good knees as well…’

Thorne returned the smile.

‘God knows where it came from, but I thought, I could just go, right now, turn away from him and leg it all the way up the beach until he couldn’t see me any more. Sprint up the beach for the hell of it, just because I still can, you know? And for a few seconds I stood there next to him, fighting the urge to do it. Listening to the wind and the dog barking somewhere, and the air through his lungs like sandpaper.

‘Now you’re thinking, Stupid, selfish cow, right?’

‘No,’ Thorne said.

She brought her glass to her mouth and tipped, but it was already empty.

Thorne could feel the pulse ticking in his temple as his eyes drifted away from her, finally settling on the card on top of the television: a menu of the various cha

Would the Met pick up the tab for the movies?

Was Carol the sort to watch the dirty ones?

He turned to see Chamberlain unscrewing the cap from the wine bottle and said, ‘I think I should phone for a cab.’

Chamberlain nodded and cleared her throat. ‘I’ll do it.’ She sounded u

‘We lost a baby,’ Thorne said.

After a few seconds, Chamberlain put down the phone and moved across to sit next to him. ‘I’m sorry. I knew there was something.’

It came out quickly, the words tumbling from him, and when Thorne had finished, he watched Chamberlain stand and walk to the bathroom, saw her return a few seconds later with a wad of tissues in her hand.

‘Here you go.’

It was only as he took them that Thorne realised he was crying and he spoke in rapid breaths, screwing the tissues up in his fist; each small sob clearing his head a little, lifting his heart. ‘Thing is… there was this sort of numbness when we got the news, and I knew Louise was feeling the same thing. But just for a minute or two I didn’t feel like it was necessarily a bad thing. I felt… pleased, you know, because I was off the hook.’ He smiled, sickly and self-mocking. ‘Because maybe, deep down, I hadn’t been sure I was ready to take it all on. Very grown up, eh?’ He shook his head when he saw Chamberlain about to say something. ‘It was just a gut reaction, I know that, like laughing when you get bad news, but it’s all I’ve been able to think about since. Every hour spent on this stupid fucking case. Seeing how cut up Lou’s been, how she’s just got on with things so that I don’t feel bad and… pretending. Carrying this stone in my chest.’

After a few seconds that felt like minutes, Thorne heard Chamberlain say, ‘What about now?’

‘I want it,’ Thorne said. ‘Not just for Louise, I swear. I want her to feel better, course I do, but… for me.’ The laugh burst from him on a bigger sob. ‘I mean, you’re never really ready, are you?’

Chamberlain was already holding his hand, and now she lifted it and squeezed it between both of hers. ‘Sometimes, I think about Jack not being here and I don’t feel quite as bad as I know I should. I feel “off the hook”, too.’ She nodded when Thorne glanced up. ‘Those stones in your chest are more common than you think, Tom.’

‘Christ,’ Thorne said. ‘Look at us…’

There was still a little more crying to be done, and comforting. Then Thorne found himself craving sleep, and thinking about his father as he closed his eyes and laid his head on Carol Chamberlain’s shoulder.

MY JOURNAL

15 October

It isn’t easy to kill someone.

People are not wasps or spiders to be swatted or stepped on without a second thought. It gets easier, that’s for sure, same as anything else, but if I’ve made it sound like the moment itself is anything less than hugely stressful, then I’ve done something wrong. Before I began all this, back when the idea was starting to take shape, there were times when I wanted to talk to my father about it. About what it felt like. But it never seemed like the time was right and, if I’m honest, it was always a bad idea. I knew he didn’t want to talk about it, about what he’d done; and besides, it was not something he was ever in control of, so I’m not sure he would have been a lot of help. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going into the family dry-cleaning business, or that he was an ex-footballer with tips to pass on…

We did talk a lot, though, about all sorts of stuff, and he did help me more than he’ll ever know. I learned that wasting time is stupid. Believe me, that’s a lesson you take on board from someone who’s got a lot of it on their hands. I learned, same as he did, that you get judged by what you do, whatever the reason for doing it. And I learned that life is short.

Yeah, ironic I know, that last one, bearing in mind that I’ve done my bit to shorten more than a few! I suppose I’m really talking about getting things done when you’ve got the chance. Not wanting to grow old while you bang your head against legal brick walls. Not letting it grind you down, the getting laughed at or being told you’re obsessed and that maybe you can come back when you’ve got some ‘proper medical evidence’.

Life is short and sometimes you have to make your point another way. You make an impact or you don’t, simple as that.

It’s fu