Complicity

Nothing. I put the mirror doors back. I walk towards the bathroom. I put my hand on the door; a pale, pastel light shines from the room as the door starts to open.

"Cameron?" McDu

I go to the window; a red BMW325. Yvo

It's as if the car's hesitating, just in front of the drive, put off by the patrol car and the unmarked Cavalier parked in front of the garage.

Then it parks across the bottom of the drive, blocking our way out but leaving an escape route for itself. McDu

And it's her. Sweet Jesus, it's her, it's her, it's her. She gets out of the car holding a big black torch about two foot long, her face set in a frown. She's wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a sweatshirt. She's had her hair cut again. Her sharp, lean-featured face is un-made-up and looks aggressively distrustful. She looks wonderful.

"That Mrs Sorrell?" McDu

"Yes," I say, on an outrush of breath, something in me easing. I want to cry. Yvo

"Let's get down there and see what she's got to say, shall we?" McDu

We go past the dressing-room door. "Just a minute," I say. McDu

Nothing. I look in the shower, the Jacuzzi, the bath. Nothing. I take a swallow and a deep breath and join McDu

"Cameron!" Yvo

"Fine. Are you?"

"Yes," she says. "What is all this? Somebody from the paper said you were the man they were holding for all those murders." She pulls away, still with one arm round my waist. "Why the police?" She looks at McDu

"Detective Inspector McDu

"Hello." She looks at me, stepping back but still holding my hand, searching my face. "Cameron, you look…" She shakes her head, sucking on her lips. She looks around and says, "Where's William?"

McDu

She lets go of my hand, taking a step back and looking around at all of us, as the cop from the first patrol car comes into the hall from the study, and I see her gaze falling on my transparently gloved hands, and on the hands of the other men.

There's an instant when I suddenly see her as a young woman in her own home, surrounded by all these men who've invaded it, just turned up uninvited; all bigger than her, all strangers except for one she's been told might be a serial killer. She looks wary, angry, defiant, all at once. My heart feels fit to melt.

"Was your husband here when you left, Mrs Sorrell?" McDu

"Yes," she says, still looking round us all, settling on me, evaluating, enquiring, before looking back to McDu

"I see," McDu

"He's not in the garden?" she asks.

"Apparently not, no."

"Well, you don't just "pop out" from this estate, Detective Inspector," Yvo

McDu

"So you haven't found him," Yvo

"Not yet, Mrs Sorrell," McDu

I see her swallowing, see the tendons on her neck stand out as she tries to control herself. "He was in the garage," she says. "He was going to take the Honda out — the wee tractor — and sweep up leaves in the back garden."

McDu

The two cops nod and head back for the front door.

The rest of us troop towards the garage, through the hall and the kitchen. My feet feel like they're wading through treacle and that roaring noise is coming back. I try not to start coughing.

McDu

Yvo

McDu

I don't feel so good. I start coughing. McDu

I push myself away from the wall when I can't take it any longer, just as Yvo

A rotting, fishy smell comes out, faint and tinged with other scents. The bin is empty. I stare into it, perversely shocked, reeling back. I let the lid fall.

I bump into Yvo

I turn away, doubling up and coughing and coughing; blood comes suddenly from my mouth, splattering red on the white of the garage floor as, in that particular instant of loneliness, through my tears I see McDu