He’d died instantaneously, they’d told her after the autopsy, but she’d known that from the way he’d fallen. Dead weight. It had taken almost all the strength she’d had left to roll him off her, she’d barely had enough energy to stand afterwards, but somehow, slowly, she’d started moving again, stumbling towards the handful of lights, falling many times, her legs weak, her head throbbing with pain. Twice she’d stopped and thrown up, her stomach heaving over and over again though it had been empty except for the half-inch of whisky Nick had given her. Eventually, six huge fields later – she still had no idea how much later in real terms – she’d reached the lights and discovered that they belonged to a pub on the fringe of a village. Bloody, covered in mud, she’d staggered inside.
With the help of the landlord and one of the regulars who’d done gardening work there, the police had managed to identify the house. Despite what Mark had said, Nick hadn’t been dead when they found him, but one of his twelve knife wounds had caught an artery and he’d died of blood loss in the back of the ambulance carrying him to hospital in Swindon. She’d cried when they told her, hysterical tears that took ten minutes to bring under control. It had been three weeks before she’d been able to cry a single tear for Mark.
‘The new flat will help.’
‘What?’
‘Having your own place again,’ Tom said. ‘Being freed from our back bedroom.’
She smiled. ‘I like your back bedroom. But, yes, it’s the right thing.’
Two weeks ago she’d woken late. Tom and Lydia had left for work and the house was quiet. She’d gone downstairs, feet bare, and filled the kettle for coffee. Standing at the window, watching a robin fly back and forth from the bird table that Lydia had given Tom for Christmas, the deadening fog that had filled her head had cleared for a moment and she’d known that it was time to get moving again, to break the spell of the horror and get on with her life. She’d made the coffee and sat down with her computer to look at flats to rent.
She’d seen seven or eight before she’d found the one she’d taken, a one-bedroomed place on the third floor of a Victorian red-brick mansion block a few minutes’ walk from Russell Square. As soon as she’d walked in, she’d been able to see herself living there. It was a little bit shabby, she’d have to hide the carpet in the hallway with rugs, but the landlord had given her permission to paint, the kitchen was newly renovated and there was a nook under the window in the sitting room that would be perfect for a desk.
More than ever, what she craved now was work. She hadn’t got the job at Penrose Price; Roger Penrose, despite his cutting-edge advertising campaigns, had proved to be old-fashioned about the idea of hiring someone embroiled in a case that had been splashed across the national papers for a week. He’d written her a letter full of compliments in which he also communicated that they’d hired a candidate with substantial experience of working with clients similar to their own. When she’d looked up the announcement in Campaign, she saw that the job had gone to someone who’d interned for her before she went to New York.
There was hope, however. Ten days ago, Leon, her old boss, had emailed to say that he was in London on a flying visit. Over drinks at his hotel in Charlotte Street, he’d asked her for ideas for two major new pitches. If he won the business, he said, he’d like her to work on them with him, in what capacity they could discuss later. ‘As head of the London office?’ she’d said, raising an eyebrow, and though he’d rolled his eyes, he hadn’t said no.
In the meantime, her mother had lent her money to keep her going. Eventually – at least in theory – she would be rich: everything Mark had owned, he’d willed to her. She didn’t want any of it. She’d decided that, when the time came, she would give it all to his parents, though she suspected that Mark’s father’s pride would stop him from touching it, too.
Up ahead, Sandy slipped on the path, nearly pulling Lydia down with her. Hannah laughed, and when she stopped, she saw that Tom had been watching her.
‘I’m glad you and Mum are getting on better,’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘It was Mark’s mother, how much she loved him despite everything. It just made me realise how harsh I was to mine. We had a chat.’
Tom nodded. ‘She told me.’ He took the chocolate from his pocket and snapped off two more squares. They’d walked twenty yards or so before he spoke again. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I want to tell you something.’