One of the things Hannah had struggled with most after John died was that, for everyone else, life went on. This horrific thing had happened, this wonderful man had gone and yet the world still turned, people went out for dinner, complained about hangovers, took holidays, tried to get that promotion at work. Hannah felt like Buster Keaton in a black and white movie, dangling from the hands of Big Ben in a bid to try to stop time moving forward. But with Pru there was no dangling. As far as she was concerned, John was alive. To correct her would only be to cause confusion and so, as Hannah saw it, she had no choice but to play along. These days to be around Pru was to pretend so wholeheartedly that John was just next door, taking one of his hour-long baths, or that he was on his way back from work, home just as soon as he’d picked up pizza for dinner, that after a little while it felt almost real.
It was a balm.
After the events of last week she’d come here today craving that feeling more than ever. Still unable to find the offending payslip and unsure what to make of Jem’s claims, she was at a loss as to what, if anything, to do next.
The sun had reached the point in the sky where it blasted directly through the French doors. Pru stood her ground against the dazzle for a good minute before giving in.
‘You mentioned cake?’ she said, searching the worktops.
Hannah produced a tin from her bag.
‘Banana bread with a white chocolate ganache.’ She got her a plate and grabbed a knife from the drawer.
‘I heard someone singing through the wall earlier,’ said Pru, accepting a generous slice. ‘A man.’
The houses on this row had surprisingly thin connecting walls and Hannah often heard Pru sneeze or the hum of the radio. Hannah hadn’t told Pru about Jem (how could she explain the presence of John’s murderer when the old lady thought John was still alive?) and had decided to say he was a friend if Pru saw him in the garden during outside time.
‘I know you loved John but I’m glad you’re seeing new people.’
Hannah froze. Pru was lucid. This happened sometimes. It was disorienting, like being inside a dark house in which the light is suddenly turned on.
‘No that’s, he’s . . .’
‘John didn’t deserve you.’
‘You liked John,’ said Hannah, unable to keep the chip of anger from her voice.
‘Coming and going all the time.’
‘He was a detective,’ the past tense still felt alien in her mouth, ‘that’s the job.’
Pru helped herself to another slice of banana bread.
‘I saw him in town once. Up to no good.’ She sniffed. ‘I know it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead but you’re better off without him.’
Hannah was trying to figure out how to reply when Pru stopped eating and put down her fork. A cloud seemed to pass over her face. She looked at the clock on the wall and tutted.
‘Where has Ted got to?’ She finished the last of her banana bread with gusto and licked her lips. ‘Tell me, when are you and that husband of yours going to have babies?’ A smear of ganache remained on her chin. ‘You know what they say,’ she looked at Hannah’s belly, ‘Tick, tock.’
The lights had been turned off, the house was once more in darkness.
Hannah tried to summon the enthusiasm required for a second session of John make-believe. This, after all, was what she’d come here for. But she couldn’t do it.
She grabbed the rubbish.
‘I should be going, I’ll drop some shopping round later.’ She reached for Pru’s fall alarm, curled in a heap of rope on the side. ‘And put this on.’ She was forever nagging her to wear it, especially as Pru’s only phone was a peach-coloured landline mounted to the wall in the kitchen.
Pru dusted her jacket for crumbs, reached for her glasses and walked with her to the front door. Hannah deposited the bag in the wheelie bin and looked up to see Pru stationed in the bay window. She gave Hannah a wave and then set about scouring the street for burglars, her spectacle lenses flashing in the sun. The living room was dark and the glass circles looked like giant eyes peering out from the gloom.
Thursday lunchtime and Hannah was on her way to see a potential client on Queen’s Crescent. Less than a mile from her own house as the crow flies, some of the crescent’s grand mansions backed onto the far side of the same pond, but, as Hannah was discovering, it took much longer to get there on foot.
The meeting was with a woman called Maraschino, one of Aisling’s clients. When Aisling had got wind that Maraschino and her husband were having a tenth-wedding anniversary party she’d recommended Hannah to do the cake. Hannah figured the introduction was Aisling’s way of saying sorry for bailing on her this week.
It was even hotter today, the blossom trees studded with bees out of their minds on unseasonal nectar, and their buzzing filled the air with white noise, constant and oppressive. She checked the address again – Aisling had stuffed it through her letter box late last night, her bubble-shaped handwriting taking up most of the page, her i’s topped with fat circles instead of dots – tucked her portfolio under her arm and jogged the last few streets, trying to make up time. Maraschino had serious money – the crescent was one of the most expensive streets in London – and so, wanting to make a good impression, she’d worn her mint flowered tea dress and heels. Already though she could feel a puddle of sweat forming beneath her bust.
At the stretch of tarmac that marked the start of the crescent, she stopped to catch her breath. The properties ahead were all detached, vast mini-palaces hidden by high walls and iron gates, the cars stored in private driveways and garages. Looked at on a map, the main body of Hampstead Heath was a solid whole. Protected by heavyweight conservation orders, its grassland was untouchable. Roads curved to fit its geographical idiosyncrasies, houses fitted themselves into the most inconvenient of gaps and utility companies forged pipes and wires into costly circles that kept a respectful distance from its boundary. Queen’s Crescent was the one anomaly. Built in the early 1980s, before the heritage society could beat the Greater London Council into submission, developers had hacked a scythe-shaped road into the north-west corner and lined it with some of the city’s most ostentatious properties, many of which were immediately bought up by foreign investors.
Famously, several of the investors had never taken up residence and had left their acquisitions empty or stuffed with cars and furniture they never used. These houses now stood like mausoleums, gates chained, their doorways blocked by the same metal fences they use to keep people without tickets out of festivals.
Hannah reached the address she was looking for and rang the intercom. The security gate slid open and she stepped onto a gravel drive bordered by bright green lawns. The house lay three metres ahead, red brick with white window frames. Its frontage spanned the length of an average Victorian terrace and was foregrounded by a stone portico held in place by four pillars.
She made her way to the front door and was about to ring the bell when Aisling appeared. Hannah knew she’d been working long hours but still she was surprised at how tired her friend looked. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face gaunt.
‘Where have you been?’ she said, pulling Hannah into the marble lobby. ‘You better talk quick. Maraschino has Gyrotonic at 1 p.m.’
‘Sorry Ash.’ She was. This wasn’t the first time Aisling had gone above and beyond to help her find work. Since John had died she’d sung her praises to all and sundry. ‘I underestimated how long it would take to get here.’
Aisling tutted and hustled her down the hall to the orangery. She was wearing her hair loose and her curls gambolled around her neckline.
‘You should have got here early.’ She guided Hannah out to the garden and over to an arrangement of cane sofas on the terrace. ‘Maraschino is fussy as it is.’
‘I know Ash, I’m really sorry, OK.’
Aisling heard the regret in Hannah’s voice and caught herself.
‘Ignore me.’ She softened. ‘Hard week.’ She bit her lip. �
��But then you’d know all about that.’ She reached for her hand and squeezed. ‘So shit about the Foster Host transfer.’
‘He’s still going with the whole “I’m innocent” routine,’ said Hannah. ‘Jem I mean.’ She felt weird telling Aisling about the Marzipan Rain thing, embarrassed to admit she’d taken him at all seriously, but she was keen all the same to get her friend’s take and summarised it as best she could.
‘Ridiculous. Was he not listening when the barrister outlined the mountain of evidence against him?’ She was about to go on when a woman emerged from the orangery. Five feet in heels, she wore a black vest and jeans. Brown hair grazed her hips.
Aisling stood to attention.
‘Chi-Chi!’ She approached and they air-kissed three times. ‘This is my friend Hannah.’
Maraschino shook her hand, flopped down onto one of the sofas and started fanning herself with a nearby Tatler.
‘This heat, when will it end?’
Anywhere from her late twenties to her early fifties, her skin was Profhilo smooth, her nails polished. Every part of her was immaculate, but then Hannah clocked it, a green shadow on her upper arm, a tattoo that had been lasered off. It lurked there below the skin like an ancient sea creature, evidence of some past folly.
‘Jane, could you get us some San Pelli?’
Hannah was confused, not sure who she was addressing, but then she saw her: a woman wearing a dusky pink uniform, a white apron tied round her waist. Over by a hedge, she seemed to be peering at a nearby tree but, hearing her name, she snapped to attention and disappeared inside.
‘I’ll go pack up my table,’ said Aisling, backing toward the house. She waited until she was far enough behind Maraschino and gave Hannah a good luck thumbs-up. ‘Leave you to it.’
Hannah crossed her arms, trying to hide the oval of sweat beneath her bra, but then, worrying about her body language, dropped them to her side.
‘It’s our anniversary at the end of this month,’ said Maraschino, abandoning the magazine. ‘We’re having a party. Three hundred of our closest friends.’
Hannah went to reply but was interrupted by her phone ringing.
Maraschino frowned, a tiny wrinkle at the side of her mouth.
‘Sorry,’ said Hannah, sending the call to voicemail.
‘We wanted to have a marquee but then everyone would have to look at that thing.’ She gestured to the house next door. ‘Eyesore.’
Hannah followed her gaze. Over the wall she could see one of the crescent’s famous dilapidated mansions. The roof tiles were dishevelled and plants had sprouted from the brickwork. Hannah’s first thought was that it looked like the Heath was trying to reclaim its land leaf by leaf. Her second was that the damage to the house was superficial, that even though its neglect was decades-long, its foundations, the thing that mattered, stood firm. It could be put back. It could be lived in.
‘I want to move but Robert won’t hear of it.’
The woman in uniform appeared with a tray of sparkling water, bowls of ice and lemon on the side. Once she’d gone Hannah got out her portfolio and opened it to the page she thought would most suit Maraschino’s taste.
‘I was thinking, maybe something like this?’ She showed her a complex geometrical sponge she’d created from a 3-D printer mould.
Maraschino scanned the page. She seemed impressed but then Hannah’s phone rang again and she grimaced.
‘Or like this?’ she said, turning the page and flicking her phone onto silent.
That last call had been the final straw. She put down the folder.
Hannah scrambled for some way to recapture her attention. This would be a highly lucrative contract. Maraschino would have friends, rich friends. If she did a good job it could lead to other things.
‘I have an appointment.’ She tilted her watch and Hannah saw how its face was decorated with an ‘M’ made up of tiny diamonds. It looked custom, one of a kind. ‘I should be going.’
People like this wanted something unique, a conversation piece, something that money apparently couldn’t buy. She thought again of the number of days since John had died. One hundred and eighty. Every twenty-four hours a lifetime.
‘You’ve been married for ten years,’ she said, trying to recapture her attention. ‘That’s what, 3,650 days, give or take a leap year. Each one special, important.’ Emboldened by her idea, she spoke loudly, more confident than before. ‘How about a simple three-tier centrepiece surrounded by thousands of cupcakes, one for every day you’ve been married. All of them unique and personal to you in some way. Reflecting how and when you met, your favourite song, your favourite place, the day your husband proposed.’
Maraschino paused. She seemed to be calculating the response of her peers, assessing whether any of them had ever done anything like this before.
‘Go on.’
Hannah explained how she would create a colour and flavour scheme for the cakes and then she showed her some examples of the intricate sugar-paste work that would feature on every cupcake.
‘I could bring you some samples to try, sketch out how the display might work?’
Her phone continued to buzz but she ignored it.
‘Sounds good.’ Maraschino got to her feet. ‘I’ll think about it.’
Hannah thanked her for her time and waited until she had disappeared inside the orangery before walking to the bottom of the garden to decompress.
The back of the crescent couldn’t have been more different to her own row of houses. Instead of a gate and steps leading down to a shore there was a high wall and then a sheer concrete drop to deep water below. A wooden platform provided a view over the water and after climbing it she looked out, trying to spot her home in among the others on the other side of the pond.
A Victorian terrace, it was impenetrable, apart from a thin gap at one end where the houses briefly broke ranks before joining up again two metres later. Looking at it from this distance, she could see how every one of her neighbours except Pru had made some kind of complicated addition or accoutrement to their property. Glass lofts jostled for position with tiled balconies and some had even tacked an extra storey to their roof. Her own house was quite plain in comparison. Smothered in ivy, its sash windows were peeling, the brick dirty and she noticed that some of the tiles near the chimney were missing. Her bedroom windows winked in the sun, the glass shiny as jewels.
Again, her phone buzzed. This time she accepted the call.
‘You contacted the hotel, The Warlaby,’ said a voice she didn’t recognise. A man. Not Dracula. This was someone else.
‘Can you help? Your colleague didn’t think it possible.’
‘I’m sorry about John. He was a good man, kind.’
‘Wait, what?’ Hannah flailed, wrong-footed. ‘You knew him?’
‘I’m calling to warn you. I owe him that much.’
‘Did something else happen that night? Was John on his way to meet someone? Was he coming to meet you?’
‘My advice? Walk away.’
‘If something else happened . . .’ She thought of Jem in his cell. ‘If someone else was responsible . . .’
‘You have nothing to gain from this. You must understand that.’
‘Does this have something to do with that phrase, Marzipan Rain?’
Silence. She thought he’d hung up but then: ‘Be careful Hannah.’
‘What does that mean?’
This time the line did go dead.
She looked out across the pond again, searching for her house in among the clutter of brick and glass. In the time she’d been talking the sun had shifted. Without light the windows were dull and black. Despite the heat she shivered, her arms knocking against her ribs, bone against bone, sharp and hard.
Jem
I stand in the garden and lift my face to the sun. It’s my first time outdoors since I arrived a week ago and the combination of light, colour and smell is overwhelming.
Hannah is in the kitchen pulling out drawers
and rootling through cupboards. She’s been at it since she got home and is oblivious to all but the task at hand.
Is today the day?
It could be.
‘You have one hour,’ says Mr Dalgleish, setting a timer on his phone. He’s pale and the skin at the sides of his mouth is splintered. He motions to the white line painted on the grass at the sides and bottom of the garden. ‘Remember, stay within the perimeter.’
The line marks the electric fence. Any breach across it will trigger the implant in my spine. If after the first shock I continue to move away from the boundary I will be hit by another much stronger shock, then another. In the Holding Centre I heard a story about a Host who had marched their prisoner past the boundary and held them on the spot until they died. They claimed the prisoner had gone there of their own accord, that they committed suicide.
The garden is modest, ten metres by six, and apart from a small decked area by the door it is covered in grass. After being cooped up for so long it feels enormous and I walk a few laps, enjoying the fresh air. I can see people drowsing on picnic blankets on the Heath and the black and white streak of moorhens as they push through the algae fermenting on the pond. Its idyllic and I’m greedy for the view but I only get two outdoor sessions per week; I need to stay in control, to use this time to my advantage.
I move to the middle of the grass and, making sure to face the back of the house, I start my exercise routine. I’ve worn my navy tracksuit bottoms on purpose; they have deep pockets and let me get into each position – press-up, hip flexor stretch, downward dog – with ease. I study the house as I move, trying to work out its geography. Tall and thin, the brickwork is covered with ivy. It seems to be spread across four floors. There’s the basement kitchen where I live, the first floor with the hall and living room, then another two floors.
The Captive Page 8