She does her usual trick of pretending not to hear the question, which makes me think the answer is yes. I remember that business card, emblazoned with the words Albert E. Mathieson, International Tax Law. Maxine said two years ago that she was following it up. Was she telling me the truth? I ask the question aloud.

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘It was useful.’

‘That’s vague. In what way was it useful?’

Again this is met with the silence she so often uses when I press her directly.

‘Hasn’t it got beyond you keeping things from me? You’ve shown me Jane’s body. You took away her privacy and dignity when you did that, when you turned her into a circus after such a horrible death. You intruded me on her. And her on me.’

‘It was my call. I stand by it.’

‘So why did she turn up where I’m living? Why did she die there?’

‘Now you’re asking the right questions.’ She considers. ‘I think I can say that you seem to be the catalyst in all of this. Maybe not the only one, but a key element.’

‘You’re saying I made someone kill Jane?’

‘Of course I’m not saying that. We think Zac found you. And she found him.’

‘Well, here is another right question for you, Maxine. Why would she want to?’

Then
The Handkerchief Tree

Two years earlier

Cornwall, Mid-April 2017

Zac was sitting beneath the handkerchief tree on a white wicker chair, in exactly the place I’d been two weeks earlier when I phoned the Blackwater Hotel and Mrs Hopwell. In his hand was a cup of lapsang souchong. The tea was black and strong, the way he liked it. There was a hardback book on the white iron table. From the cover, I could see it was written by a lawyer who raises asylum claims for whistle-blowers.

Zac was so passionately on the side of those who fought for individual freedoms and stood up to authority, yet so against the people closest to him having any freedom themselves. It occurred to me that such a paradox wasn’t unusual. Sometimes when you knew too much about how a thing worked, even if you thought it was wrong in principle, or that it should only be used for a larger good, you still couldn’t help trying it yourself. And then it became a habit. Wasn’t I guilty of this too?

Beside the book was a laptop, a new machine, I noticed, that Zac switched to sleep mode as I kissed him. Propped against the scrolled table leg was a laptop case with built-in combination locks. The case was silver and new, and appeared to be made of some kind of high-security metal. Was he spooked that night two weeks ago, when he found the laptop in the bathroom?

He tipped his head to look at the new green leaves fluttering above him. ‘We have another month before it flowers. I know you can’t wait.’