He did something he’d thought was impossible. He left his mother speechless. She opened her mouth, and it was as if she were staring at a blank cue card. She said nothing at all. The color drained from her beautiful face. This wasn’t hurt; this was something much more profound. He’d damaged her in a way he couldn’t comprehend.

She folded her arms across her chest. Head down, she stalked away from him.

‘Wait,’ he called after her.

Tarla didn’t stop.

‘Let’s talk about this.’

His mother never looked back. She hurried down the trail to the tower and continued past it, where the downhill path swallowed her. She disappeared, and she wasn’t coming back to him. He knew that.

He stared after her, utterly devastated.

*

It was an hour before Cab summoned the strength to leave the gardens. The clouds made it look darker and later than it was, but it was already early evening. He felt a hollowness in his stomach as he headed for his car.

‘Mr Bolton?’

Cab was outside the gates when he heard the voice behind him. He turned. The black woman in overalls who had been staring at him when they arrived hovered near the bushes. She spoke softly, as if hesitant about approaching him. Her fingers played with her corn rows.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘You are Cab Bolton, aren’t you? You’re a detective.’

‘I am.’

‘My name is Gladiola Croft. Rufus Twill told me about you. He said you were looking into what happened here. He and I, we know each other pretty well. I told him things.’

‘Things?’ Cab asked.

‘I used to work in Birch Fairmont’s house,’ she said. ‘I was there that summer. Those murders? They didn’t surprise me none. That man deserved what he got.’

20

The waitress at the Starfish Grill in St Pete Beach had the largest breasts that Peach had ever seen. They were like muskmelons overflowing in brown flesh out of a low-cut orange T-shirt that was tight enough to be body paint. When the girl, who called herself Steffi, bent over her to put an O’Doul’s on a salted napkin, Peach was pretty sure she could see all the way to China at the bottom of her cleavage.

‘Fire wings’ll be right out,’ Steffi told her with a toss of her blond hair. ‘You want anything else?’

Peach was distracted. ‘Uh, no, thanks.’

‘They’re super big, huh?’

‘What?’

Steffi pointed to the indie-rock magazine overturned on the table in front of Peach. The Dutch band Rats on Rafts was featured on the cover.

‘Oh,’ Peach said, fighting the flush that crept onto her face. ‘Oh, yeah.’

Steffi winked. She knew what Peach was thinking. ‘I love them. That what you’re listening to?’

A headphone wire snaked from under the magazine and wound its way to Peach’s ear. ‘No, Skynyrd.’

‘Hey, classic,’ Steffi said.