The box, stored on some metal shelves, was the kind that office supplies came in, printer paper. She imagined some police officer hunting around the office for it, finding it, scooping up all the things that had been in the car. They’d have meant nothing to him or her, but Elle’s fingers were already trembling as she lifted up the cardboard flap. There was a leather-bound book containing details about the car, a rich expensive smell. A clicker for the garage door. His gloves, also leather, a Christmas present from her, soft as a baby’s skin. An air freshener, a phone case. The actual phone had been returned to her from the hospital, but she couldn’t get into the locked screen. A glass water bottle, still half full. She imagined the pressure of his mouth on its lip, and for an insane moment thought about pressing her own over it. There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that suggested her husband had been broke. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find – bank statements, final demand letters. Of course not. Conway was lying about the money, that was the most likely thing.

She had lifted the empty box to put away when she heard something. At the bottom, something was rattling around. She fished it out – a small pink tube. Lip balm, tinted. Elle stared at it for a long time, puzzled. He would never have bought something like that. Nor would she – it was a cheap supermarket thing. A woman’s thing. Her mind revolved slowly through the possibilities. He’d given a lift to a colleague. He’d picked up a hitch-hiker. But no, the car got cleaned on Thursdays without fail, so it was unlikely he’d given anyone a lift in the twenty-four hours between that and the accident.

She held the small tube between her fingers, light and cool. It was slightly sticky, and a fur of small fibres matted its neck. The police would be able to do tests on that, maybe, find out who it belonged to. If someone had been in the car with her husband when he crashed, on a quiet road on a perfect still day.

Suzi

Suzi

When we first moved down, I had raised the issue of a second car a few times. ‘A little runaround’ was how I put it, though I had no idea where I’d picked up a phrase like that.

Nick had frowned. ‘It’s so wasteful having two cars. Think of the environment.’ And I had subsided, chastened.