‘Monsieur Adamson?’ said Blanchard. ‘You are the father of Alexander Adamson?’

Griff’s eyes didn’t leave Bea’s face.

‘My father doesn’t speak French,’ she said. ‘Can you speak to him in English?’

‘Go and wake your mother,’ said Griff.

She nodded. She left him with the two gendarmes, and hurried upstairs, but when she saw Alex’s bedroom door, she stopped. She was on the landing, out of sight. Dan and her mother didn’t know yet. She looked at Alex’s bedroom door. She couldn’t go past, and not be completely sure that he wasn’t inside. He might be in his room. She might have imagined it. It might be a mistake. She heard the men’s voices below. She knocked on the door. He was never up so early, she felt mean for waking him. And happy. She clung to the narrow, phantom feeling. She knocked again – and then she opened it. The bed was empty. The small, false feelings dissolved. Alex wasn’t in the room but his death was there. She told herself she couldn’t believe it, her mind scrabbled to pretend, but loss, whispered and glimpsed, was beginning. And loss believed it. And loss knew death. She stared around the empty room. A whisky bottle on its side. Raw, loose tobacco, scattered in shreds. Ashtrays, mugs, and mugs used as ashtrays. A ceramic Buddha incense holder. Jeans on the floor, and heaps of T-shirts, pants under the bed. Just like Holford Road. He’d hardly changed at all.

Something moved on the wall, just next to her. She thought at first it was a strip of plastic, then she saw it was the snakeskin from the attic, he’d pinned it up beside the bed. Lighter than tissue paper, stiffer, it swayed in the slight breeze. The snakeskin fluttered, lifting from the wall, translucent, silvery. She touched its edge. Then she heard her mother’s voice behind her. It was reedy, and weak.

‘Who’s downstairs?’

Bea heard her footsteps coming closer.

‘Bea? What are you doing? Where’s Alex?’

Bea turned to face her.

PART TWO

9

Bea didn’t remember ever calling her mother Mummy. She used her mother’s name as little as possible, and they almost never touched. In the last three years she may have felt her mother’s lips politely brush her cheek twice, perhaps. Now, half dressed in the corridor between their two rooms Bea took both Liv’s hands. It came to her clearly and for the first time there was something greater than her mother’s crime. She held her and told her that her son was dead, and felt, despite herself, only pity. Liv’s face turned white, as if the skin was pulling back and shrinking. She stared. Gaping, she gripped Bea’s hands. Her legs gave way. Her fingers clawed to stop herself falling, but she fell. Bea knelt with her, feeling her mother’s spine against her palm, her shoulder blades.

‘No, no, no,’ Liv moaned.

Bea heard Dan say her name, behind her.

Liv writhed and pulled away. Bea let her go and she went limp. She seemed to disappear, her body lay discarded on the floor like rags. Bea stood up. She turned towards Dan.