Craig doesn’t laugh. “I’m not playing, Tom.”
“I know. Sorry.” I take a breath. “Thank you.”
“And in the meantime, just step away from all this for a bit.”
I nod. Although inside, I know this is a promise I may very well not keep.
Leaving Craig’s place, outside, the air is cold and sensible. I sit in the driver’s seat and stare at my phone. It’s only when I see my own reflection in the black screen—pale, older than yesterday—that I realise my hands are shaking.
The phone vibrates like it’s had enough of my introspection.
Evelyn.
Fuck.
I stare. For a second, I consider letting it go to voicemail and pretending I was in a tunnel or fleeing a bear.
I can’t stop thinking about the blood.
I can’t do this now.
I lie in bed thinking about how the knife sliced through him.
But I know I can’t put this off.
I answer. “Evelyn?”
Chapter 32
TOM
“Tom?” Her voice comes through cracked and breathless, like she’s jogged here through static. “It’s me. I—I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, it’s like seven thirty,” I say, already hating the brittle brightness in my voice. “Hi, Evelyn.”
There’s a tremor of relief on the line that makes me feel worse, which I didn’t think was possible. “Good. Good. I’ve been trying you.”
“I saw,” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t, because it sounds accusatory. I add, “Sorry. Yeah, I saw your messages.”
I can’t stop thinking about the blood.
“Things have been…busy.”
She doesn’t respond to the apology so much as swallow it. “I...I just needed to speak to you again, about it all. I just can’t get it out of my mind.”
I lie in bed thinking about how the knife sliced through him.
I close my eyes. My throat goes dry in that quick, efficient way it has when life decides to be a horror film. “Right.”
The part of me that likes to fix things starts rifling through a mental first-aid kit: platitudes, distractions, tea. Another part of me — the bigger, cowardly part — wants to hang up and climb into a cupboard. Talking to Evelyn is like putting my face too close to awind machine: everything flaps, and nothing feels like it’s in the right place.
“Where are you?” I ask, because that feels like a solid, practical question. “Are you at home?”
“Yes,” she says, quickly. “Yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to — I just… I was thinking about him and then I was thinking about you, and then—” She inhales sharply. “You knew him. You knew him in a way I could hear when we spoke at the… at the thing.” She can’t say funeral. I can’t, either. “You’re easy to talk to,” she says. “I know he liked that about you.”
My tongue is a useless animal. “He was easy to like.”
Silence. A brittle, balancing silence. Then a jagged laugh. “Yes. God, yes. That smile.” She clears her throat. “I keep going back there. I know it’s stupid. I know. I think if I walk the route again something will….” She swallows. “I keep picturing him on the ground. I know I shouldn’t, but my brain is a bully.”
