‘I’ve just got out of prison.’ The words burst out of Anna’s mouth. She’s suddenly angry with this audience gawping at her, like she’s an alien that’s landed unexpectedly in their kitchen.
‘It’s not like it’s tattooed on your head,’ the man says, his voice surprisingly mild, considering how worked up he was only moments before. ‘But yes, I was wondering.’
His honesty disarms Anna, the defensiveness she’s surrounded herself with lowering a touch. ‘Sorry,’ she says.
‘I understand,’ he says. ‘It can take time to adjust. But you’re in the right place. We’re good people here. My name’s Edgar, and this is Lucy, one of my students.’ He points at the young woman. ‘Look, we’ll sit down. Stop standing over you.’
They join her at the table. Anna looks over at all three of them, assessing each in turn, prodding at them in her mind. Each of them smiling reassuringly, even though there’s an undefined tension in the air, some sense of conflict. It’s not directed at her, though. She can tell them what’s happening. Or some of it, at least.
‘I got out on Friday. There was an . . . incident in the prison, which meant that I had to be interviewed about something before I was released. This solicitor represented me in the interview. I got out very late and he ended up putting me up in his house here on Friday night. He was going to give me some work, too. Starting on Monday, like I told you,’ she says, looking at Rachel. ‘I stayed in the hostel last night, but I was going to go back and stay with him tonight. So I went to his street.’
‘What happened?’ Rachel says.
‘I didn’t get very close. But I could see it. It was one of those terraces, you know, off Cowley Road.’ The smell’s in her nostrils again, heavy at the back of her throat. ‘There were police nearby. I didn’t talk to them. Only an old man who was passing. He said that someone had died. So I panicked. That’s why I came here.’
‘Why were the police at the house, Anna?’ Rachel says. She’s speaking very quietly.
‘It had burned down.’
The tension in the air shifts, a chain of electrical reactions, a spark lighting another and another. Anna looks at each of them, seeing strain, alarm cross each of their faces.
‘What was your solicitor’s name?’ Rachel again. Quieter still.
‘Tom Wright.’
The words land like stones.
43
Silence. Lucy has no idea what to do. By the look of them, neither Edgar nor Rachel do either. They’re motionless.
‘Why are you all staring at me like that?’ Anna’s shifting from side to side in her seat, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her black Puffa jacket. There’s a slight smell coming off her, an undertone of bonfire. But of course, it’s not bonfire, nothing as benign as that. Lucy shivers at the thought of flames engulfing the house, the charred ruins this woman must have seen.
‘Tom Wright? You knew him?’ Rachel says. She sounds totally shaken.
‘I said so. He was my solicitor. Why are you all looking so shocked?’
‘The thing is,’ Rachel says, ‘that we’ve just been told that a longstanding colleague of my husband’s has been seriously injured in a house fire. He was staying with Tom Wright.’
‘Victor’s my friend,’ Edgar says. ‘Not just my colleague.’ Anguish comes off him in waves; his fists are clenched tight by his side. Lucy has to exercise every ounce of self-control she has not to move closer and put her arms around him.
‘I can’t get my head round this,’ Rachel says. ‘How come you didn’t stay with him last night?’
‘I slept in the hostel. The one where I met you,’ Anna says. She’s speaking quietly, her face averted. ‘I was trying to be independent – Tom had already done a lot for me. I’d already stayed with him for one night, and he was giving me work. I didn’t want to be too much of a burden.’
‘What time did you leave his house?’ Rachel says.
‘In the afternoon,’ Anna says. She pauses, then: ‘Look, what are you getting at here? Are you trying to suggest I had something to do with this? Why would I want to hurt Tom? I thought you were going to help me, not make accusations against me. I don’t have any idea what happened.’
‘Did you go and talk to the police when you got to the house?’ Rachel says.
‘No. I was too scared.’
‘What is the point of all these questions, Rachel?’ Edgar says. ‘Do you really think this woman has anything to do with it? Stop playing Miss Marple.’ He’s been sitting, shaking his head, but now he leaps to his feet, jumping up with such force that he pushes his chair to the floor behind him. Lucy jumps, pushes her hands tight between her thighs to hide their tremors.
‘Edgar,’ Rachel says, reproachfully. ‘Calm down. I’m just talking to Anna.’
‘Don’t fucking tell me to calm down,’ he says.
