‘I wouldn’t advise taking old lags into your confidence, Cait.’
‘Listen,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t think Jason Mercer was a burglar at all. She thinks he was a leg-breaker.’
‘A what?’
‘Owen owed money to some bad people. He said something might happen to him. I think Jason Mercer was the muscle trying to track him down to get the money.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘But in this scenario, why was he in my house, not yours?’
‘I think he might have been following me to find Owen.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘But Mercer died before Owen. Doesn’t that kind of destroy the theory? A dead man couldn’t have killed Owen.’
Cait stares at me in silence. Her mouth curls up a little. She nods. ‘Shit,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d solved it.’
Chapter43Nativity
Friday, 13 December
The small school hall is decorated with lanterns made by the children, covering Christmas, Hanukah, and Diwali, in addition to other light-loving winter festivals. There is a single line of green tinsel across the front of the stage, and the teachers are wearing Christmas jumpers and reindeer-themed headwear. Mrs Nnadi is wearing a Mrs Santa Claus hat, and a dress covered with a mistletoe pattern, which I feel is a little inappropriate.
The old public address system is playing a recording of the children sweetly massacring many Christmas favourites, and we are served ‘delicious non-alcoholic mulled wine’ – Ribena made using the hot tap.
By the time I arrive with Sophie and Aisha (Tor is otherwise engaged in saving her reputation, and Cait is in custody), the first five rows are packed with parents (mothers mostly) and grandparents. They’re all sitting in their coats, lined up on low gym benches of the kind that I remember from my own school days. I am not in a good mood as I’ve failed to raise the deposit and Esmae is showing four couples around my Hampstead house tomorrow.
There’s a ripple of chatter and side-glances as we walk downthe central aisle to find a seat. Many faces stare up at us with closed-lip sympathy or high-eyebrowed fright as we’re now known notoriously asCait’s crew. I smile back and give a few little waves. Aisha is horrified, but with Nelly’s rather unusual habits, I’m used to these looks.
I know it’s a children’s performance but if you pay for a play you expect, at the least, for the actors to know their cues and lines, and that they don’t keep acknowledging the audience. My expectations are not high.
‘Do you think Cait might’ve done it?’ whispers Sophie.
‘Cait couldn’t kill anyone,’ I say.
‘People can surprise you. I wouldn’t blame her. I mean, Owen was a bastard,’ says Sophie.
‘He broke into her house. I’d kill someone if they threatened my kids,’ says Aisha.
‘What about Ranni, is he still thinking of moving?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I’ve stopped being amenable. I do what he’s done for fifteen years. I leave for work at five-thirty a.m. and return at eight p.m. I ask no questions, I offer no help, I throw my underwear on the floor, expect feeding the minute I get in, and always take the car.’
‘Good for you!’ says Sophie. ‘How’s he coping?’
‘He’s had to take time off, of course, and he’s exhausted and confused.’
‘He drew first blood,’ I say, and she stares back and nods fiercely.
A trumpet sounds and the whole school troops on stage. And regardless of breaking the fourth wall, at least three quarters wave at their parents.
A hundred phones rise to capture the performance, which the head has told us are not allowed due to safeguarding reasons. The acoustics in the freezing hall are also noticeably shoddy, and although I know the outline of the Nativity story, I can’t follow this version at all. There are several characters I don’t remember from the original, including SpongeBob SquarePants and what looks like a unicorn.
Nelly is not waving. She’s dressed in a white sheet with a cordaround the middle, and two large cardboard wings painted white with the outline of feathers. She is, as she told me at dinner,an angel. I explained to her that angels don’t drown hamsters, but she can appear to be one if she wishes. She stabbed a fork into my leg and said quite firmly, ‘I am an angel.’
‘Oh, isn’t it lovely,’ whispers Sophie, as the head gets up to bore us with her welcome. ‘I love Christmas. And we really need it this year. We’re back on, by the way.’
‘Back on? Paolo’s dead wife’s friend and former lover notwithstanding?’
Sophie laughs. ‘She’s actually nice, and happily married. I think I over-reacted. I’m giving up drinking in the new year.’
