‘Yeah, of course. He’s here most nights, that’s why he hates being barred. For all the good it does me. It’s more of an annoyance for him than anything. Too difficult for me to enforce, and he knows it. Whenever I try, him and his gormless mates plonk themselves on the porch outside with a pile of tinnies. I get all the trouble with none of the revenue, you know? Anyway.’ McMurdo shook his head. ‘To answer your question, Grant Dow was here that last night Luke was in. Along with nearly everyone else, mind. The cricket was on TV so it was packed.’
‘Did you see him and Luke talk? Interact at all? Either of them have a go at the other?’
‘Not that I remember. But like I said, it was a busy night. I was run off my feet.’ McMurdo thought for a moment as he downed the last swallow of his beer and suppressed a small burp. ‘But who can say with those two? You could never tell from one night to the next what was going to happen. I know Luke was your mate and Dow’s a dickhead, but in a lot of ways they were quite similar. Both bolshy, larger than life, got tempers on them. Two sides of the same coin, you know?’
Falk nodded. He knew. McMurdo took the empty glasses, and Falk took his cue to leave. He climbed off his stool and said goodnight, leaving the barman to switch off the lights and plunge the downstairs into darkness. As Falk half-trudged, half-tottered upstairs, his mobile flashed with a new voicemail. He waited until he was locked in his room and lying flat on his bed before clumsily punching the buttons. He closed his eyes as a familiar voice floated from the handset.
‘Aaron, answer your phone, will you?’ Gerry Hadler’s words were rushed in his ear. ‘Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about that day Ellie died.’ A long pause. ‘Come out to the farm tomorrow if you can. There’s something you should know.’
Falk opened his eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
The Hadlers’ farm looked different as Falk pulled up. The tattered yellow crime scene tape had been removed from the front door. On either side, the curtains and blinds were pulled wide and every window was propped ajar.
The mid-morning sun was already fierce and Falk reached for his hat as he stepped out of the car. He tucked the box of Karen’s and Billy’s school things under his arm and walked up the path. The front door was open. Inside, the smell of bleach had eased a little.
Falk found Barb crying in the master bedroom. She was perched on the edge of Luke and Karen’s queen-size bed, the contents of a drawer upended onto the pale green duvet. Balled-up socks and crumpled boxer shorts mingled with loose coins and pen lids. Tears slid from Barb’s cheeks onto a piece of coloured paper in her lap.
She jumped when Falk knocked gently, and as he went to her he could see she was holding a handmade Father’s Day card. She wiped her face on her sleeve and flapped the card in Falk’s direction.
‘No secret’s safe from a good clean-out, is it? Turns out Billy was as bad at spelling as his father.’
She tried to laugh but her voice broke. Falk felt her shoulders heave as he sat down and put his arm around her. The room was stiflingly hot as sweltering air seeped in through the open windows. He didn’t say anything. Whatever the windows were letting out of that house was more important than anything they could let in.
‘Gerry asked me to come by,’ Falk said when Barb’s sobs subsided a little. She sniffed.
‘Yes, love. He said. He’s clearing out the big barn, I think.’
‘Did he say what it was about?’ Falk said, wondering when, if ever, Gerry would see fit to confide in his wife. Barb shook her head.
‘No. Maybe he wants to give you something of Luke’s. I don’t know. It was his idea to do this clear-out in the first place. He says it’s time we faced it.’
The final sentence was almost lost as she picked up a pair of Luke’s socks and dissolved into fresh tears.
‘I’ve been trying to think if there’s anything Charlotte might like. She’s pining so badly.’ Barb’s voice was muffled behind a tissue. ‘Nothing we do seems to help her. We’ve left her with a sitter, but Gerry actually suggested bringing her with us. See if being around her old things calmed her. There’s no way I’m allowing that, I told him. There’s no way I’m bringing her back to this house after what happened here.’
Falk rubbed Barb’s back. He glanced around the bedroom while she cried. Apart from a layer of dust, it was neat and clean. Karen had tried to keep the clutter under control, but there were enough personal touches to make the room inviting.
Framed baby photos stood on top of a chest of drawers that looked of good quality but was probably second- or even third-hand. Any money for decorating had clearly been channelled towards the children’s rooms. Through a gap in the wardrobe, Falk could see rows of clothes suspended on plastic hangers. On the left, women’s plain fitted tops hung next to blouses, work trousers, the odd summer dress. Luke’s jeans and t-shirts were crammed with less thought on the right.
Both sides of the bed appeared to have been slept in regularly. Karen’s bedside table had a toy robot, a tub of night cream and a pair of reading glasses on top of a pile of books. A phone charger was plugged in on Luke’s side, next to a dirty coffee cup, hand painted, with the word ‘Daddy’ spelled out in spidery letters. The pillowcases still had the shadows of dents in them. Whatever Luke Hadler had been doing in the days before he and his family died, Falk thought, it hadn’t been sleeping on the couch. This was definitely a room for two.
An image of Falk’s own bedroom flashed into his mind. He mostly slept in the middle of the bed these days. His bedspread was the same navy blue he’d had as a teenager. No-one who had seen it in the past couple of years had got comfortable enough to suggest something more gender-neutral. The cleaning service that came to his flat twice a month often struggled to find enough to do, he knew. He didn’t hoard, he didn’t keep much for sentimental reasons and he’d made do with whatever furniture he’d been left with three years earlier, when his two-person flat had become home to just one.
‘You’re a closed book,’ she’d said one final time before she’d left. She’d said it a lot over the two years they’d been together. First intrigued, then concerned, finally accusing. Why couldn’t he let her in? Why wouldn’the let her in? Did he not trust her? Or did he not love her enough? His response to that question hadn’t come fast enough, he’d realised too late. A fraction of a moment’s silence had been long enough for both of them to hear the death knell. Since then Falk’s own bedside table traditionally held nothing more than books, an alarm clock and, occasionally, an aging box of condoms.
Barb sniffed loudly, bringing him back into the room. Falk took the Father’s Day card from her lap and looked around in vain for somewhere suitable to put it.
‘See. That’s exactly the problem,’ Barb said, her red eyes watching him. ‘What on earth am I supposed to do with all their things? There’s so much and there’s nowhere to put anything. I can’t fit it all in our house, but I can hardly give everything away like none of it matters –’
Her voice was high-pitched as she started snatching up odd items within reach and clutching them to her chest. Underpants from the bed, the toy robot, Karen’s glasses. She picked up the books from the bedside table and swore loudly. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, and these are bloody library books. How overdue are these going to be?’ She turned to Falk, red-faced and angry.
‘No-one tells you this is how it’s going to be, do they? Oh yes, they’re all so sorry for your loss, all so keen to pop round and get the gossip when it happens, but no-one mentions having to go through your dead son’s drawers and return their library books, do they? No-one tells you how to cope with that.’
With a flash of guilt, Falk pictured the extra box of Karen’s and Billy’s belongings he’d left outside the bedroom door. He plucked the books from Barb’s hands, put them under his arm and steered her firmly out of the bedroom.
‘I can look after that for you. Let’s just –’ He ushered her straight past Billy’s room and emerged with some relief into the bright kitchen. He guided Barb to a stool. ‘Let’s get you a cup of tea,’ he finished, pulling open the nearest cupboards. He hadn’t the slightest idea what he might find there, but even crime scene kitchens usually had mugs.
