‘Yippee.’ He applied his brush to a watercolour tin on his lap.
‘Sorry about this,’ Dr Chan said under her breath, ‘it’s nothing personal, I can assure you.’
They followed her towards Zander and then stood in front of him. He was a nice-looking boy, maybe a bit small for his age, but with precise features and thick brown hair worn long around his ears and neck and tucked behind his ears. He was wearing a Teenage Fanclub T-shirt, jeans and Reeboks. His eyes, when he looked up at them, were a very pale blue. He fixed them both with the most intense gaze Flint had ever seen.
‘What is this?’ said Zander, outlining a lilypad on his cartridge paper with a stroke of green paint, ‘a giant’s convention?’
Ana suddenly snorted. Flint looked at her. She was laughing.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Ah,’ said Zander, suddenly looking up and straight at Ana, ‘at last – a woman who appreciates my puerile sense of humour. Maybe we should get married?’
Ana smiled and blushed.
‘Ana,’ said Dr Chan, ‘is Belinda’s half-sister. And Flint here is Ana’s friend. He was, is, also a very good friend of Belinda’s. There’s something they’d like to talk to you about. Would you like to talk to them here or back in your room?’
‘I have no interest in talking with anyone, anywhere, about my former “aunt”. Thank you very much.’
‘Zander,’ said Dr Chan, ‘I think you’ll want to hear what Ana and Flint have to say.’
‘Oh, will I? Really. OK, then. Since you seem to know exactly what I want to hear and what I don’t want to hear, I presume there’s no point in arguing.’
He began wheeling himself towards a bench. ‘Sit down,’ he said to Flint and Ana, with all the authority of a middle-aged bank manager. He looked at Dr Chan. ‘You can leave us now,’ he said. Dr Chan tutted and raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t forget,’ she said, tapping her watch, ‘lunch in forty-five minutes,’ before putting her hands in the pockets of her white coat, turning on her heel and heading back to the house.
Zander waited until she was out of sight before turning to regard Flint and Ana. ‘Right,’ he began, ‘three things. First of all – who the hell are you two? And don’t give me that half-sister bollocks. I’ve had it up to here with half-baked sisters and half-arsed aunts and second-hand uncles, OK? I know that Bee wasn’t my aunt, so you can cut that crap, right now. Secondly – before you say anything about Bee, you should know that there is nothing she could say or that you could say on her behalf that I would want to hear – now, or ever. And thirdly – have either of you two got a fag on you?’
They shrugged and shook their heads.
‘Oh well. It was worth asking. So,’ he continued, ‘is there anything you’d like to say, given what I’ve just said?’ He looked at them glibly.
‘Yeah,’ said Flint, unable to contain his annoyance with this smug, arrogant young man, wheelchair or no wheelchair. ‘Yeah, there is, actually. She’s dead.’ Ana threw him a look. He hardened his jaw.
Zander smiled momentarily, and Flint wanted to hit him. ‘Sorry?’ he said, still with that infuriating smirk on his face.
‘Bee,’ said Flint, ‘she’s dead.’
The smirk started to fade a bit, and Zander’s face contorted itself into a look of disbelief. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
Flint shook his head.
‘But – when? How?’ Cracks were appearing in his supercilious demeanour.
‘A month ago. 28 July. To be precise.’
‘My birthday … ‘He trailed off momentarily, rubbing his chin absent-mindedly with the palm of his hand. He looked up at Flint with those ice-blue eyes. ‘What happened?’
‘She killed herself.’
Zander flinched and his eyes dropped to the floor. ‘How?’
‘Pills and alcohol.’
‘Shit.’
Silence fell. A cricket chirruped in the background and a breeze ruffled through the weeping-willow fronds.
‘Did she leave a note?’
