EM:Morning, Nathaniel! We’re having a little soiree next Saturday and we’d love you to—Wow, are you okay? You look very tired.
Male:Thanks, Edwina. Always a pleasure. The baby kept us up all night.
EM:You just need to give it antihistamine—it knocks kids right out. And before you get all moral, it’s probably allergic to something.
Male:I…I hadn’t heard that one.
EM:You’ve spilled something on your shoe. Is that—
Male:Ketchup! Cooked breakfasts are the best.
EM:Have you seen Barry this morning?
Male:No? Why? What do you want with him?
EM:He’s normally done a patrol by now, and I’ve got a bottle of whiskey for him. I don’t want him to ruin the party by coming round with his sound decibel monitor.
Male:I’ll tell him if—
EM:Oh—maybe I could put antihistamine in the whiskey.
Edwina Marland walks off. Male rubs at his shoe.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Fox
“Didyoukill them all?”
We were in our kitchen, trying to make it not look like a family of raccoons lived here. Haze was washing up, I was drying. I thought I’d misheard. Until she said it again. My wife. Staring at me. Holding a soapy coffee mug. Asking me if I’d killed behind her back.
She observed me for a quiet few seconds, then spoke again. “Danny groped me. Kristoff ripped me off. And Barry was always fucking me off. And all three of them are dead.”
“You can’t be serious?”
We stared at each other.
“I don’t want to make a big thing of it. But you killed Danny, so I was just wondering if maybe…you killed the others, too.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Of course I do. You’ve just got to admit it’s weird, right?”
I did see her point. It seemed like an unlikely coincidence.
“I understand why you did it. You were helping me, protecting me…” She trailed off.
“I did not kill them! I mean, yes, I killed Danny. But it wasn’t because of who he was, or what he did.”
“And that artist, Kristoff? We both know how easy it is to make it look like someone just fell off a roof.”
Barcelona in 2011. We’d done exactly that with a would-be rapist we’d come across.
“And when we talked about him, I looked him up, remember? We read his stupidAt Homefeature about him living in his loft above that insufferably trendy coffee shop?”
I kept quiet. She was right. If I’d wanted to, I could’ve found him. Easily.
“And Barry being right next door would make it easy enough to get to him whenever you wanted!”
