in Russian, the man protests, but weakly. His face is ravaged with exhaustion. From the exchange, Davy guesses the man wanted food and Edikas told him he couldn’t have any. The man trudges away again up the stairs.
‘They never stop eating,’ Edikas explains.
Davy steps into the bedroom where the interpreter is trying to get blood from a stone. It should be him leading the questioning, not the interpreter, so he intervenes.
‘Did you know Lukas Balsys?’ Davy asks.
The interpreter relays.
The migrant on the mattress shrugs.
‘Is that yes or no?’ Davy asks.
Another shrug.
‘Would you like to come down to the station and talk to us there?’
Edikas enters. ‘You cannot take him to police station unless he is under arrest. What can be for arresting? Nothing!’
‘Do you know what happened to Lukas Balsys?’ Davy asks, deciding to attempt an interview despite the obstacles.
Another languid shrug.
He writes on his pad. Tell him we can protect him if he talks to us. He shows this to the interpreter.
The interpreter writes, I cannot tell him this without also telling the heavy. And he nods at Edikas.
‘Did Lukas have any things?’ Davy asks Edikas. ‘That he left in the house?’
Edikas nods and points to one of the mattresses. It is covered in a sheet that was once white but has a brown, human-shaped stain taking up most of its surface. Beside the mattress is a bottle of vitamin pills, a leather belt, a pair of socks.
‘What about his wallet, his phone?’ Davy asks.
Edikas shrugs. ‘That’s all,’ he says, nodding at the desultory collection of objects on the floor. Davy puts on a pair of gloves and places the objects into evidence bags.
He wants to get out. This isn’t the way to break open this hub. It’s a crime scene. It wants clearing out like a crime scene.
‘We can go,’ he says to the interpreter. He steps quickly around the mattresses and heads for the door.
Outside, Davy’s phone vibrates.
When will you be home Dudu Bear?
He looks at his watch. It’s only 4 p.m. and Juliet’s asking. He texts back, irritably.
Late. Job’s come in.
Can you give me an idea of time? Only it’s really hard to sleep if I don’t know when you’re coming in.
You sleep. I’ll go on the couch.
She has been bothered by the man in the tree – another thing to add to her sense that the country, nay the world, is going to the dogs. Bothered that Teddy got so close to seeing the hanging man. Bothered that Korea has fired another test missile. Bothered that her bin collection has gone fortnightly and that the streets around her home are rubbish-strewn. Funding shortfalls everywhere she looks. Detectives transfer or retire and don’t get replaced. Police inspectorate warning of grave dangers to the service – poor response times, suspects not being apprehended, calls being downgraded. Calling 999? Yes madam, someone should be with you in the next couple of days.
Everything is so much worse than she ever imagined it could get. And middle age keeps on landing the blows.
‘When I get out of bed in the morning,’ Mark says, ‘my whole body hurts for a moment or two.’
‘Oh I know,’ she says. ‘Especially the feet.’
They are pale, with protruding bellies. Saggy-bottomed. In sharp contrast to their children, who amaze them with their shining, taut skin. Lovely legs. When she holds Ted’s face next to hers and looks in the mirror, it’s like an age-related horror show. Like satin next to Viking-era hessian.
At forty-six, Manon has entered an age of crippling anxiety, a period of her life freighted with dread. Her furrowed brow, never un-furrowed, is a bother to Mark Talbot, she can tell (although he’s no ray of sunshine); her joie de vivre abandoned at the coalface of worst-case-scenario planning. What if Teddy drowns or develops a tumour? What if the people she leaves him with are cruel to him? How will she know? Why won’t he sit quietly with a book for an hour or two? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera as the doomy King of Siam said in The King and I.
And marriage. Trying to keep that shit-show on the road. Not bothering to have the same old arguments because they are boring, but fearful of screwing it up because who else would have her, and also: The Children. Frowning at Mark Talbot while she heaves the bins out in the rain. Because if you miss the bins, they’ll stink to high heaven, they’ll stink as bad as your rotting marriage.
In fact, they are not married, she and Mark, but might as well be (all the tedium, none of the tax breaks); slogging through it like most couples. He is her constant companion, which is no small thing; conjoined in the forge of parenthood, which is 70 per cent delight at the emerging personalities of their children and 30 per cent resentful trudge. Meal preparation, dishwasher emptying, overflowing laundry baskets, Lego underfoot. Underneath, she wonders if there might be something darker brewing – how can one tell? Mark might have someone else. His online life might harbour appalling secrets. But these questions she asks only fleetingly because he is her constant companion and life without him would be a dismantling of unconscionable proportions. He is the conversation, the jokes, the affection, the loyalty, all her warmth. She cannot ask the darker questions because she loves him too much. It is better not to know, to settle down to another box set in a state of blissful and un-disruptive not-knowing. Human beings cannot bear too much reality.
The last couple of Januarys have seen a welter of break-ups among friends, Christmas being the straw that breaks the marital back. Mark Talbot secretly harbouring his midlife crisis, the extent of which she cannot fully ascertain. He looks malnourished, despite his pot belly, and unfit. He’s developed a worrying Rennie habit. She watches him pee and worries about his prostate.
‘You get to a point,’ she explained to her oldest friend Bryony, ‘where you realise his shit is never going to get better. His shit will always be your shit.’
‘Yup. You should come on my school run. They’re dropping like flies. Everyone in couples counselling, not all of it good.’
‘I’m in couples counselling,’ Manon replied. ‘On my own.’
‘Result,’ said Bri.
‘I know. I don’t even have to listen to his side.’
‘Isn’t couples counselling on your own just … therapy?’
‘Don’t be absurd. I don’t need therapy. All my problems are because of Mark.’
‘Course they are. Why won’t he go?’
‘Says it would just be me, wanging on,’ Manon said.
It’s not just the same old row about mental load, about who should be doing the utterly tedious bedtime routine while simultaneously preparing a nutritious dinner brimming with fresh veg, but also the deep chasm over The Anxiety of It All. Who is carrying The Anxiety of It All? Is it the person who is prone to anxiety? Or is it that person because one of you refuses to carry the anxiety and cunningly off-loads it onto the other one? She has her suspicions, which she keeps not very close to her (now shelf-like) chest. They barely touch each other these days, her and Mark. The bed is an icy canyon they cannot cross. Kissing is a thing of