This Thing of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

if you want.’
    I shrug back. ‘Boss’s orders.’
    When Jon pulls on his ciggy, my eyes are drawn to the glowing tip, the whitened ash. When I was in the mental hospital, at least half the patients had scars from self-inflicted cigarette burns. My craziness was normally more intense than that – self-harm never seemed particularly seductive – but I felt the edges of the impulse then. I feel it, more strongly, now.
    I stub my cigarette out half-smoked. ‘I’m frozen,’ I say.
    Jon looks at me. ‘It is March.’
    ‘Three o’clock? It won’t take long.’

 
    5
     
    Plas Du. My second visit and first official one. The house looks sleeker than it did when I was here last. Lawns newly mown, beds dug over for the spring planting.
    ‘Nice place,’ says Breakell, as though contemplating a purchase.
    ‘But poky,’ I say. ‘Where would you put the under butler?’
    We park between a silver Mercedes and a glossy little Mini, all cream and white and chrome and edible.
    Crunch over to the front door. Breakell wears a grey suit which he likes because, as he told me, ‘It’s washable. You just stick it in the machine.’ He teams his suit with a white shirt, a strangely thin red tie and some black shoes which make a strange squeaky sound when he walks, like the exhalations of a tiny mouse.
    At the door, Breakell pushes the bell, smooths his hair.
    His ring is answered by a teenaged boy, sixteen or seventeen maybe. Blue T-shirt, jeans. A smirking look, but friendly. We say who we are and he says, ‘Oh yes . Yes. Come on through. Real live detectives.’
    Neither Jon nor I look much like Columbo, but we do at least look real. The boy – Lockwood’s son, I assume – takes us through to a big, light-filled room. Cream carpet, soft suede sofas. A painting, which might be the Rauschenberg, hangs over a stone fireplace.
    A slim woman – cropped trousers, leopard-print shoes, loose green jumper – is talking on the phone. Holds a hand up to us, meaning wait. The boy vanishes. Jon and I hang around, looking at the Rauschenberg and try to see if we can see two million quid in it.
    On a side table, there are some silver-framed family photos. The boy who opened the door to us is there. Ollie, I know from the police files. Also a girl, Francesca, a couple of years older than her brother. There are photos of the children at different ages, together and on their own. Some pictures of them with Lockwood. Some with her and Galton Evans, her ex. But though there are pictures of Ollie, Lockwood and Evans, there’s nothing recent that includes Lockwood, Evans and Francesca. Maybe that’s the result of some deliberate selection policy, but maybe not. You can read too much into things.
    The woman finishes her call and approaches. ‘ Hi . I’m Marianna. Thank you for coming out.’
    There’s something disconnected between her words and the rest of her. As it happens, I had to push to get an appointment, so if anyone should be thanking anyone it should be us to her. But her handshake is limp, absents itself too early, and her gaze gropes in the space behind my shoulder for someone who isn’t there. I think she’d forgotten we were coming.
    I introduce Jon and myself, and conclude, ‘Would you prefer us to call you Mrs Lockwood? Or Marianna?’
    Again that absent dart of the eyes, then, ‘Oh, Marianna’s fine. Look, someone should have told you. You didn’t need to come out again about the pictures. They’re here. We got them back.’
    I don’t think I actually say anything, but I see Jon’s mouth fall open. Mine the same, I expect.
    ‘They’re here ? How were they returned?’
    ‘I’m not sure. The insurance company sorted it out.’
    ‘May we see?’
    We may.
    Lockwood leads us upstairs. A sound of hoovering from behind a closed door. The top floor, the second floor, is lower-ceilinged, but it’s light and somehow better proportioned. A cream-carpeted corridor leads down the centre of the house. On the left: two