Perhaps he forgot to. Perhaps he still had it when he saw the picture in the newspaper.
My eye fell on the big yellow envelope. I’d looked in that.
Hadn’t I? I remembered seeing staples and string. I took the envelope out of the box and tipped its contents onto the desk.
Staples, a bulldog clip, box of rubber bands, neatly coiled length of string, small penknife.
And then the chain slid out like a thin silver snake. A silver chain, broken catch.
I shook the envelope.
Something dropped out, fell onto the newspaper, bounced, came to rest a few centimetres from the photograph.
A small silver star, the twin of the one in the picture.
I hadn’t noticed the message on the answering machine, left while we were having lunch at the pub. It was Anne Karsh.
Mac, hi. Anne Karsh. I’ve got nothing on this afternoon. I’ll be at the house from about three pm if you’re free to show me the mill. If you can’t make it, don’t worry, we’ll do it another day.
Ned thought he knew where the girl in the mine shaft was killed: the Veene house, where he’d found the ankle chain. He didn’t trust the police, so he went to see Marcia. Then he went to see Dr Ian Barbie. And then he was murdered.
Marcia Carrier, Dr Marcia Carrier, Director of Kinross Hall, attacking a girl…blood nose, hit her on the body with somethin she said, stick, cane.
One of the men who abused Melanie Pavitt told her: Back soon, slut, with a lady friend for you. She’s been looking forward to this.
Was it possible?
I thought about these things, dark things, on my way to Harkness Park, slit-eyed streamlined dog face in the outside rear-view mirror, wind baring the fangs.
Anne Karsh’s small black Mercedes was parked in front of the house and she was sitting on the steps where we’d sat drinking coffee. She got up at my approach, walked to meet me. Not the outdoor look today: hair down, long black and green tartan skirt with pleats, green shirt, black V-necked sweater.
‘Mac,’ she said.
We were close. I moved back.
‘Thought you wouldn’t come,’ she said. ‘I had business things, they fell through. Suddenly couldn’t bear the city. I’m on my way to becoming a country person.’
‘I’m glad,’ I said.
‘Are you? Ripped away from the blazing heat of the forge?’
I hadn’t registered her eyes before. Hazel.
‘Not blazing today,’ I said. ‘Today was welding, grinding and fiddling.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, is that the blacksmith’s burden? To weld, grind and fiddle.’
‘By and large,’ I said, ‘I’d rather blaze.’
Silence for a moment, looking at each other. I wished I was better dressed.
‘Have you seen the house?’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘What entrance do I have to go in?’
She appraised me, serious face. ‘Take your boots off, you can come in the front.’
We went through the front door, boots and all.
‘Almost everything’s here except the clothes and the pictures,’ she said. ‘It’s as if they went on holiday and never came back.’
We started downstairs, went from huge room to huge room, looked out of the dirty windows at a dim day growing duller. Everywhere, we bumped into each other; in big spaces, we bumped into each other, sorry, sorry, hands unsure of where to go.
Upstairs. More bedrooms than a country pub, beds in all of them, clean coir mattresses, striped, some with neatly folded blankets on them.
In a large bedroom, not the master bedroom but big, wooden double bed, we looked out of the window, down at the newly cleared garden.
‘It’s going to look beautiful from here,’ Anne said. We turned inward at the same moment, looked at each other.
‘Beautiful,’ I said. She was beautiful.
There was a moment of decision, indecision.
I put out a finger and touched her lips, in the centre.
‘Oh Christ,’ she said, reaching up and taking my head in her hands.
I put my hands on her waist, long, strong waist, drew her to me. As our mouths and our bodies met, she tilted her hips and pushed her pelvis against me. My hands slid down over her buttocks, lifted her, pulled her.
When our mouths parted, I said, close to her skin, ‘Terrible urge to take off your clothes.’
‘Terrible urge,’ she said, ‘to have you take them off.’
Kissing again, lost in her mouth, my hands on the bottom of her sweater, pulled it up. We broke free just long enough for it to pass over her head. I started unbuttoning her shirt from the collar, she took her fingers out of my hair and unbuttoned her cuffs, pulled the shirt over her head.
White lacy bra. I held her by the shoulders, looked, kissed the round tops of her breasts, put my tongue into the half cups, felt the nipples, risen, insistent.
‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ she said. Her hand went behind her back and the bra fell away, trembling breasts, not small, not big, lolling in my hands, mouth torn between three places, more, nipples, hollows of the throat, ears, eyes.
She loosened my belt, waistband, silky hand sliding over my stomach, gripping me, chamois grip, pulling, squeezing. I groaned.
The bed drew us, shoes, socks, pants, underpants went. I was naked first, five-limbed. Cold, hot. Anne was on her back, mouth open, loose, lovely. I pushed up her long skirt, pulled her pantyhose down her legs, over the long thighs, tense, the curve of calves, delicate ankles. Small white lace knickers, dark and springy promise beneath. Off. Pale stomach, hollow. I rubbed my face against it, kissed it, felt a pulse against my lips, buried my face in her dense pubic hair, thighs opening, sweet musk, the place, moist, salty, impossibly delicate rose petals of flesh, my hands under her buttocks lifting her, feeling the muscles clench, her hands in my hair pushing me down, hips moving.
Anne brought me up, my tongue tracing a line to her bellybutton, tip pushing into the whorl, turned me over, tartan skirt off and in the air, floating to the ground, knelt above me, pushing her hair back with one hand, holding the engorged thing with the other, leaning forward, shoulders, breasts bigger, flushed with blood, kissing me, sucking my lips, her lips pulling mine in, her hand drawing the thin foreskin back, down, slowly, tight, drum tight, edge of pain, exquisite. And then the instant beyond pleasure, the touch, the warm, wet, tight, yielding, nipping, teasing, enfolding, gripping.
‘Yes,’ she said, sliding down, sitting on me to the hilt, ecstatic pubic junction. Beautiful, abandoned, impaled jockey, grinding, bending backwards, breasts flattening, nipples, ribs, hipbones, tendons in her neck sticking out, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh fuck, Jesus Christ, yes.’