Hemlock and Roses

etheart? I

he only sound in the kitchen apart from th

ange, as if it belonged to someone sta

er it again and again in the dark, she would think it had laste

Her little Rosie, because you went pink as a rose whenever you cried. You rang me in a terrible state just now, you weren't making much sens

e dark with the

r called

e that had sat beside her bed through every fever of her childhood, reading Plato aloud because she said th

erything he said was

't drink tea. I don't remember making it. I don't remember ringing you." She h

n the line. "You've had three days without sleep, you're working a murder that's

d out

se. Shorter

t now. About the

's mouth, was like a co

did

ou knew him. A long time ago. You were very young, and he was older, and he was not well. After the fire, he became fixated on you. He'd wait outside the house. He'd ring at all hours. He frightened you so badl

flat on the counter. Th

n't what

en years convinced someone set that fire and killed his brother. And now the one person in the world i

osed h

at a window with his back to her and one hand flat agains

e I kn

aid. "Pour the rest of that tea down th

es

e." A pause, and then, very softly: "I've al

our the tea

e took a clean freezer bag out of the drawer, tipped the tea into it, sealed it, and wrote the

at a crime scene. It was only when she'd finished and set the two b

her own kitchen

ed herself as

t the cupboard, pulled her knees up to her chest, and sta

L

't slee

t himself back into the workshop and didn't switch on the light. He crossed the long room in the dark from memory,

were st

is hands on his knees and looked at

he had imagined her coming back to apologise. Then, to explain. Later, when he understood she was never coming back at al

no and play it from beginning to end with the tears

s and his face in his hands and

uesday, she

n apple clamped in her teeth. She'd been wearing a camel coat at least two sizes too big for her, with the sleeves rolled up, and a green scarf wound round and round her neck. She'd stopped

said,

d studied him with frank, delighted curiosity. Her eyes had been the grey-green of the river in

aborate? Tell me about your tragic b

ing the

iano teacher's moustache, and a dream she'd had about a goose. He had said perhaps eleven words. When he finally stood and packed away his tools, she sto

and he had laughed before he could stop himself, a short, startled sound like so

our Tuesdays. I'm pu

rtain of it. He had loved her before he had any ri

r did. There was a door in him behind which that night lived, and

sellor his mother had begged him to see before she, too, was gone. He had carried them alone for so long that they'd beco

self think abo

and every time he moved his fingers it felt as though the fire was still inside them. When th

was

o put his good hand on the frame. He remembered

ered that she

pped away from him. She was a person who leaned in. Who touched your arm when she laughed, and talked with her hands, and sat too close on

t colour, in a face that was exactly the right face. And

a small thing to him. Half a tone was th

ne," sh

she had never once

ould stop calling. She said it all without moving her hands. She stood with her weight on her left foot, very straight, very still, the way he had seen exac

said. "Iris

moved across her face, quick and cold, li

't here,"

treet door had banged shut below, his burnt hand throbbing in its bandage, and those thr

isn't

rief had made him strange. He'd thought

n his doorway that day, wearing her face and her coat and speaking in her voice half a tone too low, it was no

d to look at him. He'd believed it when her number stayed disconnected and his letters came back unopened. He'd believed it three years later, when he saw her across a café on the high street, la

understood that s

walk home, he had made a decision. He would not be the one to make her remember. Not unt

e had gone looking, quietly and alone, for proof of what he'd seen

Saturday night, to

zed on the be

half past two. Nobody rang him at h

ned it

point he'd never noticed, reconnected. He'd have known it anywhere. He had dialled it four hundred times in the weeks afte

r

shook as h

six w

from her

her name should have

screen until it we

nd the glass, and three words he hadn't let himself hear for seven y

isn't