building sites all over the world. There are no normal accidents; each one is a particular confluence of circumstances.’
‘You’re not going to give me a lecture on chaos theory, are you?’ asked Bryant. ‘I wrote a book on that subject.’
‘I’m sure you know about such things, Mr Bryant—’
‘No, I mean I really did write a book on the subject. It’s behind my desk if you’d like to borrow it.’
‘But you see, my instinct was wrong,’ Kershaw admitted. ‘I built a cantilever, weighting it proportionately and angling it to match the digital shots we took on the night. Even on my reduced scale, the bricks wouldn’t have been responsible for holding in the button because the truck was already inclining backwards, toward the ditch, so I’m pretty certain that gravity would have held the load in place even if you’d taken the planks away.’
‘How much of a shove would it have taken to shift the load forward?’
‘Exactly what I asked myself. The answer, on my model, was the mere push of an index finger. It’s certainly a possibility that they were knocked forward by someone reaching into the truck cabin.’
‘They’d have to know the workings of the hydraulic system, wouldn’t they?’
‘Not as far as I can see. The engine was running, and there’s an illuminated white pictogram of the raised truck bed printed across a large red button. A child could have grasped the meaning and pressed it. In fact, it could have been local kids, looking to give him a fright. I talked with Dan—after all, he’s in charge of the crime scene, I’m rather treading on his toes with this—but he agreed with me about the likely sequence of events.’
‘To prove premeditation you need motive and opportunity, Mr Kershaw, and now it looks as though we have both.’
‘You’re including Ruth Singh’s death, then.’
‘I’d say it’s part of a grand plan, but “I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing”—Lear.’
‘King—’
‘—Well, it would hardly be Edward. Too much theorizing, not enough evidence. Proof is needed to cement the connection.’
‘I’m not sure I’m with you—’
‘Water, dear boy, water! Rising up from the damned earth to drown the innocent!’
Kershaw barely managed to tumble out of the car before Bryant crashed the gears and jerked away from the car park, into the teeming city night.
Someone in the street knew more than they were telling.
Curtains, doors and thick brick walls, blinds and shutters to exclude light and rain and other people, to keep out warmth and kindness and cold hard truth. Anything to keep lives hidden from view. Was there anything more subtly malicious than the lowland mentality of people in cool climates? England in the rain, wet gardens, chilly rooms, London dinner conversations over pudding served in xanthous light, hushed arguments behind amber supper candles, quietly spreading the poison of rationality.
This won’t do, Kallie thought. I’ll go crazy.
When the letterbox clapped, she picked the postcard from the mat and turned it over. A picture of Cairo at night. The photograph looked old and artificially coloured. Tall hotels reflected in a flat wide river, a sheet of dark light pierced with luminous neon streaks. She could almost have been looking at London after dark, except that there were more boats. On the back, a handful of lines, something about a change of plan. He had the nerve to add that he was missing her. Then come home, she almost said aloud, then fought down the plea.
What was wrong with the men she knew? Paul didn’t have the guts to stay with her through the settling-in period of their relationship, presumably because it involved some responsibility. His brother barely spoke to his girlfriend unless he wanted sex. Heather’s husband was trading her in for someone younger. And the other men in the street: Mark Garrett in a state of belligerent inebriation, Randall Ayson accused by his wife of infidelity (according to Jake, who shared the party wall), Oliver communicating with his wife via their morose son, Elliot lonely and antisocial, coming to an ignominious but probably inevitable end in a mud-filled ditch. It didn’t say much for the men of the twenty-first century. Omar and Fatima next door—she didn’t know enough about them to be critical, but having seen Fatima in the street, head covered and bowed, mincing invisibly in her husband’s shadow, the urge to do so was tempting.
The infinite dark skies made her as fractious as a school-bound child. She wished the walls that separated them all would melt away