can see how we can’t have the two of you hanging over our shoulders.”
We looked at each other, across the coffee table. The terrible part was that I knew, with total and wretched certainty, that just a few months ago I would have been able to talk them round: easy-peasy, no problem to me, charming smile and some perfect solution that would make everyone happy. The gibbering mess I was now couldn’t have talked round a five-year-old, even if I had been able to come up with a solution, which I couldn’t: the only thing I could think of was going all Occupy Ivy House and telling these guys that they would have to handcuff me and drag me out, and even apart from the cringe factor I had a feeling they would cheerfully do exactly that if they had to.
“Tell you what,” Rafferty said, relenting. “Split the difference. You and your uncle clear out of our way for, what, say an hour?”
He glanced at Kerr. “Hour and a half, maybe,” Kerr said. His notebook had vanished.
“Hour and a half. Go get some lunch, do the shopping. While you’re out, we’ll do the study and the kitchen. Then when you get back, you can stick to those rooms—get your work done, make yourselves a cup of tea if you want one—and we won’t be in each other’s way. How does that sound?”
“OK,” I said, after a moment. “I guess.”
“Great,” Rafferty said cheerfully. “Sorted, so.”
When I stood up, he did too. At first I didn’t understand why. It was only as he followed me up the stairs to Hugo’s study that I got it, and that I realized: Since the dead person had links to this house, we’re going to need to search it. We’ve got a warrant and all; but a few minutes earlier, he had made it sound like he had only just that moment found out who the dead person was.
* * *
I wasn’t supposed to drive, but Hugo clearly couldn’t, and there was no way in hell I was going to make him walk the streets till Rafferty and his pals finished doing their thing. His car was a long white 1994 Peugeot, rust spots and duct tape everywhere, but actually a nice drive once I started getting the hang of its quirks. The hard part was the surroundings, out on the main road: speed and colored lights and moving things everywhere, like being yanked up from the depths of still green water into way too much of everything. I hoped to God I was driving OK; I really, really couldn’t handle any more cops right then.
I badly wanted a cigarette. I hadn’t been smoking long enough to build up a serious addiction, but what with the situation—cops to the left of me, journalists to the right, and there I was, stuck in the middle with my nonsmoker act—I hadn’t had one since the night before, and it had been a bastard of a day already. I pulled off the main road and turned corners till I found a cul-de-sac lined with spindly trees and little old-person cottages. “Can we just hang on here for a minute?” I said, switching off the ignition, already fumbling for my cigarettes. “I really need one of these.”
“I almost punched him,” Hugo said, startling me. He had taken the news and the plan quietly, just a nod and a careful note on his papers before he put them aside, barely a word on our way out the door or on the drive. “That Rafferty man. I know it’s not his fault, it has to be done, but still. The thought of him and his men prodding and peering through my house—not that I have anything I want to hide, but that’s beside the point, it’s our home— Just in that second, when he said it, I very nearly—” The sudden rise and roll of his shoulders: for a fleeting moment I saw the size of him, the breadth of his back, the reach of his arms. “A part of me wishes I had.”
“I did try to stop them,” I said, although I wasn’t sure this really counted as true. “From searching the house. Or at least from throwing us out.”
Hugo sighed. “I know. It’s all right. Probably it’s good for us to get out of the house for a bit.” He leaned his head back against the headrest and ran a hand over his face, roughly, eyes squeezed tight. “I couldn’t