and opened his eyes. ‘My brother was there in my mother’s bedroom and they were alone because my father was away…and…and my brother was attacking her, hacking at my mother, with a machete. A big knife. A machete. I don’t know precisely what it was. But he was chopping away at her, our mother, so I jumped him and I held him down and there was blood everywhere, just everywhere – actually sprayed up the walls. I very nearly throttled him. Almost killed my own brother.’
Simon drew breath.
‘The police came and they took him away and…my mother went to hospital and they stitched her up, but she lost the use of some fingers, some nerves were severed. But that was all, really, which was incredibly lucky. She could have died – but she was alright. And then we had this terrible dilemma as a family – should we press charges? My father and I said “Yes”, but my mother said “No”. She loved Tim more than the rest of us. She thought he could be treated. So we agreed with her, stupidly, crazily, we agreed. Then Tim came home and he seemed OK for a while, on the drugs, but then one night I heard it: Das Helium und das Hydrogen…’
Simon could feel the sweat on his forehead; he hurried on with his story.
‘Tim was muttering, again, in his room. And of course that was that. We called the police – and they came straight round. Then they put Tim in an asylum. And that’s where he is now. Locked and bolted and shut in his box. He’s been there ever since. He’ll be there the rest of his life.’
As his conclusion approached, he experienced the usual relief. ‘So that’s when I started drinking – to forget, you know. Then sulphates and then pretty much everything…But I finally stopped the boozing six years ago and yes I did my course of NA antibiotics, my sixty meetings in sixty days! And I’ve been clean ever since.
‘And I now have a wife and a son and I dearly love them. Miracles do happen. They really do. Of course I still don’t know why my brother did what he did and what that means but…I look at it this way: maybe I haven’t got his genes, maybe my boy will be alright. Who knows. One day at a time. And that’s my story. And thanks very much for listening. Thank you.’
A murmur of thank yous filled the warm fuggy space, like the responses of a congregation. The ensuing silence was a coda; the hour was nearly up. Everyone stood and hugged, and said the Serenity Prayer. And then the meeting was finished, and the addicts filed out, climbing up the creaky wooden stairs, out into the graveyard of Hampstead Church.
His mobile rang. Standing at the church gates, he clicked.
‘Quinn! It’s me.’
The phone screen said Withheld, but Simon recognized the voice immediately.
It was Bob Sanderson. His colleague, his source, his man: a Detective Chief Inspector – at New Scotland Yard.
Simon said a bright Hi. He was always pleased to hear from Bob Sanderson, because the policeman regularly fed the journalist good stories: gossip on high profile robberies, scuttlebutt on alarming homicides. In return for the information, he made sure that DCI Sanderson was seen, in the resultant articles, in a flattering light: a smart copper who was solving crimes, a rising star in the Met. It was a nice arrangement.
‘Good to hear your voice, DCI. I’m a bit broke.’
‘You’re always broke, Quinn.’
‘It’s called freelancing. What do you have?’
‘Something nice maybe. Strange case in Primrose Hill.’
‘Yes?’
‘Oh yes indeed.’
‘So…What is it? Where?’
The detective paused, then answered:
‘Big old house. Murdered old lady.’
‘Right.’
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’
‘Well.’ Simon shrugged, inwardly, watching a bus turn left by the Tube, heading down to Belsize Park. ‘Primrose Hill? I’m thinking…aggravated burglary, thieves after jewels…Not exactly unknown.’
‘Ah, well that’s where you’re wrong.’ The policeman chuckled, with a hint of seriousness. ‘This isn’t any old fish and chip job, Quinn.’
‘OK then. What makes it strange?’
‘It’s the method. Seems she was…knotted.’
‘Knotted?’
‘Apparently so. They tell me that’s the proper word.’ The policeman hesitated. Then he said, ‘Knotted! Perhaps you should come and have a look.’
2
Beyond the hospice window stretched the defeated beauty of the Arizona desert: with its vanquished sands, stricken creosotes, and blistered exposures of basalt. The green arms of the saguaro cacti reached up, imploring an implacable sun.
If you had to die, David Martinez thought, this was a fitting place to die, on