by William Shaw
Hilary busies herself instead, laying out cutlery.
‘Zoë’s been telling me all about Esin,’ says Helen.
‘Has she?’ Her daughter didn’t say much about her in the car.
‘She’s seen terrible things, that girl. It’s a lot for Zoë to take on.’
‘I know.’
‘Death changes you at that age. It makes you hard.’
Cupidi looks at her mother, holding a glass of wine. ‘You’re talking about Esin, or yourself?’ she asks quietly.
‘Both.’
She raises her glass. ‘To Alexandra,’ she says.
Her mother nods, raises her own glass. It is a solemn moment, shared between the two of them. A strange kind of closeness.
The others look up, unsure what they are toasting.
Zoë will be back at school soon; she’s dreading it, but Helen is staying on now indefinitely. They have bought new curtains for her room.
As the warm day turns to evening, they eat. Cupidi watches Zoë talking to Lulu about birds. Julian is trying to explain to Hilary what Lulu does for a living. Ferriter gets drunk and begs Helen to tell stories about what it was like when she was in the police. And as she’s talking about how she met Cupidi’s father, Helen reaches out and takes Alex’s hand and holds it, squeezing it tightly.
A north wind is rising. The tablecloth flutters in the wind, catching a glass which falls and smashes on the shingle. Still they sit, determined to stay out as long as they can in the last of the summer heat until the candles Helen has put in jamjars blow out, one by one.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is the result of my sloppy reading habits. I’m fortunate to be among those whom C. J. Sansom gives early drafts of his novels. Last year he gave me the early pages of his forthcoming Shardlake novel, Tombland. It’s a wonderful book; I hope he won’t mind the spoiler, but it opens with with the ghoulish discovery of the body of a woman; a few pages later, the same dead woman is knocking at the door of her son’s house. Instantly I was captivated by the idea of a mother, ghoulishly murdered, reappearing from the dead. Simultaneously baffled and electrified, I skimmed back again to discover I had raced through the first chapters so eagerly I completely missed a vital time-shift. Only when I read it again did I realise that the second part was not an event that happened after her death, but was a flashback. But I had found the opening to my next book. Is stealing a mistaken idea plagiarism? C. J. Sansom is a lawyer; he says I’ll find out soon.
Thanks, too, for help with research to the writer and activist Hsiao-Hung Pai, and to Barbara Storey of SOS Polonia, an excellent charity that helps East European migrant workers in the UK,
Much gratitude to those who have given me support along the way. Too many to name, and apologies for those left out: Susan Riaz, Bec Stokes, Barry Forshaw, Simon Cooper, Raven Crime, Llainy Swanson, Terry Halligan, Mystery People, One Tree Books, Heywood Hill Books, and in particular to Rich at Waterstones Brighton.
Thanks as ever to Jon Riley and Rose Tomaszewska at riverrun, who did so much to craft this book, and also to Joshua Kendall and Nicky Guerreiro at Mulholland. And to the team: Roz Brody, Mike Holmes, Jan King and Chris Sansom for their enthusiasm, diligence and intelligence. Also to Ron Beard and David Murphy of Quercus for doing the impossible.
And, as always, to Jane McMorrow.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Shaw is an award-winning pop-culture journalist who has written for the UK’s Observer and Independent as well as the New York Times. He is the author of The Birdwatcher and three novels set in 1960s London: She’s Leaving Home, The Kings of London, and A Song for the Brokenhearted, which was short-listed for the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger award. Shaw lives in Sussex, England.
ALSO BY WILLIAM SHAW
The Birdwatcher
Breen & Tozer
A Song for the Brokenhearted
The Kings of London
She’s Leaving Home
Nonfiction
Westside
