Page 27

He moved to the stove, lifting the lid on his abandoned chai. The rich aroma filled the kitchen again, momentarily masking the tension in the air.

“Ruined,” he muttered, turning off the heat. “That’s the second batch this week.”

I watched him dump the contents into the sink, the spiced liquid disappearing down the drain. His movements were precise despite his obvious frustration, the way they always were when he was trying to maintain control.

“I got the star anise,” he said quietly, placing a small paper bag on the counter. He stared at it for a moment before turning to face me.

“I’ll make you a deal, Erin.”

I leaned on the worktop, facing him.

“I’ll tell you everything I know about what happened with Maggie.” His voice broke on her name. “If you explain to me why a guy who might be an accomplice in her murder was calmly sitting in your living room.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Are you accusing me of something, Tom?”

“He seemed pretty damn comfortable,” he continued. “So, I think maybe I am, yeah.”

I ignored the urge to defend myself and tried to answer calmly. “Adam was here to talk about Wyatt,” I said. “According tohim, she’s not behind all this. But Wyatt thinks she knowswho might be.”

His brow furrowed. “Itwasher, then? I was right. And she didn’t tell you this herself, she sent her errand boy…” he said humourlessly. “Who’s she accusing?”

“Nicholas Murray.”

Astonishment flickered across his face. He’d obviously not believed his own theories on that one. “No. That can’t be right. All the clues point back to her, not him. His only link was the Edinburgh thing.”

“Look, I don’t know any more about it than you do! You came back, and I didn’t let him stay to explain,” I pointed out.

Tom sank into a chair, picking at a thread in the torn knee of his jeans. Minutes passed without a word.

“Maggie was in the bath when they found her,” he said finally. “She… bled to death, or so the coroner claims. They cut her wrists straight along the radial artery. There was a kitchen knife on the floor,” he paused. “I doubt the ratio of blood to water was all that high.”

I sighed. “It wasn’t. I wanted to tell you before, but you were so…” I didn’t want to sound accusatory, so I shrugged. “I went to the mortuary yesterday before they moved her. Brad was there. He got me the file from the crime scene—”

“You could have told me,” Tom cut in.

“I wanted to. You’ve hardly been easy to talk to lately.”

He didn’t meet my eye as I continued.

“It sounds like you’ve already got most of it, anyway. But I did spot one thing. I’m guessing you haven’t seen the photos?”

He shook his head. “They wouldn’t let me up.”

“There were flowers, Tom. Like you said.”

He shot me an inscrutable look. “What kind of flowers?” On his feet, he rummaged amongst the papers on the desk, bringing back a badly scanned image of hand-drawn flowers, with an illegible scribble underneath. “Were they like this?”

I squinted at the black-and-white image, trying to bring it into focus. The blossoms might have been similar to the ones I’d seen in the photograph, but I couldn’t say for certain given the resolution. I reached over to the coffee table for my phone to compare the two.

“I’d say so, yeah. I mean, it’s not a great drawing…”

Tom nodded, looking as though I’d confirmed something for him.

“Does it fit in with anything we know about this Murray guy?” I asked.

“No,” Tom blurted. “Well, there’s the red hair, but not really. I’ve been digging through the archives all morning while you were… gone. Their filing system’s bloody medieval, but I managed to piece some stuff together.”

I eyed him sharply, but he carried on.