Chapter 46
No discussion needed, no words exchanged.
Something has shifted in the air between them and neither seems to want to name it in case it breaks whatever it is.
She takes his hand and leads him over to a display cabinet where there are eight miniature coffins, the Arthur’s Seat coffins, found on the site where Sasha later tried to take her life.
Matthew turns his face away. He’s had enough of the case. He’s had enough of witches. He wants the here, the now. Nothing nebulous. Something tangible.
Gill.
They get out of the museum on to Chambers Street, straight into a taxi.
Matthew gives his address without pausing to think.
They sit close on the back seat, not touching, but near enough that he can feel warmth radiating off her, easing the numbness at his core that he’s felt since the tiles in the bathroom transformed themselves into sheep and started baaing at him.
‘I need to sleep,’ he says, suddenly realising that this is what he wants beyond anything else, to climb into bed, a warm body beside him that he can curl himself into until all the outside world has gone away.
‘You can sleep,’ she says. ‘You look like you need it.’
‘I feel like I haven’t slept since this case began.’
He pays for the cab and takes Gill into his flat.
Despite his clearing up last week, it’s a tip now, but he doesn’t care.
He knows instinctively that she won’t, either, that she’ll see beyond the washing-up, the piles of empty microwave trays.
Or if she does see it, she understands that this isn’t laziness, the grubby habits of a slovenly man.
It’s the detritus of loneliness, too many nights spent cold and alone; the time he spent with Olivia feels long now past.
He leads her into his bedroom, takes off his jumper, his socks. He sits on the bed and she sits next to him, unlacing her boots.
‘Can you hold me?’ he says. ‘I just want to be held.’ In her face he can see nothing but understanding.
He lies down, curled up with his arm under his head, and to his joy he can feel her curl herself around him, pulling the duvet up close.
A warmth suffuses him, a sense of peace, and he closes his eyes and sleep comes.
Later, when he wakes, she’s not there. He puts his hand out to the empty space on the bed where she lay, panic rising.
It subsides quickly, though. There’s clattering from the kitchen, the sound of plates being stacked.
A scent of frying onions in the air. He gets up, goes for a quick pee before joining her in the kitchen.
She’s cleared up. The washing-up is neatly stacked on the drying rack and the microwave dishes have gone.
‘I went through the fridge and found some bits,’ she says. ‘I’m just making a pasta sauce. You can’t live off this processed rubbish, you know.’
She’s looking after him. Matthew feels almost too grateful for words, though he manages a stumbled thanks.
‘I’ve been worried about you,’ she says. ‘I’ve been watching you on the jury. You really seem to be taking it all so much to heart.’
‘My daughter’s not far off the same age,’ he says. ‘I think it was Christian’s mum this morning . . .’ He can’t finish the sentence. She nods.
‘I know what you mean. Look, I know you can’t talk about it, but do you think this is a good jury? I mean, do you think they’re keeping an open mind, that they’re weighing up the evidence properly?’
‘Yes, I think they are. It’s all looking a bit of a foregone conclusion, but I guess we’ll see what the defence is.’
‘I guess we will. Anyway, eat up.’
She puts a plate of food in front of him. It’s simple stuff – pasta, tomato sauce – but the fact that it’s homemade gives it real flavour against the pap that he’s eaten for the last week and he wolfs it down, pausing only to help himself to more when his plate is clean.
‘Thank you,’ he says again, with more vigour than before. The food and the sleep have both given him his strength back. He feels clearer in thought again, the fog lifted. He clears the plates from the table and puts the kettle on. It’s his kitchen – he should take back control.
‘Tea?’
She nods. Once it’s done he sits back down at the table, pushing her mug across to her. Instead of picking it up, she reaches down and rummages inside her bag, pulling out a box.
‘What’s this?’ he says.
‘I bought it from that little museum off the Royal Mile,’ she says. ‘I wondered what you might think . . .’
He takes the box, looks at it, registering what he’s looking at. A game box, the same size as Cluedo or Monopoly. But not as cheerful in its packaging, a spooky grey cover on which the word OUIJA jumps out.
Ouija. He pushes it away from him.
‘What the fuck?’
‘I was curious. I couldn’t help it,’ she says. ‘We’ve heard so much about this kind of thing. I wondered what it would be like to try it.’ She raises one eyebrow, looks at him invitingly.
Matthew recoils, shocked to his bones. He could handle it more easily if she’d stripped off all her clothes and offered herself to him on a plate.
That would be straightforward, at least, a simple yes or no.
A familiar invitation. Enough women have offered themselves to Matthew in his time. He’s not always said no, either.
But what she’s offering now is different.
Darker. Dirtier. The kind of secret that sends shivers through you, the compulsion that repels yet attracts.
Just one more. If you do it with your eyes shut, maybe it doesn’t count.
Though if you do it, it can never be undone.
If I can’t see you, you can’t see me. We’ll do it in the dark.
‘I’ll turn the lights off,’ he says. ‘There’s a candle in here somewhere. That’ll be better.’
He’s crossing the Rubicon now.