Chapter 52
Lottie finds herself drifting up from a dreamless sleep. She was so exhausted when she finally closed her eyes, wanting to shut out the whole nightmare of the house fire. She wipes a dribble of saliva that has leaked from her mouth.
Tim is gently shaking her awake, saying her name softly like a prayer. She moans in complaint, turns over onto her other side, determined to sink back into the comfort and anaesthesia of sleep.
‘Lottie, wake up. I’ve just had a call from the police. They want to speak to us again.’
This information settles into her consciousness like a bothersome fly she would casually flick away and forget if she could. But then it returns to her again and again until the reality of it cannot be ignored.
‘What?’ she manages to say through a voice thick and dry from sleep.
She swallows. Her throat is still sore and she reaches for a stale bottle of water beside the bed.
Everything looks strange and unfamiliar and then she remembers, they are in a cheap little flat, not their previous holiday apartment.
She sits up and looks for Josh who is curled up asleep between them.
They have never really co-slept as a family but they had little choice and all three of them were so tired they had dossed down together.
The blinds are still firmly closed from when they had blocked out the day earlier but the quality of the light feels to have changed now.
‘What time is it?’ she asks, her voice rising.
She hears Tim sigh as he checks his phone.
‘It’s just gone half five. It’s nearly tea time,’ he answers, clearly thinking of his stomach as usual. ‘I can’t believe it’s still Sunday,’ he adds with a shake of his head.
‘No, it can’t be,’ she says in disbelief. She could have sworn that they had slept all day and night. She was faintly hoping it was Monday. The start of a new week when they might be able to go home and return to some semblance of normality, their previous lives.
‘What do the police want?’ she says as she tries to gulp down the water.
She still feels hungover though surely that’s not possible.
But then she remembers how much she had to drink, how uncommonly strong it was, how long it takes her to process alcohol these days.
Had she even accepted a couple of tokes on a spliff from one of the locals she got chatting to?
She remembers seeing some familiar faces from around the town; Jan, the shopkeeper and her friends, Ted Stark and the B always so much to see there, nothing hidden.
‘This is serious, Lottie. I’m not sure you realise how serious this is. I think we’re in trouble.’
She struggles to sit up, pushing herself further up the bed while still covering her nakedness with the sheet.
‘Why?’
But she knows why. Her husband has always been so moral, so straight, so public-minded and upstanding.
The one to stop and help, to give money to a homeless person, let others out at a junction.
But he is also the one to call in something suspicious, check on his neighbours, hand in the money to lost-and-found.
Just as you would imagine a teacher might be; caring, responsible, dutiful.
It is unlike him to be so scared and unsettled yet it is true to form that he would be worried about being on the wrong side of the law.
‘You tell me, Lottie.’ He rounds on her. He has never been like this with her before. He never loses his temper or raises his voice. What has happened to him? Where is her endlessly patient husband, the doting father of her child?
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she says falteringly.
‘Don’t you?’ he says, skewering her with a look that makes her feel as though he has ripped the sheet from her, exposing her for all to see.
‘No, I don’t,’ she says, hurt and anger simmering to the boil.
Josh is waking up now, roused by his parents’ turbulent voices, instinctively aware that all is not quite right in his little world.
Tim leans in closer, drops his voice a fraction and says in a stern whisper, ‘What did you do, Lottie? What have you done? How could you?’
They arrive at the police station and find it to be a squat 1970s building that reminds them both of their old primary schools.
Lottie feels more aware of her surroundings now and registers the same utilitarian feel and smell, though there are no cheery paintings on the walls and the furniture is all adult-sized and screwed to the floor.
They report to the attending officer whose red, sunburned face looks all the more livid next to his white shirt, which strains around his thick neck and over his broad shoulders.
After a quick consultation, he comes back to say that they would like to interview Lottie on her own, if Tim would kindly sit with Josh in the waiting area.
Lottie grips Tim’s hand, giving it an urgent squeeze before she relinquishes it. She resists giving her husband and son a kiss or hug goodbye. She won’t be long, after all, and she will see them both soon. This is all purely procedure and she is merely helping the police with their enquiries.
Tim gives her a heartfelt look of encouragement, for which she is grateful.
‘See you in a bit,’ he says. ‘If I’m not here, we’ll just be outside getting some fresh air,’ he adds, gesturing to the uninspiring car park.
Lottie is led down a narrow, drab corridor with squeaky linoleum flooring underfoot and stained ceiling tiles above, until they reach a door with a small square of glass in it.
She is ushered inside, told to take a seat at the table in what is a warm, windowless room and is offered a cup of tea.
At first, she refuses the drink and then changes her mind, asking for a glass of water instead.
After a few minutes, in which she feels herself grow hotter and hotter, a man and woman enter the room.
Lottie sits up straighter and wipes the sweat from her palms along the length of her denim skirt.
In a certain part of her brain, she registers the fact that they are both dressed in plain clothes rather than uniforms. That this means they are more senior members of the police force.
The female is a mature woman, sporting a steely grey, short-cropped hairstyle not unlike Lottie’s might look one day when she is older, while the man, who is younger by a good twenty years, is shiny-faced, with brown hair plastered flat to the top of his head.
He wears a white shirt and grey slacks, the woman a non-descript navy suit, too hot for this day.
As they sit opposite Lottie, their faces are closed; polite but not friendly.
This is not just the clarification of a witness statement, taken down and signed by a lowly duty officer, realises Lottie.
These are detectives. They are not grateful for her cooperation, though the younger man offers his thanks to her for coming in; they are demanding it, expectant.
The woman, who introduces herself as Detective Price, informs her that they will be recording the interview and rattles through a script that sounds both reassuringly routine and alarmingly official.
Lottie tries to breathe without seeming to gulp at the air. She wants to look normal, calm, above all innocent. But she can already feel a pressure rising in her throat, the thud of her pulse – can they hear it too?
‘Am I in trouble?’ she asks, echoing Tim’s words to her earlier.
She thinks of her husband and son, separated from her by just a few walls and doors, and yet she wonders when she will see them again.
The thought threatens to bring a prickle to her eyes and she must bite down on the inside of her cheek to quell it.
The man and the woman both lift their heads and look at her, allowing the silence to draw out, before Detective Price gives a no-nonsense sniff as if to say, we’ll ask the questions.
‘As you know, we’re investigating the recent fire at number 17 on Cliff Road, the property next to which you and your family have been staying for the last week.’
‘We weren’t the only people staying on that street,’ blurts Lottie. ‘What about the people living on the other side, next door? Number 19?’