A Slow Fire Burning Read online

  ELEVEN

  Could you open your mouth a bit wider please, sir? There was a young woman, brisk and uniformed, bending toward him, inserting a plastic stick into his mouth, and while the experience ought to have been intrusive and unpleasant, Theo was disappointed to admit to himself that he found it stirring. He closed his eyes, but that only made it worse. He tried not to look at her while she was taking his fingerprints, but when finally he met the young woman’s eye he could tell that she sensed something, something that made her uncomfortable, and he felt like a total shit. He wanted to say to her, I’m sorry, I really am. I’m not like that. I’m not one of those. I’m a one-woman man.

  Theo had only ever loved Carla. There were women before and there had been the occasional one since, but Carla was without question the one. The one and the many, he supposed, because there was this Carla and there was the previous Carla; it seemed as though over the course of his life, he’d known multiple Carlas and loved them all, would continue to love them in whatever incarnation they appeared.

  Carla was all he had. There had been Ben, of course, for that short, glorious interlude, that three years and forty-seven days of joy, but now, there was just Carla. Carla, and his work.

  Fifteen years ago, when Ben died, Theo had been deep into his third novel. He abandoned it without much thought; he simply couldn’t bear to read words he’d written while Ben played on the lawn outside, or sang with his mother in the kitchen. For a year or two, he couldn’t write at all, he barely even tried, and then when he did try, nothing came. For months and months, for years, nothing came. How to write when his heart hadn’t been broken but removed from his body? What to write? Anything, his agent told him. It doesn’t matter. Write anything. So he did. He wrote a story about a man who loses his child but saves his wife. He wrote a story about a man who loses his wife but saves his child. He wrote a story about a man who murders his sister-in-law. It was awful, all of it. It’s like pulling teeth, he told his agent. Worse than that. It’s like pulling fingernails. With his heart gone, everything he did was worthless, sterile, inconsequential. What if, he asked his agent as he sat, terrified, in front of a blank screen, I cannot work any longer because the man who wrote books is gone?

  All the while, Carla slipped away from him. She was there but not there, a wraith in the house, slipping out of rooms when he entered them, closing her eyes when he crossed her field of vision. She went to yoga classes and returned not at all Zen-like but unsettled, angry, crashing through the house and out into the garden, where she would sit, scratching at the skin on her forearms until it bled. His attempts to reach out to her were clumsy, he saw later, ill-judged. The idea they should try for another baby was met with cold fury.

  Theo began to spend less and less time at home. He traveled to writers’ festivals, he gave lectures at far-flung universities. He had a brief and unsatisfying affair with his much younger publicist. Finally, Carla left him, although her desertion lacked conviction. She bought a house five minutes’ walk away.

  Theo tried nonfiction; he tried to write about the low value assigned to fatherhood, he questioned the truths of female liberation, he pondered a return to more traditional (sexist) values. He hated himself. And he could not begin to find the words for the scope of his loss, the depth of his anger.

  Without his son, his wife, his work, Theo became desperate.

  * * *

  After the police had left, Theo went out for a walk. It was his habit to take a quick turn around the neighborhood about this time, just before lunch, to prevent himself from eating too early. He had a tendency toward gluttony. In the hallway, he reached for his coat and, instinctively, for the dog’s lead, only to withdraw his empty hand. The odd thing wasn’t that he reached for it—he still did that every other day; he wasn’t yet used to Dixon’s absence. No, the odd thing was that Dixon’s lead wasn’t there. He looked about but couldn’t see it anywhere. The cleaner must have moved it, he thought, though he couldn’t for a second think why.

  Usually he’d head along the towpath, but given that it was still cordoned off by the police, he headed up over the bridge on Danbury Street instead. There was a man in uniform there too—a young man with a shaving rash, who grinned when he saw Theo, raising his hand in greeting before self-consciously pulling it away.

  Theo saw an opening.

  “Still searching, are you?” he said, walking off to talk to the young man. “Looking for clues?”

  The officer’s face flushed. “Uh . . . yes, well. Looking for a weapon, actually.”

  “Of course,” Theo said. “Of course. The weapon. Well . . . ,” he said, looking up and down the canal as though he might spot the knife from up there, “best let you get on with it. Good luck!”

  “And to you, too!” the man said, and he blushed furiously.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Oh, it’s just . . . your writing and that. Sorry. I—”

  “No, that’s quite all right.”

  “I’m a fan, that’s all. Yeah. I’m a big fan of The One Who Got Away. I thought it was so interesting, the way you turned the whole thing around, you know, telling the story backward in some parts and forward in others, letting us see inside the killer’s head—that was so brilliant! At first you, like, you don’t know what’s going on, but then it’s just like . . . whoa. So cool. I loved the way you turned everything on its head, playing with our sympathies and empathies and all that business.”

  “Really?” Theo laughed, faking incredulity. “I thought everybody thought that was a terrible idea!”

  “Well, I didn’t. I thought it was clever. A new way to tell a story like that, makes you think, doesn’t it? Will you be writing another one, do you think? Another crime novel, I mean, another”—he paused to air-quote—“Caroline MacFarlane?”

  Theo shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m thinking about it, certainly.” He waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the water. “I could take inspiration from this mess, couldn’t I? I could call it The Boy on the Boat.” They both laughed awkwardly.

  “Is that where you get your ideas from, then?” the policeman asked. “From real life?”

  “Well, now there’s a question . . . ,” Theo said, tailing off in hopes that the policeman didn’t really expect an answer to this.

  There was a moment’s uncomfortable pause before the young man said: “Because, you see, if you ever wanted, you know, to discuss ideas for crime novels, like, maybe aspects of police work, or forensics, or anything like that . . .” The policeman was talking to him, Theo realized; he ought to be paying attention. “I might be able to help out with things like that, for example—”

  “That’s very good of you,” Theo said, beaming at him. “Very kind indeed. I, uh, well, for now I suppose I was just wondering, you know, how much progress you’re making at the moment? On this case, my, uh, my nephew’s case?” The policeman pursed his lips. Theo stood back, spreading his fingers, palms upward. “Look,” he said, “I understand you can’t give details. I was just wondering, because, you know, this has been so upsetting for us—for my wife, for Carla; she’s been through an awful lot lately—and if an arrest were imminent, well it would be a huge relief for both of us, of course. . . .”

  The officer inhaled sharply through his teeth. “We-ell,” he said, ducking his head a little, “as you say, I can’t give details. . . .” Theo nodded sympathetically, his expression rueful. He fished around in his jacket pocket and extracted a packet of cigarettes; he offered one to the policeman, who accepted. “Look, I can tell you,” the policeman said as he leaned closer to Theo to light his cigarette, “that there’s some forensic testing going on at the moment, and as I’m sure you know, these things take a little while—we don’t get the results overnight; it’s not like CSI or any of that rubbish. . . .”

  “Forensic tests . . . ?” Theo prompted.

  “Clothing,” the young man said, his voice low.
“Bloody clothing.”

  “Ah.” That was reassuring. “Bloody clothing belonging to . . . that girl? The one you questioned? Because, you know, I saw her. Running from the scene. That morning, I saw her, and I didn’t do anything. So stupid. I just thought, you know, she was a drunk or something. . . .”

  “Mr. Myerson.” The policeman arranged his face into an expression of deep concern. “There was nothing you could have done. There was nothing anyone could have done for Mr. Sutherland; his injuries were much too severe.”

  Theo nodded. “Yes, of course. Of course. But, to return to this girl, she’s the primary focus, is she, for the moment? There’s not . . . oh, I don’t know, a drugs connection, or theft, or . . . ?”

  The young man shook his head sadly. “I can’t tell you that as yet,” he said. “We’re pursuing a number of leads.”

  “Of course,” Theo said, nodding vigorously, thinking about how pursuing a number of leads was really code for We haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on. He made to walk away but he could see as he did that this policeman, this spotty young man, was desperate to give him something, to prove his importance, his worth, and so Theo asked, “Can you tell me anything about her? The girl? Not her name, of course. I was just wondering, you know, because I assume she’s local, they said in the papers she was a resident of Islington, and now she’s out there, wandering around, and of course because of my . . . my public profile, it’s not difficult to find out who I am and who my wife is, and the thing is, well, perhaps I’m being paranoid, but what I want to know is, is she dangerous, this person? Well, evidently she’s dangerous, but is she a danger to me? To us?”

  The young man, clearly intensely uncomfortable and at the same time filled with the desire to impart top secret information, leaned toward Theo. “She does have a history,” he said quietly.

  “A history?”

  “Of violence.” Theo shrank back, aghast. “Look, it’s nothing to panic about. She’s just . . . she’s unstable. That’s all I’m telling you. That’s all I can say. Look, I want to reassure you here, I do—we’re dragging the canal again this afternoon. We’re still searching for the weapon and once we’ve got that, then Bob’s your uncle. Once we’ve got that, an arrest has got to be imminent.”

  * * *

  Back at his desk, feeling somewhat reassured, Theo sorted through his mail, including the few fan letters forwarded from his agent’s office. Time was there were dozens of these a day, and accordingly they were dealt with by one of his agent’s minions, but the flow had stemmed somewhat over the years. Theo didn’t do social media, he didn’t reply to emails, but if someone bothered to put pen to paper, he tended to reply to them personally.

  Dear Mr. Myerson/Miss Macfarlane,

  I hope you don’t mind me writing to you, I am a big fan of your crime novel The One Who Got Away, and I was wondering where you got your ideas from?

  Theo released a groan of exasperation. Good God. Were ideas really such a hard thing to come by? Putting them into words, onto paper, that was another story, but ideas were ten a penny, weren’t they?

  Specifically where did you get the idea for this book? Was it from a newspaper report or from talking to the police? I am thinking of writing a crime thriller myself and I enjoy reading crime reports on the internet. Do you sometimes ask the police for help with plots, specific crimes, working things out etc?

  Also I was wondering why in The One Who Got Away the characters aren’t given names. That is quite unusual isn’t it.

  Please could you reply to me by e-mail because I am eager to hear your answers to my questions.

  Yours sincerely,

  Henry Carter [email protected]

  PS I disagreed with the reviews that said the book was “misogynist” and “pretentious,” I think they didn’t understand the story properly.

  Theo laughed at that as he slid the letter onto the top of his in-tray, promising himself that he’d get to it tomorrow. He stood up, reaching across the desk for his cigarettes, and as he did he looked up and out the window, across the garden toward the towpath, where, standing stock-still and looking right at him, was Miriam Lewis.

  “Jesus Christ!” He jumped backward, almost falling over his desk chair in fright. Swearing loudly, he hurried down the stairs, rushed out into the garden, flung open the back gate, looking desperately around. She was gone. Theo walked up and down the towpath for a few minutes, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, passersby skirting around him, expressions nervous. Had she really been here? Or was he seeing things now, was this where he’d got to?

  * * *

  Without his wife, his son, his work, Theo became desperate, and in desperation he wrote a crime novel. It was his agent’s suggestion. When I said write anything, he said, I meant it. Anything, just to get back into the habit. Try sci-fi, romance, whatever—you won’t believe some of the swill that gets published under the banner of commercial fiction. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good; it doesn’t need to have worth. We’ll slap someone else’s name on it. Just write something. And so he tried. Romance was a bust and he didn’t have the brain for sci-fi, but crime? Crime he could see working. He loved Morse, he’d read Dostoevsky. How hard could it be? All he needed was the right hook, the right concept, and he’d be away. And then an idea came to him, landed right on his doorstep, and he took it and ran with it; he worked with it, crafted it, made it into something distinctive.

  The One Who Got Away, published under the pseudonym Caroline MacFarlane, was a highly experimental book, the plot unfolding backward in some sections, forward in others, with the point of view occasionally swinging 180 degrees so that the killer’s innermost thoughts were revealed to the reader. It was a book that exposed the way the sympathies of the reader might be manipulated, laying bare how quickly we jump to conclusions about guilt and innocence, power and responsibility.

  The experiment was not an unqualified success. Although Theo had carefully hidden his identity, using a woman’s name for his pseudonym (Women love crime! his agent told him. They enjoy the catharsis of victimhood.), the secret didn’t keep. Someone let the cat out of the bag, which meant of course that the book became an instant bestseller, but it also had the critics sharpening their knives (some of the reviews were quite vicious), and it brought all the crazies out of the woodwork (You stole my story!). It achieved its central aim, however. It got Theo writing again. That was the thing: when the muse fell silent, Theo refused to give up, he seized upon a scrap of a story, and he made it his own. That was the truth of it.

  The One Who Got Away

  Anticipation. Sometimes it’s the best part, because things don’t always turn out like you want them to, but at least you should be grateful, shouldn’t you, for the sunshine, hot on your back, and the girls going out in their short skirts and crop tops?

  At the pub he sees a girl sitting with her ugly friend and she’s wearing a skirt, not a crop top but a white T-shirt and no bra and she’s beautiful.

  She hitches up her skirt to give him a better look and he’s grateful for that, so he smiles at her, but instead of smiling back she makes a face and says to her ugly friend, As if.

  As if.

  He feels all wrong, like he’s being hollowed out from the inside, like something’s eating him up, and he feels a terrible craving, a longing left by the place her smile should have been.

  TWELVE

  Miriam thought she might not make it back to the boat. She thought she might pass out right there on the towpath; she could feel it coming, the crashing wave of panic, her field of vision narrowing, darkness crowding in, chest tight, breath coming in gasps, heart pounding. She crashed down the stairs into her cabin and collapsed onto the bench, head hanging, chin to chest, elbows on her knees, trying to regulate her breathing, trying to slow her racing heart.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should never have go
ne over there to see him—who knows what might have happened? He might have called the police, he might have claimed she was harassing him—she could have ended up jeopardizing everything she’d been working toward.

  She had given in to her desire, her impatient desire to see Myerson, just to catch a glimpse. She was getting no joy at all from the news: two days had passed since her call to Detective Barker and she’d yet to hear anything about anyone new being questioned in connection with Daniel’s death.

  She had started to wonder—perhaps they hadn’t taken her seriously? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had claimed to have her interests at heart, had pretended to listen to her and then had dismissed her out of hand. Perhaps Myerson had said something about her, something to discredit her? That was why she needed to see him, to see his face, to see written on it fear or stress or unhappiness.

  And she knew exactly where to direct her gaze: up at the window looking out over the garden. That was the window to his study, in front of which stood the stout mahogany desk at which Theo Myerson toiled, head bent over his laptop, cigarette burning down in the square glass ashtray as he crafted sentences and conjured images. As, in an affront that felt like an act of violence, he wrote Miriam out of her own story.

  * * *

  When Miriam pictured Myerson in his home, at his desk, wandering down to the kitchen to fix himself a snack, pausing, perhaps in front of the framed picture in the hall of him and his wife, young and vital and wreathed in smiles, she was not conjuring these details out of thin air. She had visited Theo’s beautiful Victorian house on Noel Road; she had walked through the entrance hall and into a dark corridor, painted some fashionable shade of ash or stone, mole’s breath or dead fish. She’d admired the paintings on the walls, the jewel-colored Persian rug laid over original wooden floorboards, the drawing room lined with bookshelves groaning under the weight of first editions. She’d noticed, with a sharp twinge of pity, the silver-framed photograph on the table in the hall, of a smiling dark-haired toddler.