She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t find the words; they were all trapped behind glass, which was only to be broken in the event of emergency. And while this felt like one of those, she was unable to reach out and perform the required damage.
Something changed; a shift in the light. It was Lamb’s phone, she realised. Lamb’s phone was resting on the arm of his chair—her chair—and it had just winked out, fading into sleep. Which meant he’d been using it within the last few minutes.
Lamb, using his phone. That might be the strangest thing of all in this strange moment.
He said, “No, really, take your coat off. Make yourself at home.”
“You have no right to be here. None at all.”
“Well Christ, I know that. I used a stolen key, for fuck’s sake. That was a clue.”
“I could call the police.”
“Yeah, they’ll think they’ve caught a smuggler.” He waved an arm: it didn’t matter which direction. There were bottles, full bottles, stacked against each wall. They were lined along the bookshelves; parading on the mantlepiece. They were in battle formation on the coffee table, prepared to fend off boarders. “Or are you opening an off-licence?”
“I haven’t drunk.”
“I know.”
“You think I wouldn’t be able to hide it?”
“Maybe for the first half hour. But second bottle in you’d be under a trucker, we both know that.”
“And you’re here to save me?”
“Fuck, no. I’m here to push you over the edge.” He lobbed the bottle he’d been cradling at her and instinctively she dropped the bag and let the airborne missile fall into her arms. The bag hit the carpet with a thud. No damage done.
Lamb plucked another from the stack next to his chair. “Bouchard père et fils,” he read. “Yeah, that’ll rinse the taste of derelict from your gums.”
“And that’s your party trick, is it?” she said. “You’re going to throw bottles at me until I crack and open one.”
“Hey, they’re your bottles. I’m just the middleman.” He glanced around. “Hope you got a discount for bulk. You could buy a house for what this cost. I mean, in Sunderland. But still.”
She walked into her kitchen, trembling. She took her coat off and hung it on a chair: it slid to the floor, and she let it. She grabbed a glass and filled it from the tap. Drank. Refilled it. Drank again.
What had she been planning? She didn’t know. It was madness, to surround herself with this temptation; madness, but a kind of security too. The possibility of a single glass would always hover over her; might be enough to lead her to the cliff. But this—the Aladdin’s cave she’d wrought—was something else, beyond mere temptation. It was the promise of absolute carnage. Lamb was right: two bottles in, there’d be no bottom to the depths she might fall. The life that had dwindled to a series of dull tasks would look like paradise over her shoulder. So why was she flirting with destruction? She heard a bass rumble, and returned to her living room. Lamb had succumbed to one of the coughing fits that had plagued him lately. Red-faced, sweating, he was bent double, one meaty hand covering his mouth, the other curled into a fist and thumping the arm of the chair. He might have been wrestling with demons.
Catherine watched. This would wear itself out. It always did. She supposed she could use his temporary uselessness to go through his pockets and take back the key to her flat he’d acquired. Or steal his shoes, walk around in them for a while. And she shook her head at the thought: God, no. Anything but that.
Maybe just beat him to death with a bottle.
He was returning to normal, the coughing subsiding. The fist became an open palm. Through it all, he’d not relinquished the bottle: it was clamped between his thighs, upright. Another image she didn’t want taking root.
When he’d finished, she handed him the glass she was still holding. He drained it, wiped a hand across his damp forehead, and glared at her.
“That’s not going anywhere, is it?” she said.
“Chest infection.”
“You’re sure? It sounds like your whole body’s in revolt.”
“Antibiotics’ll clear it up.”
“They tend not to work with drink taken.”
“They’re drugs, they’re not fucking Irishmen.” He studied his hand for a moment, then wiped it on his coat, “And let’s not forget, I’m not the one with the death wish.”
“Which you’re here to help trigger.”
“I hate indecisive types, don’t you? Shit or get off the pot.”
“It’s time for you to go.”
“And this wino’s trolley dash of yours, you’re doing it for one reason only.”
“Jackson Lamb, amateur psychologist. I almost want to record this. But mostly I just want you to shut up and go away.”
She might as well not have spoken. “It’s because Taverner told you I killed Charles Partner. Your sainted boss, who was a fucking traitor, by the way. She told you that, and it’s been eating you up ever since.”
Lamb rotated the bottle in his hands as he spoke, and she stared as its label became visible, was obscured, became visible again. One bottle among many, but for some reason it had secured her full attention.
