All he could see now in his mind’s eye was the little boy he had known so long ago – the high cheekbones and long jaw, the cheap thick-lensed glasses, the shy expression when they had played together.
Suddenly he shivered slightly and pulled the sheet up. But he wasn’t cold – he realised it was a sudden stab of fear he’d felt. Why am I scared? he asked himself. And old as he was, he wished Vanetta were still alive.
2
‘What exactly did he do?’
They were sitting the next morning at the white marble table in the breakfast room that adjoined the kitchen. They had so much space in this house: Anna had taken one look at the kitchen during their first visit with the realtor and laughed out loud. ‘Every housewife’s dream,’ she’d said lightly, and he’d laughed then at the incongruity. Anna’s satisfactions had always been professional ones; it was surprising to see her enjoyment from a household cause for bliss. He supposed it was the equivalent of his own love for baseball.
He himself missed their old kitchen in London, so small that when company sat at its table you couldn’t walk around it. The room there had held a semi-functional Rayburn, a porcelain sink and warped draining board, and a dresser with drawers that stuck. In the corner by the back door there had been one oversized willow basket stuffed with umbrellas and wellingtons and trainers. Here in Evanston, just blocks from the lake, they ate breakfast in front of a bay window that overlooked the back yard – ‘the garden’ as his wife called it, half an acre of lawn with two large beech trees, a mock-orange, two scraggy lilac bushes, and not a single flower bed.
His daughter Sophie had eaten breakfast, and she was out back somewhere, crushing the cat with love before going to school. Spring was almost over, but the sultry sweaty heat of a Chicago summer had yet to arrive.
Robert returned his wife’s enquiring gaze, noticing how her aquamarine eyes were, in this morning’s bright daylight, paler than usual. She was confirming the old saw that bone structure came true in the end – well, not end, since Anna was only rising forty. Her features – striking eyes, a short, sharp nose, and high cheekbones – seemed like the product of carefully considered design, until you took in the mouth, which was generous, slightly full in the lips for an Englishwoman, at odds with the convention of her looks.
He said now, ‘He attacked a nurse at the university hospital. He was working on the security desk there.’
‘He did twenty-four years for that?’
‘She almost died. She was raped too.’
‘And he was guilty?’
‘The judge and jury thought so.’
‘Did you?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘No. At least not at first.’ He shrugged. ‘It didn’t matter what I thought.’
She stood up and took her cup and plate to the sink. She was dressed for work, in a fawn-coloured linen skirt and matching jacket, bought on sale at Saks. Anna liked to tell him that clothes cost only half as much here as in London, and he’d decided not to spoil things by pointing out that this didn’t help much if you bought twice as many.
‘Why did he call so late?’
‘He apologised – he said he didn’t realise the time. I suppose it takes some getting used to.’
‘What does?’ She turned from the sink, and pushed her chestnut hair back against her ears.
‘He’s had over twenty years of a routine he didn’t set. The last thing he wants to do now is watch the clock.’
‘Will you see him?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked tensely at his watch, a handsome Swiss make with a Roman numeral face and a caramel leather strap. Quite smart for him – Anna had bought it as his wedding present.
‘Is it safe to see him?’ she said, in a cool voice she used to mask emotion.
‘You mean physically safe?’ She nodded and he looked at her face, surprised by her concern. ‘I knew Duval when we were little. When I was nine years old, we were like this.’ He held up two fingers and put them together. ‘He wasn’t a violent kid,’ he added firmly.
‘You’ve never mentioned him.’ She came and picked up her briefcase from a chair.
‘He’s been in prison so many years that I guess I started to think he’d never get out.’
‘Or you forgot about him,’ she said sharply. That was what had always upset her most about her clients back in