The Ice: A gripping thriller for our times from the Bailey’s shortlisted author of The Bees. Laline Paull
I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘You know?’ He stared at his ex-wife. ‘How? I only just found out.’
‘Ruth called me.’ She stood back to let him in. ‘Crack of dawn.’
‘They told her first?’ Sean was assaulted by the smell of home. The old oak floors and stairs, the extortionate beeswax polish. He noticed a bowl of orange roses on the table. ‘You cut the Whisky Macs.’ They always left them blooming on the path, for visitors to enjoy their scent.
‘Saves them from the rain. Someone called her from Svalbard: Tom named her next of kin, apparently. But you already knew that.’
Sean touched a rose and its petals dropped. ‘I don’t remember every single detail of that time.’
‘I do … But they saw each other, didn’t they? That one last time.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t realise she was officially … next of kin.’
Sean winced at the idea of Ruth Mott relating her version of that last night. But that was the only way Gail could know, because at the time they were in the final throes of nisi to absolute, and only their lawyers were speaking. He looked up the stairs. Someone else was in the house, he could feel it.
‘Whose silver car is that out there?’
‘The colour’s called mineral white. And it’s mine.’
‘You said you wanted to keep the Saab forever.’
‘Out with the old. Apparently this new one’s attached to a satellite, so I’m tracked from space if I want and even if I don’t, unless I sit down online for hours and work out how to switch it off. It’s got this inbuilt—’
‘I’m glad you’ve got yourself a good car.’
She’d moved the pictures around. There was a new light on a table. Tom was dead, that was why he’d come. So that Gail could express his grief. She wasn’t doing that properly.
‘You and Ruth have made up then.’
‘I was unfair to her.’
‘She shouldn’t have meddled.’
‘I should have listened.’
Alarmed by the tremble in her voice, he went into the kitchen. A muscle memory prompted him: dump the coat, dump the bag – he looked down at the settle. The newspapers and the big tabby cat that slept there were gone.
‘Where’s Harold?’ He looked around, making the sound that called him.
‘He died too. Last year. Tea? Coffee?’ Gail filled the kettle, her back to him.
‘You didn’t tell me.’ He couldn’t help himself, he looked around. Each thing he recognised was like an accusation. ‘Isn’t this place too big for you now?’
Gail turned. ‘Sean, why did you come? You could have phoned.’
‘That’s what Martine said.’
‘Ah. She’s so thoughtful.’
‘You don’t even seem upset about Tom. Aren’t you upset? You could have called—’ He stopped. It was obvious she was upset.
‘Yes. I’m upset. But I don’t call you any more, about anything, unless it’s Rosie. I assumed you knew.’ She did not cry. ‘So, there’ll be a funeral, what else? Your knighthood’s finally arrived?’
‘Not yet, but it will.’ He felt bewildered. Gail wasn’t like this. She was soft.
‘Your services to British business. One in the eye for my father.’
‘Here’s hoping.’ He felt the trembling ghosts of parties and dinners, the familiar plates he’d eaten off, the cupboards that held them. The bunches of herbs hanging up. ‘The lane,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s in a shocking state, do you want me to make a call? You’ll never get round to it and it’ll just get worse. I don’t mind.’ He had not meant to say that.
‘I know you’re a master of the universe and all that—’
‘Those are bankers, I’ve never been a banker—’
‘—but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s been raining solidly for a month.’
‘It hasn’t rained a drop in London.’
‘I don’t care what happens in London! You can’t grade a flooded lane, you have to wait for it to drain. It’s all organised. But thank you for pointing it out.’
‘So you’re OK then. Not – clinically depressed.’
‘Sorry to tell you, I’m absolutely fine.’ She wiped her eyes, her back to him.
‘Is that Sean?’ His daughter Rosie swerved round the kitchen door in a long T-shirt that said OCCUPY, and her honey brown hair ruined into dreadlocks. Her ears were multiply pierced, and to his dismay, he noticed another tribal tattoo on her upper arm.
‘Rosie,’ he groaned. ‘What have you done to yourself?’
‘Grown up without you? Why is Mum crying? Sean, why are you even here?’ Rosie put her arm around her mother and glared at him.
‘I’m fine,’ said Gail, ‘really. We’re just talking.’
‘And I don’t like you calling me that,’ he said. ‘I’m still your father.’ The way she looked at him broke his heart.
‘Uh-uh, you sacked yourself. A father is someone you’re supposed to be able to trust, who gives his word and keeps it, who doesn’t cheat and lie again and again, when they’ve promised not to. Mum cries every day you know.’
‘Oh for goodness sake, I do not—’
‘My god! Why does everybody lie the whole time?’
‘Some day, Rosie,’ he said, ‘you might understand that things are not always black and—’
‘White,’ she finished for him, ‘I know. They’re in the grey, and in the grey, Rosie, is where people like me make their money and tell their lies and generally screw up other people’s lives. In the grey. I’ve got it. Sean.’
‘She doesn’t know,’ Gail said quietly.
‘Know what? Ugh: you’re expecting a little bébé with her. Well it’s never going to have anything to do with me.’
‘No, that’s not why I’ve come, and I didn’t know you were here, I thought it was term time. I came to tell your mother that Tom’s body has been found. And in person, Rosie, not to be insulted by you but to break it gently to her. Except she already knew.’
Rosie stared at her mother in shock.
‘Ruth called me this morning.’ Gail put her arm round her daughter. ‘I’ll tell you all about it.’ She looked at Sean over Rosie’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for coming. I appreciate it.’
He stared at his crying daughter, and his stranger of an ex-wife. He was being dismissed from his own home. Ex-home. But still his child.
‘Rosie,’ he said gently, ‘if you ever wanted to see me—’
‘Why would I want to do that?’ She didn’t look at him.
‘Because you’re my daughter and I love you.’
‘Don’t hold your breath.’ She ducked out from under her mother’s arm and ran upstairs, her face crumpling.
The Vanquish blinked an electronic greeting. Sean drove carefully down the rutted, waterlogged private lane, then into the long single-lane road. The numbness was definitely gone, the encounter had left him raw