Case Histories

They had really cared, Theo had never doubted that for a minute. He still saw Alison, his family liaison officer, occasionally, even now, and the police had followed up every possible lead, there had been no client confidentiality left at Holroyd, Wyre, and Stanton once the police had raked through every file and item of correspondence. The media talked about it being a random crime, the work of a psychopath, but the man – the knife-wielding maniac – had entered the office looking for Theo, for "Mr. Wyre." Theo had done something, precipitated something, he had made someone, someone in a yellow golfing sweater, so crazy that the man wanted to kill him. Had that bloodlust been assuaged, had the man in the yellow golfing sweater found some primitive satisfaction in slaying Theo's child? His own blood.

The trolley was on wheels and Theo had been about to move it when one of the concealed doors in the curve of the oval wall was opened suddenly by a trim woman dressed in the same white uniform as Milanda. She frowned at Theo, but before she could protest at his presence he said, "Sorry, wrong room!" and backed out the door, performing a ridiculous kind of salaam in an attempt to calm her fears.

"I'll get back to you," he said breezily to Milanda, waving the brochure still clutched in his hand. He made for the stairs as rapidly as his bulk would allow, although the best he could manage was a kind of rolling waddle. He imagined Milanda at his back, rugby tackling him on Parker's Piece. Theo's heart was knocking uncomfortably inside his chest and he took refuge in a cafe on Mill Road, where he ordered a modest latte and a scone but nonetheless was subject to the disapproval of the waitress, who made it clear that she thought someone so overweight shouldn't be eating at all.

Time did not heal – it merely rubbed at the wound, slowly and relentlessly. The world had moved on and forgotten and there was only Theo left to keep Laura's flame alive. Jennifer lived in Canada now and although they talked on the phone and e-mailed each other, they rarely talked about Laura. Jennifer had never liked the pain of remembering what had happened, but for Theo it was the pain that kept Laura alive in his memory. He was afraid that if it ever began to heal she would disappear.

Afterward, after it happened ten years ago, Theo didn't want to speak to anyone, didn't want to speak, didn't want to acknowledge the existence of a world that went on without Laura in it, but when he got home from the hospital, he forced himself to phone Jennifer. When she answered the phone and heard his voice she said, "What?" in that impatient way she had, as if he only phoned her to annoy her. And then she grew even more impatient because he couldn't speak at all and it was only after the most extraordinary act of will that he was able to say, "Jenny, a bad thing has happened, a very bad thing," and all she said was "Laura," in a flat voice.

Theo would have committed suicide, perhaps not that day, not until after the funeral, after he had put all his affairs in order, but he couldn't kill himself because then Jennifer would know (although she must always have known, surely?) that he loved Laura more than her. Because if it had been Jennifer who had died and not Laura, Theo knew he wouldn't have even thought about killing himself.

Even now, Theo hoped that one day the stranger who had come looking for him and who had found his child instead would return. Theo imagined opening his front door to the man in the yellow golfing sweater and opening his arms wide to embrace the knife, embracing the death that would reunite him with Laura. He had buried her, not cremated her. He needed a grave to go to (all the time) somewhere where she felt tangible, within arm's reach, just six feet away. There had been times when the grief had been so bad that he had thought about digging her up, exhuming her poor rotting body, just so he could cradle her one last time, reassure her that he was still here, still thinking about her, even if no one else was.