‘Yeah?’ said Erika, her mind more on the case file than the phone call. ‘Have you got more on the Gregory Munro murder?’
‘No. This isn’t a work call. I just wanted to apologise for the other night…I should have told you that Stephen would be there at dinner. I know I’d invited you, and you thought…’
‘Isaac, what you do with your life is up to you,’ said Erika, her mind only half on the conversation as she rifled through pictures of the rooms in Gregory Munro’s house. Close-ups of the kitchen, the ready meal on the work surface… She knew she’d seen something in a photo, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
‘Yes, but I’d like to make it up to you,’ said Isaac. ‘Would you like to come over for dinner on Thursday?’
Erika turned the page and stopped, staring at the photo.
‘Are you still there?’ asked Isaac.
‘Yes… And yes, dinner would be great. I have to go,’ she said, and before Isaac had the chance to reply, she hung up. Then she hurried to her bedroom and started to get dressed.
16
Isaac had been talking to Erika on the phone beside his bed. When she’d gone, he sat back and stared at the receiver for a moment.
‘She just, sort of, hung up on me. Well, maybe she didn’t hang up, but she ended the call abruptly,’ he said.
Stephen lay beside him, working on his laptop. ‘I told you. She’s a cold fish,’ he replied as he typed.
Isaac watched the words for a moment as they streaked across the glowing screen. ‘That’s not fair, Stevie. She’s damaged. She’s still grieving for her husband, and on top of that she carries the guilt of his death around with her. She doesn’t exactly work in the kind of environment that encourages you to show your feelings.’
‘How predictable. What a cliché. The damaged female DCI, too busy for anyone but her work,’ said Stephen, still typing.
‘That’s very harsh, Stevie.’
‘Life is harsh.’
‘What about the books you write? Your DCI Bartholomew character is damaged.’
Stephen looked up from his laptop.
‘Yes, but DCI Bartholomew is far from a cliché. He’s far more multi-layered than whatshername…’
‘Erika.’
‘He’s an anti-hero. I’ve been praised for his originality, his flawed genius. I was nominated for a bloody Dagger Award!’
‘Okay, I wasn’t criticising, Stevie.’
‘Well, don’t lump my work in with your tragic copper friend.’
There was an awkward silence. Isaac began to collect up the empty chocolate bar wrappers which had pooled around Stephen on the duvet.
‘I’d like you to get to know her,’ Isaac said. ‘She’s not like that outside work. I’d like it if you could be friends. You heard me invite her for dinner.’
‘Isaac, I’ve got a deadline. When that’s passed, sure, I suppose I could have coffee with her,’ said Stephen, still typing. ‘She wasn’t exactly nice to me when she came over. She should be the one making the effort, not me.’
Isaac nodded and regarded Stephen’s beautiful face and naked torso. His skin was so smooth and perfect. It shimmered in the soft glow cast by the laptop. Deep down, Isaac knew that he was obsessed with Stephen, and that obsessions were destructive and dangerous, but he couldn’t bear not to be with him. He couldn’t bear to wake up and have the side of the bed next to him empty.
Stephen’s brow furrowed as he typed.
‘What are you doing, Stevie?’
‘Just a bit of research. I’m in an Internet chat room, discussing suicide methods.’ He looked up at Isaac. ‘It’s research for the new book, in case you get worried.’
‘People go online and discuss suicide methods?’ asked Isaac, crumpling the chocolate bar wrappers into a ball and peering over at the screen.
‘Yeah. There are chat rooms for every kind of quirk and fetish – not that suicide is necessarily a fetish. These people are all seriously discussing the best methods to end it all – the most successful ways you can do it, without being disturbed. Listen to this…’
‘I don’t want to hear,’ said Isaac. ‘I’ve seen too many suicide cases: overdoses, hangings, slashed wrists, gruesome poisoning. The worst are the people who jump. Last week, I had to try and work out what was what on a teenage girl who had leapt off the Hammersmith flyover. She hit the pavement with such force that her jawbone was forced up into her brain.’