A Room Swept White by Sophie Hannah

had me hung, drawn and quartered for treason. Helen was always his favourite.’
    Helen’s case, or Helen the woman
? I manage to stop myself from asking. I can’t be jealous of a murder victim who lost all three of her children and spent nearly a decade in jail. Even if it turns out Laurie’s spent years crying into his pillow on her account, jealousy is not an acceptable option, not if I want to be able to live with myself.
    I hear a car pulling up outside. My hand tightens around the phone. ‘I think she’s here. I’ve got to go.’ I hover uselessly by my front door, trying to contain myself until I hear the bell. When I can’t stand it any longer, I open the door.
    There’s a black car outside my house, with its lights on andits engine running. I climb the five steps that lead from my basement flat up to the pavement, and see that it’s a Jaguar. From her telephone voice, Rachel Hines sounded like the sort of person who might own one. I wonder how this fits in with her being a drug addict. Maybe she isn’t one any more, or maybe she’s a heaps-of-cocaine-off-platinum-edged-mirrors junkie, not your bog-standard shooting-up-in-a-dirty-squat smackhead.
God, if I was any more prejudiced . . .
    I plaster a non-threatening smile on my face and walk towards the car. It can’t be her; she’d have got out by now. Suddenly, the engine and lights cut out and I see her clearly in the street-lamp’s glow. Even knowing as little as I do about her case, she’s totally familiar to me. Hers is a household face, like Helen Yardley’s – one that’s been on the news and in the papers so often that most people in Britain would recognise her. No wonder she didn’t want to meet me in the pub.
    I can’t believe she wants to meet me at all
.
    Her face is slightly too long and her features too blunt, otherwise she’d be stunning. As it is, she’s the sort of plain that has missed attractive by a hair’s breadth. Her thick wavy hair makes me look again at her face, thinking she must be attractive; it’s the sort of hair you’d expect to frame the face of a beauty: well cut, lustrous, golden blonde. She looks like somebody important; it’s in her eyes and the way she holds herself. Nothing like Helen Yardley, whose absolute ordinariness and accessible friendly-neighbour smile made it easy for most people to believe in her innocence, once her convictions were quashed.
    Rachel Hines opens her car door, but still doesn’t get out. Tentatively, I approach the Jaguar. She slams the door shut. The engine starts up, and the headlights come back on,blinding me. ‘What . . .?’ I start to say, but she’s pulling away. As she draws level with me, she slows down, turns to face me. I see her look past me at the house and turn, in case there’s someone behind me, though I know there isn’t.
It’ll be just the two of us, won’t it
?
    By the time I’ve turned back, she’s halfway down the road, speeding up as she drives away.
    What did I do wrong? My mobile phone starts to ring in my pocket. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ I say, assuming it’s Tamsin calling for an update. ‘She was here about ten seconds ago, and she’s just driven off without saying anything, without even getting out of the car.’
    ‘It’s me. Ray. I’m sorry about . . . what just happened.’
    ‘Forget it,’ I say, grudgingly. Why is it so unacceptable, if you’re a decent human being, to say, ‘Actually, it’s not okay, even though you’ve apologised. I don’t forgive you’? Why do I care what’s socially acceptable, given who I’m dealing with? ‘Can I go to bed now?’
    ‘You’ll have to come to me,’ she says.
    ‘
What
?’
    ‘Not now. I’ve inconvenienced you enough for one day. Tell me a time and date that suit you.’
    ‘No time, no date,’ I say. ‘Look, you caught me off-guard in the pub tonight. If you want to talk to someone at Binary Star, ring Maya Jacques and—’
    ‘I didn’t kill my daughter. Or my