Free Last Rites by John Harvey Page B

back a fraction on the settee. “If he had asked me, I’d have said, no, don’t be so stupid. You’ll only make things worse for yourself, that’s all.”
    “But you didn’t …”
    “What?”
    “Say that. Tell him …”
    “No, of course not. How could I?”
    “You didn’t know.”
    “No.”
    Her eyes held Resnick’s for a moment longer before she lowered her cup and saucer back on to the tray.
    “And the blade? The razor blade?”
    “What about it?”
    He smiled at her with his eyes. “It came from your bathroom, I imagine.”
    It was difficult not to smile back. “I imagine it did.”
    “You told the officer …”
    “I said I didn’t use them. Didn’t use a razor. I don’t, not any more. But I used to. My legs, you know.” She did smile then, almost a grin. “I think there were some spare blades. Left over.”
    “You think?”
    “All right. There were.”
    “And Michael took one.”
    “Like I said, I suppose so.”
    “And like you said, you don’t know for sure?”
    Lorraine shook her head.
    “And that’s the truth?”
    “Yes.”
    Resnick nodded. He thought he believed her; about that, at least. He drank some more coffee; it was good. Not bitter. “I was wondering,” he said, “if there was anybody special your brother was seeing before he went to prison? Someone he might have kept in touch with, perhaps?”
    “Special? You mean, like a girlfriend?”
    “I suppose so, yes.”
    She thought for several moments, or pretended to. “I don’t think so.”
    “Nobody at all?”
    “Nobody who meant anything special, no.”
    “He wasn’t a monk.”
    Lorraine laughed with her eyes. “Michael?”
    “So tell me.”
    “Look, Michael had women. Had them trailing round after him from the time he was sixteen, seventeen. He went to bed with them, of course he did, fooled around. But none of them were important, that’s what I’m saying. None of them meant anything. Not really. Not ever.”
    “And you’d have known.”
    Head down for that moment, she glanced back up at him, sharp. “Of course I would.”
    Resnick reached toward the album: one photograph showing the pair of them, Lorraine and Michael, cross-legged on a patch of bleached grass; Michael, hair cut in a pudding-basin fringe and wearing a plaid short-sleeved shirt, watching Lorraine as she balances plastic skittles, four of them, unsteady on the palm of one hand; another, perhaps a year or two later, early teens, standing with arms around each other’s shoulders, heads together, staring out, smiling.
    “You were close.”
    “As kids, yes.”
    “Not since?”
    “You know what happened.”
    “To your father, yes.”
    “I haven’t spoken to Michael since before the trial, haven’t seen him. Not once.”
    “Until yesterday.”
    “Of course.”
    “You blame him?”
    For a moment, doubt crossed her eyes. “For killing my father? He did it; he was the one. Who else is there to blame?”
    Resnick was looking at the photographs again, side by side where he’d placed them. “At first I wasn’t sure, but you’re the older.”
    “A year, that’s all.”
    “He looked up to you, admired you.”
    “Not especially.”
    “Wanted to protect you.”
    “Against what?”
    “Anything. Everything.”
    “Do you want some more of this coffee,” Lorraine said, “before it gets cold?”
    Resnick shook his head. “No, thanks.”
    She bundled the cups and saucers back on to the tray and took it to the kitchen. When she returned, Resnick was standing at the French windows, gazing out. Near the foot of the garden, where it met the cluster of trees, a robin was hopping around on a patch of recently disturbed earth, hopeful for grubs and perhaps the occasional worm.
    He turned his head as Lorraine came to stand beside him. “You’re lucky. Having all that open space. So close.”
    “I suppose so. There’s a family up the street, keeps a couple of horses in the field. They let our Sandra ride one sometimes, but, of course, she