Free The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson

head and said, “They’re sleeping.”
    Then I was too.

6
    T HE NEXT THING I KNEW , T HORPE WAS SITTING ACROSS from me in different clothes. I sat up with a jolt.
    â€œWhat time is it?”
    â€œJust after nine.”
    â€œNine?”
    â€œIn the morning,” he said.
    The curtains were still closed, so the room was dark.
    â€œI slept?” I said, rubbing my head.
    â€œShock,” he said. “It’s what happens. Boo and Callum went to Eton last night. They didn’t find anything. They’re driving to Kent now, to where Stephen’s family is.”
    â€œI don’t think they’re going to find anything there,” I said.
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œNormally,” he said, standing up, “I wouldn’t be able to work with that. But this isn’t normal, is it?”
    He blinked, and I wondered if he had slept. It was possible he’d been sitting in that chair all night, looking at me. He had a massive paper coffee cup sitting on the floor and another in his hand.
    â€œThat’s a lot of coffee,” I said.
    â€œI need to go out as well,” he said. “Something to attend to. I didn’t want to leave until I spoke to you. You’re secure in here. Boo left you last night, which was against instruction, but as long as the alarm is on and you don’t . . .”
    He fumbled around with his coat. No, no sleep for Thorpe. This was not happening. I was going to be left in this stupid empty house again while Stephen and Charlotte were out there. Not that I had any more of a plan than last night.
    â€œI should be doing something,” I said.
    â€œYou should be staying here, at least until we have Jane and the others in custody. Set the alarm behind me. Boo and Callum will be back in a few hours.”
    â€œBut . . .”
    â€œI have to attend to the body,” he said. He wasn’t mean about it, just direct. The body. In this impossible new reality, Stephen was “the body.” Which made me think of something that should have occurred to me sooner—I mean, I knew it on some level, but there is knowing something in the back of your mind, and knowing it in the front of your mind, where you see how it’s relevant to your actual life. That body, now separated from Stephen, was the same one I had seen some parts of and touched some parts of the night before. And now, just when everything was good, that body was gone. However Stephen came back to us, I could not touch him. I was actively dangerous to him.
    I looked at my hands, as if this were their fault.
    â€œI’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “You
can
do something. You can go through these bags. There might be something in there that’s useful.”
    This was Thorpe’s way of throwing me a bone. Those bags contained notes, documents—stuff relating to the squad that I guessed very few people would ever be allowed to see.
    â€œMake yourself some tea,” he said. “I brought some fruit and packets of cereal. Eat.”
    â€œYeah,” I said.
    â€œI mean it. If you don’t eat, you don’t function. If you want to be useful, eat, then go through the documents.”
    When he left, I did as he said—I made a cup of tea, and I ate some honey nut flakes dry, out of the box. In the living room, I opened the curtains to let in some light. I was going to sit on the floor, so it wasn’t like anyone was going to be able to see me, and I couldn’t read all these papers under the sick glow of the cheap lamps.
    Also, I was tired of being in the dark.
    There were nine bags in total, all stuffed and thick with papers, folders, and notebooks. This prospect was less imposing than the box. These were Stephen’s professional thoughts, and somewhere in here there might be an answer. In the light of day, tea in body, something to do—I started to feel almost