Soul Fire

in Dad’s tea and offers Mum a tissue before she even begins to cry.
    Either Mrs Family Liaison has got the night off, or the fat guy is here because the news is too serious for her to break.
    I think about Tim, on the Beach. Of course it’s serious.
    We sit round the table as though we’re about to have Sunday lunch, even though the sky is midnight blue, and we’re all in our dressing gowns except for the policeman. He puts his
chubby fists together, and I half expect him to say grace.
    Instead he says, ‘I’m afraid I have some shocking news.’ His breath condenses like smoke in the cold air.
    Mum reaches for my hand and my dad’s. Perhaps she thinks that we’re safe, so long as we’re all together. She’s wrong.
    ‘Timothy Ashley was found dead tonight. Well, last night. A little over four hours ago.’
    Mum’s hand flies to her mouth. Dad closes his eyes. And even though I knew already, the words are still shocking.
    ‘Suicide!’ my mother cries out. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ Her eyes have a crazy glint, the one they always get when she’s thinking about Tim.
    The policeman’s face doesn’t change. ‘At this stage we are awaiting the results of the post mortem examination.’
    Dad shakes his head. ‘Come on. Surely you can give us more than that? We are . . . involved, after all.’
    The policeman sighs. ‘The circumstances are that Mr Ashley’s flatmate,’ he checks his notes, ‘. . . Adrian Black, returned home last night just after nine o’clock,
and discovered the deceased’s body in the kitchen.’
    Ade found him .
    ‘How did he die?’ I ask.
    The policeman looks at me for the first time. ‘He appears to have died from asphyxiation.’
    That means suffocation. Meggie was suffocated . Someone held a pillow over her face until all her breath was gone.
    ‘Someone smothered Tim?’ Dad whispers.
    The policeman shakes his head. ‘No. A plastic bag . . . It’s a method suicides sometimes use. He was slumped over the kitchen table. Alcohol was found alongside his body,
too.’
    Acid fills my throat as I picture him drinking alone, then deciding he couldn’t face the world anymore. She lit up my world . . . and now the world feels so dark without her.
    It’s one of the last things he said to me.
    ‘And a note?’ Dad asks.
    Dad’s question helps me focus. I need to know more before I go back to the Beach, before I talk to him. If it was Tim who killed Meggie and then himself, I am certain he’d
have left a note to explain what he did, and why. He’d know that he owed us that.
    ‘As I understand it, nothing in the nature of a note has been found.’
    The Tim I know wouldn’t have left this unfinished. So any doubts I had about his guilt disappear, in an instant. I feel I can breathe again.
    Until I remember: if he didn’t kill himself, someone must have killed him .
    ‘However, the circumstances do point strongly towards Mr Ashley having taken his own life,’ the officer says.
    ‘But you’re keeping an open mind? While you investigate?’ The policeman looks cross with me, almost. ‘The details have been passed to the coroner. It’s not our
remit anymore.’
    ‘You’ve already decided it’s not suspicious! Even though it’s possible he could have been killed by the same person that killed Meggie. Did you think of that?’
    Mum stands up and puts her hands on my shoulders.
    ‘Alice, love, it’s over. I know you thought Tim was innocent, but you must see this changes things.’
    Dad’s still thinking it through. ‘You understand why emotions are running high, officer. I know you can’t talk on the record, but does this effectively mean the inquiry into
Meggie’s murder will be closed?’
    The policeman examines his neatly clipped fingernails. ‘Uh, I’d say that’s a fair assumption. We reached certain conclusions about Mr Ashley many months ago. This pretty much
confirms them. I’m sorry. This must all be very distressing.’
    A flash of anger passes across Mum’s face and I think she’s about to launch into a rant: that she ’s not sorry, that Tim deserves all he got. But then Dad squeezes her
hand and tears cascade down her face.
    ‘It’s over,’ she whispers, then she stares over my shoulder, as though she’s seen someone behind me. ‘Meggie. My darling. It’s over, at long last. You can
sleep soundly now, darling, wherever you are.’
    My blood turns to ice. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that Meggie’s killer is still on the