Die of Shame by Mark Billingham Page B

reached for the spinach.
    Nina asked the question again.
    ‘How did you know about that?’
    ‘Emma heard them talking when she came down to use the bathroom. Weren’t you going to mention it?’
    ‘When, exactly?’ Tony said. ‘I was in bed whatever time you got back last night and you were asleep when I left this morning.’ He realised he was heading in the wrong direction, executed a tricky turn and began pushing the trolley towards the deli counter.
    ‘So, go on then.’
    ‘A client died.’ It was hard to manoeuvre with one hand, so he tucked the phone between his chin and his neck. ‘Was murdered, actually.’ He could not bear the unsteadiness, the feeling that the phone would slip and fall at any moment, so he stopped and pushed the trolley hard against the edge of the aisle. ‘One of the women in my Monday night group.’
    ‘Which one?’
    Tony took the phone from his ear and looked at it. HOME . A picture of Nina and Emma. The duration of the call ticking by in seconds.
    Which one?
Not
Oh God that’s terrible
. Not
Fuck
or
Bloody hell
.
Which one
. He became aware of a woman staring and mumbled a sorry as he nudged his trolley forward so that she could get at the tinned fish.
    ‘Can we talk about this when I get home?’
    ‘Whatever you like,’ Nina said. ‘Can you see if they’ve got any edamame beans? If not, they do them in Waitrose…’
    Forty minutes later, Tony was unpacking the shopping in his kitchen: squashing down packaging into the recycling bin; balling up the empty carrier bags then pushing them inside a bigger plastic bag that was hanging in one of the cupboards.
    ‘Which one was Heather?’ Seated at the central island, Nina was looking at something on her iPad and brushing toast crumbs from her dressing gown.
    ‘The one who gave you a filthy look, remember?’ Tony held up a pot of edamame beans. Nina blew a kiss in his direction. ‘The one you said looked like a boy.’
    ‘Do they think it was drug related?’
    ‘I don’t know what they think.’
    ‘Every chance though, don’t you reckon?’
    ‘Well, I’m sure it’s something they’re considering,’ Tony said. ‘But they know she definitely wasn’t using when she was killed.’
    Nina scrolled and swiped. ‘Feather in your cap, anyway.’
    ‘Yeah.’ Tony carried the multipacks of bottled water through to the utility room. He felt a flush spreading across his chest, a shard of guilt pressing at his breastbone. He had said something similar, shutting the door on that policeman the day before.
    ‘So what are you going to do?’ Nina asked when he came back into the kitchen. ‘About the group.’
    ‘I’ve put it on hold for a while.’
    ‘Probably a good idea. I mean, you’re not a grief counsellor, are you?’
    It still surprised Tony how little she understood the work he did, and he might have said something if he had the slightest interest in his wife’s latest cutting edge campaign for bras or biscuits. The truth was that for many recovering from serious drug addiction, grief was exactly what they felt. Mourning the drug they had loved and been loved by; mourning the part of themselves that had died when they’d left it behind.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’
    When he had spoken to each of the surviving members of the group the day before and broken the news about Heather, he had simply told them that they should take a short break while they processed their loss. Robin had been sanguine about it, but Tony guessed that was because he had NA meetings and other support groups in place. Caroline had said she understood, which was not surprising since she was still a relative newcomer and not as bedded in or dependent as some of the others. Diana and Chris had seemed the most disturbed at the thought of a hiatus, and, though he couldn’t promise, Tony had agreed to try to fit in individual sessions for them both until such time as the group was reconvened.
    Until he was ready to reconvene it, because the