Chapter 12: Nothing Happens Till

Clement's POV

She read the last page twice, and I watched her do it.

I had carried that notebook for six years.

I had planned to burn it the day I got her out of that house.

"Ask me what you want," I said. "Tonight I don't lie."

She closed the notebook on her knee.

"Tell me about the car."

I hadn't expected that one first.

"I was parked on Sloane Street, across from the restaurant.

"Crispin had told me nothing, which was how I knew it was coming.

"Tidy's lad came round the corner at sixty, and I knew that wasn't the job.

"I was out of the car before it hit you."

She waited.

"You went over the bonnet and hit the road.

"You weren't breathing.

"I put my mouth on yours and breathed for you until the paramedics shoved me aside.

"Then I sat in the car park for eleven days, because I couldn't make my hands work on the wheel."

"You were there when I woke up."

"Where else would I be?"

She slid off the stone floor and onto her knees in front of the chest where I sat.

She put the notebook on the wooden lid beside me.

"Why did you stay?" she said. "Six years."

"My mother's room costs four thousand a month, and Honoria's family trust pays it.

"If I walked, she'd be moved.

"And if I walked, you'd have no one at the scene."

"Both?"

"Both.

"I'd have chosen you, if it was only one."

Her eyes were bright.

She put her palm against my cheek, on the place she'd slapped, and I turned my face into it.

"Clement," she said.

She had never said it like that before, and I felt it in my chest.

"You said nothing happens until Crispin is finished."

"I did."

"He's finished.

"He just doesn't know it yet."