A Slow Fire Burning

The narrative flashes back to the night of Daniel’s death. It has been several days since Carla looked through the sketchbook, and she could not stop thinking about Daniel. She spent the night at Theo’s house but woke up restless and decided to go back to her own house; absentmindedly, she wrapped herself in Theo’s scarf and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. Without intending to, Carla detoured from her walk home and wandered towards Daniel’s boat. She hoped he would deny any involvement in Ben’s death; Carla recalls that “all she wanted was an explanation” (272).

As she approached Daniel’s boat, she heard arguing. Carla paused some distance away and saw Daniel leaving the boat. After a few minutes, she saw Laura leave and walk in the opposite direction. Carla waited and almost decided to leave, but she eventually saw Daniel come back to the boat. When she followed him in, he was startled to see her, but welcoming. Before Daniel could react, Carla repeatedly stabbed him in the neck and throat.

After he was dead, Carla showered and changed on the boat. She put her bloody clothes and the knife, wrapped in Theo’s scarf, in her bag and took them with her. She left the boat with the door open and walked back to Theo’s house. Back at Theo’s house, she showered again and joined Theo in bed. As Carla thinks about these events, she wants to believe that she didn’t intentionally go to Daniel’s boat to kill him, but deep down, she knows that she was going to kill him from the moment she found out that he was involved in her son’s death.

Laura is astonished and delighted when police tell her that charges against her have been dropped and that she is free to go. Her newfound freedom “[is] like flying” (276). When they ask who she would like them to call to come and get her, Laura asks them to call Irene. As Laura waits, she is blissfully happy until another prisoner attacks her.

Alone in her house, Irene thinks back on a disorienting few days. She was terrified during her confrontation with Theo; after she recovered, he sent her home, but she continued to feel badly about having shown him the notebook. A few days later, Irene was delighted to get a call that Laura was being released. Irene was about to go to meet her, but she received another call that Laura had been attacked by an inmate and was in hospital. Since then, Irene has only had very limited information about her friend, and she has lapsed into depression and shock.

Irene knows that Theo is going to be charged in Daniel’s murder, and when Irene sees Carla going into Angela’s house, she follows her in. At first, Carla is rude to Irene, but she softens when she sees that Irene has brought her the Saint Christopher’s medal and the ruby ring. Carla assumes that Irene must have found the items, but Irene explains that Laura had the items because she stole them from Carla’s bag. Carla doesn’t seem to understand what Irene is saying until Irene makes her accusation: She suspects that Carla killed Daniel and is letting Theo take the fall for her. Irene is angry that Carla was going to let Laura be charged with the crime. Sensing Carla’s arrogance, she asks, “Do you not feel anything? Are you not ashamed?” (285).

Carla only reacts when Irene explains that she showed the notebook to Theo. Carla is upset with Irene for interfering, but Irene continues with the accusation that she has pieced together: After looking through the notebook, Carla decided that Daniel was to blame for Ben’s death. Carla killed Daniel, and when Laura stole Carla’s bags, she inadvertently took the murder weapon home with her. Theo is covering for Carla by claiming to be the killer himself.

Carla tries to defend herself, claiming that she has suffered more than anyone, but Irene argues that Carla’s pain doesn’t give her the right to kill and ruin people’s lives. Carla doesn’t see any point to getting Theo out of prison by turning herself in. Irene suggests that the drawings in the notebook must have been fantasies, and that Daniel couldn’t have intentionally caused Ben’s death. Carla argues that as Daniel grew older, he encouraged her and others to blame Angela for Ben’s death. If it had been a mistake or accident, he surely would not have wanted to see Angela suffer for it. Carla claims that in fact she killed Daniel not just to avenge her son but also to avenge her sister: She wanted to punish Daniel for the way that he made Angela suffer. Irene goes back to her home; Carla has no idea that Irene has secretly recorded their conversation.

Miriam reads the newspaper and is shocked to learn that Theo has been released from policy custody and will be charged with giving a false confession. Carla was arrested after an unnamed source provided a recording in which Carla openly spoke about murdering her nephew. Miriam is amused to find out that the person whom she thought she was framing for the murder was actually guilty of the murder! As Miriam thinks about ways that she can turn these events to her advantage, she is surprised by Theo arriving at her boat.

Theo demands that Miriam stop harassing him; she is confused by what he means. Theo shows her a letter that accuses him of stealing a story from someone’s life. He explains that the letters started off politely but became irate and accusatory when he didn’t respond. Given his history of conflict with Miriam, and her accusations of plagiarism, he assumes she has been sending the letters while concealing her identity. Miriam insists that the letters are not from her and asks to see them. She skims through the letters and is stunned when the letter writer demands to know how Theo knew about Black River. Theo begins to explain that Black River is a song but stops when Miriam faints from shock.

When Miriam comes to, she explains why this detail is so shocking: When she and Lorraine were in the car with the killer, the song “Black River” came on the radio, and Lorraine sang along. Because she included this detail in her memoir, Theo duplicated it in his novel, but no one other than Miriam, Lorraine, and the killer would know that this song actually played on a radio. Theo asks who else might have read Miriam’s memoir, but she insists no one else has ever seen it except for Laura, who only received it a few days ago, long after the letters had been sent.

Miriam and Theo discuss whether it is possible that Jeremy could still be alive. Miriam points out that the police never found his body; “it was easier, back then, wasn’t it, for men like him to just keep going, to move around, to exist on the margins” (295). Theo suggests that they take the letters to the police, so that they can use the email address to track down whoever has sent them. He is willing to come clean about stealing Miriam’s work if it will help catch the killer. Miriam asks instead that Theo respond to the letter and arrange a meeting. Theo agrees, assuming that Miriam wants him to lure Jeremy to somewhere where the police will be waiting to arrest him. However, Miriam makes it clear that she doesn’t want the police involved. She wants her own justice.

Laura has moved into Irene’s spare room and is getting settled. Laura is waiting to get compensation for injuries suffered while wrongly imprisoned, but her injuries are gradually healing, and she and Irene are closer than ever. Laura is also tentatively restoring her relationship with her father. Laura is mostly at peace, but she sometimes thinks back to the night of Daniel’s death: As Laura was leaving the boat, she had in fact gotten a glimpse of Carla, but she cannot remember what impression she took away, and whether Carla “looked sad or angry, broken or resolute” (301).

In prison, Carla hears rumors of another man having been found dead on a houseboat. She manages to get her hands on a news article, which explains that the body belonged to Jeremy O’Brien, who sometimes went by the alias Henry Carter. Jeremy was wanted in connection with the murder of Lorraine but had been assumed dead for years. Instead, Jeremy had been living in Spain for years; he was injured in a car accident a few years after the murder and had used a wheelchair ever since. Although there are similarities between the murders of Jeremy and Daniel (both men were found dead on boats with stab wounds to their necks), the deaths are assumed to be unconnected since Carla has been in prison for months.

A few days later, Carla agrees to an interview with a young researcher in criminology. Carla confirms that she killed Daniel but refuses to divulge her motive. While Carla was confident that Daniel was guilty of her son’s death when she killed him, since then, she has had time to wonder if she could have been wrong. Despite her doubt, she cannot tolerate the idea of coexisting with the man who killed her son: “[H]ow could she have chosen to live in a world in which Daniel was still alive, in which she might see him, breathe the same air that he breathed?” (306). Carla declines to answer the criminologist’s question about whether or not she regrets killing her nephew.