Complicity must involve premeditation. Collusion, however tenuous, a meeting of minds. No, I did not collude. But neither am I deaf. Above the commotion, as the patrons scrambled about in the dark and the wind and the rain thrashed about outside, I think I might have detected a hiss. But I was slow to take in what it was. The matches were already in my hand. In that moment, I succumbed to an urgent need for the lavatory. I hadn’t been all night. For a woman of my age that’s no small feat.
I did think of taking the matches with me, of making the patrons wait in the dark a short while longer. When I saw Hannah leaning in the doorway with that supercilious look on her face, I wanted to say, ‘Here they are,’ and hand them to her. Instead I yanked her to me and passed the matches to Joshua sta
