Kathryn’s furious now, her heart thumping with rage. How dare someone wake them up this early? And then panic sets in. What if it’s the police coming to inform her that something has happened to one of the boys or Ed? She clutches her throat as she almost runs across the hallway, the tiles cold underfoot, and unlocks the front door. She curses Willow under her breath that she didn’t double-bolt it last night. She’s usually so good at remembering.
The police flash their badges at her as soon as she’s opened the door. The sight of them makes her breath catch. They are plain-clothed and the older of the two women steps forward. She recognizes her as DS Christine Holdsworth, who came over before to tell them about Jemima. She’s accompanied by someone different this time, a younger woman with mousy hair tied back at the neck and thick, black-framed glasses.
‘Kathryn Winters?’ asks DS Holdsworth, holding up her badge. ‘May we come in?’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘We’d just like to ask you a few questions about Jemima Freeman.’
Kathryn’s feelings oscillate between relief that Ed and the boys are safe to dread that they’re back asking questions about Jemima.
‘It’s a bit early,’ she says, her voice cold. It’s only just getting light and there is a fine rain in the air. It settles, like dandruff, on the shoulders of the officers’ black overcoats. She sighs, knowing she has to face the inevitable, and stands aside to let them in.
DS Holdsworth introduces the younger officer as DC Felicity Reid. She looks almost as young as Willow, with a round baby face and dimples. The three are hovering in the hallway when Elspeth makes her way downstairs, gripping the banister tightly, her shoulders hunched against the cold. She hasn’t put on her dressing-gown and Kathryn can make out her bony frame through her thin nightdress. She looks like a ghoul, thinks Kathryn, unkindly. ‘Mother, you should be in bed.’
‘Una’s not back.’
‘It’s Willow, Mother, remember? Una’s dead.’ She realizes as she says it how uncaring and blunt she sounds, and notices that DC Reid recoils slightly at her words. Kathryn concentrates on rearranging her face into a passive expression. ‘My mother confuses names sometimes,’ she explains to them. They don’t say anything. DS Holdsworth stares back at Kathryn, her face hard.
‘Has something happened to Willow?’ Elspeth calls from halfway down the stairs.
Holdsworth shakes her auburn frizz. ‘No. This is about Jemima Freeman, Mrs McKenzie. We just need to have a few words with your daughter.’
‘Why?’
Holdsworth ignores her and instead speaks directly to Kathryn. ‘Is there somewhere we can sit?’
Kathryn leads them into the sitting room and offers to take their wet coats. She can just imagine her mother’s wrath if any rain gets onto her expensive velvet chairs. She leaves the room to hang their overcoats in the cupboard as Elspeth continues down the stairs slowly, as if every step is painful, gripping so tightly to the banister that her knuckles turn white. ‘Where is Willow? She’s usually getting me up by now.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve got more important things on my mind,’ she snaps. ‘Like why two cops have come to speak to me at this time in the morning.’ When Elspeth has reached the last step, Kathryn escorts her across the hallway and into the sitting room where she settles her in her favourite chair. Kathryn takes the one next to her. The two officers are on the sofa, sitting at either end. The younger one has a notebook in her hand and is chewing the top of her pen.
‘So what is this about?’ Kathryn asks, crossing her legs. She remembers she’s only got a T-shirt on underneath her dressing-gown. She pulls it around herself.
‘I just wanted to ask you a bit more about the day of the nineteenth of December when you last saw Jemima Freeman,’ begins Holdsworth.
‘I’ve told you all this before.’
‘We’d like to hear it again, please.’
Kathryn suppresses a sigh. ‘I wasn’t even here. She was supposed to go to the gallery with my mother, wasn’t she?’ She turns to Elspeth, who nods. ‘But she stayed behind because she had a migraine. My mother told you all this last time.’
Holdsworth sits up straighter and pushes her shoulders back. ‘So, let’s get this straight. On the afternoon she left here, you were both out? The last person to see her was you, Mrs McKenzie, and that was just after lunch? When you returned home around five she was gone, taking all her stuff with her?’
‘Yes. That’s right,’ agrees Elspeth.
Holdsworth smiles tightly. ‘So why did you have Jemima’s passport, Kathryn?’
Kathryn’s heart feels like it’s about to stop. ‘What?’
‘A bag of clothes containing Jemima’s passport was handed into the station. It was found at the gallery. The gallery you run.’
Elspeth flashes Kathryn a questioning gaze.
‘Care to explain?’ adds Holdsworth. ‘Or would you rather do it down at the station?’
Kathryn sags against the cushions. What’s the use? She might as well tell the truth. Or, at least, her version of the truth. ‘Okay … The bag … it belonged to Viola. She was my sister.’
Holdsworth sits up straighter. Kathryn notices she has a crease down each trouser leg and imagines her getting up at the crack of dawn to iron them. ‘Your sister?’
‘She left home when she was eighteen. Back in 1988. It was just some old clothes she left behind. We never got around to getting rid of them.’
Holdsworth glances at Elspeth but she doesn’t say anything. Elspeth turns to Kathryn. ‘You had Viola’s bag?’
‘Yes, Mother.’ She tuts. ‘Just clothes we had packed away together years ago. Don’t you remember?’
‘No,’ says Elspeth. ‘I thought she’d taken everything.’
Kathryn waves her hand impatiently. ‘I’m sure the police aren’t here to discuss Viola.’
Holdsworth frowns, then reaches inside her suit jacket to retrieve her notebook. She flips it open with one hand. ‘Why did you have Jemima’s passport?’
‘She left it behind after we argued,’ says Kathryn, not missing a beat.
Elspeth hangs her head but says nothing. Kathryn notices strands of white hair have come out of her chignon. She’s never seen her anything but composed and immaculate – except just once.
Holdsworth’s face is grim. ‘So what really happened?’
‘Do I need a solicitor?’