It was true that Odette had felt rudderless since graduation. She made a little money by placing internet orders for friends back in Seychelles; they didn’t have credit cards, so they’d browse online, tell Odette what they wanted, and transfer the payment from their banks with some extra for her trouble. But that didn’t give her a routine. So she began waiting tables at Le Petit Cadeau, a nearby restaurant, until she could find something more suitable. Although she was glad of a few shifts, she proved bad at waitressing. The manager would tell her to wipe tables and she’d start with a good will but then she’d abandon her flannel as her mind wandered back to the corpse and the bolted basement door. She’d stand before the table, arranging the pepper mill and soup spoons in a model of the crime scene. The body had lain here; the gun was there; this was the only exit. She moved the elements round like pieces on a chessboard and came no closer to understanding the dead woman’s fate.
In frustration, Odette decided to telephone the coroner himself. There were still rocks she hadn’t turned. The forensic photographs hadn’t been made public, for instance, and Odette wanted to check over them.
The coroner’s name, she remembered, was Stuart Yelland. Odette recalled his habit of screwing up his left eye whenever he thought over a question. She imagined him doing this when she dialled his number outside the restaurant. The only private spot was in a side alley, by the bins; and even that was overlooked by a kitchen window.
The coroner’s secretary answered first, then put Odette through.
‘Yes?’ Yelland barked.
‘This is Odette Sophola,’ she said. ‘I found the body at the toy museum? I wanted to ask—’
‘Ah. I remember you,’ Yelland said more gently. ‘Forgive the curt welcome – my secretary didn’t realise you were a witness. She thought you were a journalist.’
‘What?’
‘The journalist who covered that inquest was quite relentless – terrible pests, the media – but he’s gone quiet lately, thank God. What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like to see pictures of the crime scene.’
‘They’re not available to the public.’
‘I know. But I thought maybe if I saw the body again… now I’m no longer in shock… I’d notice details I missed at the time.’
‘Ms Sophola…’
‘Some witnesses are allowed to examine evidence, aren’t they? Properly Interested Persons?’
‘Relatives, yes, and beneficiaries of the estate.’
‘I found the body. Don’t I count as a Properly Interested Person?’
‘Potentially. That’s at my discretion.’
‘And if I were a Properly Interested Person, I’d be allowed to see the photographs?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not going to permit that.’
‘Why? I was there.’
‘I have to balance your request against this woman’s dignity. Let her rest in peace. It isn’t right, to hand out pictures willy nilly. Don’t you think it would be healthier to speak to someone about your feelings? Last time we spoke, you said you might seek counselling.’
I already have, Odette thought irritably. His swerve into her personal motivations was condescending – and possibly a deliberate distraction.
‘You were first on the scene,’ Stuart Yelland went on. ‘Many people in your position suffer lasting distress. Do you really want to make it worse by poring over unpleasant pictures?’
Odette hung up. Yelland might be a nice old man, but he didn’t understand. She needed to solve this. Until she did the unanswered questions would keep running round her head.
Her manager loomed at the window, tapped the glass and mouthed Odette’s name.
‘Just coming,’ Odette called.
The phone call wasn’t a complete waste of her time. Yelland had let one thing slip: he’d mentioned a journalist, which told Odette she wasn’t the only person interested in tying up loose ends. That was reassuring because she was beginning to feel very isolated. She needed someone to talk to. But not a doctor, as the coroner suggested. She needed someone who could help her solve the mystery. Someone who wanted to solve the mystery as much as she did.
*
It was gone midnight when Odette got home, and she was too tired to do anything besides fall into bed. But first thing the next morning she searched newspaper websites for references to the inquest. She got a relevant hit when she tried dead, inquest and toy museum. This one brief item came from a local tabloid. It had been written in May by a man called Zach Callaghan. The write-up didn’t refer to Odette by name; it said that the dead body was discovered by a museum volunteer. That may have been why it passed under her radar when it first went to print.
From Yelland’s comment, she’d expected the piece to be longer. It didn’t make sense that a journalist would badger Yelland for a few forgettable paragraphs. But Yelland had definitely said the journalist was persistent.
Odette telephoned the newspaper’s editorial assistant and asked to speak to Zach Callaghan.
‘He’s a freelancer, not one of our staff writers,’ the man said. ‘If your query isn’t something our regular team can handle it might be a while before he gets back to you.’
‘Thanks,’ Odette said. ‘I’d just like him to contact me regarding an inquest that took place earlier this year.’
She left her name and number, and turned back to the internet. Maybe she could get a quicker response if she approached this man directly. Odette ran a search on the name Zach Callaghan. It wasn’t super common, but it wasn’t especially rare either. The top hit was for a painter, and the one below was for a head teacher who’d resigned in a scandal. Zach the journalist was number three. He had a personalised website with a Contact Me box which Odette filled out. From curiosity, she clicked on the page marked Articles.
Zach Callaghan hadn’t written anything new in several months. His coverage of the hearing was the most recently dated link. Prior to that, his articles included: an in-depth analysis of Margaret Norton’s alliances with arms’ dealers; detailed investigations into the Conclave’s tax arrangements; and an article on unexplained disappearances of time travellers. All three pieces had been published by national broadsheets, and there were others on similar themes going back years. He clearly wasn’t a court journalist. He hadn’t covered any other inquests.
Why would someone with a sustained interest in the Time Travel Conclave suddenly turn his attention to the body in the museum? Did this man, this Zach Callaghan, know of a connection between the two?
An envelope icon flashed in the corner of the screen, alerting Odette to a new email.
It was only one line long: I no longer have any involvement with this story. The message was unsigned, but came from Callaghan’s address.
16
OCTOBER 1973
Barbara
Barbara stood alone in the toy store, deliberating over plush bears and raggedy clowns. Her baby’s first birthday was approaching. Dinah liked monkeys but Barbara couldn’t see one among the multiple soft toys. She circled the display, and came face to face not with monkeys, but with shelves of dolls: time traveller dolls.
They were meant for older children than Dinah. The bodies were made from hard plastic, and their clothes could be unbuttoned and changed. One looked like Margaret; another like Grace; a third like Lucille. All the pioneers but Barbara.
The dolls were idealised and hyper-real. Their eyes were as large as cherry drops and their cheeks were dimpled. Barbara could tell which doll was which from their hairstyles and the name labels on each breast pocket. Lucille was a different colour, of course. Each doll’s décolletage was debossed with an ornamental pattern. Barbara picked Lucille up, to touch the decorative ridges along her neckline. Maybe the ridges were a mark to show belonging: like a sailor’s tattoo.
In the years after Barbara’s breakdown she’d responded well to treatment, and appeared to get on with life. She’d married. She’d had a baby girl. But sadness at her lost career was always close to the surface. In secret, she read pulp novels about time travellers’ adventures with a kind of horror. She found lunatics galore among the pages. They were Barbara’s legacy. Unlike Margaret, in the early days she never thought of legacy at all. Her only thought was to travel through time, alongside her friends. Looking at the doll in her hand and the companion pieces on the shelf she felt sick with longing for that old dream.
She left the shop with a trio of dolls, her search for Dinah’s present forgotten.