I had no idea. “Maybe we had three or four parties that summer, and he came to two or three? And around the same the summer before that, and the one before that. But I don’t, I mean I’m just guessing?”
“Fair enough. It’s been a long time; we don’t expect anyone’s memory to be perfect. Just give us what you’ve got. If you don’t remember, that’s grand, go ahead and say that.” Rafferty smiled at me, all easy and reassuring. “Who would’ve invited him to the parties? Would that have been you? Or was he closer to one of your cousins?”
“Me, probably. I’d just send out a group text to all the guys.”
“Was he ever here apart from the parties? Like, did he ever call round on his own? Or with a few of your mates?”
“I’m not—” What flashed up in my mind was me and Leon and Susanna on the terrace, the first time we got stoned, the three of us giggling like maniacs and I was almost positive another laugh in the darkness, had that been Dominic’s catching chuckle, hadn’t it? “I think so. I can’t remember any, any specific times, but I think he was over now and then.”
“Would you remember the last time he was here?”
Dominic lying back on his elbows in the grass grinning across at Susanna, had it been Susanna? Dominic shouting with laughter, in the kitchen, over the shards and splatter of a dropped beer bottle. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sorry.”
“What about the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t have a clue. I don’t think it was right before he went missing, because I would remember that”—maybe—“I mean, it sounds like the kind of thing I’d have been telling people, afterwards, right? ‘Oh my God, I just saw him that day and he looked fine’? And I don’t remember doing that. So . . .”
“Makes sense,” Rafferty said, which was charitable of him. “The last time Dominic was seen was—let’s see here”—reaching for his notebook, flipping—“the twelfth of September. That was a Monday. He was working a part-time summer job at a golf club; he finished up there around five, got home around six and had dinner with his family. They all went to bed around half-eleven. Sometime during the night, Dominic snuck out, and he never came home.” A glance up at me: “Any idea what you were doing that day? Whether you were in the country, even?”
“I was staying here. Me and Susanna and Leon, we’d been here most of the summer. But I don’t—”
Kerr shifted, chair creaking. “Why?” he asked.
I stared at him blankly. “Why what?”
Patiently: “You stayed here for the summer. How come?”
“We always did.” And, when he kept looking at me: “Our parents go traveling together.”
“You were eighteen that summer, but. Would you not have rathered stay on your own at your parents’ house? Free gaff, no uncle keeping an eye on you. Party time.”
“Yeah, no, I could’ve. But—” How could I explain? “We all liked it here. And it was more fun with three of us. We were all single, that summer, so it’s not like we wanted to play house with our girlfriends or boyfriends. We just wanted to hang out.”
“Sounds like they did all right for parties even with the uncle around,” Rafferty told Kerr, grinning. “Amn’t I right, Toby?”
“Right.” I managed a weak smile. “But I don’t have a clue whether we were here that actual day. We all had summer jobs, so probably we were at those?”
“Unless you were too hungover, right? Been there. Where were you working?”
“I was”—it took me a second to get my summers straight—“I was in the, the post room at the bank where my uncle Oliver works. Susanna was volunteering for a, one of those nonprofits, I can’t remember which one. And Leon was working at a record shop in town.”
“What time would you have finished up there?”
“I think I finished at five? And then probably we came back here for dinner, that’s what we mostly . . . Maybe we might have gone out afterwards, or people might have come here, but if it was a Monday then probably not . . . But I don’t actually remember.”
“That’s OK. We’ll ask around, see if any of your gang kept a diary. Check out social media—Myspace, wouldn’t it have been, back then?—see if anyone posted about their day.” Rafferty straightened up, hands on the arms of the chair: winding this up. “Since the dead person had links to this house,” he said, “we’re going to need to search it.”
The fireball of outrage took my breath away. “But,” I said, and stopped.
“That’s one reason why I wanted to talk to you on your own,” Rafferty said, apparently not noticing. “Your uncle. I hope I’m not putting my foot in it here, but is he all right?”
“No,” I said. “He’s dying. Brain cancer. He’s got maybe a few months.”
If I hoped this would be some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card, I was wrong. Rafferty grimaced. “Sorry to hear that. I’m glad I talked to you first; maybe you can help me come up with a plan to make this as easy on him as possible. We’ll do our best to work fast, but realistically, it’s going to take us the guts of today. Is there anywhere the two of you could go for the day? Somewhere your uncle would be comfortable?”
“No,” I said. Actually I had no idea whether Hugo would mind clearing out for the day, but I minded, for him and for myself, with a savagery that made no sense but I didn’t give a fuck. “He needs to be here. He can barely walk. And he gets confused.”
“The thing is,” Rafferty explained, very reasonably, “we don’t have any choice about searching the house. That needs doing. We’ve got a warrant and all. And you can see how we can’t have the two of you hanging over our shoulders.”
We looked at each other, across the coffee table. The terrible part was that I knew, with total and wretched certainty, that just a few months ago I would have been able to talk them round: easy-peasy, no problem to me, charming smile and some perfect solution that would make everyone happy. The gibbering mess I was now couldn’t have talked round a five-year-old, even if I had been able to come up with a solution, which I couldn’t: the only thing I could think of was going all Occupy Ivy House and telling these guys that they would have to handcuff me and drag me out, and even apart from the cringe factor I had a feeling they would cheerfully do exactly that if they had to.
“Tell you what,” Rafferty said, relenting. “Split the difference. You and your uncle clear out of our way for, what, say an hour?”
He glanced at Kerr. “Hour and a half, maybe,” Kerr said. His notebook had vanished.
“Hour and a half. Go get some lunch, do the shopping. While you’re out, we’ll do the study and the kitchen. Then when you get back, you can stick to those rooms—get your work done, make yourselves a cup of tea if you want one—and we won’t be in each other’s way. How does that sound?”
“OK,” I said, after a moment. “I guess.”
“Great,” Rafferty said cheerfully. “Sorted, so.”
When I stood up, he did too. At first I didn’t understand why. It was only as he followed me up the stairs to Hugo’s study that I got it, and that I realized: Since the dead person had links to this house, we’re going to need to search it. We’ve got a warrant and all; but a few minutes earlier, he had made it sound like he had only just that moment found out who the dead person was.
* * *