My wife is still sitting by the window, staring out at the rain.
Carol stays in the doorway as I walk into the room. Bridget is in the exact same position as earlier, and at first I’m not so sure what it is that Carol wants me to see, but then I see it. Bridget is clutching a photograph of our daughter. At some point since I walked out of here she has stood up and made her way over to the bedside drawers and picked up the photo frame. I think about the photographs of the dead girls in my pocket, and it seems like an omen: that of all days for her to have somehow taken this photograph it has to be this day. She is holding it against her, the frame pressing into her breasts, the image of Emily facing the window as though Bridget is trying to share the view. I want to read more into it, I want to believe this is more than just one of her automated responses, and I study her face for something — a tear, a flicker of emotion — but there is nothing. Still, it is the first time she has ever picked something up and brought it back to her chair. At least it’s the first time I know of— it could be she does this at night and puts the pictures back in the morning. I don’t know, but I like the idea that in the dead hours of the night she gets out of bed and reaches for Emily. It’s sad, it’s depressing, but it’s the sort of hook that I can come along and hang some hope onto.
I sit down next to her and I rest my head on her shoulder, and I hug her and tears slide from my eyes and soak into her gown, and I pray to the God I want to believe in but can’t that Bridget will tell me that things are okay, that she will stroke the back of my head and comfort me.
But she doesn’t. When I look back at her face it’s just as it was moments before. But my hope stays firmly on the hook I placed it on. I stay with her for a while — I’m not sure how long exactly, an hour, maybe two. At some point Carol Hamilton walks away.
I see her on my way back out and she smiles but she doesn’t say anything. I guess she is too frightened to offer me hope that she doesn’t think is there.
When I get back outside it’s raining hard. I drive home and change into some fresh clothes, even ironing a shirt and a pair of pants pulled from the dryer. My look could be the difference between getting the information I need and getting busted.
Back in town I can’t find a park and have to settle for one six blocks away from the bank. A few years ago and this place would have been closed on a Saturday afternoon; now hardly anything closes. I look at my watch and check the opening hours on the door. The bank shuts in less than twenty minutes. I’ve timed things perfectly.
The security guard gives me a strange look, and I realise it’s because I’ve taken two steps inside and come to a complete stop.
I walk over to him. He seems unsure what to do. I pull out my ID
which I haven’t used in more than two and a half years. I used to have a badge that went along with it, but that got handed back.
The ID has the word Void’ stamped across the side of it, but I cover it with my finger and let the guard look at it for about a second before I put it away.
‘I seen you on TV,’ he says. ‘Didn’t realise you were still a cop.’
‘Technically I’m not, but I’m working for them. That’s why I still have the ID,’ I say, hoping it makes some kind of sense.
‘Didn’t know there was a “technically” when it comes to working for the police.’
I give him the ‘what-are-you-gonna-do’ stare. ‘Nothing is how it should be these days,’ I say. ‘All I know is the pay is better on this side of “technically” than on the other side of “actually”.’
He shrugs, as if he doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.
I guess he doesn’t. At twelve bucks an hour, why would he?
have a court order to access a customer’s account,’ I say. ‘Can you point me in the direction of somebody to talk to?’
‘Sure,’ he says, and he brushes a hand over the side of his head where a corner flap of his toupee is sticking up. He leads me to an open office door and knocks on it. A woman in her mid thirties stands up from behind her desk and comes over. ‘There’s a guy here who wants to access an account,’ he says, and she looks at him a little blankly because accessing accounts is what people come here to do. But then he adds, ‘He has a court order.’
‘Oh. Well,it’s a little more complicated than that,’ she says, looking me up and down. ‘Hey, haven’t I seen you on TV?’
‘Probably Can we talk in here?’