Maggie turns back to the mother. ‘Brenda, do you think Zoe could have had another boyfriend?’
When Brenda shakes her head, she purses up her mouth and chin and the lines of a habitual smoker fan out from her lips like a child’s drawing of a sun. ‘I’d have known. We didn’t have no secrets. Did he tell you anything? About what he did to her? Where he took her? Kim! I won’t tell you again.’
Making no sound, moving so slowly that Maggie can almost imagine the air doesn’t move around her, Kimberly gets up from her chair and crosses to the sink. Her shape is still the skinny, angular one of a child. Her clothes are childish too: plain jeans, a fleece sweatshirt.
‘Zoe’s actions on that last night suggest she was planning to meet someone,’ says Maggie.
‘Do you think they might let me have her boot back? Kim, sniff that milk before you use it, make sure it’s fresh.’
‘I’m sorry, what did you just say?’
‘Her boot. The red cowboy boot, what she were wearing when she was taken. They’ve never let me have it back.’
The cowboy boot, found on the roadside in the gorge, with bloodstains that were matched to Zoe. Her mother wants it back, as though her pain isn’t sharp enough without a tangible reminder of what her daughter went through.
‘I imagine it will be classed as evidence. The police probably need to keep it.’
‘She loved them boots. They were her favourites. She always wore them. They were a present from me. Cost a bloody fortune. I’d really like it back.’
A once expensive, now worthless, item. It is odd, the things that grieving people obsess over. On the kitchen counter, a mobile phone starts ringing. Brenda turns away and reaches for it.
‘Yeah, oh, hiya, Mand, all right?’ As though she’s forgotten Maggie, she wanders out into the hallway just as the teenager turns round, a mug in each hand. She has the trace of an old bruise on her right cheek, just below her eye. Her hands are shaking.
‘I put sugar in.’ She stares at Maggie with wide, pale grey eyes.
‘Thank you.’
‘Not everyone takes sugar. Mum and me both do. It’s habit. I can make you another cup.’
‘It’s fine, thank you. I can drink it with or without sugar.’
Kimberly reaches out, spilling some of the tea on her hand. She puts both mugs down clumsily and turns back to the sink.
‘Cold water,’ says Maggie, unnecessarily. The girl is already holding her scalded hand beneath the tap. ‘It would be really useful for me to see Zoe’s bedroom. Would you mind showing me?’
The girl’s shoulders stiffen. ‘You want to see Zoe’s room,’ she says to the kitchen window.
In the hallway, conversation stops. The door bursts open again and Kimberly flinches.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Brenda’s eyes drop to the mugs on the table. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, why do you make such a mess all the time?’
‘Actually that was me,’ Maggie says. ‘I wasn’t expecting the mugs to be quite so hot. Let me clean it up.’
‘Kim will do it.’ Brenda glares at the girl, who is staring down into the sink.
‘What did you want to ask me?’
‘Huh?’
‘You said you wanted to ask me something. Just now, when you came back into the room.’
Reminded, Brenda stands square on to Maggie. ‘Why are you here? If you’re going to be that animal’s frigging lawyer, what do you want with me?’
‘Hamish Wolfe isn’t my client and may never be. For what it’s worth, I’m still inclined to think he’s guilty. I’m here because there are details about Zoe’s disappearance that don’t make a lot of sense to me. If you help, I promise to try one more time to get him to tell us where Zoe is.’
‘What if he doesn’t know?’ says Kimberly.
Brenda’s head shoots round to her daughter. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Course he knows.’
Kimberly has a way of drooping, of dropping her head so that her hair falls and covers her face, of letting her shoulders slump so that she seems diminished.
Maggie fakes a loud cough. ‘Brenda, can I please see Zoe’s room? Does it still have all her things in it? And if you have any family photographs, that would be useful too. Perhaps Kimberly could show me?’
Brenda glances dismissively at her daughter. ‘I’ll take you.’
The room Zoe shared with her sister is a double bedroom, with twin beds. One of them unmade but recently slept in, the other devoid of linen, just a bare mattress.