A few messages have backed up on my phone during the ride back. The first is from Ed Sadler:
“Hi, Detective Inspector, it’s Edward Sadler. Re the conversation with Abdi, I do recall chatting with him, but it was very late, and as you know, I’d had quite a few drinks. We might have talked about Hartisheik Camp but I can’t remember the detail, I’m afraid. I certainly wasn’t aware he was recording the conversation. But he’s a curious boy, so perhaps he was following up on things that he wanted to know after seeing the exhibition. I’m at the hospital now for a few hours, but you can try me on my mobile if you want to discuss it further.”
I mull over that and park it on my to-do list for the following day. It’s very late to be disturbing him at the hospital, and I’d like to see him face-to-face anyhow, to follow up on what the therapist told us.
I call Sofia Mahad just to double check what she said the recording contained. She insists it was on the iPad and describes it once again in detail.
I click on to my second voice mail after that, and in timing that would be comic if it wasn’t so annoying, it’s from one of our tech team. He apologizes for not finding the audio recording this morning and tells me they’ve emailed it across.
I listen to it immediately. It’s exactly as Sofia Mahad described it, and I think worth having a chat with Ed Sadler about. I’m also wondering whether the message was deleted on purpose or whether it could have been a mistake.
The remaining message is from Woodley. He’s made appointments for us to speak to Abdi and Noah’s friend Imran at the school tomorrow. Good news.
I get changed out of my work clothes into some sweats and a T-shirt, and when I’m done, Becky shifts to make a space for me on the end of the sofa.
“Did you eat?” I ask.
Her hand appears from under the blanket, a chocolate bar wrapper clutched in her fingers.
“I found it in the cupboard,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
It’s a cheeky question because she’s holding a Mars bar wrapper. It was my favorite chocolate bar when we were kids. I didn’t get to have one often, but when I did, I guarded it fiercely and ate it in little bits, rationing it to make it last as long as possible. She used to tease me about it.
“You don’t change much, then,” she says.
“Nor do you! You know I have powers of arrest for stealing, don’t you?”
She laughs, though it makes her wince a little. Even so, it’s a sight that warms me. I haven’t thought about that stuff for so long, and it’s nice to know that we can have a laugh. The relationship I might have had with my sister was one of the more depressing casualties of our father’s bullying.
“Do you want to eat some proper food?”
“What do you have?”
“Some takeout menus.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s on me.”
I order generously, and when the food arrives, we eat it from plates balanced on our knees in front of the TV. It reminds me of how we used to watch the box on weekend afternoons when we were kids. I’ll admit it feels a long time since I’ve had company here in the evening, and I’ve missed it.
Emma and I used to sit here drinking wine and talking. I remember massaging her stockinged feet when we lay together on the sofa after a long day at work. I remember where that led. I know what I told Fraser, but the truth is that I still miss Emma, every single day.
Becky prods me with her foot. “Thousand-yard stare,” she says.
“Sorry. Just thinking about work.” There are some things I’m not ready to share with her yet. “I’ve got a tricky case on the go.”
“Can you talk about it?”
I give her some details.
“Surely they were out drinking or doing drugs?” she says. “They must have been. It sounds like a night out gone wrong.”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. I’ve got a feeling it might be more complicated than that.”
“What will happen to the Somali boy if he keeps refusing to talk?”
“We would have to decide whether there’s enough evidence to bring charges of some sort against him.”
“What a nightmare.”
On the TV a drone camera soars over a desert where antelope are migrating in hordes, a swarm of living creatures against a hostile backdrop. The scene is both beautiful and harsh.
“I don’t want to pry,” I say carefully, “but would you like to tell me what happened?”
Instantly, she looks guarded. I’m about to back down and apologize for asking because I can see that I shouldn’t have, that I’ve pushed her too soon, when she says, “What will you do if I tell you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Last time I looked, you were a police officer.”
“I’ll listen.”
“Is that all?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She chooses her next words carefully.
“I’ve been in a relationship that hasn’t always been . . . healthy. But it’s over now.”
The abuse is all there in the subtext and the understatement, in her expression, and in the way her fingers flutter near the bruising that I can’t see but know is on her neck. I’m not surprised, and I’m pleased she’s being honest with me, but it’s still shocking to hear it from her.
“Are you sure? Sometimes abusive men find it hard to . . .”
“Jim! I don’t need you to babysit me. I need a place to stay.”
“Okay!”
I know when to back off. Telling me what happened is progress. I clear away the debris from our meal and pour us both some whiskey.
“Constitutional,” I say when I hand her a glass.
Becky takes the drink and watches me with a level gaze, the blanket still pulled up under her chin, like a barricade between us. We sit in silence until she says, “This is a nice flat, little brother.”
“Thanks.”
“We made very different choices in life, didn’t we?”
“Becky . . .”
“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. You were too young to stop him.”
I swallow some whiskey. The reference to our father turns it into a mouthful of tacks. She goes to bed soon afterward, the blanket wrapped around her as she walks out of the room, the end of it trailing in her wake.
The long day I’ve had and the whiskey both help me get off to sleep unexpectedly quickly, in spite of the crappy springs on my sofa, but there’s no escaping the insomnia. I wake up long before dawn to find that the dark hours have been patiently waiting to wrap tendrils of anxiety around me.
I throw open the sash window and clamber out onto the parapet outside. I know it’s not recommended to start your day with a cigarette, but I’m so short on vices that I excuse myself the odd smoke. A cigarette can be good company when the texture of your mind turns rough and dark, and when the paths through it feel labyrinthine.