‘Does it mean anything to you?’ Grayling asks.
‘No.’ She walks away, opens a cupboard, gets down a glass and runs the tap. ‘Sorry. I only saw a glimpse of his profile. Has there been any progress?’
He shrugs. ‘Not really. We didn’t find any prints that we couldn’t rule out. We’re hoping the E-FIT will help. You’d have thought somebody would have seen something. He needed to climb over the side gate into the garden, for a start.’
‘People tend to live in their kitchens these days,’ I say. ‘Particularly round here. Everyone’s got their extensions. Front rooms are mainly used in the evenings.’
‘Is that so?’
I wonder if I’ve offended him. Maybe he thinks I’m spoiled and privileged.
I thought he was about to leave but he gestures at the kitchen table and pulls out a chair. We both sit down. Amber flicks her hair away from her face and leans back, crossing her legs. Grayling waits for what seems a very long time, watching our faces. Eventually he speaks.
‘Is there anything you ladies would like to tell me? Off the record.’
‘Like what?’ Amber asks. She rests her elbows on the table and cradles her chin in her hands. ‘We’ve told you everything.’
His expression is benign. ‘Well, that’s just it, Mrs Collins. I don’t think you have.’
I want to tell him. I want to pile my troubles on to his broad shoulders, and Amber knows I do because she presses the side of her foot against mine.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ I return the pressure to let her know I get it. ‘It’s quite simple …’
‘Simple enough for me? Come now, Mrs Seagrave, I’m not a fool. I know when someone’s not telling me the whole truth.’
‘But we’re not lying,’ Amber says.
‘Did I say that?’ He pauses for long enough to make me feel like a schoolgirl sent to see the headmistress. ‘If there’s anything else you’d like to share with me, now’s the time.’
‘There isn’t,’ I say firmly. ‘We’ve told you everything we know. I hope the E-FIT helps.’
I stand up and he follows suit, wedging the laptop case under his arm and fishing his keys out of his pocket. His face is no less friendly; there is no irritation in evidence, no sense of frustration, but I feel like I’m being dangled on the end of a line.
‘I’d like to catch this man, Mrs Seagrave. It’s frustrating that no one seems to know anything.’
‘Isn’t that the nature of criminals?’
‘Someone always knows something.’
He walks down the steps and turns back and my heart stops. He’s thought of something. In whodunnits they always do that. The detective strolls towards the exit, hesitates and gives the witness a friendly smile before saying, Oh, and one last thing …
‘Fabulous magnolia.’
I let out the breath I’ve been holding. ‘Won’t last long, sadly.’
‘No. Beautiful things often don’t.’
I close the door. I don’t want to get into an existential conversation with the detective sergeant in charge of my case.
Amber is standing at the end of the garden with her back to the house. I watch her and when she realizes I’m there she swivels round. I come out and join her.
‘That was nerve-racking. I thought for one minute we were—’
‘That face,’ she interrupts. ‘The E-FIT.’
‘What about it?’
‘Do you know who it is?’
I don’t know why but the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. ‘No. It’s just some random person from my childhood. I wouldn’t describe someone I actually know.’
‘But he is real?’
For some reason the memory of the face is accompanied by a sense of shame, a sense that I’ve let myself down. Which I suppose I have. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Not particularly,’ she says airily. ‘I wanted to check you weren’t about to land some poor innocent in the shit.’ There’s a pink ball in the grass and she manoeuvres it with the toe of her boot.
‘Well, I’m not. So what’s happening with Browning Street? I want Tom to have a look.’
‘There’ve been a couple of ridiculously low offers which have been turned down, but they’re opening gambits. They’ll offer more. Have you talked to Tom about it?’
‘No, not yet. There hasn’t been a good time. I doubt his reaction will be positive, so I’ll have to pick my moment carefully.’
The truth is, I know exactly what he’ll say and I don’t feel like fighting my corner at the moment. An odd gloom has settled over me in the last few days, a cloud that won’t lift. It’s to do with Josh, of course, and the plaster cast encasing his fractured arm; a bulky and glaringly white reminder of my mistake.
‘I wouldn’t hang around if you’re serious about it. It’s only a matter of time.’ Amber wanders out over the lawn and turns to look back at my house. I have a feeling she’s itching to be asked to sell it.
April 1992
KATYA WAITED IN the playground, expectation making her jiggle from foot to foot. Then Maggie waved and she burst into smiles and waved back, her hand dropping when the gates opened and Maggie walked in alone. Perhaps Emily was in the car. There was no reason why she should have come into the school. She shook Mrs Burton’s hand and ran to Maggie.
‘Well, don’t you look smart, Katya.’
Katya looked down at herself. Her gingham dress was brand new and so were her socks. Her shoes were old and getting tight, but they’d been polished and Sally Bryant had promised her new ones soon.
‘She’s not your mum,’ Gabriella Brady said as she trailed past her in the wake of her father and big brother.
Gabriella was the only person at the school who Katya could call a friend, and even then the friendship wasn’t exactly something she could count on. Some days Gabriella didn’t even speak to her, or if she did, it was to say something mean. Katya hadn’t been invited back to her house either, and she wasn’t going to invite Gabriella to the Bryants’. Not in a billion years. Gabriella was friendly if she had fallen out with her other friends, which happened often enough for her to need Katya to fall back on, because she was very annoying and bossy, but Katya didn’t particularly care about that. She just cared about not looking like a loser.
Katya pulled on Maggie’s hand. They left the school and walked down the road, Katya expecting her to stop and get her keys out at every moment.
‘Where’s your car?’ she said at last.
‘Over there.’
She glanced to where Maggie was pointing and recognized the red Fiesta. There was no one in it. ‘Are we picking Emily up from her school?’
She had already imagined how the afternoon would go. Sitting at the Parrishes’ kitchen table and eating cake, talking and giggling while Maggie looked on indulgently. She imagined Emily to be a mini version of her mother, with thick brown hair and big soft eyes. She knew that Emily didn’t have a dad either, because Maggie had told her. So they had something important in common.