Where the Memories Lie

 

I pressed my other hand to my chest and took some deep breaths. The morning sun streamed through the double window on the opposite side of the garage, illuminating the scene. Along the wall to my left were shelves full of Ethan’s tools and odds and sods. Sanders, drills, half-used tins of paint, boxes full of old leads and adaptors, dust sheets and rags. The bottom shelf was used as a workbench with a vice attached. Leaning against the opposite wall were ladders, fold-up chairs, a couple of sun loungers, Tom’s old ping pong table, Ethan’s and Anna’s bikes, and probably a load of old junk we should really take to the rubbish tip. We’d have to sort that out before we moved.

 

244

 

Where the Memories Lie

 

In the centre of the concrete floor was a big, gaping hole that went down into the earth like an open wound. A hollowness opened up in my chest and I found it hard to breathe. This was my best friend’s grave.

 

Was it really an accident or had it been planned? Had she begged for her life, or was she unconscious when she was killed?

 

Was she trying to save herself and her baby? Did she fight back? Scream?

 

I made an involuntary noise that sounded like a cross between a sob and a squeak.

 

My poor, poor friend.

 

Anxious to get out of there, I rushed towards the bench where I saw Ethan’s toolbox. It was metal with two upper compartments that were double hinged on each side and rotated outwards to expose the main tool storage underneath. The upper compartments were already open and I could see some tools in the bottom section, so I searched for a screwdriver to poke in the fuse cover on the waffle maker’s plug. Next, I picked out a hammer and pliers and a whole messy, tangled heap of cable-ties, spanners and screws, looking for the small yellow plastic box with spare fuses inside that I knew he kept in there. I rummaged around, my fingers poking into the corners, and that’s when I found it.

 

The discovery hit me like a knife being plunged between my shoulder blades. My heart lurched into my throat and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I had a thought then that maybe it really was all my fault. I’d wanted something to take my mind off Charlotte, and didn’t they always say to be careful what you wished for?

 

245

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight

 

 

I sat at the island in the kitchen, the room silent apart from the ticking of the clock. On the worktop in front of me was a silver necklace. The chain was a flat curb-link pattern. Pretty ordinary and nondescript, really. Nothing strange about it at all.

 

The strange thing was the charm on the end of it. A sun with wavy rays fanning out in a circle around it. Underneath the sun dangled a smaller star with a clear sparkling stone in the centre, probably cubic zirconium or something like that. On the back of the sun was inscribed You’re my sun and stars. I’d never seen it before in my life but I was pretty sure I knew what it was. Chris had described it as a necklace with a sun and a star when he’d told me what Katie had worn on the Sunday she was running away from home.

 

So, the big question was, what was my husband doing with it? Or, more accurately, what the HELL was my husband doing with it?

 

I stroked the silver chain, which was tarnished with age, wish-ing it could tell me a story. Was it really the same one, or was it something that just looked similar? How many necklaces were there in the world with a sun and a star on them? Millions, probably. But Where the Memories Lie how many people were wearing one on the day they disappeared and ended up buried in the very place I’d found it?

 

Still, it could all be a strange coincidence, couldn’t it? Just a very odd . . .

 

Odd what?

 

Odd coincidence.