Where the Memories Lie
By: Sibel Hodge
‘Well, they’re not going to find anything. This is all a ridiculous waste of everyone’s time. Just like it was with Georgia. Not to mention the expense of digging up the bloody floor and relaying it.
And, more importantly, what are we going to tell Anna when she sees a hole in the floor?’ He shot me a filthy look.
I chewed on my lip. I’d dropped off her school uniform over to Nadia’s late last night and asked if she could stay there. Anna was pretty chuffed about it in the end since she got to spend a school night having a sleepover with her cousin. We hadn’t told Nadia what it was all about yet. Ethan insisted there was no point.
He thought the police would discover that Katie really wasn’t down there and we could all forget about it. No point upsetting everyone for absolutely no reason, he’d said. He thought it was all some kind of macabre mistake. I thought he was in denial.
A loud noise from what sounded like a hammer drill reverberated through the windows.
Poppy shot out of the kitchen and ran up the stairs to get away from it. She probably thought it was thunder, which she hated.
I could picture her now, cowering in the shower cubicle, shaking.
Usually, I’d sit with her, stroking and reassuring her, but I couldn’t then. I had to see what was going on. Like a rubbernecker at an accident scene, I was glued in place by an invisible tape.
My stomach cramped and the orange juice I’d drunk for break-fast burned inside. I hadn’t been able to eat any real food for fear of bringing it back up again.
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‘Oh, my God.’ I dropped my head into my hand, tugging at my roots. ‘If they’re digging, they must’ve found something with that imaging stuff.’
‘I can’t concentrate with all that racket going on. I’m going to take the dog out. I need some air.’ Ethan slammed the laptop shut so hard I’m surprised he didn’t crack it. He managed to coax a shaking Poppy out the door and when he left, I suddenly felt calmer, as if his anger had been permeating into me by osmosis. He was like that, you see. If things went wrong and he felt powerless or unable to protect his family in some way, he let it out by shouting or being defensive. Maybe he felt like I was criticising him, or that I thought he was a failure or something. I don’t know. Men really are from Mars sometimes.
I’m not sure how long I stood in that position while the drilling pounded inside my head and out. When it stopped some time later, my ears were hypersensitive and I could still hear ringing, like a bad case of tinnitus you get after going to a nightclub. I took the ironing board out of the utility room, plugged in the iron and got to work tackling a big pile of clothes I’d been putting off, hoping the mundane task would take my mind off things.
It didn’t. Every few moments my gaze strayed back to the garage again.
DS Khan emerged in her all-in-one white jumpsuit and stood outside the garage doors, talking on her mobile phone. She was Indian with smooth dark skin and almond-shaped eyes. Tall, slim and, before she’d donned the suit, immaculately turned out in black skinny trousers tucked into calf-high leather boots and a navy blue silk mac. She could easily have been a model. I wished the window was open so I could hear her, but I’d shut it to drown out the noise.
I watched her, craning my neck, straining to hear, but the double glazing Tom had put in all those years ago was so efficient I couldn’t 136
Where the Memories Lie
make out anything. She nodded a few times, frowning deeply.
I wanted to tell her not to do that too often or she’d end up with a wrinkled forehead later in life. Nadia always frowned from between her eyebrows, so she had two tiny vertical lines above the bridge of her nose that were barely noticeable. I, on the other hand, had a more expressive face. My forehead was always creasing up in surprise, or with a question, or when I made a humorous remark, and the result was a very lined forehead.