Where the Memories Lie

 

‘Shit!’ I yelled, as a raging anger exploded to the surface, which wasn’t like me. I was usually pretty calm in a crisis, but I was angry with Tom for putting us in this position. Angry with Ethan for walking out and leaving me to deal with it when it was his own dad who was involved in all this. Angry with myself for not doing more to help Katie when I had the chance. And angry just because I could be.

 

I practically threw the iron back in its holder on the ironing board as tears sprang into my eyes.

 

When I glanced up DS Khan was off the phone and watching me through the window. I gave her a half smile but it twitched on my face and probably made me look as if I was having a stroke. She didn’t smile back. Not a good sign. Instead, she disappeared back inside the garage.

 

I switched the iron off, unable to concentrate on even that, and left it sitting in the ironing board to cool, scowling at it. My stomach gurgled with a mixture of hunger and acidic reflux.

 

The phone rang, then, making me jump.

 

‘What’s going on?’ Nadia said when I picked it up. ‘I just drove past your house and there’s some crime scene van there. Don’t tell 137

 

Sibel Hodge

 

me you’ve been burgled.’ She carried on before I could say anything.

 

‘Is that why you wanted Anna to stay? You should’ve just said!’

 

I stared at the garage again. ‘Not quite.’ Although I did feel the same as if we’d been burgled ? violated, angry, stressed, upset, vulnerable.

 

‘What’s going on? You sound weird.’ Her voice became suspicious. ‘I’m coming round when I’ve dropped off some paper-work to the office, OK?’

 

Before I could protest, she’d hung up.

 

Great. Now Ethan would blame me for shooting my mouth off to Nadia, too. I worked my neck from side to side, trying to get rid of the painful knots of tension forming, gaze firmly back on the garage.

 

DI Spencer emerged first, followed by DS Khan. Spencer was older than Khan, who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. If I had to hazard a guess, based on the grey at the temples of his fair hair, the paunch around his stomach and the bags underneath his eyes, I’d say he was in his early fifties. I watched them strip off their white suits, walk up the part of the driveway I could still see at this angle and then disappear. A few seconds later there was a knock at the front door. I’d been expecting it, but it still made my stomach jump into my throat and my heart beat in an irregular pattern for a fraction of a second before settling back into rhythm again.

 

I wiped my clammy palms on my denim cut-off shorts and walked towards the door.

 

‘Can we come in?’ DI Spencer said with an expressionless face.

 

Close up, the bags were more pronounced and his eyes were red.

 

I wondered briefly if he suffered from hay fever. The rape seed had been terrible this year.

 

It sounded like a question but it really wasn’t. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, so I held the door open and waved them through into the hallway, and they followed me into the kitchen.

 

138

 

Where the Memories Lie

 

‘Um . . . do you want a coffee or . . . something?’ I leaned my hip on the island to keep me upright.

 

‘No, thanks.’ DS Khan smiled but it was practised and sympathetic. A smile I often used at work when I had to give a patient some bad news.

 

There was banging at the front door then.

 

‘Sorry, hang on.’ I walked down the corridor and felt them watching my back, their eyes assessing me.

 

As soon as I saw Nadia there I burst into tears. I couldn’t contain it any longer. I knew from their sombre expressions and their air of quiet seriousness exactly what they were going to tell me.

 

Katie Quinn really was buried under my garage.

 

Nadia took one look at my face and, without saying anything, she enveloped me in her arms, my head resting on her shoulder.