Where the Memories Lie
By: Sibel Hodge
Anna disappeared up to Charlotte’s room to play on some new computer game. Charlotte had been bugging Nadia about it for months, and Nadia had promised her if she worked hard for her GCSEs, she could have it, along with one hundred pounds for every A-star she got, eighty pounds for every A, sixty pounds for a B, etc. Modern parenting meant bribing your kids to do well at school.
I heard Anna’s laugh filter downstairs and felt a pang of guilt twist inside. It was the first time I’d heard her laugh since Tom had died and now we were going to give her a reason to silence it again.
I told them everything that happened with DI Spencer and DS
Khan earlier.
Ethan sat on the sofa in the lounge and looked out of the window, which backed on to a view of a field full of black and white cows. He looked like he’d aged about ten years since this all began.
‘I can’t believe she was pregnant.’
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‘It’s awful.’ Nadia’s face had turned a deathly pale shade. ‘Not just for Katie, but the baby, too. But I don’t believe it’s Dad’s. It can’t be.’
‘Neither do I,’ Ethan said.
‘It can’t have been an immaculate conception,’ I said.
‘Could Chris really be the father?’ Ethan looked at Nadia, ignoring my comment.
I sank back into the sofa, kicked off my flip-flops and curled up my legs to the side. ‘I don’t know. Like DI Spencer said, just because he has a low sperm count now doesn’t mean it wasn’t perfectly OK when he was eighteen. Obviously Tom knew something about Katie’s death, and we don’t know what yet, but if he knew where her body was, then there are only three reasons why.’
I ticked them off on my fingers. ‘One, he killed her and buried the body. Two, he killed her with someone else and buried the body. Or three, he knew who killed her, buried her body himself and hid the secret to protect someone.’ And that’s when Tom’s words echoed in my head again.
I was just protecting my family. I was just doing what a parent should.
But what exactly was he protecting the family from, though?
What kind of threat had Katie been?
‘No. Chris did not get her pregnant and kill her, either.’ Ethan scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his cheeks. His voice had lost some of the volatile anger of the previous few days and now just sounded exhausted. ‘It’s as ridiculous as Dad doing it.’
‘Well, someone did,’ I said. ‘And Tom obviously knew about it.’
‘We need to wait for the DNA test before we do any more speculating,’ Nadia said. ‘In the meantime, what are we going to tell Charlotte and Anna? The police are asking questions. I heard from the office today that they’d been looking through the records to do with the barn conversion, trying to find out who was employed 204
Where the Memories Lie on site at the time. No doubt they’ve been in the village asking questions, too. And now Katie’s been officially identified, Rose will know, and I’m worried how she’s going to react.’
‘Me, too,’ I said. ‘That’s why I think we should go and apologise to her. Give our condolences.’
‘That’s not a good idea,’ Ethan said. ‘It’s just asking for trouble with her.’
‘Well, I don’t agree. How would you feel if Jack had confessed to killing Anna?’
‘I’d want to kill him.’
‘Exactly, Liv.’ Nadia bit her lip. ‘She’ll be really upset and angry with us. I think we should just leave it.’
‘I can’t just leave it,’ I said.
‘You’re asking for trouble. But then you always do exactly what you want, don’t you?’ Ethan snapped.
‘Hey, that’s not fair! What are you talking about?’ I searched his face
‘This is all your doing,’ he burst out.
‘What?’ My lips fell open.
It seemed like since Tom had unburdened his awful confession, we were constantly angry with each other. Even though he was sitting just on the other side of the sofa from me, it felt as if he was another continent away. I knew he was grieving, of course, but it felt like more than that. He was distancing himself, shutting me out, blaming me.
‘You can never leave things alone, can you?’ he muttered. ‘It’s like you have to pick, pick, pick until you get people to do what you want.’