Where the Memories Lie
By: Sibel Hodge
It was a Sunday when she wrote the letter to Rose and Jack and then disappeared, which meant none of the contractors would’ve been working on site so there would’ve been no witnesses.
Tom always insisted on having Sundays off so he could spend time with his family, and he’d made sure his employees didn’t work then, either. I tried to picture what stage the renovation was at then, but only vague images came into my head. Because of its historic importance, the barn was a listed building, so the original walls made of local stone had to remain in place and couldn’t be knocked down, only repaired. I remembered them all being in situ throughout the renovation work. Since Katie was buried under the garage floor, the foundations for it would have surely already been dug out at that stage. When we bought the property from Tom he’d told us he’d made the foundations in the garage suitable to take a two-storey extension in case he ever wanted to build a studio or office over it. And all that time her body had been rotting away underneath it.
As I opened our front gates, I saw Chris sitting on our door-step, his head in his hands. He glanced up, looking dishevelled and ravaged. His hair, usually kept closely clippered, was sprouting out in all uneven directions, like patchy grass. His sallow cheeks were covered in several days’ worth of stubble. There were dark hollows beneath his eyes.
‘Hi,’ I said as Poppy struggled on the lead, trying to run off and greet him.
‘Hi.’
I walked towards him. ‘Are you OK?’
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He shook his head, ignoring Poppy nuzzling her snout into his hand. ‘I . . . I just wanted to sit here for a while.’
I frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I wanted to say goodbye to her.’ He clasped his hands behind his head, elbows sticking out in the air. His T-shirt lifted, revealing a tanned, toned stomach. He stared at the ground. ‘I can’t believe she was pregnant.’
I didn’t know what to do. What if Chris was the father? What if he had something to do with Katie’s death? But then a tiny inner voice told me to stop being crazy. Of course he hadn’t. I knew him.
He was kind and funny and sweet. The shy, quiet one.
Yes, but isn’t it just as crazy to think that Tom did it? You knew him, too. Or thought you did. And what is it they always say about the quiet ones?
Had Katie made fun of Chris, taunted him, and he lost his temper and snapped? Is that what got her killed in the end?
Don’t be ridiculous!
I settled for, ‘Do you want to come inside?’
‘No.’
‘Do you remember what was happening here with the renovation when Katie went missing?’ I asked. ‘Do you remember working on the garage floor with Tom? Or was there another builder working on them?’
He shook his head in response, his gaze drifting to the garage.
An expression passed over his face for a brief second and then it was gone, too fleeting for me to work out what it was. ‘When you’re that age, you think you know everything, don’t you? Think you’re capable of anything. If she wasn’t running away it wouldn’t have happened.’
‘What are you saying, Chris? How can you know that?’ A feeling of dread crept up my spine, as if in anticipation of a confession. ‘Do you know what happened to her? Why Tom confessed?
You can talk to me, Chris, you know that.’
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He looked at me, but I don’t think he was really seeing me.
Before he stood up and walked away, he said, ‘The others, they didn’t like her. You’re the only one who understands.’
Except I didn’t understand anything. Not then.
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Chapter Twenty-Four