I was having trouble sleeping, even when I got the opportunity. I often do, as I’ve said, but this was different: in those weeks I kept finding myself trapped in some twilight zone between sleep and waking, unable to force my way into either. “Look out!” voices said suddenly and loudly in my ear; or, “I can’t hear you. What? What?” I half-dreamed dark intruders moving stealthily around the room, riffling through my work notes and fingering the shirts in my wardrobe; I knew they couldn’t be real, but it took me a panicky eternity to drag myself awake to either confront or dispel them. Once I woke to find myself slumped against the wall by my bedroom door, pawing crazily at the light switch, my legs barely able to hold me up. My head was swimming and there was a muffled moaning sound coming from somewhere, and it was a long time before I realized that it was my voice. I turned on the light, and my desk lamp, and crawled back into bed, where I lay, too shaken to go back to sleep, until my alarm went off.
In this limbo I kept hearing children’s voices, too. Not Peter’s and Jamie’s, or anything: this was a group of children a long way off, chanting playground rhymes that I didn’t remember ever having known. Their voices were gay and uncaring and too pure to be human, and underneath them were the brisk expert rhythms of complicated hand-clapping. Say say my playmate, come out and play with me, climb up my apple tree…Two, two, the lily-white boys, clothed all in green-o, one is one and all alone and evermore shall be so…. Sometimes their faint chorus stayed in my head all day, a high inescapable underscore to whatever I was doing. I lived in mortal dread that O’Kelly would catch me humming one of the rhymes.
Rosalind phoned my mobile that Saturday. I was in the incident room; Cassie had gone off to talk to Missing Persons; behind me, O’Gorman was bellowing about some guy who had failed to give him proper respect during the door-to-door. I had to press the phone to my ear to hear her. “Detective Ryan, it’s Rosalind…. I’m so sorry to bother you, but do you think you might have the time to come talk to Jessica?”
City noises in the background: cars, loud conversation, the frenetic beeping of a pedestrian signal. “Of course,” I said. “Where are you?”
“We’re in town. Could we meet you in the Central Hotel bar in, say, ten minutes? Jessica has something to tell you.”
I dug out the main file and started flipping through it for Rosalind’s date of birth: if I was going to talk to Jessica, I needed an “appropriate adult” present. “Are your parents with you?”
“No, I…no. I think Jessica might be more comfortable talking without them, if that’s all right.”
My antennae prickled. I had found the page of family stats: Rosalind was eighteen, and appropriate as far as I was concerned. “No problem,” I said. “I’ll see you there.”
“Thank you, Detective Ryan, I knew I could come to you—I’m sorry to rush you, but we really should get home before—” A beep, and she was gone: either her battery or her credit had run out. I wrote Cassie a “Back soon” note and left.
Rosalind had good taste. The Central bar has a stubbornly old-fashioned feel—ceiling moldings, huge comfortable armchairs taking up inefficient quantities of space, shelves of weird old books in elegant bindings—that contrasts satisfyingly with the manic overdrive of the streets below. Sometimes I used to go there on Saturdays, have a glass of brandy and a cigar—this was before the smoking ban—and spend the afternoon reading the 1938 Farmer’s Almanac or third-rate Victorian poems.
Rosalind and Jessica were at a table by the window. Rosalind’s curls were caught up loosely and she was wearing a white outfit, long skirt and gauzy ruffled blouse, that blended perfectly with the surroundings; she looked as if she had just stepped in from some Edwardian garden party. She was leaning over to whisper in Jessica’s ear, one hand stroking her hair in a slow, soothing rhythm.
Jessica was in an armchair, her legs curled under her, and the sight of her hit me all over again, almost as hard as it had that first time. The sun streaming through the high window held her in a column of light that transformed her into a radiant vision of someone else, someone vivid and eager and lost. The fine crooked Vs of her eyebrows, the tilt of her nose, the full, childish curve of her lip: the last time I had looked into that face, it had been empty and blood-smeared on Cooper’s steel table. She was like a reprieve; like Eurydice, gifted back to Orpheus from the darkness for a brief miraculous moment. I wanted, so intensely it took my breath away, to reach out and lay a hand on her soft dark head, to pull her tightly against me and feel her slight and warm and breathing, as if by protecting her hard enough I could somehow undo time and protect Katy, too.
“Rosalind,” I said. “Jessica.”
Jessica flinched, eyes widening sharply, and the illusion was gone. She was holding something, a packet of sugar from the bowl in the middle of the table; she shoved the corner into her mouth and started to suck on it.
Rosalind’s face lit up at the sight of me. “Detective Ryan! It’s so good to see you. I know it was short notice, but—Oh, sit down, sit down….” I pulled up another armchair. “Jessica saw something I think you should know about. Didn’t you, pet?”
Jessica shrugged, an awkward wriggle.
“Hi, Jessica,” I said, softly and as calmly as I could. My mind was shooting in a dozen directions at once: if this had anything to do with the parents then I would have to find somewhere for the girls to go, and Jessica was going to be terrible on the stand—“I’m glad you decided to tell me. What did you see?”
Her lips parted; she swayed a little in her chair. Then she shook her head.
“Oh, dear…I thought this might happen.” Rosalind sighed. “Well. She told me that she saw Katy—”
“Thanks, Rosalind,” I said, “but I really need to hear this from Jessica. Otherwise it’s hearsay, and that’s not admissible in court.”
Rosalind stared blankly, taken aback. Finally she nodded. “Well,” she said, “of course, if that’s what you need, then…I just hope…” She bent over Jessica and tried to catch her eye, smiling; hooked her hair back behind her ear. “Jessica? Darling? You really need to tell Detective Ryan what we talked about, sweetheart. It’s important.”
Jessica ducked her head away. “Don’t remember,” she whispered.
Rosalind’s smile tightened. “Come on, Jessica. You remembered just fine earlier on, before we came all the way out here and dragged Detective Ryan away from work. Didn’t you?”
Jessica shook her head again and bit down on the sugar packet. Her lip was trembling.
“It’s all right,” I said. I wanted to shake her. “She’s just a little nervous. She’s been having a hard time. Right, Jessica?”
“We’ve both been having a hard time,” Rosalind said sharply, “but one of us has to act like an adult instead of like a stupid little girl.” Jessica shrank deeper into her oversized sweater.
“I know,” I said, in what I hoped was a soothing tone, “I know. I understand how hard this is—”
“No, actually, Detective Ryan, you don’t.” Rosalind’s crossed knee was jiggling angrily. “Nobody can possibly understand what this is like. I don’t know why we came in. Jessica can’t be bothered to tell you what she saw, and you obviously don’t think that matters. We might as well go.”
I couldn’t lose them. “Rosalind,” I said urgently, leaning forward across the table, “I’m taking this very seriously. And I do understand. Honestly, I do.”
Rosalind laughed bitterly, fumbling under the table for her purse. “Oh, I’m sure. Put that thing down, Jessica. We’re going home.”
“Rosalind, I do. When I was about Jessica’s age, two of my best friends disappeared. I know what you’re going through.”
Her head came up and she stared at me.