EDIE EVANS PICKED a lamppost and pedalled towards it as fast as she possibly could. Sometimes she would launch into space if only she got there fast enough – her front wheel lifting and people’s eyes popping as they realized that what they had thought was a girl on a bicycle was actually a brave and skilled astronaut on an experimental one-man rocket. Other times she was winning the Tour de France. On a BMX! The crowds called her name and people lifted her on to their shoulders – and more cheering people lifted her little black-and-white bike on to their shoulders – and they were both carried through the streets of Paris through fountains of champagne.
Edie skidded to a juddering halt just beyond the lamppost, spun the bike around in an arc and pulled a little wheelie. Only a small one because she’d gone over backwards once and nearly knocked herself out, and that was on grass, not pavement.
While she waited for her mother to catch up, she flipped up her visor and gave a TV interview in fluent French, even though the only French she knew was Frère Jacques.
‘Dormez vous,’ she said with a dismissive wave, to show it had been barely an effort at all. And when the interviewer in a beret asked her how it felt to win the greatest cycle race in the world as a twelve-year-old girl, she gave a Gallic shrug and said, ‘Sonnez les matines’ – and the crowd went wild.
Edie turned a half-circle and set off again slowly, and told Houston they needed to adjust the rocket boosters before she could make another attempt to launch.
As she navigated a series of potholes shaped like moon craters, a man fell into step beside her.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello,’ said Edie. She knew not to speak to strangers, but she was on a bicycle and there were loads of people around.
‘For you,’ he said and held out a bicycle bell.
‘Oh,’ she said uncertainly.
‘Stop,’ he said, so she did, and twisted to look behind her for her mother. She could see her coming, pushing Frankie’s buggy. Frankie was too big for a buggy really, but it was a long walk home for a four-year-old and he got stroppy when he was tired.
When Edie looked back, the man was using a screwdriver to attach the bell to her bicycle.
She didn’t want a bell. A rocket ship didn’t have a bell – especially not one with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it! Why was he putting a bell on her bike anyway?
But she said nothing.
He finished quickly, then rang the bell for her to show her how it worked. It was a coarse, rattling sound.
‘Good?’ he said.
It wasn’t good; it was rubbish. But Edie had been brought up to say please and thank you almost as a reflex, and so she said ‘Thank you’ and looked around again to see if there was any sign of Mum. She hoped so, because she wanted an excuse to ride on and not to have to speak to the man any more. He was friendly and full of smiles, but something about it was not right. She shouldn’t have stopped; she shouldn’t have said hello. If Mum saw, she would be cross that she’d spoken to a stranger.
Edie kept staring over her right shoulder as her mother approached with the three-wheeled buggy bumping easily over kerbs and pavement cracks, as her mind raced through all the explanations she was going to give – all the excuses – if her mother looked up and saw them.
And when she turned round again, the man had gone. She didn’t even see where.
Edie sighed in relief.
‘Hi, Edes,’ Mum smiled brightly. ‘Chain fall off?’
‘No,’ said Edie. ‘I was just waiting for you.’
‘Aww, thanks sweetheart.’
Edie rode the last fifty yards to TiggerTime slowly and close to Mum. It wasn’t very daring, but she could be Neil Armstrong again tomorrow.
Mum went to the Moon to get Frankie and Edie stayed outside, guarding the buggy, and feeling like Michael Collins. She kept looking around but the man was nowhere to be seen.
She slowly rang the bell.
All kinds of little jangly mechanical things clicked and clunked inside it, as if it was broken. It was more grinding than musical.
She rang it faster and it improved, but not much.
She wiggled it on the bar and it moved, so she wrenched it back and forth to see if she could dislodge it by force. Then Mum came out with Frankie.
She didn’t touch the bell again, or Mum might notice it and ask where it had come from.
Edie thought she should take it off before Dad came home.
29
MARK EVANS OPENED the door.
‘Come in.’
Marvel had called first to say he had no news, but there was still an air of nervous apprehension about the man.
Marvel and Brady followed him down the passageway to the kitchen. Breakfast was still on the table, and Frankie was still playing with it.
‘Hello, John,’ said Carrie Evans. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No thanks, Mrs Evans.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Brady. ‘I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘DS Brady, ma’am. Colin.’
‘Colin. Of course,’ she said, although Marvel could tell from her expression that she had not remembered Brady’s name, nor cared to now. She was just being polite.
‘Hi,’ said Frankie, and they both said hi back to him.
Then the four of them stood in the centre of the kitchen, held there by tension. The Evanses looked less haggard than the last time Marvel had seen them, but that expression of tense not-knowing put ten years on a face overnight, and Marvel had never seen it completely reversed, not even on those rare occasions when the result was a home win.
He took three photos from a card-backed envelope and laid them face-up on the counter. ‘Mr Evans, do you recognize any of these people?’
Mr and Mrs Evans looked down at them.
‘Well, we remember Richard, of course,’ said Mark.
‘From the case?’
‘And the church,’ said Carrie. ‘I went a couple of times.’
‘Before or after Edie disappeared?’
‘After,’ she said.
‘I didn’t realize that,’ said Marvel, wondering why that wasn’t in the file.
‘Yes,’ said Carrie. ‘It was me who suggested asking him for help.’
That was why. DS Short had claimed it was her idea, but then it had backfired on her. Maybe that was why she’d gone off and got herself pregnant and stung the force for leave and pay.
‘I’m not really a believer,’ Carrie Evans went on, ‘but you’re desperate, you know? You want to believe in something.’ She shrugged her narrow shoulders and looked out of the kitchen window.
‘Did Mr Latham ever come to the house?’
‘No,’ said Mark Evans, and when Marvel looked at his wife she also turned and shook her head.