‘I don’t know,’ said Marvel irritably. ‘I don’t know! Shit!’
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, which creaked precariously. Then, after a moment, he said, ‘I do know. Latham’s a lying son of a bitch, but he said something that stuck in my head. He said Everybody gets there in the end.’
‘Gets where?’ said Anna.
‘I think he was talking about God.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘I suppose it means that people want to believe in something – God or Santa Claus or some bloody thing – just before they die, even if it’s just because they’re scared and desperate.’
Marvel deliberately put the photo of the dog show down on the table in front of Anna. He half laughed, but there was no pleasure in it. ‘Well, now I’m desperate,’ he said. ‘I can’t go another day not knowing what happened to Edie Evans, and if you don’t understand that, then nobody can.’
Anna looked at him with fierce calm. ‘You can go another day, Mr Marvel, and you will. Whether I help you or not. Whether anybody helps you or not. For as long as you live, you will go on. Because the only alternative is not to.’
The night on Bickley Bridge hung between them.
Then Marvel said, ‘Let me tell you something about this photo before you say no.’
She nodded. ‘OK.’
‘This photo was taken last September. Eight months after Edie went missing.’
Anna frowned, then looked suddenly hopeful. ‘But that’s good! That means Edie might be—’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Marvel. ‘Because you see this here?’
He pointed and Anna glanced down obliquely. ‘This is Edie’s BMX bicycle. Which we found at the crime scene, and which has been in the basement of Lewisham police station since January last year.’
Anna frowned. ‘But that’s impossible.’
Marvel shrugged. ‘No, that’s just improbable. You haven’t heard the impossible bit yet.’ He took a breath. ‘Before I came here tonight, I went to see Sandra Clyde. I wanted to pick up the negative or digital file or whatever, so we could enlarge the photo in the lab. Get the best image to work with. Maybe identify other people in the picture. Something to go on, you know?’
Anna nodded.
Marvel leaned forward. Then he stopped and sat up straight again, and looked around the room as if he’d forgotten what he was going to say.
Anna watched him closely. He looked more than drunk; he looked old. He looked confused.
He looked scared.
She felt fear trickle down her own spine.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’
Marvel looked at her and slowly shook his head. ‘Edie’s not in the original photograph.’
‘What?’
‘And she’s not in any of the other copies. She’s only in yours.’
Anna’s scalp prickled. ‘I … I don’t … has it bee ….’
‘Doctored? Tampered with? Manipulated?’ Marvel shrugged. ‘Our lab says no.’
‘Then how?’ she said. ‘How can that be?’
‘It can’t be,’ said Marvel, and slowly stubbed out his cigarette in the saucer. ‘That’s the impossible bit.’
Anna’s hand made an involuntary movement towards the photo, but she stopped herself.
She had to see, but she didn’t want to look.
Marvel spoke again, choosing his words carefully. ‘But then I thought of something else Latham said to me … He said the dead are in control. He said the dead choose what they show. And who they show it to. And that made me think … Maybe Edie wanted to show these things to you. Maybe she knew you would be the best person to see what she wanted to show you. Maybe because of Daniel. Maybe that’s why she knew you would pay attention. And maybe that’s why I stopped you jumping off Bickley Bridge. Shit, I don’t know. It’s crazy and I’m drunk, and all I know for sure is that they’re closing the case and abandoning Edie, and so now … Now I’m ready to believe in something. In anything …’
Anna flinched as Marvel took her hand and she thought of Latham doing the same that night at the church, when she was the one doing the begging.
He spoke in a desperate rush. ‘Please, Mrs Buck. If she’s dead, I want to know. But if she’s alive … If she’s alive I have to find her. And you’re my only hope. Please.’
They sat at opposite sides of the small kitchen table, the impossible photograph between them, while the clock on the oven ticked quietly and a bus pulled away from the stop outside.
Finally, in a very small voice, Anna said, ‘Can you get me a glass of water, please?’
James was rolling drunk, so he might have fallen over anyway.
He took two strides into the kitchen in his socks and skidded over backwards with his feet in the air.
The hand he put out to break his fall splashed down beside him like a belly flop from a high board.
The kitchen was swimming in water.
‘Shit!’ he said, as he lay on his back with his hair all cold and wet.
He could hear water running from somewhere, so he stayed there, taking a moment to examine the ceiling for leaks, but it seemed to be fine.
He wallowed about on his side and his elbows and his knees, before finally getting back to his feet.
The kitchen tap had been left open so far that the recoil was splashing the walls and the window. The plug wasn’t in the sink, but despite that, the plughole and the overflow had no chance of coping with the sheer volume of water pounding down into it.
‘Fuck!’ he said angrily and paddled across the floor and turned off the tap.
Then he looked around.
Nothing else seemed to be wrong. The kitchen was otherwise as clean and tidy as it always was.
‘Anna!’ he shouted.
He crossed to the living room. So had the water, and the carpet was like a sponge.
‘Anna! Jesus Christ. Anna!’
She was asleep in their bed, curled on her side with her knees drawn up.
James tugged the covers off her. She was fully clothed and soaking wet.
‘Anna! What the bloody hell happened in the kitchen?’
Anna woke slowly with a vacant look in her eyes. ‘What?’ she said thickly.