‘No bother. Today’s my day off. I was enjoying a lazy afternoon.’
‘What kind of work do you do?’
As she was about to reply, she wondered why a half-smile had appeared fleetingly on the man’s face when he heard the young woman ask that question.
‘I’m a nurse. For a long time I worked at the Bellevue, in Manhattan. Now I’m the OR assistant to a plastic surgeon named Dr Bronson.’ She pointed to the couch behind the two visitors. ‘Please, make yourselves at home. Would you like anything? Coffee?’
She sat down in the armchair only after the other two had settled on the couch.
‘No thanks, we’re fine,’ the young woman said with a smile.
Carmen had the impression she was dealing with a person who, when she wanted, knew how to put other people at their ease. Maybe because she was usually that way herself. The man, on the other hand, seemed a bit more fidgety. He didn’t look like a police officer. He didn’t have that no-nonsense air they usually carried around with them as an emblem of their power.
She saw Vivien looking around, letting her gaze wander over the walls, the wallpaper, the kitchen counter glimpsed through the door to the right, the little dining room at the other end of the corridor. It was a quick but keen visual tour.
‘It’s very nice here.’
Carmen smiled. ‘You’re very kind and very diplomatic. It’s the house of a woman who lives on her salary. Really nice houses are different. But I’m fine here.’
She stopped and waited, looking intently at the young woman. Vivien realized that the pleasantries were over and she had to get to the reason for her visit.
‘Eighteen years ago you reported your husband, Mitch Sparrow, missing.’
It wasn’t a question – it was a statement. Carmen was caught off guard. Especially as she’d only just been thinking about Mitch. In addition to which she would never have imagined that the story was still of any interest to anyone else but her.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Can you tell us what happened?’
‘There isn’t much to tell. One day he left home and never came back. I waited until it was dark, and then late at night I called the police.’
‘And what did they find out?’
‘He’d been at work, as always. He’d left the site where he was working at the usual hour, but never came home. My husband was a construction worker.’
Carmen had the impression that the two of them already knew that last detail.
‘What kind of man was your husband?’
‘A very special person. When I met him all he thought about was his bike. And girls. But when we met it was love at first sight.’
‘No problems, no quarrels, nothing that might have made you think of-’
Carmen interrupted her. ‘Another woman, you mean?’
She had understood where the young detective was going with her question. Looking at her, she also had the impression she already knew the answer, that she had only asked the question because it was part of her job.
But Carmen thought it was important to tell her how things had really been between her and her husband. Especially after what she had been thinking before these two people arrived and dredged up the story.
‘Believe me, Mitch and I and were in love, and he was crazy about his son. I’m a woman and I know when a man is distracted by other thoughts. Desire is the first thing that goes. Mitch thought about no one but me, day and night, especially night. And I felt the same about him.’
As another woman, Carmen knew Vivien would understand what she was talking about. Indeed, the detective seemed satisfied with what she’d said and changed the subject.
‘Can you confirm that your husband had a tattoo on his right shoulder?’
‘Yes. It was a pirate flag. You know, with the skull and crossbones. There were words underneath it, but I can’t for the moment remember what they were.’
‘The only flag,maybe?’
‘That’s it. It was the symbol of those weird biker friends of his. We used to live in Coney Island and Mitch-’
‘Yes, we know about the Skullbusters,’ Vivien interrupted her, gently but firmly.
Carmen remembered that she had reported her husband missing to the 70th Precinct. She wondered what could have happened for the police to come here from a precinct in Manhattan.
‘Did your husband have any broken bones?’ the detective continued, in the same professional tone, forceful but at the same time reassuring.
‘Yes. He fell off his bike once. Broke his humerus and tibia, I seem to remember. That was how we met. He was admitted to the hospital where I worked. When he was discharged, he made me write my phone number on the plaster. We spoke often on the phone and when he came back to take off the armour, as he called it, he asked me out.’
‘One last thing. Where was your husband working when he disappeared?’
Carmen made an effort to call up long-buried memories. ‘His company was renovating a building in Manhattan, around Third Avenue, I think.’
Vivien was silent for a moment, as if searching for the right words. There are words people say, it occurred to Carmen, which are like mathematical equations. However you change the order of the words, the result remains the same. What Vivien said next confirmed that fleeting thought.
‘Mrs Sparrow, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. We’ve found a body hidden in a cavity wall of a building on the corner of 23rd Street and Third Avenue. In the light of what you’ve just told us, we have reason to believe that it’s your husband.’
Carmen felt something come and go simultaneously, like a long-awaited wave that only makes the boat sway before sinking back into the open sea. In spite of what she’d said earlier, after so much time spent speculating, now that there was certainty tears started to run down her cheeks. She bowed her head and hid her face in her hands. When she looked up again, straight at Vivien, Carmen had the feeling they would be her last tears.
‘I’m sorry.’
She got up and went into the kitchen. When she came back she had a pack of paper handkerchiefs in her hand. As she sat down, she asked the question that had suddenly occurred to her.
‘Do you have any idea who…’
Vivien shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. That’s why we’re here, to see if we can get a clearer idea. Even identification is very difficult after all this time. We’ll only know for sure after the DNA tests.’
‘I have his pony tail.’
‘I’m sorry?’