Rafiq stands up. ‘Ross, I can assure you that we’re taking everything very seriously. We’ll run forensics on this one, just like we did the others.’
‘But why would someone send me the same threatening cards as my sister? It doesn’t make sense. No one knows I’m here except Ross and you.’ And El.
Rafiq frowns. ‘They may be related to El’s disappearance, and they may not. Right now, finding El is our utmost priority. The cards have never escalated in threat, and we’ve found no evidence that El was being stalked or threatened in any other way. And the fact you’re now the target makes me suspect a nosy neighbour with a grudge and too much time on their hands, rather than anything more sinister.’ When Ross starts to object again, she holds up a hand. ‘Which is not to say that we won’t continue to investigate them as part of this case. Or that you shouldn’t get in touch straightaway if you receive any more.’
She steps back, looks at us both. ‘We came here to reassure you both that as of now, nothing has changed. We and the Coastguard are still using all available resources to look for El. But it would be a good idea for you to start preparing yourselves for the likelihood of that changing if there are no new developments in the next twenty-four hours. Okay? Has Shona been in touch with you today?’
Ross nods.
‘Shona is your family liaison officer, Catriona. She’ll keep you updated with any new developments. Meantime, Logan here is still your first single point of contact. And get in touch with the Missing People folk again, Ross – El’s entry still hasn’t gone live. You’ve still got all the other helpline numbers, aye?’
‘I don’t need a counsellor,’ Ross says. ‘I just need my wife.’
Rafiq gets up close to him, and still manages to look him in the eye even though he must be close to a foot taller. ‘We’ll find her, Ross.’
And I’ve watched enough crappy cop shows to know they’re pretty much never supposed to say that.
I walk them out into the hallway, and Logan stops, smiles, hands me his card. ‘If you need anything, want to know anything,’ he says.
Rafiq opens the door, and I watch them go down the steps into the sun. At the gate, Rafiq stops to let Logan out before turning around and beckoning me like I’m a cocker spaniel. I go down into the cold bright garden reluctantly, folding my arms over my chest.
‘Where would she go? If she chose to leave, where would she go?’
I blink. ‘I have no idea.’
‘What about her husband?’
‘What about him?’
‘Is there anything you want to tell me about him – about them – that maybe you weren’t comfortable saying while he was in the room?’ When I don’t reply, she can’t hide her irritation. ‘We’ve spoken to Southwark University, confirmed that he was there when he said he was. I’m just asking you, as a close member of the family, if we should have any reason at all to be concerned about him?’
Her eyes flicker beyond my shoulder, and when I turn around, I see Ross’s silhouette watching us from the window. I go cold. ‘No. Of course not. This isn’t his fault. I told you, all of it’s El. It has to be.’ And I resist adding that it’s been a very long time since I was a close member of any family.
Rafiq studies me too long, too closely. ‘You really do think she’s all right.’
When I don’t answer, she walks down the path and opens the gate without another word.
I watch them leave, listen to the BMW’s engine until it’s swallowed up by the city. When I look back at the window, Ross is gone. But I still feel like I’m being watched. I walk to the gate, look up and down the empty street. Stand in the sun until I feel warm again.
‘Maybe she just doesn’t know how to undo it,’ I whisper. Because buried under twelve years of anger and hurt and resentment is the memory of all the times we’d lie in the Kakadu Jungle holding hands, fighting to stay awake so we wouldn’t be the first to let go. ‘Maybe she just doesn’t know how to come back.’
CHAPTER 5
I wake early and lie in bed, staring up at the Clown Café ceiling, trying not to hear the house. El and I would lie for hours inside our forts and castles, listening to it groan and shudder all around us, and she would hiss hot against my ear: The house is full of ghosts. We both believed it. But ghosts were never as scary as monsters. You just pretended you couldn’t hear them.
I get dressed and creep downstairs, uncertain why I’m creeping, why I’m frightened. Because I am. I’m gripping the bannister too hard. My heart is jumpy and too fast, too erratic, but at the same time I feel weary, spaced out, as if I’ve broken through the surface of a deep cold lake and swapped drowning for slow hypothermia instead. Bad things happened in this house, as well as good. But that was a lot easier to forget when I was an ocean away from its walls.
I run my fingers against the stairwell’s wallpaper of Grecian urns and thorny vines, think of all the long wires, pulleys, and cranks winding around the house behind plaster and cornices like a hidden city of spider webs. Spun threads of copper, patiently waiting to shorten, to shake, to awaken those silent bells below.
The kitchen is empty, but there’s evidence Ross was here: a used coffee cup, cereal bowl filled with water in the sink. A note on the table:
No news. Couldn’t sleep. Gone for walk to clear my head. Police station after prob. Help yourself to whatever you want x
Ravenous, I stand at a counter and chew my way through two bowls of cornflakes, milk running down my chin. Mum turns around from the ugly range, pats the crown of her head, drives her wrinkles deeper. Don’t slitter, Catriona. Grandpa looks up from his Daily Record. Ye’re bein’ a stander, lassie. Sit the shit doon. Today, I miss them both so badly it hurts.
After two strong coffees, I go upstairs, fetch my laptop. I check my email at the kitchen table, hoping that this will somehow bring me back to that safe and glossy life in California. Instead, I work my way through three form rejections for on-spec pitches, and a final eviction notice from the owner of the Pacific Avenue condo: a bikini model called Irena, who spends her winters in Palm Beach, and promised me she wouldn’t be back until June.
I close my eyes. Rub the heel of my palm against my breastbone. I have almost no money. I have no career. I live hand to mouth, lurching from one flat-fee gig to another. No awards, no recognition, no Pulitzer, no great publishing deal. Nothing has panned out the way it was supposed to. The way – after running away from Scotland – I imagined I deserved it to. And now I have no home to go back to. It’s all slipping away from me. Slowly but surely. And I blame El. For all of it. Then and now. I blame only her.
I’m on the verge of shutting the laptop when I see the subject line of the last unread email. I stop, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
DON’T TELL ANYONE
Who would I tell? is my first stupid thought. I look at the sender’s address: john.smith120594@gmail.com. It doesn’t mean anything to me. More American marketing probably, they’re pretty ingenious at dodging spam filters. But something in me already knows it isn’t. Something that feels new and familiar at the same time. Indifferent and afraid. The Wi-Fi is slow. As the email downloads, I hold my breath hard inside my throat, and that same something in me says delete it. Delete it now.
The body of the email, when it finally appears on the screen, is only two words.
HE KNOWS
I push my chair away from the table. And then I’m standing at the window, looking out at the apple trees swaying in the breeze, their big branches and heavy leaves moving, restless. I look down at the sill and the half-dozen nails that have been hammered into it, just like in the Clown Café. My fingers bump over them. Back and forth until it starts to hurt. Because I don’t know why they’re there. I can’t think of any good reason at all. And even though I’m inside a swathe of trapped and glass-warmed sun, I’m cold enough that my teeth chatter, that I can feel goosebumps through the sleeves of my shirt.