‘They were my things. They belonged to me.’
He gawks moronically.
‘Show me where,’ I yell.
‘I can’t remember. One of the bags.’
‘In the hallway? On the landing? Where?’
I shove him aside and go down the stairs, tearing open the first plastic bin bag, which is full of bank statements, electricity bills and receipts. I rip open the next bag and find yellowing copies of National Geographic and crumbling school exercise books. I kick at a box. It topples over, spilling out old clothes including a mouldy army uniform and a box of military medals.
I only care about finding the button. It’s all I have left of my mother – a small piece of something she wore. When I hold it in my fist, I can remember the sound of her voice and picture her face and feel her arms wrapped around me.
‘What are you looking for?’ asks Elias.
I’m so angry, I can’t answer him.
Moving down the stairs to the hallway, I tip over more boxes and rip open bags, scattering the contents. I’m kneeling on the floor, using both hands to search. My phone is ringing. I ignore it and keep looking.
Elias has followed me. ‘You’re making a mess.’
I topple another box and scrabble through the innards, my eyes blurred by anger and tears.
‘Where is it? The button. Which bag?’ I scream.
He shrugs, grinning or grimacing.
‘Fuck you!’ I scream, thumping him in the chest. I want to rip out his eyes. I keep hitting him, but the blows bounce off. I aim at his face, connecting with his nose, and feel something break. He shoves me backwards with no effort at all and I slam into the wall, shaking the framed mirror.
He wipes his nose and licks blood off his top lip. I swing again, but he grips my wrist and his other hand closes around my throat and pins me against the wall. I keep trying to hit him, or kick him, but his fingers tighten, and my feet are no longer touching the rug.
His eyes are empty. Hollow. Unknowable. I can’t see anger or pity or sorrow or empathy. My toes are scrabbling to reach the floor, searching for solid ground. My left hand is pulling at his wrist. I croak his name. I want to breathe. Just one breath. One mouthful. Air.
Elias’s face is going out of focus. Blood runs from his nose, across his lips, staining his teeth. In that moment, I see the teenager who carried the knife. The one who heard the voice. The one who followed instructions. I am clawing at his wrist, trying to open his fingers. Losing strength. Slowing down. Light-headed. Dizzy. The last thing I hear is Lilah scream.
64
Cyrus
Unlike most people her age, Evie doesn’t treat her mobile phone like an appendage. She doesn’t spend hours glued to the screen watching TikTok videos, playing games, and DMing her friends. ‘Because I don’t have any,’ she’d say, if I were talking to her now. I would if I could. She’s not answering her phone.
A small doubt has begun to gnaw inside my chest, like a burrowing animal searching for safety. I tell myself that Evie would have stayed with Lilah. They probably slept in, or they’ve gone out for breakfast or to walk the dogs.
Edgar yells across the incident room.
‘Thompson showed up for work last Monday with cuts on his face, smelling of booze. The boss sent him home. He hasn’t been seen since.’
‘Where’s he been staying?’ asks Lenny.
‘Until two weeks ago, he was sleeping in a mate’s spare room in Carrington but packed his bags after he almost set fire to the place. A towel fell onto a bar heater. I’m checking local Airbnbs.’
Dave Curran is pulling a page from the printer. ‘Thompson manages a three-bedroom cottage near Newstead Abbey. Grade II listed. It’s been empty for six weeks.’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ says Lenny, grabbing her jacket. ‘We leave in five.’ She turns to me. ‘Where is Lilah Hooper?’
‘I’m trying to find her.’
‘Should we be worried?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Call me.’
Making my way downstairs, I pass through the custody suite and control room before reaching the holding cells. I deposit my phone in a plastic bag, along with my keys and credit cards. A sergeant unlocks the cell door. Mitch gets to his feet, with his hands against the wall, legs braced apart. He knows the routine.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I tell the sergeant, who leaves us alone.
Mitch returns to the bench, without looking at me. Lying down, he covers his eyes with his forearm.
‘You know what’s funny,’ he says. ‘How you reach a point, when you say the same thing over and over and nobody believes you and eventually you start to wonder if maybe you’re the one who’s crazy.’
‘You’re not crazy. I’ve talked to Lilah. She’s not sure any more.’
‘Not sure?’ he laughs, bitterly. ‘How does that help?’
He’s right. Even if Lilah changed her statement, it wouldn’t be enough for a judge to overturn the conviction. And any appeal would take years, by which time Mitch would have served the rest of his sentence.
‘Facts don’t matter any more,’ he says. ‘I think they’re like runners in a horse race. Some are favourites, others are even-money, or rank outsiders, but all of them can be beaten if someone manipulates the information or convinces the audience that everything is fake news.’
I can understand his pessimism. Mitch is living proof that luck doesn’t even itself out, any more than it can be forced or predicted. It’s like the old joke: How do you make God laugh? Tell Him you have a plan.
Mitch sits up, offering me half of the bench.
‘So why are you here?’ he asks.
‘Checking up on you.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
I lean my head against the bricks. ‘On the night that Lilah was attacked, did you notice anything unusual?’
‘I was asleep.’
‘What about earlier?’
‘Lilah went to work mid-afternoon. I took Trevor for a walk before it got dark. He was still a puppy back then.’
‘Where did you walk?’
‘The Arboretum – at the end of the road. On the way home, I bought a taco from a food truck and gave half to Trevor. He didn’t like the jalape?os.’
The information vibrates inside me. It’s like someone has hit a tuning fork and held it close to my ear.
‘This food truck – had you seen it there before?’
‘No.’
My mind reaches back, searching for other details. A neighbour saw a food truck parked on Beaconsfield Street on the night Maya disappeared. Patrice Rennie is a chef who set up a catering business that went bust during the pandemic.
‘What’s wrong?’ asks Mitch.
I hammer on the cell door, yelling to be let out. As the door opens, I push past the sergeant and grab my phone from the counter before jogging up the internal stairs to the incident room. Many of the task force are with Lenny or knocking on doors, but a dozen detectives remain, searching databases, and studying footage from traffic cameras and private CCTV.
‘Who is looking for the Rennie family?’ I shout.
Prime Time raises his hand without looking up from his computer.
‘Their home was sold in January.’ He points to the screen. ‘This is the last information I can find.’