‘So what is it?’
‘Logan called me today. He saw a re-run of a documentary on television, and it was about domestic violence, and the girl on it told almost the exact same story that Savannah told him about her boyfriend – he said it was virtually word for word.’
Her mother knitted her brow, baffled. ‘So, what are you saying? I don’t –’
‘It just seems like too much of a coincidence,’ said Amy.
‘But I still don’t understand. Are you saying this girl on the television knows Savannah?’
‘What? No! I’m saying maybe Savannah saw that show herself and thought, That would make a good story, and if she really does have this “superior memory” thing, I guess that’s why she could remember it so well.’
‘There was no “story”， Amy,’ said Joy, coldly, furiously, totally unlike the helpless sleeping old lady of moments ago, more like the mother of Amy’s youth who had ‘had it up to here with you lot’ and ‘was at the end of her tether’。 ‘I bandaged up that injury myself.’
‘I’m not saying her injury wasn’t real, but maybe the cause of the injury –’
‘You’re accusing a woman of lying about domestic violence.’ Amy’s mother’s eyes were bright. ‘That’s outrageous. You’re a feminist! Have you heard of the I believe her movement?’
Oh God, she was simultaneously so with it, and so na?ve.
Amy said, ‘Mum, it just seems like a really big coincidence –’
‘That poor girl is in my kitchen right now making my favourite soup,’ said Joy. ‘Do you know how much effort goes into minestrone? How much chopping? It’s extremely laborious! Let me tell you, Amy, I believe her.’
She was ready to march the streets, a placard held high. Somehow their positions had reversed. Amy was the middle-aged cynic, her mother the zealous idealistic teenager.
The bedroom door swung open and her father was there, holding a mug of something steaming.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he said to Amy. ‘Does the young bloke sitting in the kitchen belong to you?’
chapter twenty-nine Now
‘Did you ever meet the mother?’ Liz Barrington asked her younger brother as he sat at her kitchen table doing her tax return for her.
Simon didn’t look up from the pile of receipts.
‘The missing mother,’ clarified Liz.
He frowned at a faded receipt. ‘I can’t read this.’
‘Your flatmate’s missing mother,’ said Liz. ‘Amy’s missing mother.’
It was all thanks to Liz that Amy had moved into Simon’s share house in the first place. Liz had been Amy’s Uber driver. （Now she had given up Uber driving because she had her own, much more fulfilling mobile spray-tan business: Tan-at-Home-with-Liz.） The night Liz picked up Amy, they got chatting and Amy convinced her to park the car and join her for a drink with her friends, which had been okay, but Amy’s friends were so random. One of them was, like, sixty years old, literally sixty years old, and if Liz wanted to talk with sixty-year-olds she’d go visit her mother, thanks very much.
That night Amy mentioned that she needed somewhere new to live and Liz told her that her brother’s flatmate had just moved out. So that was how her brother and her Uber passenger ended up living together.
‘Her name is Joy. I have met her,’ said Simon. ‘I met the father too.’
Liz was thrilled. ‘So what do you think? Do you think he’s guilty? Everyone seems to think the father did it.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Simon.
‘Have you got to know Amy very well?’ asked Liz. ‘She must be upset. Imagine if our mother went missing and everyone was accusing Dad. I mean, I can’t even imagine it.’ She reflected on this for a moment. ‘I could totally imagine the reverse. Mum would do a really good job cleaning up the evidence, wouldn’t she? She’s always deleting her search history, which is actually quite suspicious.’
Simon said nothing.
‘How well do you know her? Amy?’
‘I know her pretty well,’ said Simon. He squinted at the next receipt. ‘Did you really think eyelash extensions were tax deductible?’
Liz shrugged. ‘I need eyelashes for my work.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.’
He picked up the next receipt.
‘So you’ve, like, hung out with her?’ asked Liz.