Joe continues, ‘Maybe I can get Dad to employ a private investigator to look into this instead of you. He’d love to do this for his darling daughter-in-law.’
And Joe’s dad would. Mentally, I thank Joe’s dad every day for being the person who raised a boy devastated by the loss of his mother in a car accident when he was nine with such tenderness and care. But I won’t take his money. Besides, it feels so wrong for someone else to look for my mother, to discover what happened to these women.
This is personal. It has to be me.
Joe’s resigned sigh shows he knows me too well. ‘I can’t tell you what to do and I pride myself on not being a domineering husband.’ He takes a breath. ‘But if there’s a whiff of anything that’s remotely dangerous, promise me you’ll leave this alone and tell me.’
‘I promise,’ I whisper, way too quickly.
Promises are such terrible things. We make them and break them in an instant.
My husband stands. ‘Don’t be long.’ He kisses me lightly on my cheek and is gone.
The tread of his steps on the stairs is heavy, and then there is silence. It’s a silence that beats nonetheless with the discord I’ve brought into our happy home. I consider going upstairs to Joe, but adamantly shake my head. I’ve got work to do. I promise myself I won’t be long, thirty minutes at most, and then I’ll go up to Joe.
I stare at the screen grab of the photo of the women. It’s like I’m transported to the office they’re standing in. The person observing both rows of women behind the lens of the camera. Why were they all gathered to take this picture? Using my fingers to enlarge the photo on screen I get a close-up of each woman in turn.
Hope. She’s maybe in her early twenties, showcasing an expression that takes the camera by storm. She leans into the lens like she’s lapping up every second. Massive, looped gold earrings and chunky braids that end just below her shoulder and show off her laughing face.
Sheryl’s face dominates the screen too. She’s a similar age to Hope. This is a woman who is comfortable in her skin, loving up life with a grin that’s all teeth and gums and 1990s Lauren Hill funky short dreads.
Amina stands between them. Hope and Sheryl have their arms looped over her shoulders in a very protective manner. She’s younger, maybe late teens? God, there’s an innocence about her. She’s smiling too. Her expression mischievous, cheeky but child-like. Her face is open in a way that girls coming into womanhood soon learn to guard against showing. Is that why Hope and Sheryl have her cushioned between them in such a protective way?
Veronica. She’s different. Her hand blocks her face like a celeb fending off the lens of a pap who won’t take no for an answer. A red baseball cap pulled low does the remainder of the job hiding her face from view. Although a slice of a brown eye peeps between two fingers. Its expression is alert. Wary. I get the impression Veronica is all about Garbo’s ‘I want to be alone’。
And there’s another woman in the photo I zero in on for the first time. The Good Knight’s lady. The lady is perched side-saddle on the back end of the Good Knight’s black horse. She’s dressed in an off-the-shoulder turquoise dress that looks more like a sari with its gold band running the length of its hem. A single silver shoe daintily peeps out from beneath. A delicate golden crown holds her hair in a puff at the top of her head. And in her hand she holds the Good Knight’s shield.
Transfixed by each of the women I study their faces again and again. A vital energy pours off them, a hunger for life that only the young understand and throw themselves headfirst into and screw the consequences. The promise of the future they were ready to explore. They look so alive. Alive? Are they? I draw back, punching out a loaded stream of air thinking of the enormity of what my journey may lead to. What I might find if one does turn out to be my mother.
Placing my phone in my bag I see something inside that I don’t recognise. I pull it out. It’s a newsletter, one of those freebie, cheaply produced four-page local-interest leaflets shoved through letter boxes. Where did it come from? More importantly, how did it get inside my bag?
Of course. I remember. I picked it up in Sugar’s room and aimlessly shoved it in my bag straight after the attack.
It’s called The Walsh Briefing. The headlines on the front cover are eye-roll inducing:
Got a story about cover-ups? Send it to me. I’ll uncover it
UFOs: The facts and how THEY lie about them
I flick through to find more conspiracy nonsense inside: