Nodding a goodbye to her, I walked outside. Spotting Willow near a tree right down the end of the playground, I made a short, sharp whistle. A couple of mothers turned around to me with disgust on their faces. I often called Willow and Lilly like that when they ventured too far away. It wasn’t the first time I’d earned a disgusted expression for it. It was usually the stuck up mothers who you’d hear calling their brats with quiet, controlled voices: Adorabelle Rose . . . Baron Kingsley . . . Suburban princess women who lived in the new housing estates with the perfect lawns. They always looked as if they’d rust right through if they opened their mouths any wider and yelled. At least I wasn’t as bad as the parents who swore like sailors at their kids if they didn’t come running straight away. Kids called Nathan and Ethan whose parents pronounced their names as Nayfan and Eefan.
Willow sprinted to me. Princess Pout followed reluctantly, her arms crossed tightly, probably annoyed that it hadn’t been her choice to end the play session.
“Time to go,” I told Willow.
She fell silent on the drive home, finally bursting into tears as we reached the driveway of our house.
I twisted my head around to her. “Did someone hurt you today? Do I need to bop someone in the nose?”
I got a small smile, but it fell away as soon as it appeared.
“It’s Mummy, right?” I asked her. “Because she’s not here?”
She turned to look out the window.
“I’m sorry. But I can’t do anything about that.”
“You said she was coming back soon.”
“I know. But it’s only been a few days.”
“Maribelle told me that Mummy’s never coming back.”
“What? Well, that’s not right. Don’t listen to her.”
“She said she heard her mummy tell it to someone else.”
I opened my mouth to let fly an expletive but jammed it shut just in time. “It’s not true. Come on, let’s go inside. I made jelly earlier.”
In the living room, Lilly was sitting propped up on the sofa with pillows and blankets. She had the colour back in her face that had been missing for days.
With reading glasses askew on her face, Verity was asleep on the rocking chair Evie used to use for breastfeeding the girls.
I looked from Lilly to her sister. “Who wants jelly? Hands up!”
Lilly’s arm shot up. Willow begrudgingly lifted her fingers.
Verity roused and gave me a brief, tired smile.
I set the girls up at the table with bowls of jelly and custard. Lilly refused the first plate because the jelly wasn’t cut into cubes. I’d made the heinous error of simply scooping it out with a spoon. After correctly cubing the jelly, I took the rejected plate of spooned-out jelly and sat down to eat it with the girls.
With my first mouthful of fluorescent, fake blueberry–flavoured jelly, came a knock at the front door.
Verity half rose from her chair, but I held up a hand as I crossed to the door. The knock had that sound that only cops use.
It was Sergeant Moss again but with someone new. A woman named Detective Lena Devoe, with sharp eyes and a sharp cut to her blonde hair, stood beside her.
“Mr Harlow?” said the detective. “We have some matters to discuss with you.”
“Of course. My kids are inside, so I don’t want to do this in front of them. Have you found out something about Evie?”
“It would be best if you’d come down to the station, and we’ll talk about it there. Can you have someone mind your children?”
“My mother-in-law is staying with us.”
“Okay, good. Let her know and then follow us down.”
My heart galloped upward into my throat as I told Verity. I drove down to the cop station, trying to figure out what was going on. Had they found Evie and she’d told them I’d hit her or something? No—wrong. As bad as things had gotten, Evie wouldn’t make up shit like that. Hell, had they found Evie—as in found her dead? Who knew what kind of men she’d been with?
I walked into Detective Devoe’s office barely keeping it together, sweat dampening the back of my neck.
“Please have a seat,” offered Devoe.
Sergeant Moss sat on a chair at the side of Devoe’s desk, watching me thoughtfully.
The detective didn’t hold back once I’d sat myself down. “Mr Harlow, I’m afraid we found more items at the site of the burned-out car.”
I nodded as I swallowed, staring hard at the floor, trying to buffer myself for what was coming next.