The football finished and the volume in the beer garden went down. I heard one of the guys with Roan offer to go to the bar for more drinks. There was a pause; then Roan said to the girl, ‘Want another drink? Or we could maybe go on somewhere else?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said the girl. ‘Whatever you want to do?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Roan. ‘I mean, we could wander up the road a bit maybe, grab something to eat?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the girl. ‘Yeah. Why not?’

  I drained my lemonade superfast. I waited till they’d passed by me and then followed them a few steps behind. They turned left and wandered aimlessly for a moment, peering at menus in restaurant windows. They settled on a Chinese with shiny ducks hanging in the window.

  I sat at a bus stop across the road. They sat at a window table. He was all over her. He cupped her face with his hand. He stroked her plait. He stared and stared at her. He was creepy as fuck. But she seemed to like it. She took mouthfuls of food from him like a baby. She kept the eye contact. She held his hand across the table. She threw her head back with laughter.

  They were in there for an hour. Then the bill came and I saw him insist on paying. I thought, That’s nice, you, with a family at home, buying noodles for some girl young enough to be your daughter. I thought, You total wanker.

  He walked her to the Tube station afterwards. They did a sort of hand-squeezing thing, a quick hug, no kissing, too close to home I guess, too close to work.

  I saw his face as he turned back to cross the road, the sly little smile on his face. I thought of his skinny blonde wife back at their posh Hampstead flat, probably putting some freshly cooked meal in the freezer because her husband had eaten his dinner out tonight. I wondered what he’d told her. Just a bite with colleagues.

  I watched him cross the Finchley Road, sprinting through a break in the traffic when the red man was up. He took his phone out at the other side, no doubt texting his skinny wife: On my way home now!

  It was starting to get dark; the sky was a kind of chalky lilac and cars had started to put on their headlights. I was hungry and I knew Aaron had cooked something good for dinner. Part of me just wanted to go home, get rid of my heavy rucksack of books, eat something good in front of the TV. Another part of me wanted to find out what Roan Fours looked like walking into his house after taking a woman out for dinner.

  I waited for the red man to turn green; then I sprinted across the road and caught up with him just as he turned the corner to the stone steps up to the steep hill. He’d put his earphones in now. I could hear him humming very quietly under his breath. He walked fast and I was out of breath by the time we got to his street. I didn’t realise how fit he was.

  Then he was outside his house, looking for his keys, opening the door, closing it behind him. He had a certain swagger to his entrance, like he was lord of the manor.

  I was standing outside a kind of empty building plot; it had a big wooden gate across it and high brick walls overhung with flowering foliage. I peered through a hole in the gate and saw a huge piece of empty land covered in flowers and rubble; it didn’t look quite real, like a secret park or fairyland. I could see the foundations where a big house had been. The land must have covered at least an acre, maybe even more. Above it the sky had turned violet and gold. There was a notice taped to the gate. Apparently they were going to build some flats here. The notice was dated three years ago. I hoped that no one would ever build flats here, that it would just stay like this, hidden away, growing layers and layers, getting denser and denser.

  I saw a movement to one side. Something fleeting and shiny. A fox.

  It stopped for a moment and stared at me. Right at me.

  My stomach rumbled. I hitched my schoolbag up on my shoulder and headed home.

  22

  One morning, a few days after Valentine’s night, Owen’s doorbell rings. He waits for Tessie to answer it but she appears to be out.

  After the second ring, he goes to the intercom and says hello.

  A female voice responds. ‘Hello. Is this Owen Pick?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good morning, I’m Detective Inspector Angela Currie. We’re making door-to-door inquiries about a missing person. Could I ask you to spare a minute to answer a few questions?’

  ‘Erm …’ He peers at himself quickly in the mirror by the front door. He hasn’t shaved for three days and his hair is in dire need of a wash. He looks dreadful. ‘Yes, sorry, sure. Come in.’

  Angela Currie is a heavy-set young woman, short and broad, with disproportionately small feet. She has what looks like naturally blonde hair braided across her hairline and tucked into a bun at the back. She has a nice face and is wearing a flick of black eyeliner across each eyelid.

  Behind her is an equally young man, introduced as PC Rodrigues.

  ‘Could we come in?’

  ‘Er …’ Owen looks behind him at the open door to Tessie’s flat. How to explain that there is nowhere to sit in his own home as his aunt won’t let him in her living room? ‘Is it OK if we talk out here?’ he says.

  He is aware that this makes it sound as if he is trying to hide something.

  ‘It’s my aunt’s flat,’ he explains. ‘She’s a bit funny about letting people in.’

  DI Currie tips her chin to look into the space visible through the crack of the apartment door. ‘No problem,’ she says.

  They settle themselves on the small bench next to the stairs leading to the two upper-floor flats. It wobbles precariously, not really designed for sitting on but for resting parcels and such on. DI Currie has to sit with her head bent slightly forward to avoid the mail baskets nailed to the wall above.

  ‘So,’ she begins, ‘we’re investigating the disappearance of a local girl. I wonder if I could show you some photographs?’

  Blood rushes to Owen’s head. He doesn’t know why. He nods and tries to cover the hot parts of his face with his fingers.

  DI Currie pulls a printout from an envelope and passes it to him.

  It’s a photo of a pretty girl, mixed race by the looks of it, though hard to ascertain precisely her ancestry. She’s wearing large hoop earrings and her hair is worn in a similar style to DI Currie’s, a kind of tight plait close to the skull, holding it to one side. She’s wearing what looks like a school uniform and is smiling.

  He passes the sheet back to the detective and awaits another question.

  ‘Have you ever seen this girl before?’

  ‘No,’ he says, his hand moving from his face to the back of his neck, which he can feel growing blotchy and hot. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘Where were you on the night of February the fourteenth, Mr Pick?’ He starts to shrug; then DI Currie says, ‘It was Valentine’s night. That might make it easier to recall.’

  He sucks in his breath, covers his mouth with his hand. Yes. He knows what he was doing on Valentine’s night.

  ‘Were you home? Or out in the local area? Might you have seen anything?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No. I was out. I went for dinner. With a friend.’

  ‘Ah. OK. And what time did you get home? If you can remember?’

  ‘Eleven thirtyish. Maybe midnight.’

  ‘And how did you get home that night?’

  ‘I got the Tube. From Covent Garden to Finchley Road.’

  ‘And did you maybe see anything strange as you were walking back from the Tube station? Anything untoward?’

  He draws his hand across his mouth and shakes his head. He thinks back to the strange episode on the street, when that pretty girl had called him a creep and he’d called her a bitch. It feels like the twisted remnant of a strange dream when he thinks about it now, as if it didn’t really happen. Everything about that night now feels dreamlike, faded in parts like an old photograph.

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head slowly. ‘No. Nothing.’

  He sounds like he’s lying, because in a way he is.

  ‘And you said you live with your aunt? Is that …’ She looks at a list on a clipboard. ‘Tessa McDonald?’

  He nods.

  ‘And where is Ms McDonald?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s probably in the village. Shopping.’

  ‘Great, well, we’ll be back again, I’m sure, once we’ve built up a better picture of the situation. In the meantime, maybe you could pass my card on to your aunt when she gets home, ask her to give me a call if she can remember anything about that night.’ She peers up the staircase. ‘Anyone else in, do you know?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No idea. You can ring on their doorbells, if you like?’

  She smiles, clicks her ballpoint pen shut, slides it into her pocket and says, ‘No. I’m sure that will be fine. Maybe I could leave some more of these here?’ She points a couple of printouts towards the mailboxes above the bench. ‘And some more of my cards?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Well,’ she says, hitching her leather bag up higher on to her shoulder, ‘thank you, Mr Pick, for your time. I really appreciate it. I’m just at the end of a line if you, or anyone else, remembers anything.’

  ‘You know,’ he says, suddenly, his eyes feeling suddenly too big for his head as a buried memory bursts through the clouds, ‘I did see something that night. I saw someone. Out there.’ He points through the front door to the house opposite. ‘Standing outside that house, in the dark, just sort of looking in. I thought it was a man at first. And then they turned around and it was a girl.’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘Well, at least I think so. It was hard to tell, because they had a hood up.’

  His eyes drop to the page in his hand; he reads the description of what the missing girl was wearing just as DI Currie says, ‘What sort of hood?’

  ‘Like, a hoodie? I think?’

  ‘How tall was this girl?’

  ‘It might not have been a girl. It might have been … I wasn’t sober. I’d had some wine. Quite a lot of wine. I can’t be sure.’

  ‘This person, how tall? Roughly.’

  ‘I genuinely can’t remember.’

  ‘And roughly what time was this?’

  ‘Just as I got to my front door. Midnight. Ish. Maybe later.’

  ‘And it wasn’t’ – she taps the printout with her fingertip – ‘it wasn’t this girl?’

  ‘I really, really don’t … It was dark and, like I say, I’d had some wine. I really don’t …’ He’s started to talk very fast now. He’s aware that he sounds panicked. He’s wishing he hadn’t said anything now about the strange girl in the hoodie. The police would be gone now and he could be safely back in his room.

  ‘Well, actually, that’s very useful, thank you so much. I’m glad you were able to remember that for us. And if you don’t mind, we’d like to be in touch again. Once we’ve had a chance to talk to people who live across the street.’

  The people across the street.

  The people who give him dirty looks whenever they pass.

  The skinny blonde woman with the annoying face.

  Her thunder-thighed daughter.

  The ridiculous father with the leggings, running up and down that hill in the dark as though seeking oblivion.

  23

  Cate has her bag on her shoulder and is opening her front door about to head to her borrowed room in St John’s Wood to treat a patient when she jumps at the sight of a small blonde woman dressed in black, accompanied by a man in police uniform. She stops and stares at them for a moment. Immediately she knows that they are here to talk about Saffyre Maddox.

  ‘Hi,’ she says. ‘Sorry. I was just on my way out.’

  ‘That’s OK. We can come back.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘no. It’s fine. I can spare a few minutes.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  She shows them into the living room, freshly tidied, thank goodness, cushions all in a neat row.

  ‘Nice flat,’ says the woman.

  ‘Oh,’ says Cate. ‘It’s not mine. I mean, it’s a rental. Just temporary.’

  ‘Well, it’s lovely. I love the high ceilings. DI Currie.’ She extends a small hand. ‘And PC Rodrigues.’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, we’re fine. But thank you.’

  They all sit down and DI Currie takes out a notepad and sheaf of paper.

  ‘We’re looking into the disappearance of a local schoolgirl.’ She passes a sheet of paper to Cate who stares blankly at the familiar photograph of Saffyre Maddox.

  ‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Yes. I saw this in the papers.’

  ‘Good, then you know a little about the case?’

  Cate nods. She waits for the DI to say something about Roan, about his connection to Saffyre Maddox, but is surprised when the DI says, ‘Valentine’s night. Can you remember where you were?’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Right. Yes. I was in Hampstead, having drinks and dinner with my husband.’

  ‘And what time did you get home?’

  ‘Roughly eleven thirty.’

  ‘And did you see anything? Anyone? When you returned?’

  Cate stops. She’s about to say something about the figure she glimpsed through the curtains. But something stops her. ‘Not that I can remember,’ she says.

  ‘Around midnight? Maybe?’

  ‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘No. I was in bed by midnight.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘My husband?’

  ‘Was he also in bed? At midnight?’

  She can’t remember. She cannot remember. ‘Yes,’ Cate replies firmly. ‘I’m pretty sure he was.’ She looks at the time on her phone. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m going to have to go now. I have a patient in St John’s Wood in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Oh, a patient. Are you a doctor?’

  ‘No. I’m a physiotherapist.’

  ‘Oh. I’m so sorry,’ says DI Currie, getting to her feet. ‘Please don’t let us keep you another minute.’

  They all leave together in a slightly awkward huddle. DI Currie and PC Rodrigues stand by the front door and examine the doorbells. ‘Anyone else in?’ DI Currie asks.

  ‘Sorry, no idea.’ Cate smiles at them apologetically; then she says, ‘Bye, then,’ and turns and heads down the street, her heart racing painfully hard under her ribs.

  Roan did have an affair once. It was in the very early days of their marriage, when they were still very young and getting used to the fact of being married when none of their friends were.

  Cate had kind of guessed it was happening. Roan had been pretty bad at covering his steps. Condoms had started disappearing at a rate that was incommensurate with the amount of sex that they’d been having – still quite a lot back then, pre-babies. Cate had been responsible for picking up the condoms from the family-planning clinic so she was more aware than most women about how many condoms should be in the box.

  Roan had still been a student then, that had been part of the problem, while Cate had graduated three years earlier and was working full-time at a sports rehab gym. There’d been a disconnect for a year or two; Cate was bringing in money, spending her days with people older than her, tired by ten o’clock. Roan was bringing in no money, spending his days with other students and usually in the pub at 10 p.m.

  He’d been having sex with another student. Her name was Marie; she was the same age as Cate and she had very long hair. Roan ended the affair – though refused to acknowledge that it was an affair, said it was just ‘basic sex’ – the moment Cate confronted him with her suspicions. Marie came to their flat an hour later and Cate ended up holding her on the pavement outside while she cried and rocked and wailed.

  When Cate went back indoors a moment later, she found one of Marie’s hairs on her cardigan. She pulled it off and stared at it for a moment before discarding it on the floor. Roan sat with his head hanging, his shoulder blades two pointed peaks of contrition, sniffing in some kind of approximation of tears.

  ‘Has she gone?’ he said.

  She nodded and poured herself a glass of wine.

  ‘Are we over?’

  ‘Over?’ she asked facetiously. ‘We’re married. What do you mean, over?’

  ‘I mean, is that the end of our marriage?’

  She remembers staring at Marie’s solitary hair, no longer a part of Marie, a foot and a half long, an S-shape on the carpet. S for sex. S for shame. S for slut. She remembers imagining Roan’s fist around her hair in bed while they did ‘basic sex’. She’d had to stifle a laugh. The whole thing was so pathetic.

  ‘I can’t live without you. You know that, don’t you? I can’t live without us.’

  Then he’d started to cry, properly, contrite shoulder blades heaving up and down like pistons. The horror of it, she recalled now, the shock. For a moment she’d wondered if she even loved him, if she’d ever loved him.

  ‘I’d die without you,’ he’d said as she passed him a tissue. ‘I’d literally just die.’

  Roan had graduated a year later, quickly found his way to the Portman and become a serious, grown-up man, widely respected, superb at his job. They’d even been able to crack a joke about Marie eventually, about her appearing with her red-rimmed eyes that evening, ending up in Cate’s arms on the pavement. The fact they’d been able to joke about it had put a stake in its path, a definitive sign that what had happened had been an aberration, a one-off, something unconnected to them and the couple they were to become, the parents they were to become, the life they would go on to build for themselves.

  Nobody knew about it.

  Cate hadn’t even told her closest friends.

  It was theirs and theirs alone.

  So, she hadn’t been totally mad to think the worst a year ago. She’d said as much to Roan. ‘It’s not as if’, she said, ‘it hasn’t happened before.’

  He’d scoffed at that, as if it was somehow irrelevant. And she’d allowed him to scoff because she’d been so ashamed of her own actions.

  But in retrospect she could see that he’d been clawing back the moral high ground from her after twenty-five years, expunging his own memories of the crying, pathetic, desperate man in the scruffy flat in Kilburn claiming he’d kill himself if she left him. Maybe he’d known that Cate had questioned her own love for him in that moment. Maybe he’d been waiting for a moment to suggest that he too was capable of questioning his. Redressing the balance.