Sister

“She might have been trying to phone while I’ve been gone,” Mum said.

“She’ll try again.”

But I’d checked my mobile countless times since the plane had landed.

“Ridiculous of me,” continued Mum. “I don’t know why I should expect her to phone. She’s virtually given up calling me. Too much bother, I suppose.” I recognized the crust of annoyance. “And when was the last time she made the effort to visit?”

I wondered when she’d move on to pacts with God.

I rented a car. It was only six in the morning, but the traffic was already heavy on the M4 into London, the frustrated, angry crawl of the absurdly named rush hour made even slower because of the snow. We were going straight to the police station. I couldn’t make the heater work, and our words were spoken puffs hanging briefly in the cold air between us. “Have you already talked to the police?” I asked.

Mum’s words seemed to pucker in the air with annoyance. “Yes, for all the good it did. What would I know about her life?”

“Do you know who told them she was missing?”

“Her landlord. Amias something or other,” Mum replied.

Neither of us could remember his surname. It struck me as strange that it was your elderly landlord who reported you missing to the police.

“He told them that she’d been getting nuisance calls,” said Mum.

Despite the freezing car, I felt clammy with sweat. “What kind of nuisance calls?”

“They didn’t say,” said Mum. I looked at her. Her pale, anxious face showed around the edge of her foundation, a middle-aged geisha in Clinique bisque.

It was seven-thirty but still winter dark when we arrived at the Notting Hill police station. The roads were jammed, but the newly gritted pavements were almost empty. The only time I’d been in a police station before was to report the loss of my mobile phone; it hadn’t even been stolen. I never went past the reception area. This time I was escorted behind reception into an alien world of interview rooms and cells and police wearing belts loaded with truncheons and handcuffs. It had no connection to you.

“And you met Detective Sergeant Finborough?” Mr. Wright asks.

“Yes.”

“What did you think of him?”

I choose my words carefully. “Thoughtful. Thorough. Decent.”

Mr. Wright is surprised, but quickly hides it. “Can you remember any of that initial interview?”

“Yes.”

To start with, I was dazed by your disappearance, but then my senses became overly acute; I saw too many details and too many colors, as if the world were animated by Pixar. Other senses were also on heightened alert; I heard the clank of the clock’s hand, a chair leg scraping on linoleum. I could smell cigarette smoke clinging to a jacket on the door. It was white noise turned up full volume, as if my brain could no longer tune out what didn’t matter. Everything mattered.

Mum had been taken off by a policewoman for a cup of tea, and I was alone with DS Finborough. His manner was courteous, old-fashioned even. He seemed more Oxbridge don than policeman. Outside the window I could see it was sleeting.

“Is there any reason you can think of why your sister may have gone away?” he asked.

“No. None.”

“Would she have told you?”

“Yes.”

“You live in America?”

“We phone and e-mail each other all the time.”

“So you’re close.”

“Very.”

Of course we are close. Different, yes, but close. The age gap has never meant distance between us.

“When did you last speak to her?” he asked.

“Last Monday, I think. On Wednesday we went away to the mountains, just for a few days. I did try phoning her from a restaurant a few times, but her landline was always engaged; she can chat to her friends for hours.” I tried to feel irritated—after all, it’s me that pays your phone bill—trying to feel an old familiar emotion.

“What about her mobile?”

“She lost it about two months ago, or it was stolen. She’s very scatty like that.” Again trying to feel irritated. DS Finborough paused a moment, thinking of the right way to phrase it. His manner was considerate. “So you think her disappearance is not voluntary?” he asked.

“Not voluntary.” Gentle words for something violent. In that first meeting no one said the word abduction or murder. A silent understanding had been