I haven't touched my food. I don't feel hungry anymore. Perhaps the Professor is right—I'm trying to right the wrongs of the past and ease my own conscience.
“We should get back to the hospital,” he says.
“No, not yet, I want to find Rachel Carlyle first. Maybe she knows something about Mickey.”
Joe nods in agreement. It's a good plan.
4
The autumn leaves swirl across Randolph Avenue, collecting against the steps of Dolphin Mansions. The place still looks the same, with a white-trimmed arch over the entrance and bronze letters sandblasted into the glass above the door.
Ali taps impatiently on the steering wheel with short manicured fingernails. The place unnerves her. We both remember a different time of year, the haste and noise and sullen heat, the shock and sadness. Joe doesn't understand but must sense something. Shuffling through leaves, we cross the road and climb the front steps. The bottom buzzer automatically opens the door between nine and four every day. Standing in the foyer, I glance up the central stairwell as though listening for a distant echo. Everything passes up and down these stairs—letters, furniture, food, newborn babies and missing children.
I can remember the names and faces of every resident. I can draw lines between them on a whiteboard showing relationships, contacts, employment history, movements and alibis for when Mickey disappeared. I remember it not like yesterday but like I remember the meal I just ordered and failed to eat, the fried eggs and lean bacon.
Take Rachel Carlyle, for instance. The last time I saw her was at the memorial service for Mickey a few months after the trial.
I arrived late and sat at the back, feeling like I was intruding. Rachel's soft, drugged sobs filled the chapel and she looked devoid of hope and tired of living.
Some of the neighbors from Dolphin Mansions were there, including Mrs. Swingler, the cat lady, whose hairdo resembled one of her tabbies curled on top of her head. Kirsten Fitzroy had her arm over Rachel's shoulders. Next to her was S. K. Dravid, the piano teacher. Ray Murphy, the caretaker, and his wife were a few seats back. Their son Stevie sat between them, twitching and mumbling. Tourette's had hard-wired his movements to be quicker than a light switch.
I didn't stay for the whole service. I slipped outside, pausing to look at the plaque waiting to be blessed.
There were no lessons to be learned, no logic or plot to be raked over, no moral comfort to be gained. According to the trial judge, her death had been pointless, violent and put into context.
I interviewed Howard Wavell a dozen times after that, hoping he might give up Mickey's burial place, but he said nothing. Periodically, we investigated new leads, excavating a garden in Pimlico and dredging the pond in Ravenscourt Park.
I haven't talked to Rachel since then but sometimes, secretly, I have found myself parked outside Dolphin Mansions, staring out the windshield, wondering how a child disappears in five stories and eleven flats.
The old-fashioned metal lift rattles and twangs between the landings as it rises to the top floor. I knock on the door of number 11 but there's no answer.
Ali peers through the leadlight panels and then lowers herself onto one knee and pushes open the hinged mail flap.
“She hasn't been home for a while. There are letters piled up on the floor.”
“What else can you see?”
“The bedroom door is open. There is a dressing gown hanging on a hook.”
“Is it light blue?”
“Yes.”
I remember Rachel wearing the robe, sitting on the sofa, cradling the telephone.
Her forehead was pasty with perspiration and her eyes fogged. I had seen the signs before. She wanted a drink—she
“Seven years old. That's a great age.”
She didn't respond.
“Did you and Mickey get on well?”
She blinked at me in bafflement.
“I mean did you ever fight?”
“Sometimes. No more than normal.”
“How often do you think normal families fight?”
“I don't know, Inspector. I only see normal families in TV sitcoms.”
She looked at me steadily, not with defiance but with a sure knowledge that I was following the wrong line of questioning.
“Does Mickey hang out with anyone in particular in the building?”
“She knows everyone. Mr. Wavell downstairs, Kirsten across the hall, Mrs. Swingler, Mr. Murphy, Dravid on the ground floor. He teaches piano . . .”
“Is there any reason why Mickey might have wandered off?”
“No.” One bra strap slid down her shoulder and she tugged it back. It slid down again.
“Could someone have wanted to take her?”
She shook her head.
“What about her father?”
“No.”
“You're divorced?”
“Three years.”
“Does he see Mickey?”
She squeezed a ball of soggy tissues in her fist and again shook her head.
My marbled notebook rested open on my knee. “I need a name.”
She didn't reply.
I waited for the silence to wear her down but it didn't seem to affect her. She had no nervous habits like touching her hair or biting her bottom lip. She was totally enclosed.
“He would never hurt her,” she pronounced suddenly. “And he's not silly enough to take her.”
My pen was poised over the page.
“Aleksei Kuznet,” she whispered.
I thought she was joking. I almost laughed.
Here was a name to conjure with; a name to tighten the throat and loosen the bowels; a name to speak softly in quiet corners with fingers crossed and knuckles rapping on wood.
“When did you last see your ex-husband?”
“On the day we divorced.”
“And what makes you so sure he didn't take Mickey?”
She didn't miss a beat. “My husband has a reputation as a violent and dangerous man, Inspector, but he is not stupid. He will never touch Mickey or me. He knows I can destroy him.”
“And how exactly can you do that?”
She didn't have to answer. I could see my reflection in her unblinking stare. She believed this. There was
