I thought of Elsie’s words as she had fallen asleep last night.
‘Mummy’s in Mummy’s bed. And Elsie’s in Mummy’s arms. And their eyes are closed.’ Were we asleep and safe or were we dead and cold like the pairs of bodies that X had already looked down on? Leo and Liz Mackenzie. Danny and Finn, brought together in death.
‘Nothing really,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to see how things were going.’
‘It’s progressing,’ he said.
I didn’t believe him.
Forty
Mark, the young estate agent, rang me later in the afternoon.
‘I hope you’ve got an alibi,’ he said cheerily.
‘Now, look here…’
‘Joke, Dr Laschen. No harm was done.’
‘My house was burned down.’
‘Nobody was hurt, that’s the main thing. But the other thing, not that I’d put it that way myself, but the main thing with a silver lining is that you are insured and some people might at a time like this point out that you will do better by your house burning down than you would have done by selling it.’
‘How can that be?’
‘It’s not that I’d say it myself, but some properties have been slow to move off our books and the sales tend to go to properties that are competitively priced. Very competitively priced.’
‘But I thought my house was so extremely saleable.’
‘Theoretically speaking, it was.’
‘You sound very chipper about the whole thing. Were you insured as well?’
‘Inasmuch as we are required to take certain financial precautions.’
‘So we both seem to have done rather well out of this disaster.’
‘There may be one or two forms to sign on our behalf. Perhaps we could discuss them over a drink.’
‘Send them. Bye, Mark.’
I replaced the receiver wondering whether the fire had been a warning or a perverse gift from a woman who knew my pyromaniacal tendencies, or both.
‘She’s been fine,’ said Miss Olds when I went to collect Elsie. ‘A bit tired this afternoon, but she sat on my lap and we read a book together. Didn’t we, Elsie?’
Elsie, who had given me a casual wave when she saw me, had wandered over to the home corner, where she and another little girl were wordlessly arranging plastic food on plastic plates and pretending to eat it. She looked up at the teacher’s words, but only nodded.
‘Things have been very, ah, disruptive for her recently,’ I said. My heart was still racing in my chest, like a motor car revving up wildly before a race. I clenched my fists together and tried to breathe more slowly.
‘I know,’ said Miss Olds with a smile. She had read the papers too.
I looked over at my daughter again, stopped myself from running across and picking her up and holding her too tight.
‘Yes, so I’m anxious for her to feel safe.’
Miss Olds looked at me sympathetically. She had deep brown eyes and a subtle mole just above her top lip. ‘I think she’s settling in here.’
‘I’m glad,’ said. Then: ‘Strangers can’t easily just get in and wander around here, can they?’
Miss Olds put her hand lightly on my arm. ‘No,’ she said, ‘they can’t. Though there are limits to the security you can have at a school where two hundred children arrive every morning.’
I grimaced, nodded. Stinging tears fuzzed my vision.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘She’s fine.’
‘Thanks.’
I called to Elsie, held out my hand, and she plodded over in her buttercup-yellow dress, blue felt-tip in a scar down her flushed cheek.
‘Come on, my poppet.’
‘Are we going home?’
‘Yes, home.’
‘At the heart of it are people who were not what they seemed.’ That is what I had said, so slyly, to the journalist. It had been intended as a warning to Rupert Baird but it had been read and taken as a warning by X, whoever she was. She had demonstrated once more that nothing was safe. My house was burned down and she had penetrated the mind of my daughter.
When we got home I put Elsie in a bath, to wash everything off her. She was in there pottering and talking to herself while I sat on the stairs outside and stared at the wall, telling a story to myself. I knew nothing about the girl but I knew a bit about Michael Daley. It was possible that if I investigated his life, I might find the shadow from which the girl had emerged. And I thought of the final image in Elsie’s safe house. Mummy and Elsie lying asleep in each other’s arms. There were two possible ends to the story. Elsie and Mummy dead together. Or Elsie and Mummy living happy ever after. No, that was too much. Living. That was enough. My reverie was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Baird, of course.
‘I hope you’ve got an alibi,’ he said jocularly, as the estate agent had done before him.
‘You’ll never catch me, copper,’ I replied, and he laughed. Then there was a pause. ‘Is that it?’ I asked.
‘We heard that there was an incident yesterday.’
So they were keeping track of me. This was the moment of decision, but I listened to the splashing and knew that I had already made up my mind.
‘It was a misunderstanding, Rupert. Elsie wandered off in the park. It was nothing.’
‘Are you sure, Sam?’
We were like two chess players testing each other’s defences before agreeing a draw and giving up and going home.
‘Yes, I’m sure, Rupert.’
I could sense the relief at the other end of the line and he said goodbye warmly, saying that he would be in touch, and I knew that this would be the last conversation we ever had.
I lifted Elsie out of the bath and sat her on the sofa in her dressing gown and put a plate of toast and Marmite on her lap.
‘Can I have a video?’
‘Later perhaps, after supper.’
‘Can you read me a book?’
‘Soon I will. First I thought we could play a game together.’
‘Can we play musical bumps?’
‘That’s hard when there’s just the two of us, and one of us has to be in charge of the music. I tell you what, it’s your birthday in a couple of weeks’ time, we’ll play that at your party.’
‘Party? Am I going to have a party? Can I really have a party?’ Her pale face shone under its smudgy freckles. The tip of her pink tongue licked a smear of Marmite from her lip.
‘Listen, that’s part of the game, Elsie. We’re going to plan your party and we’re going to put the most important party things into the safe house.’
‘So we don’t forget!’
