‘Did you read it?’
‘I read the Nazi diktat at the top outlining the fact that I no longer have the right to say who I let into my home.’
‘The police are looking for evidence that Jodie Trigg was here.’
‘Good luck to them. They’ll find nothing. Neither of us knew the child.’
Jessie was watching him closely, the nuances of his expression; it didn’t change, not even minutely.
‘So Carolynn didn’t tell you that she had befriended Jodie?’
His widened eyes met hers for a brief moment before he regained control and the shutters came back down. He was surprised, she realized, genuinely.
‘Lies,’ he snapped. ‘She would have told me if she’d known Jodie Trigg.’ His tone had a hard edge to it. ‘She tells me everything.’
‘Clearly not quite everything,’ Jessie said.
53Past
Paulsgrove, Portsmouth
Breaking off a corner from the slice of bread, the girl laid it on the windowsill. She broke off a second piece and placed that on the top of her chest of drawers, by the open window. A third piece, she laid on the floor. When she had finished, a trail of bread led from her bedroom window to the far corner of her box room.
Ducking down beneath the windowsill, she covered herself with the dirty grey sheet from her bed and settled down to wait. She would wait as long as she needed to. She had nowhere to go, nothing else to do and she was patient. She had learned patience over the years of having nothing to occupy herself but the television and the seagulls, and today her patience would pay off.
A flap of wings and the scratch of claws on wood, as a seagull landed on her windowsill. She felt totally calm, euphorically calm almost, every one of her muscles relaxed, her breathing shallow, just enough to gain oxygen to sustain her, but no more. Another flap and a different timbre under claws now as the seagull scrabbled along the veneered top of her chest of drawers. She could make out its ghostly shape through the sheet, as it flapped from the chest to the floor, following the trail of bread that she had laid into the far corner.
Bursting up from under the sheet, she slammed the window closed as the seagull bulleted against the glass and crumpled to the floor, stunned by the impact. But it would only be for a moment and the girl knew that she’d have to be quick. The sheet stretched between her hands, she tossed it over the seagull, following with her body, feeling the bird’s frantic struggle underneath her. She lay on top of the seagull as it bit and clawed at the sheet, at her skin in frenzied terror, but she felt no pain. Only an intense exhilaration.
After a few minutes, the struggling ceased, the bird exhausted. She could hear it panting, feel the raised, fearful beat of its heart through the thin cotton. She smiled, enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of power. As she inched the sheet away from the seagull’s head, it swung and snapped at her viciously, but she clamped her hands around its neck and yanked its body free of the material.
The seagull was huge and strong in her hands and she felt its vital desperation as it kicked and writhed, fighting for its life. The feathers on its neck were silky, downy, just as she had imagined they would be. She tightened her grip and felt the sinews underneath, felt the blood pulsing in its arteries in time with the panicked beat of the bird’s heart.
Its eyes bulged from its head as she gripped even tighter. In a last desperate movement, its body twisted wildly from its neck, webbed feet pedalling the air. Laughing, the girl lifted her legs from the floor and pedalled her own webbed feet in time with the seagull’s. Two pairs of webbed feet, one bird, one human. One free, one trapped. But where it had been she who had been trapped before, now it was the seagull. The feeling of power she felt over something that had been so free made her giddy with its intensity. The seagull’s will to live was strong, but her will to kill was stronger. The seagull’s webbed feet twitched, once, twice and were still.
She sat, cradling the lifeless body in her arms, until it cooled and began to stiffen. Moving to the window, she opened her fingers and watched the seagull fall. Its wings rose out from its body and for one brief second they looked as if they would catch the wind and take the animal out to sea. But then they folded in on themselves and the seagull plummeted to the concrete below.
Now that she had killed, the girl felt good. Elated. Powerful. The seagulls would lose their freedom and she – the girl with the webbed feet – would gain hers. It was only a matter of time and she was patient.
54
‘Do you have a cat?’ Jessie asked.
‘What?’ Reynolds’ voice was incredulous.
‘Do you have a cat?’
‘What the hell has whether we’ve got a cat or not got to do with anything?’ He pointed his finger at the ceiling. ‘Got to do with this … this invasion?’
‘Just humour me, please?’
Reynolds sighed. ‘Yes, Dr Flynn, we have a cat. Did my wife not share that information with you in any of your cosy sessions? How remiss of her.’ He raised an eyebrow and smirked, courting a reaction.
‘Can you tell me about him or her,’ Jessie said evenly, denying him the satisfaction of providing one.
‘Him. My mother bought him for Zoe’s fourth birthday. A Burmese, because they love people. Zoe adored that damn cat and it adored her. So yes, we have a cat …’ His voice faltered. ‘A legacy cat.’
‘What does he look like?’
Reynolds’ brow wrinkled. ‘He has a head, a body, a tail and four legs.’
‘And two eyes, a nose and a mouth.’
Reynolds sighed. ‘He’s splodgy,’ he muttered. ‘He’s covered in black, brown and cream splodges, like some abstract art
