‘Okay.’
‘Don’t approach them. Just phone.’
‘Okay, DS Logan. I won’t. And I will.’
He gives me a better smile as we reach the front door. He opens it and the hallway floods with bright light as he turns and runs his fingers through his daft hair. ‘It’s just Logan. Craig, if you want. My mum named me after a bloody Proclaimer.’
And then he steps out, closes the door, and the hallway returns to gloom. I go back to the kitchen, but something makes me stop at its closed door. On the other side, I can hear the chink of teaspoons against china, Ross’s murmured thanks.
‘If you need help in arranging anything, that’s what I’m here for,’ Shona says. ‘I know you’ve got the helpline and counselling numbers, but I’ve information about more practical things: organising a private memorial or—’
‘No.’ Ross’s voice is sharp, hoarse.
‘Okay, you’re right. It’s probably too early for that, but part of my job is to make sure that you’re given all the practical help and information you need for when you do want it.’ She’s stuttering a bit now, and I’m spitefully glad. A fucking memorial? Is she serious? El’s been missing less than a week. ‘Legally, things have moved on a lot in the last few years, but it’s still very difficult for the relatives of a missing person to organise their affairs.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ross sounds a lot less indignant than he should.
The legs of a chair scrape against the tiled floor. ‘I’m not saying you should do it now, or that you’re ready to do it now, but when a person has gone missing, and there’s no body or a medical certificate to say that they have legally died, it’s up to you to raise an action to satisfy a court that the missing person is presumed to be dead. If you’re successful – and Ross, you probably don’t want to hear this either, but you will be – the court will notify the registrar general and then the death can be registered. It used to be that you had to wait a minimum of seven years to register a missing person’s death, but not any more. I know you don’t want to think about the practical side of all this, but you do need to prepare yourself. There will be an awful lot to sort out.’
If she says ‘practical’ one more time in her ridiculous voice, I think I might strangle her. I can’t actually understand why Ross isn’t strangling her.
I open the kitchen door with a little more force than necessary. Ross stands up, pulls both of his hands free of Shona’s.
‘Would you like some tea, Cat?’ she asks, cheeks flushed.
‘No tea,’ I say, but I’m not looking at her, I’m looking at Ross.
I make a long production of making myself coffee instead, and Shona gets ready to leave, with earnest promises to return tomorrow or the next day or whenever Ross needs her to.
‘I’ll see you out,’ I say, with a tight smile.
Inside the entrance hall, I put my hand on the night latch, and before I open the front door, I turn to face her. ‘She’s not dead.’
‘What?’ She has a scattering of light brown freckles across her nose. Her white-blonde hair looks like it would snap in a stiff breeze. She’s like a fucking pixie.
‘She’s not dead,’ I say again, and when I lean closer, my smile, I know, is El’s: wide, cold, mocking. ‘Too bad for you.’
CHAPTER 10
9 April 2018 at 06:56
Inbox
Re: HE KNOWS
To: Me
CLUE 4. IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES
Sent from my iPhone
*
9 April 2018 at 07:02
Inbox
Re: EL
To: Me
I’M NOT IN TROUBLE. BUT YOU ARE
Sent from my iPhone
*
I find the diary page inside a battered copy of A Tale of Two Cities, on the shelf below El’s self-portrait. It was her favourite book for a long time: the horror of it, the brutality; Madame Defarge and her knitting needles. She used to laugh at me for loving Anne of Green Gables instead.
October 12th, 1997: 11Y, 3M, 12D
Mum is always making us read or reading to us. She NEVER stops! But at least now they’re not baby stories or Shakespeare (YUKK). Now they’re much more exiting – about wars and spies and murder! We just finished Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption which is a stupid name but the book is the best!!! Its about a guy called Andy Dufrain whose in prison for murder but he didn’t do it and he spends the next 27 YEARS! planning his escape. Its BRILLYANT!!! He has to use this tiny hammer to tunnel thru 4 feet of concrete and then he has to crawl thru a pipe full of SHIT!!! For 500 YARDS!!! IMMENSE/INSANE!!!!!!
The bit at the very end when his freind Red gets let out and he realises Andy has left him money and has set up a new life for him too is even more BRILLYANT! It made me cry which was SOOOOO embarassing but I don’t care cos I LOVE it.
I LOVE MY MUM TOO
I LOVE CAT (sometimes!!! When she’s not being a BITCH!!! Ha)
Mum never wavered in her belief that everything in life could be learned from books. By the time El and I were ten, she’d moved on from reading us fairytales to Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Dickens, Christie. Books piled up in that cupboard in the Princess Tower as we rattled through story after story: The Tempest, The Count of Monte Cristo, Crooked House, Jane Eyre, The Man in the Iron Mask.
By eleven, Mum had progressed to more contemporary novels: The Hobbit, Papillon, Sophie’s Choice, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. She started reading Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption to us during the long, wet autumn of 1997. I can still see her sitting on the pantry’s windowsill, ankles crossed, swinging her feet. Her voice, when she read to us, was never
