Mercy

Only when the final bleep indicated that the connection had ended and the words “transmission complete” appeared on the liquid crystal display, did she resume normal breathing.

She looked at her watch. In ten minutes her work shift would be over and she could go home with a clear conscience.

18:01 PDT

“I got here as quickly as I could, Mrs. Olsen.”

“I know.” The voice was weak. “You are a good man, Mr. Sedaka. Even though it might seem to you that we are enemies, I know you are a good man.”

Alex was embarrassed. Everything about this woman made him feel uncomfortable… no, not really uncomfortable… just self-conscious.

“Mrs. Olsen, I’m afraid I haven’t really made any progress with Clayton Burrow.”

“I know,” she said gently and gave Alex a weak but reassuring smile to make it clear to him that she was not chiding him for his failure.

“Clayton Burrow says he doesn’t know where your daughter is.”

“Does he still claim to be innocent?”

Alex was hesitant.

“Well I’m not really sure if…”

He trailed off when he saw Esther Olsen shaking her head. She looked awfully frail, much more frail than she had in Dusenbury’s office, much more frail indeed than he had expected. At first the doctors hadn’t even wanted to let him in to see her. But he pointed out that it was she who had asked for him and when they had advised her against it, she had insisted.

“He’s still denying the murder,” said Alex with a sigh.

Esther Olsen nodded in reluctant acceptance.

“But he has admitted something.”

A hint of a smile crept onto her face and she tried to sit up. But she dropped back onto the pillow, fatigued. Alex leaned forward.

“You’re too weak,” he said comfortingly. “Don’t try.”

“What did he say? What did he admit?”

“I don’t really know how to say this…”

“Tell me.”

What Alex said next could — at least in theory — have got him disbarred.

“He admitted to raping your daughter.”

Esther Olsen nodded slowly, as if accepting the solace of at least a partial admission.

“This is good,” she said, more to herself than to Alex. “This is good.”

“Mrs. Olsen … did you know about it? At the time, I mean?”

For the first time since they had met, Esther Olsen couldn’t hold Alex’s gaze. She looked away, almost guiltily.

“Mrs. Olsen?”

“We hardly spoke to each other.”

“I know that, Mrs. Olsen. But you were still living under the same roof as your daughter. Did you know?”

She nodded slowly.

“Yes, I knew. I overheard her talking to Jonathan.”

“About the rape?

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“A week before she vanished.”

“Exactly a week?”

“Yes. I mean she vanished on a Saturday and this was the Saturday before.”

Alex was quickly doing the arithmetic in his mind. Dorothy had vanished on the 23^rd of May. But she was raped on her birthday, April the first. Why would she be telling Jonathan about the rape seven weeks after it happened? He remembered that Jonathan had said “she came to the house in tears.” That must have been on the day it happened.

But on May 19 she had booked a ticket to England and then she vanished a few days later. So when Mrs. Olsen overheard Dorothy talking to Jonathan a week before she vanished, was it the rape she was talking about or the…

“Mrs. Olsen … did you know that Dorothy was pregnant?”

Esther looked at him, surprised. But even before she spoke Alex knew that it was not surprise about the pregnancy: it was surprise that Alex knew about it. Her face betrayed more than she intended. They both knew that the secret was out.

“Yes, I knew.”

“And did you also know that she had an abortion?”

Esther Olsen looked surprised.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“This I did not know.”

She sounded sincere. But this didn’t make sense. Dorothy must have decided on the abortion before she bought the ticket.

“You didn’t hear her talking about it to Jonathan?”

“I heard whispering.”

“And she didn’t mention having an abortion?”

“Yes, she mentioned it.”

“But I thought you said-”

“I said I didn’t know she had one. But I knew that she was considering it. She talked about it to Jonathan. Of course he couldn’t really advise her. He was just a child. But I think she was using him as a sounding board for her own thoughts. I wished she could have talked to me about it. She was the loneliest child in the world and she couldn’t come to her mother for advice.”

“Why didn’t you talk to her?”

“I couldn’t approach her about it. I couldn’t so much as mention it without running the risk that she would accuse me of eavesdropping. We would have had a shouting match and she would have ended up hating me even more. I had to wait for her to come to me. She never did. And that is the biggest regret of my life.”

“What would you have told her?”

“Just being there for her would have been enough. But I don’t know if I could have advised her. We belonged to different generations. My decision was different to hers.”

The words landed on Alex like a punch from a hard-hitting heavyweight.

“Was different?”

“When I had to make such a choice, I chose to have the baby.”

Alex was stunned by this.

“When you had to…” He trailed off and composed himself. “Wait a minute, you were raped?”

18:04 PDT

“Okay, look, I can’t come round now.” The voice was muted. “I’m expected to keep working as long as