restaurant. I'd left some notes in there, including some I'd made that morning on Megan Carver. By the time I got home, at just gone seven, the house was black. I hadn't set the alarm, so when
I got in the sensors beeped gently as I moved around: first in the kitchen, then in the living room, then in the main bedroom at the end of the hall. I dumped my stuff, showered, and then spent a moment on the edge of the bed, looking at some photographs of Derryn and me.
One, right at the bottom of the pile, was of the two of us at the entrance to Imperial Beach in San Diego, back when I'd been seconded to the US to cover the 2004 elections. I was pulling her into the crook of my arm, sunglasses covering my eyes, dark hair wet from the surf. In the wetsuit I looked broad, well built and lean, every inch of my six-two. Next to me, Derryn seemed smaller than she really was, as if relying on me to keep her protected from something off camera. I liked the photo. It made me remember what it felt like to be the person she needed.
I put the pictures back into my bedside cabinet and got dressed, looking around the room at the things of hers that still remained. We'd bought the house when we still had plans to start a family, but as the ink was drying on the contracts, we found out she had breast cancer. Everything seemed to go fast after that. She battled on for two years, but our time together was short.
Some days I can handle the lack of time, can simply appreciate every moment we had together and be grateful for it. But some days all I feel inside is anger for what happened to her — and for the way I was left alone. On those days I find a way to push that feeling down and suppress it. Because, in the work I do, there are people who come at you through the chinks in your armour.
And people who feed on that weakness.
Chapter Two
The Carvers' house was an old Saxon church in Dartmouth Park, overlooking Hampstead Heath. There were three stained-glass windows at the front, and a half-oval oak door that tapered to a point at the top. It was a beautiful building. Vines crawled up the steel-grey brickwork, the roof a mass of dark tile and yellow moss. Two potted firs stood either side of the door. The whole place was set behind imposing gateposts and an attractive gravel drive that curved around to a back garden. There was an intercom on one of the posts outside, but James Carver had already left the gate ajar, anticipating my arrival.
The gravel was a useful alarm call. Carver looked up as I moved through the gates, half bent over a bucket of water, washing down the back of a black Range Rover Sport with tinted windows and spotless steel rims. In the double garage behind him was a Ford pick-up with building supplies in the bed and a gleaming red Suzuki motorbike.
'David,' he said, dropping a sponge into the bucket.
We shook hands. 'I like the car.'
I nodded at the Range Rover, soapsuds sliding down its bumper. He glanced back at it, but didn't say anything. I figured he was trying to play down the fact that his supercharged five-litre all-terrain vehicle was worth more than some people's houses. Or maybe he genuinely didn't care any more. Money didn't mean a lot when it couldn't buy back the only thing that mattered to you.
He ushered me through the front door.
Inside it was huge. Oak floorboards and thick carpets. A living room that led into a diner that led into a kitchen. The kitchen was open plan, steel and glass, the walls painted cream. Above, the ceiling soared up into an ornate cove, and there was a balcony that ran across three sides of the interior wall, with a staircase up to it. Off the balcony, I could make out two bedrooms and a bathroom.
'You designed this?'
He nodded. 'Well, the balcony portion of it. The church has been here a lot longer than any of us.'
'It's beautiful.'
'Thank you. We've been very fortunate.' A pause. The significance of what he'd said hit home. 'In some ways, anyway.'
I followed him across to the kitchen.
'You want some coffee?'
'Black would be great.'
He removed two mugs from a cupboard. 'I don't know what you want to do,' he said, filling both. 'Megan's room is upstairs. You're welcome to head up there and have a look around. Or, if you prefer, I can show you.'
'I might have a look around by myself,' I said, taking the coffee from him. 'But I do have some questions for you.'
'Sure.' He smiled, and I realized it was a defence mechanism. A way to hide the pain. 'Whatever it takes.'
We moved through to the living room. At the back of the room, the Carvers' son Leigh was on all fours directing a plastic car under a telephone stand. He looked up as we entered, and when his father told him to say hello, he mumbled something and returned to the car.
I removed a pen and pad. 'So let's talk a little more about 3 April.'
'The day she went missing.'
'Right. Did you always drop her off at school?'
'Most mornings.'
'Some mornings you didn't?'
'Occasionally Caroline did. If my business has a contract further afield I like to go along to the site for the first couple of weeks. After that, I tend to leave it to the foreman to take care of, and do all the paperwork from home. That's when I took…' He paused. 'When I take Megan to school and drop Leigh off at nursery.'
'So you had a site visit on 3 April?'
'Yes.'
'Which is why Caroline dropped her off?
'Correct.'
'Did she pick Megan up as well?'
'No, that was me.'
'What happened?'
'I parked up outside,' he said. 'Same spot, every day. But Megan never came out. It was as simple as that. She went in, and never came out.'
I took down some notes. 'What was Megan studying?'
The sciences — Physics, Chemistry, Biology.'
'Did you ever meet her teachers?'
'A couple of times.'
'What were they like?'
'They seemed nice. She was a good student.'
He gave me their names and I added them to my pad.
Then I changed direction, trying to keep him from becoming too emotional. 'Did Megan have a part-time job anywhere?'
'She worked at a video store on alternate weekends.'
'Did she like it?'
'Yeah. It earned her some money.'
'Who else worked there?'
'Names? I don't know. You'd have to go and ask.'
'What about places she used to go?'
'You mean pubs and clubs?'
'I mean anything,' I said. 'Anywhere she liked to go.'
'You'd have to ask her friends about the places they used to go on a weekend. When they all got paid, they'd often go into the city. But I'm not sure where they used to go.'
'What about places you used to take her?'
