Page 22 of The Way We Are Now

‘He had a hat on.’

‘A hat?’

‘Yes, a hat. A sort of baseball cap thing that Americans wear. You know, he is a bit preppy, isn’t he?’ When I didn’t say anything, Clare went on, ‘I don’t know, Anna. I’m assuming it was him.’

‘You know what assume does!’ I grinned, relieved that Fliss appeared to be in the land of the living, even though she’d not been back to the house for two or three days now. I’d begun to worry about her.

‘Yeah, yeah, makes an ass out of you and me. Right, I’m off to the library. Are you coming?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘There’s a bus in fifteen minutes…’ She trailed off as there was a loud knock at the front door. ‘That’ll be her now, I bet. She’ll have lost her key again.’ Clare walked along the passageway to the front door shouting, ‘You dirty stop-out, Felicity Sutherland. We know what you’ve been doing…’ She sang the words as she opened the door.

I followed in Clare’s wake, eager to have Fliss back home.

‘Hello. I’m DI Crowther.’ The man on the doorstep flashed his warrant card. ‘And this is DS Sonya Bamford. Can we come in?’

7

‘Through here?’ The man indicated the sitting room on our right, and both Clare and I nodded, Clare leading the way, the three of us following on.

‘So, I believe Felicity Sutherland lives here? She shares the house with you?’

‘Is it the parking ticket?’ I asked. Did plain-clothed detectives call round at four in the afternoon to ask about parking misdemeanours? At any time of day come to that?

‘Parking ticket?’ The woman frowned, turning to look at her boss.

‘Sorry, girls, could I have your names?’ The DI spoke slowly, his broad Yorkshire-accented voice kind. He sat down and, with a nod of his head, invited us to do the same.

‘Clare Fallon,’ Clare said, glancing in my direction. ‘And this is Anna. Anna Piasecki.’

‘And are there just the two of you in the house at the moment?’

‘Well, Fliss – Felicity – lives here and there’s Katy as well.’

‘Katy?’

‘Katy Halton,’ I offered.

DS Bamford wrote down Katy’s full name in a little notebook. ‘Is she here? Upstairs maybe?’

‘She’s still down at uni,’ I said. ‘Hang on, that must be her now. Unless it’s Fliss,’ I went on hopefully, moving to the door. But DS Bamford was there before me, catching Katy as she manoeuvred her bike through the door and into the narrow hall.

‘What’s the matter?’ Katy asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Look, girls,’ the DI said, ‘we just need to ask a few questions about Felicity. Just to rule her out of our investigations. Is she here at the moment?’

‘No, no, she’s not.’ Katy spoke as Clare and I exchanged glances.

‘And when was the last time you saw her? Was she here with you this morning? At breakfast time? Did she go into college with you?’

‘The thing is, we’ve not seen her for a couple of days,’ Katy said. ‘She’s got this new boyfriend she’s been seeing pretty regularly. All been a bit quick really. You know, out most nights with him.’

‘But Clare saw her this lunchtime,’ I put in. ‘You said so, Clare.’

‘Well, I think it was Fliss.’ Clare appeared slightly embarrassed. ‘I didn’t have my glasses on.’

‘You said, Clare.’ I frowned. ‘You said you’d seen her.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Clare admitted. ‘I wanted you to feel better because you were getting worried about her.’

‘But you said, Clare,’ I insisted.