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THIRTY-FIVE
‘You’re back early.’
My mother, home before me for once, was at the stove making her famous Napolitana sauce. A top-secret recipe handed down through the generations.
I grabbed a handful of cookies from the tin and picked up the newspaper clipping lying on the side.
‘What’s this?’
She just shook her head to show she didn’t want to discuss it.
Another woman has gone missing from North London this week following a series of murders in the area dating from 1981. . .
It was an article and a composite sketch of a man, possibly the Shadow, cut from the Post. There were pencil markings along the edges where a margin had been ruled before the paper was snipped. Beneath the sketch, someone had written: RING ANY BELLS? A small rip where the biro had stabbed through the page.
The hairs on my neck danced.
‘Who’s this from? They think we know him?’
‘I don’t know what they think.’
She wouldn’t look at me though.
If the latest victim was the Shadow’s work, it would bring his body count to ten. Many of the women killed on our doorstep or in places we liked to go.
Hampstead Road Lock canal was a short walk from our apartment. I passed the running track every day on my way to school. Marine Ices, Matty’s favourite ice-cream parlour, was at Chalk Farm. Highgate Woods where I’d been for a friend’s birthday.
I couldn’t shake the idea I might have come across the victims at some point. On the high street. In line at the supermarket. Waiting for the Tube. Women who were alive one minute– laughing, buying groceries, watching TV. Watching news of the missing persons on TV, no idea they were next.
‘I’m scared,’ I’d told Matty ages ago.
The killings had only just started, but already I was making connections between the victims’ appearance and my mother’s.
‘Don’t be scared, pumpkin. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Trust me.’
‘You can’t know that.’
He kissed the top of my head.
‘Yes, I can.’
‘How?’
‘Just do.’
I lowered the clipping now.
‘Where d’you get it?’
My mother shrugged, added herbs to the pan. Still wouldn’t look at me.
‘Why are you being so secretive? Just tell me.’
She sighed, turned down the heat.
‘It was on the mat when I got home.’
I’m not much good at maths, but some sums even I can do.
