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‘We’ve been asking all the neighbours if they saw anything at all. We believe she went missing at about eight fifteen this morning. Did you see anything around that time?’
‘We’d gone by then,’ he says, more quickly than he would have liked.
‘Yes, we would have left by then, sorry,’ Jen adds, thank God. ‘We left at eight or so, didn’t we?’ She looks at him, concern already written on her brow. ‘Did you see anything?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing whatsoever.’Shut up. Shut up, Johnnie.
‘And can I confirm that your builder, Mr Neil Johnson, wasn’t at your property at that time?’
‘He might have been,’ Johnnie says. ‘He probably was actually.’
‘No.’ To his immense irritation, Jen contradicts him. ‘He messaged to say he’d be in later. He had to pick up some supplies.’ Again, she turns to him. ‘He put it on the WhatsApp – didn’t you get it?’
No. No, he didn’t. That’s Jen’s domain: organising the day-to-day. The details.
Jen’s words filter in:Messaged to say he’d be in later. He had to pick up some supplies. That’s not true. Neil was there. Johnnie heard him; could swear he did. And if the child is believed missing, then that means Neil has not taken the rap after all. The builder, believing himself culpable, has cleaned up the mess. This has worked better than he could have predicted.
‘Do you need anything else?’ Jen is asking the cop. ‘Please don’t hesitate if you do.’
‘Could I get your house number?’
‘Sure. It’s number ninety. We’re next door.’
They exchange thanks. Johnnie buzzes the windows up. The cop waves them on; Johnnie nods as he drives past.
Jen is fully weeping now and he feels himself bristle. Over-empathising to the point of neurosis. A bit OTT, frankly.
But as he reverses onto the driveway, the man whose daughter it is arrives home on his bike.
‘Oh my God,’ Jen says. ‘That’s him. That’s next door.’ She gets out as if ejected before he’s even had time to brake.
‘Hi,’ he hears her call before she slams the car door.
His fingers tighten around the steering wheel. He too will have to get out. He will have to somehow get through a conversation. He steels himself and opens the car door.
Jen and the chap are talking. He offers his condolences, repeats what the cop told them moments earlier. It’s all he can think of to say. More condolences – he can run off some posters if needed.
‘Thanks.’ The guy looks like a marionette whose strings have been cut. This is all so unfortunate. It’s truly awful, really.
‘We’ll let you go,’ Jen is saying, offering her number as if she has all the time in the world.
Unable to bear it a second longer, Johnnie walks towards his house, his hairline prickling. He resists the urge to wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand in some cartoonish gesture of relief. Neil has not come forward. He has not held up his hand and claimed it. He must have hidden the body, disposed of it somewhere. But where?
Unless it’s still there?
Dear God.
He slides the key into the lock. Creeps up the hallway. Just like this morning, he can hear his children upstairs, talking now to the nanny. He unlocks the site door with the stealth of a burglar. Once inside, he tiptoes forward, peers into the trench. She is not there; of course she is not there. A faint floral aroma – soap? Have the police checked the house? They must have. Neil must have moved her before they got here. A wave of exhaustion rolls over him, a great draining-down of relief. His knees almost buckle. Where has he put her? Where the hell has he hidden her?
The question pulses in his mind late into the night. Long after he has held his children all the tighter before settling them to bed with an extra story, an extra kiss, long after Jen has whispered to him that she can’t sleep and he has taken her in his arms until he heard her breathing slow, long after he has smoked a celebratory joint out of his loft room window, been startled momentarily by a fox clattering against the back fence while he waited for the blow to kick in.
Only the next day does he understand. He is printing posters with Neil’s rather attractive wife in his office when Jen texts to tell him they’ve found the little girl’s jacket in the river.
The river. Of course.
I owe you, Neil Johnson, he thinks, still staring at Jen’s message.I owe you big time.
Forty-Seven
