Art, that night, had said to her that he finally understood it. Both who she is, but also what she does. Which are, to Julia, the same thing. Why she can never do anything else. Why she has to carry on. Why she will be police forever—hopefully. Art finally seemed to comprehend it.
Julia leaves the courtroom on wobbly legs. Out in the foyer, Art and Genevieve lope toward her. Julia regards them steadily. Her daughter had never wanted her to cover up her crime—initially, and afterward, too, she said—but Julia thinks she will understand it, one day. Perhaps if she chooses to have children of her own.
She seems happy her parents are talking to each other again, sharing a bed, laughing over morning coffee. She’s accepted it in the simplistic way of the young. Only a few weeks ago, she’d said to Julia: “I wasn’t on his side, you know. It was just a stupid comment. I’m not on his side.”
“I know,” Julia had said, even though she hadn’t.
“The dreams have stopped,” she’d said. “Thanks to you, I think.”
And Julia couldn’t help but smile. Smile and hope—that she’d got it right. That she is some sort of role model for her daughter, however imperfect.
As Art and Genevieve pass the automatic doors, they judder open, slow and unsteady. A cold snap of December air breezes in as they reach each other, and they stand there, together: free. “Shimmyshaker,” Genevieve murmurs. “And thank you.”
***
Back in her office, back at a desk—though not her own, following a demotion—and after a long absence, too long, Julia feels truly herself. It’s been like pining for an old friend or lover.
A stack of cold cases rests on her desk, and she can’t remember the last time she saw anything more beautiful. The curled pages, the coffee rings on the files, the faded cardboard sleeves. She feels a firework of happiness shoot up through her: evidence boxes and forensics reports and crime scene details. Illogical jigsaw pieces eventually fitting together into a thing of beauty. She’s home.
Julia starts leafing eagerly through them. She had recalled each one of these, and she hopes her reasoning is correct.
File one. Page one. A missing woman, two years ago, never found, like so many cold cases in the police. She gets the second file out. Page one. A missing man, three years ago, never found. Page two. Nazima Dawood, went missing two years ago. Each person surrounded by Venn diagrams of family, friends, partners, siblings, daughters, sons, parents. Julia, tired already, pushes the hair back from her face. Onward. Each one at a time.
Because the thing is, Jonathan had worked on every single one of these cases, each one not a file, in fact, or an avatar, or a case reference number. Each person a full-bodied, fully missed individual, and it’s Julia’s job to find them.
She takes her shoes off, and she gets started.
Yesterday
48
Lewis
Lewis meets Price on a dark street corner. It’s late-ish, nine o’clock at night, the evening before the trial, and the Christmas-frosted air is dense with favors owed and questions of loyalty.
“This the house?” Price says, gesturing to it.
“Yep.”
“Okay, ready,” he says. Lewis sees just a glimpse of fear cross his features, and he regrets instructing Price, but not enough to call it off. Price would do anything for Julia, Price killed for Julia, she told Lewis in confidence, and Lewis is happy to abuse Price’s Achilles heel, tonight, to get what he wants.
“You know—Price?” he asks. “Why do you do it?”
“What?”
“The informing. You know—you must end up...”
“In all sorts of scrapes, you’re right,” Price says, but he says it cheerfully enough. He looks at Lewis, just for a second. “Julia’s never once asked me that.”
“She thinks you enjoy the intellectual challenge of it.”
Price’s mouth skews to the left in a half-smile. “Maybe I do,” he says, “but, really, I send the money to my mother.That I make,” he adds. “She’s in Germany, but she’s very poor.”
Lewis nods in immediate understanding. Family: people will do anything for it.
“All right. Going in.” Price pulls on a balaclava. “Going in,” he says again, looking at Lewis for just a second. As their eyes meet, Lewis finds himself wondering if Price is ever angry, or if he’s happy with the hand he’s been dealt, the hand he’s chosen. “Patricia, right?” he asks.
“Right,” Lewis says softly. He reaches a fist out to Price’s, who bumps it without hesitation.
“For Julia,” Price says. “Who still keeps my biggest secrets.”
“For Julia,” Lewis echoes. “Under no circumstances is Patricia to proceed with the trial against her tomorrow. I don’t care what you have to do,” he says. “All I care about is that she understands that, and she doesn’t know it came from me or Julia.”
“A simple threat will do it,” Price says.
Lewis nods. Price knows she was assisting Jonathan’s gang, taking a cut of the profits in return for failing to bring prosecutions. He was happy to keep quiet for her, but he’s not now.
Lewis gives him a single salute, and then leaves, having done the wrong thing, but the right thing, once again, once more.
