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“Yes. Thank you.”
He nods. “Have a nice day.”
The chipboard isn’t heavy, but its size makes it awkward to carry between my hands. I make it to the bus stop, and when the bus comes, I maneuver it down the aisle and slide it into a seat, then sit down, my knees jammed awkwardly against it. Back at home, I push it through the front door and lean it against the wall while I catch my breath, then drag it up the stairs into Papa’s bedroom. A company came yesterdayand took away the bed, the chest of drawers, and the single wardrobe, so the room is completely empty of furniture.
I take the hammer and nails from my bag, lift the chipboard off the ground, and hold it into place. But every time I let go with one hand to reach for the hammer and nail, the board slips down.
“Damn!” I shout, as it falls for the third time and lands on my foot.
I slump to the ground, my arms aching. I’m not going to be able to do it without help. But I have no one to help me; there is only me.
I think for a moment, then reach for my bag and take out my phone.
“Thank you so much for coming, for doing this. I know it’s an odd request,” I say to Mr. Barriston, an hour later. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
He’s standing in Papa’s bedroom, his shirtsleeves rolled up. There are beads of sweat along his hairline.
“I’ve never been asked to do this for a client, I have to say,” he replies with a smile. “But I have a daughter and if she needed help with a job like this, I’d want someone to give her a hand. It was lucky you called when you did. And it’s good for me to get out during lunchtime.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He looks around the room.
“You’re… decorating?” he asks.
I feel a flush of embarrassment. “Yes. I feel like I need a change.”
He nods. “Right.”
I walk behind him down the stairs.
“Well, good luck with everything,” he says.
“Thank you again,” I say gratefully, and he leaves with a wave.
I return to the bedroom and work until dusk, pulling up the threadbare carpet and stripping off the wallpaper. When I’ve finished, I go tomy bedroom, strip the bed, drag the mattress through to Papa’s room, and place it in the far corner, against the wall. And then I close the door. With the window boarded up, the room is completely dark. Moving to the mattress, I lie down, pull my blanket over me, and close my eyes. And for the first time in weeks, I sleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
September melts into October. I sit at the green wrought-iron table I bought for the garden, listening to the radio on my phone, my legs stretched out in front of me, my head tilted toward the sun. It’s a beautiful autumn day and I feel an unexpected burst of happiness. I try to hang on to it—but as always, memories intrude, always the same memories, of Carolyn, of Justine and Lina. Of Hunter.
I want so much to be at peace with myself, for my mind to be still. But how can it be, when I’ve seen so much?
The news comes on.
Human remains, thought to be from two bodies, have been found in Epping Forest by a member of the public. The police are releasing no further information at this time and are asking people to stay away from the area.
A strange stillness comes over me. In a trance, I pick up my phone, locate my news app. The breaking news story is a repeat of what I just heard: human remains, thought to be from two bodies, have been found in Epping Forest.
A low, dull thud begins in my chest. I go into the house and hunch on the sofa, switching to different news sources on my phone, checkingthe story. There is nothing more, just the same bleak headline repeated over and over again. I draw my legs up, wrap my arms around my knees, and lay my head down, subconsciously protecting myself from the emotional blow that I’m scared is coming.
It does, the next day, when I click on the BBC News alert banner on my phone. There’s just one line:BODIES FOUND IN EPPING FOREST CONFIRMED TO BE FEMALE.I wait desperately for the news story to load, read it once, then again. It doesn’t say much, just that the police can confirm that, in an effort to identify the bodies, they are investigating all reports of missing women aged between twenty and forty.
There’s a part of me, a huge part of me, that wants to phone the police anonymously, and give them the names of Justine and Lina as possible victims. But the bodies might not be those of Justine and Lina. And what if they trace my call? They might ask questions that I won’t be able to answer for fear of incriminating, not just myself, but my kidnappers. What if, under the strain of the questioning, I crack?
I think about the relatives of women who have gone missing, who will be in desperate anguish, waiting to hear if their daughter, sister, mother, wife, is one of the victims, and my guilt increases. It haunts me that the police investigation to identify the bodies might drag on for weeks when I could help it along, if only I wasn’t frightened of the consequences.
I find myself grieving for Justine and Lina all over again. It comes in huge insurmountable waves. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, not even when I lie on the mattress in the room with the boarded-up window, wrapped in my blanket. And then, a few days later, the news I’ve been dreading, but which also comes as a relief. After an anonymous tip, the bodies found in the forest are confirmed as those of Justine Elland and Lina Mielkute, former employees ofExclusives, the magazine run by Ned Hawthorpe before his suicide six weeks previously. Before the media can start speculating about the involvement of Ned in the murder of two of his staff, the police announce that their deaths have been attributed to Amos Kerrigan, a man with links to the underworld, whowas shot at point-blank range sometime in August, in what police say was a gangland killing.
