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‘I was looking for the necklace.’
‘The necklace?’
‘Ava’s necklace, that you found?—’
‘Mina, you were there – the detective took it.’
She clenches her teeth.
‘Can we get out of here please? The police said we shouldn’t come in here.’ And when was the last time Mina had come over to this side of the house?
She takes one last glance around the room and follows me back down to our kitchen.
She sits at the table and crosses her legs and adjusts her hair.
‘Would you like something?’ I ask. Is it odd that I’m the one asking her that? My child is missing.
‘No. That’s okay. Well, actually, some water.’
I don’t know why but now I press slightly on my cuts again before reaching into the cupboard and filling two glasses.
She picks hers up and peers at it, twisting it in the light. The glass is slightly uneven, blue stripes and bubbles spiralling up the sides. ‘Oh, it’s nice when that happens, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘When what happens?’ I say.
‘Well, obviously these are from TK Maxx but they could be genuinely handmade.’
I blink. We were so close once. Now she says this kind of thing and I’m expected to take it as a compliment. But today my daughter is missing and I just stare at her.
A red flush spreads up her neck. She looks away and sips her water. ‘Did you go out?’
‘Why were you looking for the necklace?’
She shrugs, sets down the glass, starts examining her wedding ring. It’s a square-cut emerald bordered by diamonds. It was my grandmother’s.
‘Mina?’
She twists her head away and stares at the kettle. I wonder if she’s going to make a comment about that now. It’s a white plastic Breville that has seen better days.
‘Well, it’s Ava’s, isn’t it?’
‘But the police said not to touch anything. Why are you worrying about it now?’ Ava has a hundred necklaces.
Mina shakes her head again. ‘Why do you stay here, Frances? Why do you take it?’
‘Take what?’
‘Living in this bodge-job coat cupboard while we redecorate the castle for the sixth time?’
I sit very still. It had never occurred to me that she might understand how I feel. ‘Where else would I go?’
‘Anywhere? You’re probably poorer here than you would be stumping up for a mortgage anywhere else.’
‘Or you could stop spending all of my family’s money on fancy candles.’
She laughs but then stops abruptly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
