The Family Upstairs(31)

‘Yes, the solicitor showed me when he brought me here.’

‘Did you see the locks? On the children’s doors?’

Libby feels a tremor pass through her. ‘I hadn’t read your article then,’ she says, ‘so I didn’t look. And last time I came …’ She pauses. ‘Last time, I thought I heard someone up there and freaked out and left.’

‘Shall we go and look?’

She nods. ‘OK.’

‘There’s one of these secret staircases in my parents’ house,’ says Dido, clutching the handrail as they ascend the narrow staircase. ‘Always used to give me the heebie-jeebies when I was little. I used to think that a cross ghost was going to lock both doors and I’d be trapped in there forever.’

At this, Libby quickens her pace and emerges slightly breathlessly on to the attic landing.

‘You OK?’ Miller asks kindly.

‘Mm,’ she murmurs. ‘Just about.’

He puts his hand to his ear. ‘Hear that?’ he says.

‘What?’

‘That creaking?’

She nods, her eyes wide.

‘That’s what old houses do when they get too hot, or too cold. They complain. That’s what you heard the other day. The house complaining.’

She contemplates asking him if houses also cough when they get hot, and decides against it.

Miller takes his phone from his pocket and fixes the camera ahead of him, filming as he goes. ‘God,’ he says in a loud whisper. ‘This is it. This is it.’

He angles his camera towards the door of the first room on the left. ‘Look,’ he says.

She and Dido both look. There is a lock attached to the outside of the room. They follow him to the next door. Another lock. And another and another.

‘All four rooms, lockable from the outside. This is where the police think the children slept. This is where they found some traces of blood and the marks on the walls. Look,’ he says, ‘even the toilet had a lock on the outside. Shall we?’

He has his hand on the handle of one of the rooms.

Libby nods.

When she’d first read Miller’s article, she’d skimmed over the paragraphs about the attic rooms, unable to stomach the thought of what it suggested. Now she just wants to get it over with.

It’s a good-sized room, painted white with flashes of yellow around the skirting boards, bare floorboards, tattered white curtains at the windows, thin mattresses in the corners, nothing more. The next room is the same. And the next. Libby holds her breath when they get to the fourth bedroom, convinced that behind the door there will be a man. But there is no man, just another empty, white room with white curtains and bare floorboards. They are about to close the door behind them when Miller stops, takes his camera to the furthest end of the room and aims it at the mattress.

‘What?’

As he nears the mattress, he pulls it away from the wall slightly and zooms in on something wedged there.

‘What is it?’

He picks it up and shows it first to his camera and then to himself. ‘It’s a sock.’

‘A sock?’

‘Yes. A man’s sock.’

It’s a red and blue sock, an odd blast of colour upon the blank canvas of the attic bedrooms.

‘That’s weird,’ says Libby.

‘It’s more than weird,’ says Miller. ‘It’s impossible. Because look.’ He turns the sock over and shows it to Libby and Dido.

The sock bears the Gap logo.

‘What?’ says Dido. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘That’s the current Gap logo,’ he says. ‘They’ve only been using that logo for the past couple of years.’ He locks his gaze with Libby’s. ‘This sock is new.’





22


Lucy calls Michael at five o’clock on Friday afternoon from a payphone around the corner. He answers immediately. ‘I thought it might be you,’ he says, and she can hear the lascivious smile behind his voice.

‘How are you?’ she asks brightly.

‘Oh, I’m just great, and how are you?’

‘I’m just great too.’

‘Did you buy yourself a phone yet? This is a landline number, no?’

‘Someone I know is getting me one,’ she lies smoothly. ‘Something reconditioned. Should be getting it tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ says Michael, ‘good. And since I realise that this is not a social call, I guess you’ll want to know how I got on with your little request.’

She laughs lightly. ‘I would quite like to know,’ she says.

‘Well,’ he continues, ‘you are going to fucking love me, Lucy Lou, because I have got you the full monty. Passports for you, for Marco, your girl and even your dog. In fact, I paid so much for the passports that they threw the dog’s in for free!’

She feels the ever-present bile curdle her lunch. She doesn’t want to think about how much money Michael spent on the passports and how much he will want in return. She forces a laugh and says, ‘Oh! How kind of them!’

‘Kind, my ass,’ he says. And then he says, ‘So, wanna come over? Come and collect them?’

‘Sure!’ she says. ‘Sure. Not today. But maybe tomorrow, or Sunday?’