Our Little Secret(19)

“My parents wanted the glory of a well-educated daughter. They wanted me to fly some kind of giant success flag for them. My needs didn’t factor in, never have.”

“You know what? I see a lot of kids come through this building that’ve been dealt rough cards, and believe me, you’re not one of them.”

“Detective Novak, just because I haven’t witnessed the double homicide of my parents or had to eat out of Dumpsters doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s coming for me. We’re all standing on the tracks.”

“You’re saying bad things happen to everyone?”

“Of course.”

“Did something bad happen to Saskia?”

I ignore him. “Listen, my parents moved me around every couple of years, so I never had a real friend before HP. I’m trying to tell you why he was so important. My mom is . . . a glacier: she’s cold and insidious. Little by little, she’ll freeze you out and take everything you have.”

He nods and begins to write. “What have you learned from your mother, Angela?”

I hesitate. “Honestly? I’ve learned that everything’s a competition. And that everyone has an agenda even if they don’t admit it.”

“What’s hers?”

“To push to the front. Climb to the top.” There’s a beat while Novak’s still looking down at his page. “What’s yours?”

He throws his pen onto the table in front of him. “I think my agenda’s pretty straightforward, Angela.”

“You say that, but everyone’s hiding something.”

“Are you?”

I look up at the crease where the wall joins the ceiling. “What I’ve come to understand about the world is that there are so few people in it who actually say what they mean.” Novak wants to interrupt, but I don’t present a gap. “I’m told it’s because we’re all being careful of one another’s feelings, but that’s not it. People don’t say what they mean because they’re deceptive. They’re fake and they lie.” My head hurts. “Novak, I’m just not good at lying or hiding. I’m honest to a fault, except I don’t think it is a fault.”

“Okay, so what you’re telling me, Angela, is that despite a cushy life, you have an acute, at times paralyzing, fear of humanity’s vulnerability. Without HP, you felt less able to cope with your own perception of a world full of liars. You needed his input to balance you out. Am I getting it?”

Surprisingly, he is.

He stands suddenly. “Wait here, I want to show you something.” He returns carrying a small transparent bag, like the ones used for freezer food. He tosses it onto the table; I can see the tidy print of its label, the numerical code and a name. “Take a look.”

I reach forwards and pull the bag towards me. There in the corner of the bag, hugged by the tight furrow of plastic, is a delicate silver necklace. Sitting above the folds of silver is a pendant, shaped like a tiny elephant, intricately patterned and colored in shades of festival blue. I feel my stomach hollow inward again, and struggle to breathe out.





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8


“So, honestly, do you find the necklace upsetting? Is it Saskia’s?”

I turn the bag over and look at the contents from the underside. There’s a thickness in my throat that rises high before I can swallow it.

“You don’t seem to be that concerned about this woman’s disappearance. This is a missing woman from your town. You’ve talked and talked and talked. About yourself. You know Saskia, know her well, in fact—you’ve already admitted to that—and yet nothing you’ve said so far relates to her. Isn’t that interesting?”

Nothing I say is understood. The man is a fool. I run a fingertip over the outline of the silvery-blue pendant.

He’s watching my finger trace the shape. “There is something sad about that elephant, no?”

I shiver involuntarily and back away from the table. “Where did you find it?”

“Where do you think we found it?”

I shrug. Then he folds his hands neatly in his lap. “Why don’t you tell me what happened at Oxford? Would you like that?”

“I would.”


Do you know about Freddy Montgomery, Novak? Is he in my file? You must have stumbled across him during your investigation. There’s no telling anything about Saskia unless I first tell you about Freddy. Freddy from Oxford. He knew the city by heart and he handed it over to me like a gift.

In the very center of the city there’s a building called the Radcliffe Camera. It’s pretty famous—you should Google it when you get home tonight. It’s round and domed and inside is a library. On Saturday mornings I liked to go there, open a musty novel and settle against the curve of the wall while I looked out the window at the cobbled courtyard.

Everything outside that window is made of stone. An old church, silvered by centuries, looms over the entire square, and underfoot are slabs worn smooth by a million journeys. The Radcliffe Camera is set back a street from the commercial zone, but sometimes shoppers carrying bags filled with clothing and Apple products wander into the square as if arriving from the future.

It’s quiet in the Rad Cam courtyard. There are a hundred rusty bikes, most with wicker baskets, parked against the black fence, and nobody steals them. And the Bodleian Library, one of the oldest libraries in the world, stands at the north end of the square facing Hertford College and the Bridge of Sighs, a windowed walkway that links two pale buildings in an upwards lilt unnoticeable to those drifting across it.