The Family Remains(73)

This leaves the last item from last night’s shower: D. Thomson.

I come back once again to the journalist, Miller Roe. He found a missing person with the initials DT but it proved a dead end. I wonder if the man that he found ever went by the name of Thomson. I decide that I have had enough of waiting for Miller Roe to make an appearance. It is time to drag him from his hiding place. I make a call and ask for his phone to be located. An hour later we have it. And it comes as only a very slight surprise to me to discover that Miller Roe is currently somewhere in the very close vicinity of Dido Rhodes’s house.

I wait until 8 a.m., to be polite, and then I call Libby.

‘Good morning, Miss Jones, I hope I have not disturbed you?’

‘No,’ she says, sounding tired. ‘I’m awake. It’s fine.’

‘Good. I am glad. I want to ask you, are you still staying at your friend Dido’s house?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m still here.’

‘Ah. OK. I know we are seeing you later on today, Miss Jones, for which I am very grateful. But I have cause to believe that you have a guest? Currently? A Mr Miller Roe?’

Oh, the silence is so long and very sharp. I wait for it to end.

‘Miller …?’

‘Yes. Miller Roe. He is an investigative journalist. He worked on the article we discussed, the one that was in the Guardian four years ago. And I have been searching for him high and low. I have sent him messages and emails and he has replied to none of them. I have been to his house and his neighbour told me he has not been home for days. That he mainly stays with his girlfriend. And now it transpires that in fact he is very close to you. Which makes me wonder if maybe you are in fact that girlfriend. So, please, Miss Jones, if he is there, could you put me on the line to him? I would be most grateful.’

There is another terrible silence. I picture it filled with Libby Jones’s beseeching eyes, Miller Roe’s stern shake of the head.

‘No. He’s not here,’ she says at last.

‘Well, his phone is definitely in very close proximity to you. So maybe he left it behind?’

‘No. I mean – I don’t know.’

I leave more silence, hoping that Libby Jones will come to her senses and realise the futility of her stance and then, sure enough, a moment later I hear the phone pass across to somebody else and there is a man’s voice on the line.

‘DI Owusu? This is Miller Roe.’

‘Ah. Mr Roe. At last. It is a joy to hear your voice.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘So much, Mr Miller. So much. I am looking forward to the pleasure of Miss Jones’s company here at the station later on today and I would be very grateful if you could join her. Do you think that would possible?’

‘What is this about?’ Miller Roe sounds gruff and agitated.

‘Oh, I’m sure Miss Jones has told you what it is about. But in a nutshell, it is about the Mysterious Case of Serenity Lamb and the Rabbit’s Foot. I have some theories that pertain to your newspaper article and a sincere hope to unblock some of the dead ends you bumped into along the way.’

I hear Miller Roe exhale loudly. ‘Fine. Yeah. Sure. What time do you want us?’

‘Oh. Thank you. What time could you be here?’

‘Three p.m.?’

‘Yes. That would be perfect. Thank you, Mr Roe. I look forward to it.’

I realise as I put the phone down that now Miss Jones and Mr Roe have more than half the day to decide on new ways to lie to me.

But that is fine. I will be ready for them.





52




February 2018


Rachel was haunted for days after her visit to Nice. Haunted by Lucy. Beautiful, ethereal, broken Lucy; the children stoic in the cold and the dark; the empty bowler hat upturned on the ground by her feet. She was haunted by the thought of the things that Michael might have done to Lucy. She was haunted by the idea that she couldn’t do anything for Lucy. That she couldn’t rescue her. That she couldn’t save her.

But she went back to London and got on with her life. There was a range review at Liberty, some items were taken out, some were added, and Rachel employed a new goldsmith and extended her bank loan. A man asked her out for dinner in the queue for coffee at her local café and, even though he was gorgeous and asked her with charm and appeal, she said no. She said, ‘I’m married.’ He said, ‘The good ones always are.’ For a moment afterwards she felt a pang of regret. Had she just let her soulmate walk out of her life? But then she thought of a day, under a year from now, when she would be able to cut herself off from Michael forever and never have to set eyes on him again and she filled her soul with resolve and moved on.

She went to nearly all her yoga classes. She had a dramatic haircut and regretted it. She almost adopted a dog and then realised that was mad and didn’t go through with it. She started work on a silver bangle for Dom’s baby’s first birthday. And then, around the middle of April, she felt the spectre of the anniversary of the day she left Michael and tried to ignore it, but as it drew closer she realised she couldn’t, that it was raw and ugly and would swallow her whole if she didn’t distract herself from it so she invited her team for dinner at her house: Paige, the three goldsmiths and her father.

She left work early and came home via three different food shops. She put an up-tempo playlist on Spotify, poured herself a glass of wine and smothered her thoughts with the following of complicated recipes and the singing of jolly songs and the slow, sweet bleed of alcohol through her veins.