Room 2 was near the end of the hall. She gathered with the others behind Hollis. The key was in her hand, but he didn’t ask for it. He knocked, and they waited.
“This is Detective Constable Hollis Drummond.”
Silence.
Oliver rolled his eyes and snatched the key from Maeve, his fingers brushing against hers. She stuck her hands in her wet pockets.
“Just open it,” he said.
“Wait.” Hollis knocked again. “I said this is the police. If you don’t answer, we’re going to let ourselves in. We’re giving you fair warning.”
He pressed his ear to the door, then took the key.
“All right. I’m unlocking the door.” He pushed the key into the lock but did not turn it. “Stand to the side.”
Maeve and Ellie moved immediately.
“Why on earth should I?” asked Oliver.
“We don’t know what’s behind that door. Or what might come out.”
“You think it’s booby-trapped?” asked Lorna.
“I have no bloody idea, but I’m not taking any risks.”
Lorna joined the other women. After a dismissive huff, Oliver did the same. Maeve smelled his aftershave—the same after all these years—and took an extra step back as Hollis turned the key. With slow, deliberate movements, he opened the door and looked inside. Maeve could not see his face, but his shoulders sagged. He ran his hand over his hair, and Maeve remembered the time Hollis had found one of Oliver’s friends passed out in the middle of the front room one Sunday morning. He’d made the same motions.
“What is it? Who’s in there?” asked Lorna.
“Come and see.”
Lorna pushed past Oliver, who went in next. Ellie’s shoulder bumped Maeve as she followed. Maeve heard no conversation, but no shouting either. Were they waiting for her? She approached, one careful step at a time.
They stood in a semi-circle, their backs to her, blocking the view of what Hollis had uncovered. The shortest of them all, she stood on tiptoe to peek over Ellie’s shoulders, seeing little until Hollis finally stepped to the side.
A worn brown armchair, the fabric on the seat worn down to a thin grayish patch, sat on the right side of the room, but what held their attention was positioned on the left: a pink sofa pressed against the wall, its sunken cushions bulging outward like a fat lower lip. Maeve recognized the stain on the left armrest, the splotch in the shape of France caused by a cup of tea she had spilled twenty-odd years ago.
“It’s not the same,” Oliver’s voice sounded hoarse. “Obviously, it isn’t the same one. It’s too old. Thing looks like shit.”
“No, just older,” Maeve said. “It’s the same. It’s just older. Like us.” But she wasn’t looking at the sofa so much as the note card of blue stationery that rested in the middle of it. Stamped in a typewriter font on the front were the words:
The Residents of Caldwell Street
Maeve wondered what would happen if none of them opened that envelope. Would they stand here forever, staring at that sofa?
Or would they be able to leave? Pretend they had never come here. Had never unlocked this door.
“That’s—” Ellie choked on the words. “That’s his stationery. He used to leave us notes in that stationery. And the gifts, oh god, the gifts. Brown paper. The Happy Wednesday Elf?”
“It’s not him,” Oliver said. “We know exactly where to find that fucker, and it’s not in this bloody house.”
Despite his bravado, Oliver distanced himself from the sofa. Ellie looked to the others for support, but Lorna kept glancing around the room, avoiding eye contact. Maeve, too, looked away when Ellie caught her eye. Hollis’s gaze never wavered from the sofa. The rustling of his clothes was as loud as a roar as he reached forward and plucked the envelope from the cushions. He looked it over, each corner, each edge, as if searching for some clue. Then he opened the envelope and removed the card inside. Unlike Caskie’s letter, Hollis read silently.
“Come on, Drummond,” Oliver snapped. “Out with it.”
Hollis cleared his throat. “It’s a rhyme. Trade one secret for another. Admit what happened to your brother. No one leaves until it’s done. Come on, friends, won’t this be fun?”
Oliver grabbed it from Hollis’s hand. “That’s it? That’s all there is?”
“This is wrong,” Ellie said. “This is all wrong. I don’t even have a brother.”
Lorna rolled her eyes. “He’s not talking about biological family.”
“But I don’t get it,” Ellie said. “What is it we’re supposed to do? Trade secrets? What secrets?”
Hollis examined the brown armchair. “If this really is the same one . . .” He ran his hands over the armrests, shoved them down the side of the cushion.
Oliver flicked the note card to the floor. “I’m not standing around while Hollis feels up a chair.”
“Do you lot really not remember?” Hollis asked. Something clicked inside the chair. “Ah ha! This armchair, or as Lorna lovingly referred to it, the poop chair, had a faulty armrest. Which could pop open.” He flipped up the left armrest, revealing the vacant space inside. “And is where you, Oliver, used to store your drugs.”
Hollis stuck his hand into the hole and rooted around.
“That . . . that really is the same chair then,” Lorna said.
“Or one designed to look like it.” He clutched something inside the armrest. “But I have a feeling it is the same. Why bother to replicate the cigarette burns?”
“They could be different burns,” Oliver said.
“They’re not. I remember.” Hollis pulled out his hand. In it were more blue envelopes—larger than the other. Padded with more paper.
“That means . . .” Maeve glanced at the sofa. “That means that’s really the same sofa.”
She closed her eyes, waiting for the tears to come, and backed away, bumping into Oliver, his body soft and warm. Until he stepped away.
“You may want to stay here,” Hollis said. “Until you read this.”
He handed Maeve an envelope stamped with her name, then gave out the rest. They all looked at one another, waiting for someone else to start.
“Were we supposed to find these?” Lorna asked.
“I think he was counting on it,” Hollis said.
“It’s not him,” Oliver muttered.
Maeve looked Oliver’s way. Wanted to reassure him, to hold his hand and squeeze it. But every time she inched nearer, he leaned away. She shrank back into her jumper.
“Well, if no one else is going to.” Hollis opened his envelope as carefully as the other. Lorna clenched her jaw and followed. Maeve looked at Oliver and Ellie, waited to see what they would do. When Ellie tore into the paper, Maeve did the same. Oliver followed with a reluctant sigh. At first, Maeve was too busy watching the others to read hers. Lorna covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes. Ellie became very still, except for her face, which drew more lines as it hardened. Veins bulged in her hands. Oliver kept muttering “Bullshit” to himself. Hollis became very pale, and all his strength seemed to leave him.
Maeve finally read what she had been gifted. Photocopies of credit card statements in her sister-in-law’s name. Credit cards near maxed out. Line by line reminding Maeve of different purchases, including the jumper she was wearing right now. And the red suitcase downstairs.