There’s something about the way he uses his size to intimidate me that makes me think he’s trying too hard to blame someone else.
‘Did you take her engagement ring?’ I ask, making it sound like an innocent question about the weather or the price of eggs.
Does anyone ever talk about the price of eggs?
Lyle explodes. ‘How dare you! I should call the police and have you arrested.’
That’s when I see something in his face – the shadow, the shade, the tell, the sign … Sometimes I get a metallic taste in my mouth, like when I suck on a teaspoon or accidentally bite my tongue. But usually, I see a twitch in one corner of a mouth, or a vein pulsing in a forehead, or a flicker around the eyes.
‘You’re lying,’ I say. ‘Did you pawn it?’
‘Fuck off !’
‘Or do you still have it?’
‘Get out of here.’
Lyle pushes a thumb into my chest, making me take a step away. I move forward and raise my chin defiantly, ready for the blow. Duncan is stuttering and pleading with everyone to calm down. June has a snot bubble hanging from her nose.
Lyle grabs my forearm, digging his fingers into my skin. He puts his head close to my right ear, whispering, ‘Shut your hole.’
A red mist descends, narrowing my field of vision, staining the world. I grab Lyle’s wrist and twist it backwards. He doubles over, grunting in surprise, as my right knee rises up and meets his face. Cartilage crunches and he cups his nose, blood spills through his fingers.
Stepping around him, I walk along the corridor to the lounge where Davina has a slice of fruitcake halfway to her mouth. Crumbs on her tits.
‘You might want to call the police,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘We should do it first.’
3
Cyrus
Breakfast has been cleared away and customers have come and gone; the early risers, dog-walkers, shopkeepers, school mums, mothers’ groups, knitting circles and retired gents in tweed jackets.
Sacha Hopewell leans back on the padded bench and rolls her shoulders before glancing at a clock on the wall.
‘What is Evie like?’
‘A force of nature. Damaged. Brilliant. Angry. Lonely.’
‘You like her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she happy?’
‘Sometimes,’ I say, taken aback by the question. Happiness is not an emotion I equate with Evie because she treats life like a contest and each morning that she wakes is like a small victory.
Sacha has more questions, but we have different agendas. I want to know about Angel Face, the feral child with nits in her hair and cigarette burns on her skin. Sacha wants to hear about Evie now, what she’s become and who she wants to be.
I explain about the search for her family, the DNA testing, the radio isotope bone scans to determine her age, the worldwide publicity campaign and countless interviews with social workers and psychologists.
‘Angel Face didn’t match any known missing person and she refused to tell anyone her real name or age. That’s why the courts became involved.’
‘I remember how she got the name Angel Face,’ says Sacha. ‘One of the nurses at the hospital was wiping muck off her face and said, “You have the face of an angel.” It stuck. All the nurses fell in love with her, even though she hardly said a word. She’d talk if she wanted something – food, or water, or to use the bathroom. Or she’d ask about the dogs.’
‘She kept them alive.’
‘It’s a wonder they didn’t rip her apart.’
‘They knew her.’
Sacha is toying with a loose thread on her jumper.
‘What else did she talk about?’ I ask.
‘Nothing important. I kept making up new games, trying to guess her real name or trick her into telling me. She taught me her own games. One of them she called “Fire and Water” which was like our “Hot and Cold”.’
‘I didn’t see that mentioned in her files.’
‘I guess it wasn’t important.’
Sacha laughs at another memory. ‘She made us do a dance – the nurses and me. We had to stand front to back, holding the hips of the person ahead. We shook our right legs to the side, then our left legs, before hopping backwards and then forwards. She called it the penguin dance. It was hilarious.’
‘Did the psychologists ever see this?’
‘I don’t think so. Why?’
I’m about to answer when my pager goes off with a cheeping sound.
‘How very old school,’ says Sacha, as I pull the small black box from my hip and read the message spelled out on a liquid display screen.
You’re needed.
Moments later, a second message arrives.
It’s urgent.
Sacha has been watching me curiously. ‘You don’t carry a phone.’
‘No.’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘As a psychologist, my job is to listen to people and learn things from them. I can’t do that by reading a text message or a tweet. It has to be face to face.’
‘It doesn’t seem very professional.’
‘I have a pager. People contact me. I call them back.’
Sacha makes a humming sound and I’m not sure if she believes me.
I glance again at my pager. ‘I have to make a call.’
‘The tide will be turning.’
‘I’ll be two minutes. Please wait.’
The nearest pay phone is outside the post office. Detective Lenny Parvel answers. She’s out of doors. I hear diesel engines and a truck reversing.
‘Where are you?’ she asks.
‘Cornwall.’
‘The holiday is over.’
‘It’s not a holiday,’ I say, annoyed, which Lenny finds grimly amusing.
‘He’s one of ours,’ she explains. ‘An ex-detective. Looks like a suicide. I want to be sure.’
‘Where?’
She rattles off an address in Tameside.
‘That’s not your patch.’
‘I’ve been posted to the East Midlands Special Operations Unit.’
‘Full time?’
‘For the foreseeable.’
‘I’m five hours away.’
‘I’ll wait.’
My attendance is not up for discussion. That’s what I do these days; I chase death like an undertaker, or a blue-bottle fly. When I chose to be a forensic psychologist, I thought I’d spend my career studying killers rather than trying to catch them.
Across the road, a greengrocer is setting out boxes of fruit and veg on the footpath. Carrots. Potatoes. Courgettes. Sacha has left the café and is putting apples into a brown paper bag. I meet her as she pays.
‘Would you like to meet Evie?’ I ask.
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Is that allowed?’
‘She can have visitors.’
The offer is being considered. Sacha’s natural curiosity wants to say yes, but she’s cautious.
‘Why are you here?’ she asks, fixing me with a stare that would frighten off the keenest of suitors. ‘You’ve read Evie’s files. She was interviewed by doctors, counsellors, therapists and psychologists. She didn’t talk to any of them. Why would she talk to me?’