With her left hand, she reaches under her dress.
Elijah blinks, his eyes fixed on her face.
‘He’s not your papa, is he?’ Elissa says. ‘I thought he was, but he isn’t.’
‘I used to pretend he was. I pretended so well I ended up believing it. It’s funny how that happens, don’t you think? How you can make things come true if you think them hard enough.’
Elissa takes a shuddery breath. It feels like a butterfly is beating its wings inside her chest. Under her dress, her index finger touches the knife.
Elijah finishes eating. He carefully puts down his bowl.
‘They took you, didn’t they?’ she says. ‘When you were a boy. Took you and your brother. Just like they took me.’
Again, Elijah glances off to the side, as if he’s searching for something. Perhaps he’s avoiding a bad memory. ‘Yes.’
‘You told me something, right when we first met. It’s taken me until now to remember. “I’m only twelve years old,” you said. At the time, I was so scared by what was happening that I hardly even picked up on it.’ She pauses. ‘Is that how old you were when it happened?’
He swallows noisily. Then he moans, a sound like nothing Elissa has ever heard. In that moment, her mind clears of confusion and she recognizes Elijah for what he is – a victim, one who has shared her nightmare, but for a period lasting decades. Elissa can imagine the horrors through which he’s lived, but not the scale. Little wonder he fabricated such a complex fantasy. ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ she says, lowering her voice. ‘Something they tried to make me do.’
Elijah stares at the far wall. He mutters something, too faint to hear. His shoulders begin to tremble.
‘I won’t do it,’ she tells him. ‘Not to you. You lied to me, back in the Memory Wood, but I lied to you too. The letter, the phone, destroying your chessboard. I’m sorry, Elijah. I’m sorry I did those things. I just wanted to get away. You understand that. Don’t you?’
‘I wanted to get away too,’ he whispers. ‘At least, I thought I did. Now … I don’t think I can. I don’t think I have a choice any more.’
‘You always have a choice.’
‘Not if I want to live.’
He lifts his head. Tears roll down his cheeks.
An artery pulses in his throat.
‘Elijah—’
Behind her, the wind catches the door and slams it, plunging the shed into darkness. Elissa freezes, Elijah’s expression burnt on to her retinas.
‘Queen’s Gambit,’ he hisses.
When he lunges forward, she doesn’t even have time to scream.
Mairéad
She gets the call as journalists are filing out of the latest media briefing.
Beforehand, to emphasize the point that this remains an investigation into Elissa Mirzoyan’s disappearance, Mairéad placed a huge photograph of the girl on a pedestal beside the mic table. Even that didn’t focus the minds of the attendant press pack. All the questions were about Kyle Buchanan. And now, in what seems a quite extraordinary security lapse, he’s missing.
Admittedly, Kyle hadn’t been charged with any offence. Despite his vulnerability, the psychiatric team hadn’t applied for a Section 4, which could have detained him. Neither of his doctors believed he was a flight risk.
Working fast, Mairéad establishes the following facts; Kyle was definitely inside the house at 17.30 during shift rotation. According to Ryan Havers, the relieving officer, he went out to the garden at around 17.50.
That, in itself, wasn’t unusual. Nor was there any reason to chaperone him. If anything, Dr Beckett believed that short periods of solitude might be beneficial. At 18.05, Ryan checked outside. Finding the garden empty, he raised the alarm.
In the control room, Mairéad fields calls from her chief constable, her DCC and their opposite numbers in the West Mercia force. Already, the media know something’s up, even if they don’t know exactly what, and they’re pulling in every favour to find out. Should Mairéad pre-empt them? Release a statement, along with an updated photograph of Kyle?
Her phone buzzes. It’s Rita Ortiz.
‘Beckett told me what happened,’ the psychiatrist says. ‘I take it you haven’t found him.’
‘Not yet. And unless you’ve got something specific, I’m afraid I can’t talk.’
‘I’m sure it’s been done,’ Ortiz replies, ‘but I just wanted to ask: Did you check the officer’s phone? Kyle was playing on it a couple of hours before he went missing. I was worried he might see a news report, so I confiscated it. But maybe he called someone.’
‘Thank you,’ Mairéad says, and hangs up.
Two minutes later, Sergeant Ben Hollingsworth is roused from sleep. A check of his phone log confirms a single outbound call, made at 14.21, lasting ninety-six seconds. Mairéad speaks to the officer directly and learns that the call must have been made while Hollingsworth was making a snack. He falls over himself to apologize.
‘Don’t resign just yet,’ she tells him. ‘You might have given us our first decent lead.’
She doesn’t need a warrant to access phone-tower records – her team files an automated request to the provider. While they wait for the data to arrive Mairéad slips outside and phones Scott. When her husband answers, she can’t say anything, and it turns out she doesn’t have to. He knows, without her having to speak.
‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘Love, it’s OK.’
Mairéad stays on the line, connected by a lot more than silence.
Kyle
I
Blood on my hands. Blood on the knife.
Gretel lies a short distance away, face down in the dirt. On her shoulders, I see my bloody handprints, but perhaps that’s just my imagination: with the door closed, it’s pretty dark.
Out of all the poor souls I encountered beneath the Memory Wood, Gretel affected me most deeply. Whatever happens next, I’ll carry her with me always.
Breath whistles in and out of my throat. Outside, the wind sings a lament. I’m not alone in here. Along the back wall sits Mama, her head bowed.
It’s agony, this. How long must I wait for Papa? How long before I find out my fate? I look at the manacle on my wrist. Maybe he won’t come at all.
I think of the story Magic Annie once told me, of a Daddy Fox who fell into a pit. His family tried to rescue him but they tumbled in as well, all except the oldest brother. Unable to anchor the chain, he was doomed to watch them all perish. Then he perished too.
The tool-shed door swings open. The light of an overcast sky falls over me.
II
It’s Papa.
He stands at the threshold, but he doesn’t come in. ‘She dead?’ he asks, his attention on Elissa.
I open my mouth to speak. When no words come, I just nod.
Papa’s cigarette smoke wafts into the shed. He runs his tongue over his teeth. ‘Didn’t think you’d do it,’ he says. ‘Thought the two of you had something going. But you’re a vicious little fucker when it comes to it. Aren’t you?’