She didn’t remember much before they started running. Or perhaps she had tried to forget. Sometimes it came back to her in dreams. Not the dreams she had when she fell. She wasn’t even sure they were dreams at all. But the other ones. The ones that seized her the moment she closed her eyes at night. Dreams that were full of blood and screams and a pretty lady with blonde hair. Mummy? Something had happened to her. Someone had hurt her. And they had wanted to hurt Alice, too. But Fran had saved her. Fran had kept her safe. Fran would always keep her safe. Fran loved her. And Alice loved Fran.
Except, sometimes, just sometimes, Fran scared her a little, too.
Her bladder demanded her attention again. She padded to the bathroom, flicked on the light switch and pushed the door open.
The bathroom was small and bright. She shut the door again so as not to wake Fran and sat herself on the toilet. She weed, wiped and flushed. Instead of facing the mirror over the sink, she ducked and washed her hands under the bath taps.
Clickety-click. The pebbles sounded louder, which was stupid because they were in the other room. Clickety-click. And now she was sure she could hear something else, like the soft washing of waves on sand. Like the sound was inside the room. No, inside her head.
She tried to shake it out, but it wouldn’t go. Clickety-click. Clickety-click. It was hard to resist the pull. And it was getting stronger. Slowly, she raised her eyes. The girl in the mirror smiled.
“Alissss.”
“I can’t.”
“Pleeeeease.”
Alice shook her head. But the movement was slow and sluggish. Her eyelids started to droop. The bath tap gushed, water swirling down the plughole.
Alice stepped into the bath and lay down.
“I want to ask you something.”
Harry sighed. “I may not want to answer—”
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
Harry paused. Obviously not quite what he was expecting. He took a while to reply.
“I think, when something terrible happens, we all deal with it in different ways. We find something that helps us cope.” He coughed, cleared his throat. “Evelyn volunteers now, at a shelter for abused women.”
“Really?”
Gabe couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. He found it hard to imagine the perfectly coiffed, starchy, conservative—with a small and big “C”—Evelyn lowering herself to mix with the desperate and disadvantaged. But then, maybe she’d changed.
“Things had got quite bad,” Harry said. “She…she took some pills.”
That didn’t surprise him. He remembered the pills Evelyn had given him before the identification. Throughout everything, for as long as he’d known her, Evelyn had always been in control. Even at the funeral, she didn’t cry. Not really. Oh, she dabbed at her eyes, she sniffed, she popped eye drops. But proper snot-dribbling-down-your-chin wailing—no. She kept it all in. Kept up her composed façade. But you can only button yourself inside that chemical straitjacket for so long before you realize that your jailer is you and there is only one way of release.
“Anyway,” Harry continued, “it seems to have helped her. Knowing she is doing something positive for other women and children.”
“I’m glad she’s found a vocation.”
A thin smile. “It takes her out of the house. I sometimes wonder if that’s her real motivation. If being with me, together, reminds her more.”
His voice cracked a little. He coughed again. Harsh, guttural. Gabe wondered again about his sudden agedness, the limp. If he still had the expensive-cigar habit.
“What about you?” Gabe asked. “What do you do?”
“I keep myself busy. Golf, gardening. I’m learning archery.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “Right.”
“I’m not sure if it’s coping or distraction. But we do what’s necessary to get by.”
“I suppose.”
“What I’m saying is, I understand that this obsession of yours is your way of coping. I don’t think you’re crazy. But I do think it’s desperately unhealthy.”
“Thanks.”
“Until you accept that they’re dead—both of them—you’ll never move on with your life.”
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
“Your choice. But you’re still young. It pains me to say it, but you could meet someone else, have more children. It’s too late for Evelyn and me. But you could rebuild your life. A fresh start.”
Fresh start. Like life was a carton of milk. When one went sour you threw it out and opened another.
“I want to help you, Gabe,” Harry said in a softer voice. The one Gabe imagined he used to use with his patients when he told them that their test results were back and the news wasn’t good.
“I know. That’s why I called you.”
Harry nodded. “Well, if I can do—”
“I found the car.”
Gabe took his phone out of his pocket. He had taken several photos the other night. They were a bit grainy, the flash whiting out a lot of detail, but they showed most of what he needed. The car, from several different angles, trunk closed. The stickers. Harry peered at them and frowned.
“D’you see?” Gabe said, unable to contain the slight desperation in his voice. He needed Harry to believe him, he realized. Needed vindication.
“I see a rusted old car in a lake.”
Gabe zoomed in on the screen.
“See the stickers?”
Harry peered more closely and gave a small shrug. “Maybe. I couldn’t be sure.”
“It’s the same car, Harry. The one I saw that night.”
Harry sighed. “Gabe, maybe you did see a car with a little girl in it. Maybe this is the same car. But it wasn’t Izzy. You made a mistake. It was dark, at a distance. Little girls that age can look alike. It was another little girl who looked like Izzy. You must see that?”
“No.” Gabe shook his head. He took the folder out of his pocket and shook out the hair bobble, holding it up for Harry to see.
“I found this. It’s Izzy’s.”
Harry stared at the bobble and his lips thinned.
“Okay.” Gabe took out the notebook, pulling out the map with it and then somehow managing to drop them both on the ground. He bent and snatched them back up, frantically brushing off the dirt.
“What about this?” He opened the notebook. “Does this mean anything to you? The Other People?”