“I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“You miraculously find the car you have been searching for, for three years, and you can’t remember where, exactly?”
He didn’t reply. This time the notebook did snap shut. She shook her head. “Get some rest, Mr. Forman. We’ve finished here.”
No. He was close. So close to getting her to believe him. But he had nothing else, except…the photos. They were in his wallet, not his laptop bag. He still had the photos.
“Wait!”
His coat was slung over one of the plastic chairs. He swung his legs out of bed and reached for it, grimacing at the sudden hot burst of pain in his side.
“There’s something else. I have these.”
He fumbled in his wallet, pulled out the photos and thrust them at her. She recoiled slightly.
“Where did you get these?”
He hesitated. Even though he was pretty sure that Harry was a lying son of a bitch, he didn’t want to hand him to the police. Not yet.
“I can’t tell you.”
Her lips thinned. “Seems like there’s a lot of stuff you can’t tell me.”
“Look—someone sent me the photos. I think they were trying to convince me Jenny and Izzy were dead, but they got it wrong. Because of the scratch.”
She squinted at the photos. “I don’t see a scratch.”
“Exactly. That morning, our cat scratched Izzy. But there’s no scratch in this photo.”
“The cat must have scratched her another morning. You’re confused.”
“No. I’m not. I’m just sick of being called a liar.”
“No one is calling you a liar. Despite what you think, I am not your enemy.”
“You thought I was a murderer.”
“Actually, I never really thought that. It didn’t work. To drive home, murder your wife and child, get yourself cleaned up, drive back along the motorway and call from the service station, miraculously avoiding all the traffic cameras? Not feasible. And then there was the anonymous caller.”
Gabe had thought about that, too. The call reporting a break-in at Gabe’s house, just before the murders. It wasn’t a neighbor. The police had decided it must have been a concerned passerby. But why not come forward?
“There was me thinking it was my honest face,” he said now.
“Never trust an honest face.” A pause. “Of course, if you’d just told us where you really were from the start, it would have made our jobs a lot easier.”
“And have you judge me for that, too?”
“You were judged by the court and sentenced.”
“Please,” he said. “Can’t you just ask about the photographs, check with the coroner or something? I mean, only Harry identified the bodies. It’s just his word.”
“And you think he lied?”
“Maybe. Maybe he was…mistaken.”
“You’re suggesting that your father-in-law misidentified your wife and daughter’s bodies.”
“No, just Izzy’s.”
“Do you understand how insane that sounds?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
Maddock picked up the photos again. She peered more closely at the one of Izzy. He waited, heart thumping. Finally, she turned to him.
“Okay. I’ll get someone to look at the photos. But first—where’s the car?”
“I—”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
He debated. He could lie. Claim he just stumbled over it. Say he never looked in the trunk.
“Barton Marsh, off Junction 14. There’s a lay-by just past a farm. Follow the footpath till you get there.”
She jotted it down.
“Don’t suppose you care to tell me how you found it?”
“No.”
“Fine.” She put the notebook back in her pocket and started to do the same with the photos.
“Wait.”
“What?”
He hesitated. “The photos. They’re all I’ve got. The only proof.”
“And you think I’m the sort of police officer who would misplace evidence?”
“No, but—”
The “but” hung in the air, reverberating with accusation.
“You have to trust someone, at some point.”
He debated with himself then nodded. “Fine.”
She tucked the photographs into her pocket.
“Thank you. Now, if I do this for you, can you do something for me?”
“What?”
“Think about what I said before. Siestas. Sipping margaritas at sundown.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“Even me.”
“Especially you.”
A police car was parked outside her mum’s house.
Katie pulled up behind it, yanked on the handbrake and climbed out. Her heart felt like it was fighting her lungs for space. She couldn’t help it. The sight of a police car, outside their house. Too many memories.
However difficult her mum was, however awkward their relationship, she still worried about her, still cared for her. It isn’t until you lost a parent that you understood the magnitude of their presence in your life. So many times, after Dad, she would pick up the phone to call him and pause, mid-dial, remembering that he would no longer greet her from the other end with a cheery “Hello, sweetheart.” It wasn’t a temporary absence. He was gone. Forever. The realization sideswiped her again and again.
This is not the same, she tried to tell herself as she walked up the driveway. Not the same. Still, the feeling of unease that had started back in the café had increased tenfold. She rang the bell. A few seconds later it swung open.
Her mum stood in front of her. She looked thin, haggard and older than ever. She eyed Katie suspiciously.
“Why are you here? Has she called you? Have you seen her?”
“Mum. Calm down. I was worried about you, so I left work and drove straight over.”
Her mum glared at her and then turned abruptly. “You’d better come in,” she said, and walked back down the hallway.