فصل 06

6

JULES

I scrabbled to my feet, a triumphant smile on my lips, because I knew it—I knew they were wrong, I knew you weren’t really gone. And there you stood in the doorway, telling me to get the FUCK out of your room. Sixteen, seventeen years old, hand around my wrist, painted nails digging into my flesh. I said get OUT, Julia. Fat cow.

The smile died, because of course it wasn’t you at all, it was your daughter, who looks almost exactly like you did when you were a teenager. She stood in the doorway, hand on hip. “What are you doing?” she asked again.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m Jules. We haven’t met, but I’m your aunt.”

“I didn’t ask who you were,” she said, looking at me as though I were stupid, “I asked what you were doing. What are you looking for?” Her eyes slid away from my face and she glanced over towards the bathroom door. Before I could answer, she said, “The police are downstairs,” and she stalked off down the corridor, long legs, lazy gait, flip-flops slapping on the tiled floor.

I hurried after her.

“Lena,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. She yanked it away as though scalded, spinning round to glare at me. “I’m sorry.”

She dipped her eyes, her fingers massaging the place where I’d touched her. Her nails bore traces of old blue polish, her fingertips looked as though they belonged to a corpse. She nodded, not meeting my eye. “The police need to talk to you,” she said.

She’s not what I expected. I suppose I imagined a child, distraught, desperate for comfort. But she isn’t, of course, she’s not a child, she’s fifteen and almost grown, and as for seeking comfort—she didn’t seem to need it at all, or at least not from me. She is your daughter, after all.

The detectives were waiting in the kitchen, standing by the table, looking out towards the bridge. A tall man with a dusting of salt-and-pepper stubble on his face and a woman at his side, about a foot shorter than him.

The man stepped forward, his hand outstretched, pale grey eyes intent on my face. “Detective Inspector Sean Townsend,” he said. As he reached out, I noticed he had a slight tremor. His skin felt cold and papery against mine, as though it belonged to a much older man. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

So strange, hearing those words. They said them yesterday, when they came to tell me. I’d almost said them myself to Lena, but now it felt different. Your loss. I wanted to tell them, she isn’t lost. She can’t be. You don’t know Nel, you don’t know what she’s like.

Detective Townsend was watching my face, waiting for me to say something. He towered over me, thin and sharp-looking, as though if you got too close to him you might cut yourself. I was still looking at him when I realized that the woman was watching me, her face a study in sympathy.

“Detective Sergeant Erin Morgan,” she said. “I’m very sorry.” She had olive skin, dark eyes, blue-black hair the colour of a crow’s wing. She wore it scraped back from her face, but curls had escaped at her temple and behind her ears, giving her a look of dishevelment.

“DS Morgan will be your liaison with the police,” Detective Townsend said. “She’ll keep you informed about where we are in the investigation.”

“There’s an investigation?” I asked dumbly.

The woman nodded and smiled and motioned for me to sit down at the kitchen table, which I did. The detectives sat opposite me. DI Townsend cast his eyes down and rubbed his right palm across his left wrist in quick, jerky motions: one, two, three.

DS Morgan was speaking to me, her calm and reassuring tone at odds with the words coming out of her mouth. “Your sister’s body was seen in the river by a man who was out walking his dogs early yesterday morning,” she said. A London accent, her voice soft as smoke. “Preliminary evidence suggests she’d been in the water just a few hours.” She glanced at the DI and back at me. “She was fully clothed, and her injuries were consistent with a fall from the cliff above the pool.”

“You think she fell?” I asked. I looked from the police detectives to Lena, who had followed me downstairs and was on the other side of the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Barefoot in black leggings, a grey vest stretched over sharp clavicles and tiny buds of breasts, she was ignoring us, as if this were normal, banal. As though it were an everyday occurrence. She clutched her phone in her right hand, scrolling down with her thumb, her left arm wrapped around her narrow body, her upper arm roughly the width of my wrist. A wide, sullen mouth, dark brows, dirty blond hair falling onto her face.

She must have felt me watching, because she raised her eyes to me and widened them for just a moment, so that I looked away. She spoke. “You don’t think she fell, do you?” she said, her lip curling. “You know better than that.”