Mirrorland Carole Johnstone (find a book to read .TXT) 📖

wanted to follow up on her reply to an email I apparently sent her.’

‘I don’t know who that is,’ Ross says, but the confusion in his voice has been replaced by caution.

‘Well, she knows who you are. Has made, in fact, a statement to the effect that she witnessed you loading your suitcase into your car and leaving Southwark University twenty-two hours before you said you did.’

‘No, I—’

‘We’re currently checking ANPR cameras and CCTV footage, so we will track the timeline of your journey all the way back here, Ross.’ She folds her arms. ‘We also got a warrant to check your phone records on the third; lucky for us, your phone was switched on when PC Thompson phoned at eighteen-thirty to tell you about your wife’s disappearance. And where do you think your phone company’s cell-site dump placed you?’

‘I was just driving.’ Ross looks worried. He’s no longer leaning against either Logan or the wall. ‘I was just fucking driving!’ He points a finger at me. ‘I told her that. Ask her!’

‘I don’t need to ask anyone. I already know you were in Edinburgh.’

‘She phoned me – El phoned me! She asked me to come back.’

‘So, why did you not tell PC Thompson—’

Logan steps between them. ‘He’s got a head injury, boss.’

‘And, like I said,’ Rafiq says, never taking her eyes off Ross, ‘we’ll be getting that seen to down at the Royal.’

‘I don’t know!’ Ross shouts. ‘We were having problems, I told you that. I just needed time to think. I had no time to bloody think! I just parked somewhere after driving through the night and slept in the car. That’s all! I knew it would look bad, I … maybe I panicked. I don’t know. I don’t—’

‘There was one phone call logged to you at seventeen-thirty on the second, but it wasn’t from El. It was from an insurance company based in Newhaven. And when Logan here gave them a ring, they told him it was likely a courtesy callback because you’d completed an online quote enquiry the previous day. And can you imagine our surprise when we found out what kind of insurance it is they specialise in?’

Ross’s face is grey. His whole body is vibrating, and even now, my throat swollen and throbbing, my stomach clenched tight with something like hate, it takes far too much effort not to go to him.

‘Accidental or negligence-based marine insurance,’ Rafiq says. Her eyes shine. ‘Bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? That why you didn’t take it out in the end? Thought even us plods might find that a wee bit too suspicious the day before your wife disappears in her boat?’

‘This is wrong,’ Ross says. ‘You’re fucking wrong.’

Rafiq shakes her head. ‘D’you remember that anonymous phone call I questioned you about two days after El went missing? Well, yesterday, two people actually came forward to make official statements alleging that you were hurting El—’

‘What? Who?’

‘I can’t tell you that,’ Rafiq says. But I think of Anna’s determined grief, the long black line of mascara from her left eye to her temple. And Marie’s dismissive smile when I threatened to report her if she didn’t leave us alone.

Rafiq pauses, then reaches into her pocket. ‘We’ve also got a second warrant to search this house.’ Her voice drops, softens. ‘So I’ll ask you just once more, Ross. Do you know what happened to your wife?’

‘Boss,’ Logan says, ‘we can’t do this, not until he gets seen by a doc. You know that.’ And then closer, under his breath: ‘We can’t fuck this up now.’

‘He knows,’ I say. As loud as I can, even though it hurts. It hurts more to look at Ross, but I do that too. Because now, surely, even he can see the writing on the wall. Red and stark and bloody. ‘He knows. Because he killed her.’

‘No!’

Rafiq turns, cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘Do you have any proof of that?’

‘The kayak in the shed. And I found a chest inside Blue—inside the bedroom at the end of the corridor upstairs.’ I swallow before I remember it’s a bad idea – the pain is momentarily so bad it eclipses everything else, even the burn of Ross’s horrified gaze. I raise my head, look back at him without faltering. ‘I found your Treasure Trophies.’

‘Cat.’ Rafiq turns me towards her.

‘I think it’s a drain plug,’ I say. Sorrow washes through me, leaving me emptier still. ‘And a hole saw.’

Ross makes a sound somewhere between a shout and a moan, and I close my eyes as Rafiq thunders back up the stairs.

‘What are you doing, Cat?’ His voice is broken, as hoarse as mine. ‘How can you—’

‘Ross, I’d advise you to stop talking.’ Logan’s expression is pained. ‘For your own sake.’

Rain drums against wood. Pain is everywhere now, not just in my throat, and I have to numb myself against it: the fear, the horror, the regrets that are growing – too fast for me to think of anything else. Think of El. Not him. Think of El.

When Rafiq comes back, I’ve stopped shaking. She marches over to me, ignores both Ross and Logan.

‘Is there anything else?’

I can hear the flat, echoless rhythm of police boots against mosaic tiles. The groan of the landing, the scream of a dusty black door. I stand on the Satisfaction and look up into the dark of Mirrorland’s alleyway, my thin sips of breath getting thinner as I think of us battling storms and brigantines. Looking up, always up. Towards the screams of splintering wood and dying men, the bellows of cannon and musketoons, the roar of the squall.

I reach into my jeans pocket for the letter El wrote to me, hold it out to Rafiq.

She pulls some latex gloves out of her coat. Opens the letter, reads it, takes a sharp inhalation of breath. And when someone shouts down from the summit of Mirrorland, ‘They’ve found them, ma’am,’ something a lot more savage than relief lights up her face.

Ross makes a