23
I leave all the lights on for the rest of the night. Sleep is an impossibility now, so instead I check all the doors and windows again, search all the rooms twice – even the little box room and the garage – checking under all the beds, then finally shower and dress and put a pot of coffee on. No TV or radio, no Alexa, nothing to mask the sound if someone tries to get into my house again. I make a mental note to buy a couple of deadbolts for the kitchen door and fit them before tonight. Then I scan a dozen news websites for updates on Mia and Kathryn, but there doesn’t seem to be anything new beyond what they were running yesterday. Kathryn is still missing. The unnamed baby is barely mentioned, almost a footnote to the story now she has been found. The CCTV image of me no longer features on most of them.
I wait until 7 a.m. to make the call. He picks up after three rings, answering with a single word.
‘Gilbourne.’
‘Hello, Detective Inspector, it’s Ellen Devlin.’
A moment of silence.
‘Ellen,’ he says, his voice rising with surprise. On the phone he sounds younger. ‘Hello.’
‘Sorry to call so early, but I need to talk to you.’
‘Everything OK?’
‘Erm, yes. I think so. For now, anyway.’
It’s not entirely true. I can’t shake the sense that someone is behind me, whenever I stand with my back to the room, whenever I’m near an open door, as if someone is going to burst through it any moment. The sense that someone is following me, watching me. Waiting for me.
‘Are you sure?’ he says. There is a rustling noise before his voice comes back clearer. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at home.’
‘You’re safe?’
I feel a little glow of appreciation, that his first thought is for my well-being.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Is now a good time?’
There is another pause on the line. He’s breathing heavily, I realise, breaths punctuating each word as if he’s just climbed a steep flight of steps. I’m about to say more when his voice returns, cutting through the silence.
‘Sorry Ellen, can I call you back in literally one minute?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Of course.’
He rings off without another word and I stand in the middle of my kitchen with the phone in my hand, staring out at the empty garden. Another area that was always Richard’s domain, the mowing and weeding and pruning the little apple tree at the end. There’s a six-foot fence on all three sides. Was that how the intruder had got in, pulling themselves up and over a fence panel? I can’t see any obvious signs of damage, but one side borders the street – that would be the obvious place to come over. Dizzy sits on a fence post at the far end, surveying his domain, blinking slowly at me in the weak autumn sunshine. On a clear morning it’s the one place that always catches the sun as it rises between the trees.
A minute later, the phone vibrates in my hand.
‘Hello again.’ Gilbourne seems to have got his breath back. ‘What’s on your mind, Ellen?’
‘Sorry to wake you, inspector.’
He grunts with something like amusement.
‘I’m a long way from my bed, don’t worry about it.’
‘I need to ask you something first.’ I take a sip of coffee. ‘Am I still a suspect?’
‘The investigation is ongoing.’
‘But do you think I was lying in the interview on Tuesday night?’
There is a brief silence at his end of the line, an exhalation of breath or maybe cigarette smoke.
‘Officially or unofficially?’
