The hall is empty and there is no one in the dining room. I double-check that the French doors are locked anyway. Coco is in the kitchen, curled in her basket by the radiator, snoring quietly in her sleep.
When I flick the landing light on, a figure is illuminated on the stairs.
My son, in his pajamas, throws a hand up to his face to shield against the sudden brightness.
“Cal?” I say. “Mate, what are you doing up so late?”
His thick brown hair is sticking up in all directions.
“Can’t find him.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Stay Puft.”
“He’s got out again?”
He nods, still blinking against the light.
“The noises woke me up. Got up to check on him and couldn’t see him.”
I move up the stairs and take his small hand in mine. “Come on, let’s find him together.”
From my experience dealing with my kids’ “lost” clothes and “lost” toys, I look in the most obvious place first. I flick the light on in Callum’s room and sure enough, the hamster is still right there in his cage, safe and sound, nestled at the bottom of a large pile of shredded newspaper.
Callum’s voice is thick with confusion.
“But I couldn’t see him. Thought he’d run off again.”
“He’s fine,” I say. “He’s just sleeping. Like you should be.”
I tuck him back into bed, pull his door closed, and stand on the landing, listening to the house again.
Everything’s OK.
I go back to the lounge to collect my laptop. But instead of shutting it down, I perch on the sofa again and check my phone. I’ve called the mystery number three more times since Shaun’s visit but it went to voicemail every time.
It’s well past midnight when Steve appears in the doorway with a smallmeow, amber eyes blinking sleepily. He stretches his front legs, flexing his claws into the rug, then pads over to me and jumps up, flopping half on me and half onto the keyboard. Any time could be food time on Steve’s schedule, if someone was still awake—and now was as good a time as any. I yawn and rub his tummy idly as he purrs his deep bass purr before I’m interrupted by the electronicpingof a message arriving on my phone.
Maxine wants to meet again.
And this time she wants to see everything I found in the hidden room.
25
WEDNESDAY
Daisy wets the bed again that night.
She doesn’t scream this time and doesn’t mention a ghost when I go to her room to put her in new pajamas, strip the little single bed, and—inevitably—bring her into our bed for the rest of the night. In the morning, when Jess has already left to drop Leah at school and Callum is skidding noisily up and down the hall in his silver-foil astronaut’s outfit, I pour milk on her Rice Krispies and ask gently if she had the bad dream again. But she simply frowns and shakes her head, digging into her cereal with an orange plastic spoon.
Hopefully, she’s forgotten about the man behind the door.
Back at the house after dropping the two of them at school, I put a pot of coffee on and take a quick shower, digging my best suit out of the wardrobe and printing out a couple of fresh copies of my CV. The job interview is only for a six-month contract but it will keep me going until I find something more permanent. I still have half an hour to kill before I need to head into the city, so I sit at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee and dial 101. Maxine Parish may have given up on the police, but I could give them a try.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m still sitting with the phone pressed to my ear, on-hold music looping round and around as I peer out of the kitchen window at the gap low down in the side fence. I really needed to fix that.
My heart sinks slightly when I eventually establish that the police officer mentioned in the most recent news story about Adrian Parish’s disappearance has retired. But no one seems to know who has inherited DC Phil Goode’s cases—or what to do with my call. Finally, there is a click and an older female voice comes on the line, introducing herself as DC Tanya Rubin and asking—for the fourth time—about the nature of my inquiry. When I’m finished going through the same spiel about Adrian Parish, the dog collar, and where I’d found it, there is a short silence filled only with the faint hubbub of other conversations happening at her end of the line.
