“There were a couple of things that struck me as a bit weird.”
I lean toward him, forearms on the table. “Go on.”
“They said I should try to find out from you exactly where the stuff had been found. Like,exactly. I should find out if it was like an attic room or under the floorboards or something, exactly where and which room. They kept banging on about that. I didn’t really get it, like why did it matter where they’d been as long as their grandad got them back, right?”
“And what was the other thing?”
“They said there were seven things to get back: the watch, the phone, the wallet and the other stuff I can’t remember. Anyway, they were dead specific about it, said I had to get all of them to get the other five hundred quid. It was no good just getting a few. They needed all seven. All or nothing.”
31
I sit at a red traffic light on the way home, the conversation with Shaun still ringing in my head. There had been a strange, surreal intensity to the whole exchange, an undercurrent of tension beneath it all. It feels like I’d been handed another two pieces of a thousand-piece jigsaw—but I still had no idea where any of the pieces went, or how they might fit together.
And yet those few fragments of information had to meansomething.
The story he’d been told by “Mason” was obviously bogus, but as Shaun had said himself: what difference did it makewherein the house they were found? It didn’t seem relevant to anything, apart from maybe satisfying a curiosity. More to the point, why did it matter so much thatallof the items were recovered, rather than only some of them? Why was that significant, unless Mason was a completist, an all-or-nothing kind of person? If each of them represented one part of a greater whole, then what could that possibly be? The motive for hiring Shaun can’t have been financial, because the only thing of any real value was the Rolex. The rest of it would barely merit a second look at the average car-boot sale. The fact that Shaun had been tasked with recovering all seven suggested that they were all equally valuable, in some way. Equally important.
Or perhaps equally dangerous.
As the traffic light turns green, I finally let my thoughts wander in a direction I’ve resisted up until now—a direction that seemed too outlandish, too fantastical, to merit any serious thought.
A chill creeps over my skin and I shiver despite the warmth of the day.
The key with its distinctive key ring had not belonged to Adrian Parish. His wife—widow?—had not recognized anything apart from the collar and tag that had once, a long time ago, been worn by a beloved family pet.
So if the collar was a link to one missing person, what about the scarf, the glasses, the other odds and ends? What if each of the items I’d discovered in the room had a similar story to tell?
There was something else that Shaun let slip, without even realizing it might be significant. Something Mason had said to him.
He said he lived abroad.
What was the old saying about a lie? That all the most convincing lies contained an element of the truth? Because therewassomeone with a direct link to my house, someone who lived abroad. Someone who still hadn’t returned my message.
The previous owner’s son: Kevin Hopkins.
I arrive at school early to pick up Callum and Daisy, a low-level buzz of worry that I need to betherewhen they emerge into the playground, to be extra-vigilant for strangers lurking around, for anything unusual. While I’m waiting, I call Jeremy and get his voicemail, so I leave a message asking him to pass on my number to Kevin Hopkins again as a matter of urgency.
Pulling up on the drive with the kids in the back, I see with relief there’s no nasty surprise left on the doorstep today. Before we head inside, I shepherd both children around to next door to deliver the thank-you card for Mrs. Evans that they’d made the previous night. Normally I’d just take it around myself but I don’t want to leave them home alone, even for a few minutes.
The doorbell of number ninety-three is still echoing when the door swings abruptly open. Mrs. Evans stands there in a lilac pinny over her gray cashmere jumper and skirt, yellow rubber gloves, and a small silver-handled paring knife in her hand.
“Hi,” I say, holding out the envelope. “This is from the children, a thank-you for the cake.”
She takes it from me, her face expressionless.
“How sweet.” She opens the envelope with a single slash of the knife and pulls out the card, studying the thick strokes of crayon briefly without a twitch of a smile. Daisy has drawn a picture of a cake and five stick people on the front, with Callum adding a few words and both their names inside.
“Lovely,” Mrs. Evans says, slotting the card into the pocket of her apron.
The hall behind her is similar to ours, doors off to the sitting room and dining room, second reception room off to the left, straight through to the kitchen at the back. Except the décor in hers looks even older than ours, fading wallpaper, yellowed skirting boards, a large picture of a sailing ship in a dark wooden frame on the wall.
“Looks like you’re in the middle of something,” I say, holding a hand up. “Or do you have a minute?”
“How’s your littlest one enjoying school?” She fixes Daisy with an unblinking stare. “Is she settling into Mrs. Pett’s class?”
“Yes, thanks, she loves it.” I can’t remember ever telling my neighbor about Daisy’s teacher. “You… know the school, do you?”
“Her jumper. The school crest?” She taps her chest. “She’s what—four and a half?”
