“I know you have spoken to Sergeant Carter, but I’d like to ask you a few questions myself. Sometimes people remember things differently once a little time has passed. Especially when a crime might have taken place.”
“Are you suggesting I’m a few sandwiches short of a picnic?”
I smile. “Not at all. The same rules apply to everyone. Almost allwitnesses are unreliable and they sometimes remember something they forgot to mention the first time or didn’t think was relevant when we ask them again.”
“Fine. Hope you don’t mind dogs.”
I like them far more than I like people, so no worries there.
As though on cue a sausage dog and a Labrador come into the hallway to sniff and greet me. A pug follows close behind and I wonder how many dogs there can be in such a tiny house. I politely refuse the half-hearted offer of tea, I just want to be sure of what this man did and didn’t see. The answers he gives me are very similar to the answers he gave Carter, but what I’m most interested in is the other woman he thinks he saw.
“What other woman?” he asks, staring over my shoulder at the muted TV in the living room behind me. I get the impression I might be keeping him from his favorite show.
“When you spoke to Sergeant Carter you said you saw another woman, running up the hill after the first one.”
“No, I never.”
“You didn’t see a second woman? Or you didn’t tell him that you did?”
“You’re making my head hurt speaking in riddles. I saw a woman, just the one, running up the hill toward the suicide spot. How many times do I have to tell you people the same thing? Carter has always been a scobberlotcher. Back in my day police officers wrote things down and remembered what you told them. Not anymore. Now there are two of you asking the same bloody questions and still getting everything I say wrong. Have you got cloth ears too?”
I leave feeling even more confused than before.
Did Old Stu forget what he saw?
Or did Carter make up what he said in the transcript?
47CARTER
You couldn’t make this up.
That’s what I think when I see Eden Fox alive and well at The Manor.
I genuinely thought she was dead—that the body on the beach was her—and now I don’t know what to think. I thought I knew the woman. I thought she had feelings for me, but now I feel like a fool. I kissed her and she kissed me back, but clearly it meant nothing to her. She lied to me—possibly about everything—and I need to know why.
I hurry out of the room and chase after the woman dressed in white who I know as Eden Fox, but who has been calling herself Mary here. I see her running down the grand spiral staircase and do my best to catch up, but she’s fast. She turns a corner, runs across the entrance hall—almost losing her balance and skidding on the polished parquet floor—then through a door, slamming it closed behind her. By the time I catch up and yank it open I see that it leads to a large dining room. There are small tables immaculately set with white linen tablecloths, elaborately folded napkins, silverware, and crystal glasses. Classical music plays softly in the background, and well-dressed young people are helping themselves to breakfastalready. There is a huge, round table in the middle of the room covered in an abundance of delicious-looking food as though this were a luxury hotel and not an institution. They all stop and stare when they see my police uniform.
“Where did she go?” I ask nobody in particular.
“Who?” asks a random girl.
“Eden.” My answer is met with blank faces. “Mary,” I try instead, and someone points toward a set of glass doors leading to the formal gardens. I weave my way through the tables and chairs and out of the building. I stop and scan the grounds for any sign of her, then I hear a car engine in the distance. I sprint toward the car park just as a red Mini appears on the driveway. It’s her. I block the car’s path, thinking she’ll slow down, but the car speeds up, hurtling toward me. I only just manage to dive out of the way in time.
Eden Fox won’t come back to The Manor, not now that she knows I’m onto her, but her daughter is still here. Gabriella warned Eden to run. She’s not as innocent or as broken as everyone else seems to think. I hurry back inside and run straight into the nurse dressed in white.
“I need to speak to Gabriella again.”
She glares at me. “Absolutely not. I don’t know what is going on here but I won’t have our residents upset like this. That poor girl will need sedating, thanks to you.”
“Then you can answer my questions. How long has Gabriella’s mother been visiting her here and pretending to be an employee?”
“Whatareyou talking about? That wasn’t Gabriella’s mother. That was Mary, and she wasn’tpretendingto be one of the staff, she works here.”
“That woman was Eden Fox,” I insist.
“No, she wasn’t. Come with me to the office and I’ll show you Mary Kendall’s staff file. We do checks on all of our employees, for obvious reasons, and we keep detailed records. I have no idea why she ran away from you—that’s her business—but she isn’t who youthink she is. I am telling you that you are mistaken, and your mistake has caused a vulnerable young woman a great deal of stress. Follow me.”
I do follow Ingrid to the office, feeling more like a chastised school boy with every step. But I’m getting used to women telling me off and telling me I am wrong about everything. A symphony of tiny violins starts playing inside my head, but I can’t seem to silence them. I thought Eden had feelings for me, but clearly she doesn’t. I thought she was dead but she isn’t. And I was convinced that Harrison Woolf was protecting his daughter, and that Gabriella had something to do with all of this, but I guess I was wrong about that too.
