Perfect.
My mood instantly lifts at the thought of seeing Jo and Paul and not spending the evening alone, as I’d envisaged. A camera in my back garden will give me peace of mind.
I place the phone next to me on the floor as I continue going through Rufus’s clothes. I root inside the pockets of his jeans. Mostly the odd tissue and ticket stub from the gigs he’s been to with Charlie. And then my fingers brush against something crisp, with a jagged edge. As I pull it out I feel a throb of pain to my finger. It’s a newspaper cutting, folded up small, the edge slicing the fleshy part of my finger. I suck it, tasting blood, and then, with the otherhand, I peel open the cutting and lay it out flat on Rufus’s carpet. I read the headline and a wave of nausea washes over me.
BABY FOUND ON HOSPITAL STEPS
This was one of the articles pinned to the Morgans’ wall, although I’d only been able to see part of the headline as it had been hidden by the other newspaper cuttings. My eyes dart over the next few paragraphs, words popping out at me.St Calvert’s. Newborn baby found on 22 February 1999. Abandoned. Cardboard box. Nurse. Simone Harvey.That was my last week of training before I left my course. I scan the piece again. My name isn’t mentioned. I was only talking to Oliver about this earlier. I remember him telling me about a journalist contacting him. I check the top of the newspaper and see that it’s dated a few days after the baby was found.
For a moment, sitting there slumped against Rufus’s bed, I experience a strange, disconnected out-of-body feeling. The room swims and I have to blink a few times to anchor myself to the here and now. Why has Rufus got this?
And then something so horrific occurs to me that I’m struck by a sudden wave of nausea. Was it Rufus I saw breaking into the Morgans’ house the night I was there? The hooded figure had gone into the room with all the newspaper articles. Joan’s spare key is missing from my drawer. Did Rufus take it? Confusion makes me feel dizzy. But I had the key that night. The person I saw broke inanother way. It can’t have been Rufus. He’s a good boy. He’d never think of breaking into someone’s home. And what would be his motive? It makes no sense.
But, then, nothing about any of this makes sense. Nothing at all.
50
‘So, you use this app here to view the camera,’ explains Paul, that evening. ‘It’s really straightforward.’
I’m trying to take in what he’s saying but all I can think about is the article I found in Rufus’s pocket. I haven’t had the chance to tell Jo yet and, for the two hours before she arrived, I was stressing about what to do and what it could mean. I need to ask Rufus, but he’s at his dad’s and it’s not a conversation I want us to have over the phone. Either way, having had time to think, despite the way it briefly looked, I don’t believe Rufus broke into the Morgans’ house and took the cutting. He must have found it somewhere. I know Rufus’s every mannerism: little details like how he walks, round-shouldered with his arms dangling in front of him as though he doesn’t want to be noticed, the way he inclines his head, or fluffs up his fringe with the palm of his hand. I don’t know who that person, thatman, I saw in the Morgans’ house was, but it wasn’t Rufus.
The patio doors are open, the vibrant orange sun descending behind the houses opposite even though it’s nearly 10 p.m. A family of wood pigeons coo and flap around the higher branches of my silver birch and the air is still warm enough for me not to have to wear more than a T-shirt. I can smell a barbecue in the air and hear thefaint clatter of cutlery, the clinking of glasses and laughter drifting from a few doors down. We are sitting at the patio table, Jo and I with glasses of prosecco, Paul with a Diet Coke. Jo is being loud and raucous in the heady, relieved Friday-night way that was once so familiar to me when I couldn’t wait for the weekends to spend time with Charlie and Rufus. I wonder if the Morgans are in their back garden, and it makes me feel unnerved. Jo is discreet enough not to mention them, but I hope, if they’re in the garden, Henry in particular will take heed if he hears us talking about the security camera.
Paul is sitting next to me, leaning over to show me my phone screen. A black-and-white image of us sitting in the garden looms out at me. ‘And if you want to go back and see earlier footage you just press here,’ he says, indicating an arrow on the screen. ‘And likewise to go forward, frame by frame.’
I take the phone from him. ‘Thanks so much, Paul. You’re a lifesaver.’
Paul stays and chats with us for a bit, but I get the feeling he’s not entirely comfortable being the only man. He and Charlie used to get on well and the four of us would often be at each other’s houses for dinner. After twenty minutes or so Paul kisses his wife’s cheek and announces he needs to pick up Charmaine. ‘Ring me later when you want me to come and get you,’ he says, stretching his legs and adjusting the waistband of his trousers.
I thank Paul again and he says, ‘Any time,’ his good-natured face beaming with pleasure that he’s been able to help.
‘You’ve got a good one there,’ I say, when Paul has gone. ‘He’d do anything for you.’
‘Charlie was a good one too,’ she says softly.
‘Really?’
‘Of course. God, Lena. He adored you.’
I chew my lip, which tastes of alcohol. It never seemed that way to me, at least not in the last few years. Now, in my prosecco-fuelled haze, I wonder if I was too hasty. ‘I wished we’d just rowed. You know, like couples do. A proper blazing row, air all our grievances, put everything on the table.’ I sigh.
‘Paul and I bicker all the time. Or rather,’ she laughs and stretches out her legs, kicking off her flip-flops, ‘I rant at him, and he listens, bless him.’
I twirl my wine glass, heaviness pressing on my chest. ‘Anyway, it’s too late for all that now. It’s been nearly eight months. He’s moved on and so have I.’
She raises an eyebrow at me but doesn’t say anything.
Phoenix is flopped at our feet and the night darkens. I lower my voice. ‘Shall we go in?’
It’s lovely and balmy outside – I’ll miss the warm nights when the heatwave is over – but I want to tell Jo about Oliver and Simone. She gathers up the bottle of prosecco and her flip-flops and follows me inside. I close the patio doors, making sure to lock them, and we head into the living room, Phoenix at our heels.
Jo makes herself comfortable on the sofa, tucking her feet up. ‘So, go on, then. I know you’re dying to tell me all about your meeting with Oliver. What was it like seeing him again? Was the old attraction there?’
I shake my head. ‘Not really. He said some interesting things, though – concerning, actually.’ I tell her everything I talked about with Oliver: Simone going missing, the keyring I found in the Morgans’ garden that he confirmed was hers, and the call from the journalist.
‘Shit. So he thinks the Morgans might be connected somehow with the Hugh Warrington drugs scandal?’
‘It’s a possibility. And then last night I found something in Rufus’s pocket.’ I tell her about the newspaper cutting.
