‘Sorry about the mess.’ Megan Whitmore grimaced, whisking a paint tray from a styling chair for Cristy to sit down and quickly moving to the next to clear an Amazon box out of the way for Connor. ‘I meant to get here earlier, but my brother went off with the keys last night … I already told you that. Are you sure you’re OK with instant? We haven’t had our machine delivered yet …’
‘Instant’s fine,’ Cristy assured her.
‘I can easily pop out for some milk. The Co-op’s right …’
‘We both take it black.’ Cristy smiled, trying to put the young woman at her ease.
Megan smiled too and gave a little shudder of excitement. ‘I’ve never been interviewed before,’ she confessed. ‘I mean, apart from on Saturday when your guys knocked on our door to ask about Mrs Ivorson. They didn’t record what I said or anything – they just talked me through what would happen today if I was up for it … You get that I was only twelve backthen, don’t you? So I don’t remember much, but Clove said you’d probably still want to talk to me.’
‘Would you mind if I pinned this mic to your collar?’ Connor asked. ‘It just clips on, won’t do any damage.’
‘Oh, this is an old jumper,’ Megan assured him, ‘no need to worry.’ She looked down, watching his fingers at work, and seemed to flush slightly, which made Cristy smile. Young women were often attracted to Connor, and the most amusing part of it was that he almost never seemed to notice.
As he stepped back, Megan’s long-lashed eyes rose to his face and fluttered slightly, but he was already turning away.
She looked at Cristy, seemed to realize she’d been sussed and blushed again. ‘Great hair!’ she suddenly gushed. ‘What do you use for the waves?’
Wryly, Cristy said, ‘It’s how they fall …’
‘No way! I know women who’d pay fortunes to get that look.’ Her attention switched to the door. ‘Oh, here’s the postman – I’ll be right back.’
As she rushed to let him in, Connor attached mics to himself and Cristy, while she quickly scanned the notes Clove had typed up following the door-to-door enquiries at the weekend. There was only a short list of questions for Megan, but the answers she’d given on the day were interesting enough to get on record for possible future use.
Finally, they were ready to record, with Megan perched on the edge of a basin chair, her small hands folded over one knee, her big brown eyes fixed on Cristy as she delivered her usual preamble to set things up.
Suddenly, Megan gasped.
MEGAN: ‘There’s something I need to tell you. Oh God, I nearly forgot. It was after Clover and Jacks left on Saturday, when my mum got home. She wanted tocome this morning, to see you herself, but she’s had to take my nan to the doctor’s. Anyway, she said to tell you that Mrs Ivorson usually goes to the churchyard on Thursday afternoons to visit Mr Ivorson’s grave. She takes flowers and sits there for a bit … I don’t know how my mum knows that – she must have stalked her …’
She laughed nervously.
MEGAN: ‘Not really, my mum’s not like that. I expect she just happened to be passing.’
CRISTY: ‘Is your mum a friend of Mrs Ivorson’s?’
MEGAN: ‘No, I wouldn’t say that, but she tries talking to her every now and again. Mrs I is always polite but prefers to keep herself to herself. I suppose people have been that mean to her over the years … We’ve always wondered why she never moved away – that house must have such horrible memories for her … It used to spook the hell out of us when we were kids. To be honest – actually, I hate saying this – but she can come over as a bit creepy too, the way she never looks at you or bothers to say hello or answer if you ask how she is. We used to shout that out to her when we were young, you know,How are you, Mrs I? Tell us, how did they die?Isn’t that terrible? I feel so ashamed now, wish I could tell her I’m sorry …
‘You know what’s strange though – or nice, really – is she puts veg from her garden out in boxes for people to buy when they’re passing. And people do: tomatoes, rhubarb, onions, potatoes, strawbs in summer … She grows it all herself …
‘Of course, back when she started doing it, we used to think she was trying to poison us all, but my mum anddad were having none of that nonsense. They made us eat it, wouldn’t let us leave the table until we did … And now, here we are, all these years later, still eating her stuff and still here to tell the tale.’
Megan seemed so delighted by this that Cristy dutifully smiled, while picturing boxes of fresh, muddied produce perched on the wall of number 42 with, presumably, an honesty box somewhere nearby. She guessed people must have paid up, or it was unlikely Maeve would have continued to do it – at least it sounded as though Megan’s parents were the decent sort.
It was making her feel sad, Cristy realized, to think of Maeve’s tentative contact with the outside world. Did she watch from the window as passers-by helped themselves to her offerings?
How are you, Mrs I? Tell us, how did they die?
CRISTY: ‘Can you remember when you last saw Mrs Ivorson?’
MEGAN: ‘Mm, Clove asked me that at the weekend, and I’ve been trying to think. It was probably about two weeks ago, I’d say, on the Wednesday or Thursday. She came out of the house in her burgundy coat – she always wears it in winter with a black bobble hat and checked scarf – and she walked up the road to her garage. I suppose she drove off. I wasn’t looking any more … It was pure chance I even saw her, so I can’t tell you when she came back or if she did, but I’m pretty certain I haven’t seen her since. The only action there’s been over there is when the press turned up last Tuesday because Nicole had been let out.’
Cristy was watching her closely, trying to get a sense ofhow she might feel about the release, but for the moment at least, Megan seemed unbothered by it.
CRISTY: ‘Nicole would be – what, seven years older than you? Do you remember her very well from when you were young?’
MEGAN: ‘Kind of. I mean, we weren’t friends or anything – the age gap was too big – but obviously I saw her coming and going. She had, like, this amazing hair, all red and curly, right down her back … And loads of friends … I remember them sitting on the wall outside her house waving at drivers as they passed and laughing their heads off if someone beeped. She was probably about fifteen or sixteen at the time, and my mum always used to say, “They’ll get themselves in trouble, those girls, carrying on like that.”
‘I used to think they were pretty cool, especially as they got older and seemed more … sophisticated, I suppose. That was kind of when all the rows started, between her and her mum. She had a right temper on her, did Nicole. You could hear her screaming from across the street, telling her parents to mind their own business, they weren’t the boss of her, that sort of thing.
