‘Yes. And guess what?’
‘What?’
‘There’s a comb in the bathroom.’
‘Yesssssss!’ Lucy shouts.
They go to bed a little later. The moonlight is a clear flashbulb in the bedroom. Simone shuts it out. After less than five minutes in separate rooms, Lucy joins her, and Simone holds her hand as they fall asleep.
CHAPTER 47
Four o’clock in the morning. Simone wakes from sleep, having dreamed about that time years ago when Lucy ran off in Sainsbury’s and Simone thought she would expire from anxiety. In her dream, though, she doesn’t find her. She heads down aisles blocked by other people, the police attend, and, at the end, she rushes clean out on to the street and screams. Four o’clock seems to have embedded itself in some maternal cave in Simone’s mind, like her brain is telling her, in the small hours of every day, what she almost lost.
Her next thought is Moody. A confession will be issued to him today. Maybe he will help, but maybe he will hand them over.
She heads to Instagram, where a message is already waiting.
I need to come and join you, Damien has written. Anxiety fires at Simone. He has a plan.The police are asking lots of questions and following me a lot. I know what we need to do. If I know where you are, I can jump on an opportunity if it comes. Then we can figure things out together. Where are you?
Prove it’s you, Simone replies simply.
I met you by a Christmas tree, he says, which makes her smile wanly.
Simone hesitates, hesitates again, her fingers and thumbsskating over the keys and then deleting. And then she sends it to him, her husband.
Terlingua.
Simone picks up the charging phone again two hours later, unable to get back to sleep. She googles herself again, and sees it.
Uploaded only three minutes prior, it’s bittersweet, as bitter as lemons and as sweet as sugar in Earl Grey tea. Simone sits there with unshed tears in her eyes. Tears of pride, happiness, sadness.
DISHES AWARDED MICHELIN STAR.
CHAPTER 48
Simone hasn’t told anybody – Lucy, then – about Dishes. She has pushed it down in the way she knows best. The same place everything went once. School achievements, friendship dramas, emotional pain. Until she met Damien, who forced it out of her.
They are outside Moody’s office together at lunchtime. He said she should drop by any time, but Simone still wonders if he meant it. But, more than that, she wonders if seeking his advice is truly the right next step. So far, her instincts have kept them hidden.
It’s a stone building, like almost all of them, two storeys, somewhat asymmetric, or maybe it’s just falling down.MOODY LAWis written on a wooden sign above the door that leads directly to the stairs, and Lucy touches Simone’s elbow right as they’re about to go up. The stairs are municipal, brown carpets with metal nosings. A handrail, a door at the top propped open with a wooden wedge, and standing in its frame, waiting for somebody – them? – is Moody, legs long, arms folded, glasses.
He steps aside wordlessly, not looking at all surprised by Simone appearing, and with Lucy, too, even though she said she was alone. They squeeze past him and into an office.
Inside, Simone takes a steadying breath. The office is cluttered, papers everywhere. A fan whirs in the corner, disturbing pages of notebooks that drift up and down like birds’wings. Perhaps demonstrably, Moody closes the door, the handle clicking behind them. Then he crosses to the windows and closes two brown shutters.
Finally, he turns to them.
Just before Simone is about to ask him about confidentiality, he says to them, ‘Even fugitives need a defence lawyer eventually.’
On Moody’s desk is an old-school notebook and pen – he says he doesn’t like computers – with the wordKIDNAPPINGwritten in the centre. He’s drawn several arrows coming off it where he is writing down the evidence they have. He’s listened intently to their story from beginning to end. ‘You did nothing wrong’ was the first thing he said to them, mostly to Lucy.
He is now upending the pen rhythmically, clearly thinking.
‘For how long did you know it was us?’ Simone asks, feeling a strange combination of trepidation and relief.
‘Followed the story on the news,’ he replies. ‘Suspected it was you when you arrived – and then you spoke, and that’s when I knew. Your Midwest is woeful.’
‘Well, I’m pleased,’ Lucy says assertively. She’s sitting opposite him on the other chair. ‘What we need to do is find him.’ She goes on to tell Moody everything they know about the British man.
