“What do you think?” was the withering response.
“And?”
“Always straight to voice mail.”
“Can you remember the last time she tweeted?”
“Why do you want to know? Why are you asking me all these questions?”
Sanderson paused—how to respond? “We’re just trying to make some progress on Roisin’s case. Frankly too little has been done so far and her communications are the best hope we have of finding out where she is.”
Another long silence, then:
“She tweeted earlier today actually.”
“Saying?”
“Nothing of interest. Just a gripe about having a bad day.”
“Can you remember the exact time?”
“Hold on,” Sinead replied. Sanderson could hear her rummaging through her bag for her phone.Come on, come on,Sanderson thought to herself, casting a nervous eye over the sheet of timings that lay on the table in front of her.
“Here we are,” Sinead responded. “She tweeted at... six fourteen p.m. today.”
“And the one before that?”
“Yesterday. Just after ten a.m.”
Sanderson took Sinead back through a few more of Roisin’s tweets, then ended the call, promising that she would be back in touch shortly. Sanderson had a nasty feeling that she would honor that promise and when she did, it would be with the bleakest of news. The timings of Roisin’s last five tweets matched exactly with the timing of Ruby Sprackling’s latest communications.
Helen had been right all along.
58
“So, how was your day?”
The words sounded so alien, but she forced them out, all the while maintaining her broad smile.
“It was fine, thanks.”
“Were you working? Do you work?”
“You know I work, Summer.”
His knowing reply rattled her, but she was not going to be weak. Not today. “What do you do?”
He looked at her and smiled.
“You look pretty tonight,” he eventually said.
“Thank you. I... I wanted to make an effort.”
“It shows.”
Ruby hesitated, looked at her lap, then, lifting her gaze to his, carried on:
“I also wanted to say sorry. For being unkind. I didn’t mean it.”
