Page 33 of Girl, Remembered

‘I need to talk to you about Lindsey Doyle. I know she helped you, and I say that word in inverted commas. She’s still out there, in Washington D.C., and I need to know where she’s hiding out.’

Varro seemed to consider that, but then he lay back and stared at the white ceiling. With the absence of a free left arm, he folded his right across his chest. It was an odd gesture, and Ella had to interpret it as refusal.

‘Doyle killed three people close to me, and she sewed their lips shut. I want to know if she learned how to sew from you.’

Varro remained still. His chest rose and fell, and then he shut his eyes tight.

‘Simon. I know you can understand me.’

Nothing.

Ella glanced back at Ripley, who gave her nothing but a shake of the head, and a look that said this was new territory for her too.

‘I know you were a sewing instructor throughout prisons all over the country. I know you did a stint at Angola in Louisiana. That was where you met her, wasn’t it?’

Ella didn’t know this for sure, but whether she was right or wrong, it should elicit some reaction in the man.

It didn’t.

Of course, she couldn’t blame him for being combative toward the person who’d ended his free life.

‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ Ella went on. ‘You could lie there until they discharge you into a cell for the rest of your life, and never write a word, and I’d still walk out of here and keep hunting her without you. But three people are already dead this morning because of that woman, and I’m betting there’s a version of you in there somewhere that doesn’t want a fourth.’

Varro flinched a little. He uncrossed his single arm, but remained still.

‘Last night, you hesitated when Doyle told you to kill me. You only killed people who deserved it. The people that died this morning didn’t deserve it. They were victims of Doyle, just like you are. It’s not me you should be angry at. It’s her. She used you for her own gain. Why should you suffer and not her?’

A monstrous vein emerged from Varro’s bicep when he suddenly tensed it. Something was stirring under that exterior, Ella could feel it.

‘Doyle left you to die, and you know it.’ Ella leaned into his orbit. ‘So, help me find her – and maybe you won’t spend the rest of your life in jail. We can help with that, right Mia?’

Ripley shrugged. ‘Who’s to say? You killed three people, Varro, but they were all criminals in their own right. A judge might take that into account. You might get twenty years, fifteen with good behavior. We can help with that, but you gotta help us out.’

Varro looked at the pad on the blanket, then at Ella, then held out his free hand and made a small motion with two fingers.

Open it.

Ella’s heart rate picked up speed. The silent man was about to tell her something.

She flipped the cover back for him. He picked up the marker, uncapped it with his teeth and began scrawling, somewhat frantically. Ella couldn’t see the angle of it from where she sat. His furious scribbling made her think of a demented prisoner writing on the walls in feces.

Mueller came round to look. So did the guard. Ripley stepped up beside the doctor and craned her neck, and Ella watched all three of their faces for a read and got nothing back.

‘Mia. What is it?’

Ripley didn’t answer. After what felt like an hour, Varro finished. He put the cap back on the pen and tapped his creation.

Ella turned the notepad around.

She’d forgotten, in the space of one bad night and one worse morning, that Simon Varro was also a talented artist.

He hadn’t written anything. He’d drawn a picture.

A picture of a low wall and, beyond that, a vast pond surrounded by giant trees.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘This is where she is, Mia. She has to be.’