Attention shifts to the TV, where the football has been replaced by a news bulletin. Drone footage shows the pale outline of a forensic tent, almost hidden from view by overhanging branches. The next pictures are of police searching the uncut meadow, walking in a long straight line through knee-high grass. One of them pauses, crouches, and picks up a discarded soft-drink can, which he places in a plastic evidence bag. The picture changes again. This time Jodie’s body is being carried up the embankment.
“Turn it off!” begs Maggie. Dougal reaches for the TV remote. Fumbles. Curses. The screen goes black.
“Why would anyone hurt our baby?” whispers Maggie. Her shoulders heave, as though shifting weight from one to the other.
Lenny glances at me, but I have no words to make this right. I know what awaits them. In the days to come, Jodie’s life will be picked apart by the media, who will feast on this story: the young “golden girl” of skating, who dreamed of Olympic glory but died in a cold, muddy clearing less than a mile from her home.
As a forensic psychologist, I have met killers and psychopaths and sociopaths, but I refuse to define people as being good or evil. Wrongdoing is an absence of something good rather than something fated or written in our DNA or forced upon us by shitty parents or careless teachers or cruel friendships. Evil is not a state; it is a “property,” and when a person is in possession of enough “property,” it sometimes begins to define them.
Would it benefit the Sheehans if I told them this? No. It won’t bring them comfort when they lie beside each other tonight, staring at the ceiling, wondering what they might have done differently. People who lose children have their hearts warped into weird shapes. Losing a child is beyond comprehension. It defies biology. It contradicts the natural order of history and genealogy. It derails common sense. It violates time. It creates a huge, black, bottomless hole that swallows hope.
Dougal is pouring himself a drink at a bar cabinet. Most of the bottles have duty-free stickers still attached. Maggie seems more relaxed when he’s not focused on her. She talks more freely. Remembers.
“When Jodie learned to ride a bike, I wouldn’t let her leave the cul-de-sac because I didn’t want her riding out of sight. People said I was overprotective, but I know how these things happen. Later, when she started school, I let her walk to Tasmin’s house, but never in the dark—not on that footpath. We used to call it the Black Path because it had no lights. Even when the council finally put them in, we still called it the Black Path.”
“Why did Jodie and Tasmin split up last night?” I ask.
“Jodie went to get fish and chips,” says Felicity.
“By herself?”
Nobody answers.
“Does she have a boyfriend?” I ask.
“Not a proper one,” says Felicity. “Sometimes she hangs out with Toby Leith.”
“The rich kid?” Dougal says, in a mocking tone.
“He’s not that rich,” says Bryan. “His father has a car dealership.”
“How old is Toby?” I ask.
“Too old,” says Dougal.
“He’s eighteen,” explains Felicity, who doesn’t like correcting her brother-in-law. “They only hang out.”
Dougal reacts angrily. “What does that even mean? Jodie was supposed to be in training, not running around with some redneck in a flash car.”
Maggie flinches and looks even more miserable.
“When did you realize that Jodie was missing?” I ask, wanting to change the subject.
“She was supposed to come back to ours,” explains Felicity. “Tasmin waited up until eleven and then fell asleep.”
“Did Jodie have a key?”
“Tasmin left the patio door unlocked.”
“She was out there all night,” says Dougal, his voice breaking.
Felicity sits on the edge of his armchair and brushes his cheek with her hand. It’s an intimate gesture, like watching Androcles pulling a thorn from the lion’s paw. These people are close, I think. They have raised their children together, celebrating birthdays, christenings, anniversaries, and milestones. The highs and the lows.
“When did you realize Jodie was missing?” asks Lenny.
“I went to wake Jodie for training, but she wasn’t in Tasmin’s room,” says Bryan. “I figured she must have gone home last night, so I drove by here to pick her up. That’s when we realized that she’d been missing all night.”
“And you phoned the police,” says Lenny.
The couples look at each other, waiting for someone else to answer.
“We looked for her first,” says Bryan. “I went to the ice rink. Tasmin began phoning her friends.”
Lenny studies Dougal. “What about you?”
He motions to the window and the black cab outside. “I was working last night. I got home around seven and went straight out again, looking for Jodie.”
“Where?”
“I walked along the footpath.”
“What made you immediately think of Silverdale Walk?”
“It’s the way home,” he replies, as though it should be obvious. His voice catches. “I must have walked right past her.”
Maggie is staring at the wall, as though looking into the past.
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I prayed.”
“Someone had to stay here in case Jodie called or came home,” explains Felicity.
Lenny seems to be quietly plotting the timeline of events. It made no difference when the police were called. Jodie had been dead for hours.
“Is there anyone who might have wanted to harm your daughter?” Lenny asks.
Maggie looks lost. “What do you mean?”
“Did she talk about anyone following her? Someone who might have looked out of place or made her feel uncomfortable or unsafe?”
Nobody answers.
“Is there anyone who might want to hurt your family?”
Dougal makes a scoffing sound. “I drive a cab. Maggie works in the school canteen. We’re not low-life crims or scumbags.”
Lenny doesn’t react. Perhaps she should be talking to the parents separately to gauge their different responses. Dougal has the stronger personality and Maggie defers to him, never questioning his answers or interrupting. She’s not subservient, but neither is she an equal in the relationship.
I walk to the sliding doors and peer into the darkness of the garden. An outside light reveals a deck with a hot tub, covered for the winter. I try to picture Jodie here but have too little information to breathe life into her pale corpse. I need to discover who she was before if I’m to understand what happened to her. Was she friendly and approachable? Would she say hello to a stranger who passed her on the footpath late at night? Would she nod and smile or drop her head, avoiding eye contact? Would she run if attacked? Would she fight back? Would she submit?
“Can I see Jodie’s room?” I ask, directing the question at Dougal.
He hesitates for a moment before showing me up the stairs. Jodie’s room is nearest the shared bathroom. Dougal won’t come inside. He hovers in the doorway, as though waiting for permission to enter from a daughter who will never be able to grant it.
The pillow on Jodie’s bed has a small indentation where her head last rested. Next to it is a floppy rag doll with yellow yarn curls and button eyes. It is a typical teenager’s room. Messy. Cluttered. Characterful. Dirty clothes are strewn near a wicker basket and a lone shoe has been thrown towards the wardrobe. I have to stop myself wanting to bend down and put it in place. A damp towel from yesterday is lying on the floor.
Studying the room, I imagine Jodie sitting cross-legged on the bed, a little girl playing with dolls and cutting and pasting pictures. She grew up and graduated from crayons to eyeliner, from Barbies to boy bands. Every detail resonates; the book on her bedside table, doodles on a piece of foolscap paper, a collection of lanyards hanging from the doorknob.
Her shelves are lined with ice-skating trophies and medals. The wall above her be
d is covered in photographs and posters of skaters, some of whom I recognize but can’t name. Katarina Witt is among them, as well as Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. The camera has captured many of them in midair, seemingly defying gravity, while others glide across the ice with the grace of ballet dancers.
Polaroids are pinned to a corkboard above Jodie’s desk. Most of them show Jodie and Tasmin together. They are sitting on each other’s laps in a photo booth, pulling faces at the camera. Jodie is the prettier of the two. Tasmin is more self-conscious about her looks, tilting her face to hide the weight she carries around her neck. Jodie is smaller, with a skater’s body, slim and muscled. She’s more at ease with her body, showing it off in miniskirts and tight tops.
I notice a barrel bolt lock on the door, which has been affixed crookedly.
“That was Jodie’s doing,” explains Dougal. “She wanted her privacy.”
“Who was she trying to keep out?”
“Her brother mainly. Felix can push her buttons.”
“He’s older?”
“Twenty-one.”
I remember the youth I saw at the community center, urging Dougal to go home.
“Does Felix live here?” I ask.
“He comes and goes.”
There are more trophies on a shelf above Jodie’s bed. Some have come from junior competitions in Moscow, Berlin, and Hungary.
“You must have been very proud,” I say.
“Every time I watched her skate.”
Dougal inhales, holds his breath. Exhales.
“Most people take figure skating for granted. They don’t realize what goes into it—the courage and skill it takes to glide across the ice and spring into the air and spin three or four times before landing on a single blade as sharp as a knife. I’m a boneheaded man. I don’t read books or recite poetry or understand paintings, but Jodie was beautiful on the ice . . . truly breathtaking.”
Lenny calls up the stairs. She’s ready to go.
We offer our condolences and leave the two devastated families to their grief. Outside, as I reach the police car, I pause and turn back towards the house. A figure is standing motionless in an upstairs window, gazing steadily in our direction. Felix Sheehan is shirtless, or perhaps naked, his lower half shielded. He flicks at a cigarette lighter, triggering a flame and dousing it, while looking directly at us with a hatred that sustains rather than corrodes him.
What does he want to burn, I wonder, and why does he want to burn it?
6
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
“Do you remember your mother?” asks Guthrie.
“With her long blond hair and her eyes of blue, the only thing I ever got from her was sorrow, sorrow.”
“You’re quoting David Bowie.”
“I like David Bowie.”
Guthrie is wearing a funky patterned sweater that was probably knitted by his mother. It’s too heavy for the central heating, but he won’t take it off because he doesn’t want to show his paunch.
“What about your father?” he asks.
“Papa was a rolling stone. Wherever he laid his hat was his home. And when he died, all he left us was alone.”
“The Temptations.”
“It’s a good song.”
“You’re not taking me seriously.”
“You’ve asked me this stuff before.”
“And you haven’t answered.”
“Recognize the pattern?”
Leaning back in my chair, I rub the instep of one foot with the arch of the other. I’m not wearing shoes or socks—preferring bare feet because I like to feel the ground beneath me. My electronic tracker looks like a manacle minus the ball and chain. I tested it once. I made it as far as the parking area before the alarms started sounding.
“I want what’s best for you,” says Guthrie, giving me his hangdog look.
“Then let me go.”
“Answer my questions.”
Isn’t my silence loud enough? I think. Don’t tell me that my silence doesn’t have a sound. I can hear it, loud and clear, screaming between my words.
Guthrie sighs and scratches at a razor burn on his neck, lowering his eyes to look at my file. He’s going bald in a neat round dome on top of his skull. Does it happen to all men? I wonder. I quickly draw up a mental list. Alfie and Dylan from the kitchens have full heads of hair. Paddy the gardener is a little bald, and Reno, one of the counselors, shaves and oils his head, so it’s hard to tell. Terry Boland had hair, which fell out after he’d been dead a few weeks, which isn’t the same. Some do, some don’t, is my guess.
Guthrie has been talking to me. He lectures more than talks. His voice is so boring he should make meditation tapes. “Soporific” is my word for the day. Every morning I choose a new one from the dictionary and try to put it into a sentence. Certain words stick in my mind, like “peripatetic” and “serendipitous,” because they sound so musical. Others I’ve forgotten already.
When my mind wanders the walls seem to drop away, and the streets and houses and cities disappear, until I find myself lying in the shade of a tree, smelling the grass and turned earth and wood smoke. Nearby, my mother is moving between the rows, filling a wicker basket with raspberries and red currants. I don’t know if this is a real memory or if someone has planted it in my mind to make me believe that I had a childhood, but I can remember the soft golden light and the buzz of bumblebees in the hedgerows and the coarseness of the grass. I remember my mother’s dark hair, which curled over her shoulder as she worked.
Guthrie’s voice intrudes. “What would you do if you could leave?”
“Get a job. Find somewhere to live.”
“I could help make that happen.”
“Good.”
“We could process the paperwork today—all I need is a few details.” He clicks the top of a pen. “Firstly. Your date of birth, and your real name, and where you were born.”
I sigh as though I’m dealing with a moron.
Guthrie continues. “How do we know you’re eighteen?”
“You’ve checked my teeth and my wrist bones. You’ve taken X-rays and measurements.”
“Those tests have a margin for error.”
“I’m in the margin.”
“How did you meet Terry Boland?”
“We met in the springtime at a rock-and-roll show.”
“Is that another song lyric?”
“Might be.”
“Did he kidnap you?”
I sigh and toy with the cord of my track pants, twirling it between my fingertips. There’s no point getting annoyed or acting the way I feel, which is bored shitless, because I’ll get another red card.
“Can I have a drink of water?” I ask.
“No.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Not until you answer the question. I’m trying to help you, Evie, but we have to meet each other halfway.”
Halfway to where? People always say that when they have no idea of the distances involved. I could come from another planet. I could come from another time in history. But they want to meet me halfway.
I am happy with who I am. I have pieced myself together from the half-broken things. I have learned how to hide, how to run, how to keep safe, despite never knowing a time when my blood didn’t run cold at the sound of footsteps stopping outside my door or the sound of someone breathing on the opposite side of a wall.
I know the jittery, crawling sensation that ripples down my spine whenever I feel the weight of eyes on me. Searching my face. Trying to recognize me. And no matter how many times I step into doorways or look over my shoulder or yell, “I know you’re there,” the street is always empty. No footsteps. No shadows. No eyes.
“I understand your pain,” says Guthrie. “I know how it separates you from a normal life, from what’s true and real.”
How does anyone know what’s true or real? Things we once accepted as facts are now accepted as being wrong. The earth is not flat, smo
king isn’t good for us, Pluto isn’t a planet, witches weren’t burnt at the stake in Salem, and humans have more than five senses. Everything has a half-life—even facts.
Guthrie rocks back in his chair and looks at me impatiently. He begins quoting from my file—which he seems to know by heart—the foster homes, my escapes and arrests, the alcohol and drug abuse.
I interrupt him. “Why are you so determined to keep me here? You don’t even like me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re frightened of me.”
“No.”
“Really? How is your wife? Has she asked you for a divorce yet?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Are you seeing a counselor?”
“No.”
“Liar! Are you having an affair?”
“No!”
“Is she?”
“Of course not.”
“She is!”
“Shut up, Evie.”
“Is he an old boyfriend or someone new? Someone she met at work. A colleague.”
“That’s a red card.”
“I overheard you talking to Davina. You told her that you didn’t want your wife going back to work, but you couldn’t afford the mortgage on a single wage. You said her boss was a sleazebag. Is he the one?”
“Please stop,” groans Guthrie.
“Let me go.”
“You’re not ready.”
“Who was that man who came to see me today?”
“A psychologist.”
“What did he want?”
“He came to look at you.”
“Why?”
“I think he can help you.”
“Can he get me out of here?”
“Maybe.”
I know he’s telling the truth, but not the whole truth. The idea makes me shake with dread and excitement.
“Is he coming back?”
“I hope so.”
I do too, but I say nothing.
7
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Two photographs of Jodie Sheehan dominate the front page of the Nottingham Post. One shows her dressed in her school uniform with her hair neatly brushed and the barest hint of makeup. Jodie is smiling cheekily at the camera, as though someone behind the photographer has made her laugh. The second image captures her in motion on the ice in a costume that sparkles with sequins.
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