Chapter 31
I sit at a red traffic light on the way home, the conversation with Shaun still ringing in my head.
There had been a strange, surreal intensity to the whole exchange, an undercurrent of tension beneath it all.
It feels like I’d been handed another two pieces of a thousand-piece jigsaw—but I still had no idea where any of the pieces went, or how they might fit together.
And yet those few fragments of information had to mean something.
The story he’d been told by “Mason” was obviously bogus, but as Shaun had said himself: what difference did it make where in the house they were found?
It didn’t seem relevant to anything, apart from maybe satisfying a curiosity.
More to the point, why did it matter so much that all of the items were recovered, rather than only some of them?
Why was that significant, unless Mason was a completist, an all-or-nothing kind of person?
If each of them represented one part of a greater whole, then what could that possibly be?
The motive for hiring Shaun can’t have been financial, because the only thing of any real value was the Rolex.
The rest of it would barely merit a second look at the average car-boot sale.
The fact that Shaun had been tasked with recovering all seven suggested that they were all equally valuable, in some way. Equally important.
Or perhaps equally dangerous.
As the traffic light turns green, I finally let my thoughts wander in a direction I’ve resisted up until now—a direction that seemed too outlandish, too fantastical, to merit any serious thought.
A chill creeps over my skin and I shiver despite the warmth of the day.
The key with its distinctive key ring had not belonged to Adrian Parish. His wife—widow?—had not recognized anything apart from the collar and tag that had once, a long time ago, been worn by a beloved family pet.
So if the collar was a link to one missing person, what about the scarf, the glasses, the other odds and ends? What if each of the items I’d discovered in the room had a similar story to tell?
There was something else that Shaun let slip, without even realizing it might be significant. Something Mason had said to him.
He said he lived abroad.
What was the old saying about a lie? That all the most convincing lies contained an element of the truth? Because there was someone with a direct link to my house, someone who lived abroad. Someone who still hadn’t returned my message.
The previous owner’s son: Kevin Hopkins.
I arrive at school early to pick up Callum and Daisy, a low-level buzz of worry that I need to be there when they emerge into the playground, to be extra-vigilant for strangers lurking around, for anything unusual.
While I’m waiting, I call Jeremy and get his voicemail, so I leave a message asking him to pass on my number to Kevin Hopkins again as a matter of urgency.
Pulling up on the drive with the kids in the back, I see with relief there’s no nasty surprise left on the doorstep today.
Before we head inside, I shepherd both children around to next door to deliver the thank-you card for Mrs. Evans that they’d made the previous night.
Normally I’d just take it around myself but I don’t want to leave them home alone, even for a few minutes.
The doorbell of number ninety-three is still echoing when the door swings abruptly open. Mrs. Evans stands there in a lilac pinny over her gray cashmere jumper and skirt, yellow rubber gloves, and a small silver-handled paring knife in her hand.
“Hi,” I say, holding out the envelope. “This is from the children, a thank-you for the cake.”
She takes it from me, her face expressionless.
“How sweet.” She opens the envelope with a single slash of the knife and pulls out the card, studying the thick strokes of crayon briefly without a twitch of a smile. Daisy has drawn a picture of a cake and five stick people on the front, with Callum adding a few words and both their names inside.
“Lovely,” Mrs. Evans says, slotting the card into the pocket of her apron.
The hall behind her is similar to ours, doors off to the sitting room and dining room, second reception room off to the left, straight through to the kitchen at the back.
Except the décor in hers looks even older than ours, fading wallpaper, yellowed skirting boards, a large picture of a sailing ship in a dark wooden frame on the wall.
“Looks like you’re in the middle of something,” I say, holding a hand up. “Or do you have a minute?”
“How’s your littlest one enjoying school?” She fixes Daisy with an unblinking stare. “Is she settling into Mrs. Pett’s class?”
“Yes, thanks, she loves it.” I can’t remember ever telling my neighbor about Daisy’s teacher. “You… know the school, do you?”
“Her jumper. The school crest?” She taps her chest. “She’s what—four and a half?”
“Five at the end of July.”
“But rather small for her age.”
“A little bit.”
“Bright as a button though.” She wipes the blade of the knife on her pinny. “I know Mrs. Pett teaches Reception. I know all the teachers at the school.”
“All the kids seem to love her.”
“Of course they do.”
I give her a tight smile. If she’d had children of her own—and there had been no mention of any—they would have been a long way past primary school age.
But Mrs. Evans did genuinely seem to be one of those people who had a nose for everyone else’s business.
An observer, a watcher. A collector of facts.
She has pushed open her front door a little wider and my eye is drawn to a dozen pairs of eyes, all staring at me.
On a windowsill at the bottom of her staircase, a line of lifelike dolls are seated in a row, moon-faced and passive, hands folded in their laps.
They are horribly real-looking, dressed like small children, glassy eyes staring into nowhere and yet all seeming to focus on me.
“I wanted to ask,” I say, “did you by chance see anyone come by my house yesterday? Anyone who looked like they might be delivering something, or dropping something off?”
“An person?”
“No,” I say. “Not a delivery company. Someone else, maybe in a car, or on foot.”
She considers for a moment before shaking her head.
“Did you have a parcel stolen off the doorstep? I’ve heard about that happening. Scandalous. People just wandering up bold as brass and walking off with them.”
“No, it was…” I glance down at Daisy but she’s transfixed by the row of dolls on the windowsill. “There was a pigeon left on the doorstep.”
“Oh.” She looks taken aback. “That’s awful. Could have been that big ginger cat of yours, I suppose?”
“We’re not really letting Steve out yet,” I say. “Until he gets his bearings in the new house. So, you didn’t see anyone?”
“Afraid not.”
Callum tugs my hand, a silent message that says, Dad, can we go now? I squeeze gently back: In a minute.
“There was one other thing,” I say to my neighbor. “And forgive me for a rather random question, but does the name Adrian Parish mean anything to you?”
She considers me for a moment, unblinking, before giving a single shake of her head.
“Can’t say that it does, no. Who was he?”
“I wondered if he might have been a friend of Mr. Hopkins.”
“The name doesn’t ring any bells, I’m afraid.”
“Doesn’t matter, it was just—”
“What makes you think they were friends?”
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s not important.”
The knife is still gripped tightly in her gloved hand, the steel tapering to a razor-sharp point.
There is an odd feeling at my shirt collar and it’s only after a moment that I realize the small hairs at the back of my neck are standing up.
I shift position to look toward my house, through the screen of hedges.
I can just make out my car on the drive, an edge of the front door. All quiet.
I take a step back, out of the glassy-eyed view of the creepy dolls.
“Anyway, thanks again for the cake. I’ll leave you to it.”
It’s only when I’m in back in my kitchen, putting pasta in a pan for the children’s tea, that Eileen’s words come back to me.
Who was he? The way she had referred to Adrian Parish in the past tense.
Or was that just one of her peculiarities?
Perhaps she assumed everything was past tense if it related to my house and its previous owner.
I’m mulling over the rest of our conversation when a faint sound reaches me, quickly growing louder, the crunch of gravel on our driveway.
Running feet pounding up to the house, nearer and nearer until the crunching is replaced with a desperate hammering on the door—bang bang bang—the temporary doorbell chiming at the same time, then more impacts against the wooden frame of the door—bang bang bang—
I run to the front door and wrench it open to find Leah, red-faced, panting, hurling herself into the hall, and slamming the big front door shut behind her. She lets out a huge sigh and doubles over, hands on her knees from the exertion of running.
The first shot of adrenaline is already thrumming in my chest, my legs, my fists, the need to protect my eldest child and deal with any threat.
“What’s the matter?” I put my hands on her thin shoulders, the straps of her school backpack cinched tight. She is shaking with fear. “Leah, are you OK? What happened?”
It takes her a moment to gather enough breath to speak and her voice, when it finally comes, is broken by a sob.
“Someone was following me.” She’s still gasping, pulling in great shuddering breaths. “Someone in a car followed me home.”