Chapter 10
She left shortly afterwards.
It had been cold out on the scaffolding and they’d gone back inside and climbed down the stairs, then Eve had said she’d better be going, wanting to get home and hug this day to herself, to think about what Joe had said, to process it, savour it.
It had been a lot for one day, but now everything made sense.
He had wanted her to know he liked her too, she realised, but was waiting for her to make the next move, to set the pace.
By the time they’d gone all the way back downstairs and into the kitchen, she no longer felt afraid to tell him she’d like to see him again.
She gave him the note she had written with her phone number on it, and he said he’d find his phone and message her so that she had his too.
At the back gate, as they’d said goodbye, he was more like his former silent, diffident self, but he was smiling.
Eve found herself smiling, too, as she walked briskly back through the Parks and over the bridge, then along the dirt track and through the field that led to her street.
The world was now brimming with possibility.
The end to her loneliness had arrived at long last. The melody to the Paul McCartney song ‘No More Lonely Nights’ popped into her head and, glancing around to make sure no one was nearby, she began to sing the words, then laughed out loud at how ridiculous she was being.
She thought about the video to the song, the one with Paul McCartney singing from the rooftop of his building, and she imagined Joe standing on his scaffold balcony in the moonlight, singing the same words, and she laughed out loud again.
She felt glad she’d had a chance to burn off all this nervous energy with no one watching.
As she walked up the path to her front door, she heard a car door slam and the sound of footsteps behind her. She turned to see a man walking purposefully towards her. He was wearing a bomber jacket and jeans and had cropped grey hair and a humourless expression.
‘Eve Shotton?’ he asked.
Eve stopped. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’
The man unzipped his jacket and pulled out a warrant card holder, opening it up to show her. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Jon Carver,’ he told her. ‘From Thames Valley Police.’
‘What’s happened?’ Eve gasped. ‘Is it Sascha? The girls? Oh my God, is it one of my parents?’
‘This isn’t about your family, Eve.’
‘Then …?’
He stepped forward. ‘Can I come inside?’
‘Why? What’s happened?’ Eve asked again, her heartbeat quickening.
The detective pursed his lips. ‘We need to talk about Jamie.’
‘Jamie who?’
‘Jamie Clarke.’
Eve frowned.
‘OK. So, what name has he given you?’
‘Who?’ But as soon as Eve asked the question, she knew.