Tibbsy blushed again. ‘Sorry,’ he said to her.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Nasreen shook it off. ‘So he was arguing with his daughter in the street twelve days before they both disappeared.’
‘Yeah, and on the same day she posted on her Facebook page that she was feeling down and “everything sucked”,’ Freddie read from her phone. Nasreen was starting to piece together a picture in her mind.
‘That’s his daughter.’ Moast let a whistle out his teeth. ‘She looks like a goer.’
‘She’s fifteen in that photo.’ Freddie minimised the page.
‘No wonder he was doing his nut!’ Moast laughed. Tibbsy made a half-hearted attempt to join in, before a look from Freddie silenced him.
Now Nasreen wanted to get back to the office more than ever. ‘That’s been really helpful.’
‘Has it?’ Freddie sounded surprised.
‘Thanks for your time, sir,’ Nasreen said, holding out her hand for Moast to shake again.
He gripped it and grinned at her, wrapping his other hand over hers. ‘Always a pleasure, Cudmore. Stop by whenever you like. But next time leave Venton in the car, yeah?’
She smiled and nodded, keen to get out of there. If she was right about the man calling himself Corey Banks then this could be explosive. They could have been looking at this all wrong. She was halfway down the corridor back to the car when she heard the slap of Tibbsy’s feet on the linoleum behind her.
‘Hey, Nas,’ he called.
‘Hey, Tibbs – remembered something else?’
‘What?’ His eyebrows knitted briefly together. ‘Oh: no. Sorry. I just wanted to say I was sorry again. For what I said in there. You know me: big mouth – big feet to put in it.’ He looked sheepish.
‘Seriously, forget about it. I have,’ she said.
‘You promise? Because you and me have always been cool, haven’t we?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she said growing uneasy. Did he want something? Perhaps he was on the lookout to progress from the Jubilee himself?
‘Cool,’ he said. ‘That’s cool then. Brilliant.’ He took a step back, his long arms flapping at his side. Half a wave. ‘Right. I’ll be seeing you then.’
‘Right,’ she said, smiling.
‘Stop by whenever you want.’
‘Okay,’ she said, stepping backwards herself.
‘Okay – so I’ll see you.’
‘Bye,’ she said, sensing this could go on for ages. Tibbsy might want to drag his heels today, but she had things to do. Increasingly pressing things. She glanced at her watch. She could be back at the office in twenty with a bit of luck. Not that it was likely to make a difference now. Not after so long. She could be mistaken, obviously. Could have misread the situation. Briefly she closed her eyes and prayed that that was the case. Because if she was right, if what she suspected were true, then the consequences for Amber could be very bleak indeed.
That night she’d taken down the box from its shelf. It wasn’t pretty, like she really deserved, but it was waterproof and fireproof. A safe box. A safe place for her to be. She slipped off the chain she wore under her shirt and pushed the small gold key into the padlock. It was silly keeping it locked, really. No one else lived here, no one else would begrudge her this, but she preferred to keep it personal. It was a secret between her and her girl.
Gently she opened the lid. Her senses greedy for it, she reached in, pulled out the small knitted blanket and held it to her nose. She could smell her: her baby. She closed her eyes. She was back in the hospital room again.
So happy and so sad, all at once. Light seemed to pour from Tegbee, her big brown eyes staring up at her. Her eyelashes were so long, and she had a dusting of hair that curled round her scalp like silk. She was the prettiest, most beautiful baby she’d ever seen. And she was hers. She’d made this little miracle. She stroked her full cheeks as the girl blinked. She didn’t even cry. Only grizzled once, but she stopped when Kate started to sing to her. Hush little baby, don’t say a word, mama’s going to buy you a mocking bird. And if that mocking bird don’t sing, mama’s going to buy you a diamond ring. The doctors must have made a mistake. There couldn’t be anything wrong with a child who was so perfect.
Kate opened her eyes: don’t think of that bit. Don’t think of the pain. Not tonight, not now. Carefully, she laid the blanket on the table. She hadn’t had a drink since the night she’d seen the video, but today was a special occasion. Regardless of everything else going on, she would still celebrate. As if she were here. The bottle was chilling in the fridge, still wrapped in its blue tissue paper from the deli. Only the best for my girl. She opened the cupboard where she kept her best china and took down one of the crystal flutes her sixth formers had presented her with on their graduation.
‘That was the year we lost three boys,’ she said out loud. ‘One to leukaemia, and two to juvenile detention.’ She unfurled the tissue paper and loosened the safety cap of the bottle. ‘But it was also the first year that one of our students made it into Oxford.’ She held the cork, twisting the bottle. ‘His name was Dwayne Haden. You would have liked him.’ The cork popped and a stream of bubbles frothed out of the bottle. She laughed as she caught the fizz in her glass. Then she poured one more and took them both back to the table.
Under the blanket was the onesie Tegbee had worn on that first day. She’d buried her in the christening dress that had belonged to Kate’s mother. They’d had to take Kate’s womb out when Tegbee had arrived; she knew there’d be no more children. She lifted out the photos. Her and her baby smiling. You could she had her father’s eyes. But Tegbee’s lips were from her mum. Sometimes she couldn’t help imagining what she would look like now. She’d be so beautiful. Tall like her dad. Would she love the same books as her? She’d planned on sharing her favourite films with her little girl, curling up on the sofa with her in her arms. Reading to her at night. When she was older they would have spent summers in Ghana and the States; she was going to teach her all about her heritage. The bubbles rose in the glass and popped. Kate lowered her flute and clinked it against the one on the table.
‘Happy nineteenth, baby girl.’
Her body is warm, soft. His duvet barely covering her naked ass. Her leg pressed against his, the rhythmic push of her hip. He starts to gasp. Her hand softly works its way down under the covers, down his chest, round his nipple, down his stomach, tracing the line of hair that’s started to grow there. He gulps. Tries to control himself. And then he’s stroking her beautiful face, feels the flesh turn cold and come away in his hands. Chunks of meat fall from her. He tries to push it back, hold her together. He starts as her bone fingers close over his dick. Her beautiful dark eyes fall onto swivelling nerves. Her lips laugh and fall away from her skull, biting into his face, and scurry across his body, hungrily drawing blood. Her flesh peels back and she’s sinew and muscle and then skeleton. He tries to get away, but laughing she mounts him. Pushes him back. She claws at his chest, plunges her fingers into him, grabs his heart. Pulls it out. He can see it beating as she squeezes, and her hip bones snap closed over his cock.
He has screamed himself awake too many times. So he won’t sleep. Nights are the hardest. He sits in the corner, on the floor. The bed is too soft.