After the Eclipse

by Fran Dorricott

“Can I get you a coffee?”

  I smiled and nodded. Then, with Marion’s courage buzzing in my veins, I decided to ask the question I’d wanted to ask for a while.

  “Do you remember the day my sister disappeared?” The coffee machine sputtered away. “You probably didn’t know us well back then.”

  “I remember it okay.” Ady shrugged. “Your grandad used to bring you in quite a bit, so I knew who you were. He always donated when we had fundraisers for the homeless kids, did charity bakes and stuff with me – he let you guys put the pennies in that tub I kept on the counter. The eclipse was something else, though. It was so busy.”

  “I think Olive came in here,” I said. “Do you remember if she spoke to anybody, or if anybody was hanging around?”

  Ady thought about this, his brow crinkling. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t even remember seeing her.”

  “Oh. I thought she did.”

  “She might have,” Ady said. “But if she did, I don’t think she bought anything. I’m sure I’d have remembered – after what happened. I’m sorry, Cassie. I wish I could help more.”

  Nodding, I said, “I’d better get off anyway. Thanks. And sorry again for being a dick.”

  Ady’s smile was warm and I was grateful. He was right, I needed to appreciate things more.

  “Any time,” he said.

  Outside the shop I stopped for a second, breathing in the spring air. It was warming up, the sky a universal pale grey threatening rain. I was just starting to relax, feel the buzz of the caffeine kick in, when Jake Howden rounded the corner.

  He was dressed in a pale grey suit and a blue shirt that was open at the throat. He gave me a smile, teeth flashing. I rolled my shoulders, half expecting a confrontation after the chat I’d had with his wife.

  “Earl’s has better coffee,” he said by way of greeting, gesturing at the nearly empty cup in my hand. “But sometimes I drop in here if I’ve not got time to wait for the good stuff.”

  I let out a bark of startled laughter. Whatever I was expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that.

  “I don’t think Earl’s coffee is that much better,” I said. I checked my watch. It was just after half nine. “Shouldn’t you be at school already?”

  “My first class today isn’t until second period. Perks of being part-time.” Jake’s smile turned brittle. “Why? Are you keeping an eye on me, Miss Warren?”

  “Do I need to?” I asked. Jake shook his head, his jaw clenching. “Anyway, you were the one following me,” I pointed out. “I’m always here.”

  It was Jake’s turn to laugh. “I had noticed,” he said drily. “I only live over there.” He pointed to one of the long residential streets that stretched off the Circle. I thought, idly, how close it all was – how easy it would be for anybody to have stopped Bella on her way to school, to offer her a lift…

  “That’s lovely,” I muttered, unsure why he wanted me to care.

  “It’s called polite conversation,” Howden said as if reading my mind, a smile on his lips. “Anyway, perhaps I’ll see you Thursday – no doubt Ady mentioned the vigil. We’re taking a leaf out of Doctor White’s book. He did the ones for your sister, didn’t he? You should come along, anyway.”

  Stunned, I watched Howden’s back as he pushed open the door to Ady’s and stepped inside. His mention of Olive had thrown me. Had he meant to hurt me or was he simply careless? Was this payback because I’d talked to his wife? I thought of the way she had jumped to the conclusion that I thought her husband had something to do with Bella’s disappearance. The question was, did he?

  41

  BY MIDDAY, I COULDN’T wait any longer for Marion to call about sending somebody to Walker’s house with me. I’d been home, checked on Gran and the nurse, and tried calling Bella’s mother again. What if Walker got cold feet about talking to me? What if a police escort spooked him and he refused to open up? I didn’t want to go against Marion’s wishes but something wasn’t right and I couldn’t just hang around. We were running out of time.

  I pulled up to Darren Walker’s house just after twelve, my stomach twisting with anticipation as I noticed that his van was parked out front. The house was a semi-detached bungalow at the end of a cul-de-sac in an area I had never been to before.

  The street was quiet. Suddenly I was nervous. Perhaps I should have waited for Marion’s officer after all. I pulled my phone out with a sweaty hand, although I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it.

  “Mr Walker?” As I got to the house I rapped my knuckles against the white PVC-coated door. The glass was frosted, but inside looked dark.

  “Darren? It’s Cassie Warren. You wanted to talk to me?”

  I glanced around, checking for neighbours, but the house next door looked pretty empty. No cars on the driveway and a garden that looked in need of a good trim.

  I knocked on the door again. Nothing.

  “Mr Walker, if you changed your mind and you don’t want to talk to me that’s fine, but you need to tell me.”

  I stepped back, gazing at the bungalow. The curtains weren’t drawn, but there was something eerily vacant about the whole place.

  This wasn’t right.

  I gripped my phone tightly. If Darren had been home overnight, with the news broadcasting his release from police custody, all bets were off. I remembered Cordy Jones, what his wife had said about people being angry when he was let go.

  My blood began to hum, adrenaline pulsing. I tried the front door handle. It dipped smoothly and the door swung inwards. I hesitated on the doorstep, bouncing on the balls of my feet. I should just call Marion, leave this to her. But what if he was hurt?

  Yeah and what if he’s not? What if this was what he wanted all along? What if he sent those text messages and this is all part of his plan to get payback? Payback for what? I halted my thoughts right there. Payback for what? He wouldn’t have called Fox if he wanted to hurt me.

  “Pull it together, Cassie.”

  I stepped over the threshold with my hands hovering down by my sides, Marion’s number open and ready to go. As much as I wanted to tell myself that everything was fine, I couldn’t do it.

  The front door opened onto a small entryway, bedrooms branching off to the left and the right. Both empty except for an array of dreamcatchers strung up in the windows and above the beds, their colourful feathers the brightest things in the house. The rooms were obsessively tidy, as though he’d gone round and tucked away everything that might remind him of himself. There was a lounge, a bathroom – empty as well.

  Then, at the end, what must be the kitchen.

  “Mr Walker?” I called again.

  My voice was muffled by the carpet, a ghostly sort of quiet. There was a glass door that looked like it had been cleaned recently, the glass still lined with smear marks where somebody had used the wrong cleaning product.

  The door was closed, and as I reached the end of the hall I peered through it.

  “Oh my God.”

  I rushed into the room, slamming the door wide and hurrying over to the kitchen table. A chair lay upended on the floor where it had been kicked over. And there was Darren, inches off the ground.

  On the table, a piece of paper lay under a teacup. Scrawled handwriting made my whole body ache – with sadness or guilt I didn’t know. I couldn’t bring myself to read it.

  I stumbled, my knees colliding hard with the laminate flooring. I pressed my palms against it hard, trying to breathe. Failing.

  Not again.

  Kneeling on all fours, my eyes closed, all I could see was her. My mother. The kitchen cold because she’d opened all of the windows, the table laid for Sunday dinner. Her shoes – I’d fixed on them – the ones she never wore. Heels. Polished to a high shine. The ones she’d let me borrow for my seventeenth birthday months earlier. She was wearing her smartest dress, the one with the lace hem. Green. Her favourite colour. Her hands were white.

  Her face was purple-blue. I’d screamed, tr
ied to, but the sound was stuck inside my mouth. I couldn’t even get her down. I couldn’t move from the floor. Must have sat there for an hour before I had the sense to find a telephone. The police – and then Marion and Gran. I never even thought to call my dad.

  Now, I gulped several deep breaths, the air burning my throat. Keeping my eyes closed, I made myself breathe for a few minutes. In, and out. Easy. When the wave of nausea finally dissipated I dragged myself back onto my feet and took in the scene. There was nobody else in the house; just the two of us.

  Or rather, just the one of us.

  42

  “COME ON, I’LL DRIVE you home. You don’t need to see any more of this.” Marion’s expression was softened by her worry, but she was using the business-like voice I knew to be an attempt at distancing herself from me while she was at work.

  “You can’t go home yet.” Detective Fox appeared behind her, running a hand through his short black hair. His jacket, I noticed, was a little loose, his trousers buckled beyond the worn section on his belt.

  He looked at me, but I saw no evidence of the maliciousness from a few days ago. I wondered if Marion had spoken to him. Or if exhaustion had worn away his spite.

  “Nobody’s taken my statement,” I reminded Marion. I gave Fox a small nod, trying to telegraph that I’d be as much help as I could be. But in truth I had nothing to tell him that I hadn’t already told Marion when she arrived, screaming onto the driveway with sirens and a couple of uniformed officers. Later came a whole other crew, ambulance techs and crime-scene people, all of whom gave me a wide berth.

  And bystanders, too. Word got out fast, and within half an hour the road was filled with people. Journalists, nosy people I recognised from around town. Somebody mouthed the word suicide and I felt my whole body contract. I spotted Earl from the café and his little spaniel – I’d not realised they lived around here – chatting with a little old lady stooped over a cane. Didn’t these people have anything better to do?

  As we stood at the edge of the driveway, Marion hovered close. I was disorientated, like the world had slowed down tenfold. I could feel the heat of her skin as she pressed her hand to my lower back. I wanted nothing more than to fold myself into her arms, but I held steady.

  “What on earth did you think you were doing?” she asked. “For God’s sake Cassie, I told you not to go alone for a reason.” She shook her head. I couldn’t blame her for being mad. “Are you okay?” she added then. No doubt she was thinking about Mum, too.

  “Why would he kill himself?” I asked. “He said last night that he wanted to talk to me. He said…”

  “Sometimes it’s to ensure somebody finds them.” Marion said this as kindly as she could, but still I felt the horror worm deep inside of me.

  “Why me?” I looked at Marion, whose face was pale and gaunt.

  “I don’t know.”

  Fox finished a hushed conversation with one of the paramedics and then headed back over to Marion and me.

  “I’ll drive Cassie to the station to take her statement if you want to stay here and sort this lot out?” he said.

  Marion flashed me a look but I didn’t have the energy to protest. Once she was gone, Fox walked me to his car and opened the passenger door. I slid inside, suddenly grateful to be off my jelly legs. I clenched my teeth to stop them chattering and held my hands balled into tight fists.

  I hardly noticed as Fox got into the car next to me and turned the ignition. When we didn’t move, I glanced over at him. He was staring at me questioningly, one hand on the steering wheel and one on the gear stick. His brown eyes were intense.

  I felt the questions burbling beneath my skin, each vying to be the first.

  “Was he the person who took Bella?” I blurted.

  “There’s no evidence that Walker had anybody captive in his house.” Fox spoke in a cool, practical tone, apparently content to put aside any issues between the two of us for now.

  “Then why did he kill himself?” I said. “There has to be some reason. He must have felt guilty about something.” I ran my hand through my messy hair, gripping the strands tightly just so I could feel the prickle on my scalp.

  “When he rang me last night he was drunk,” Fox said. “I think he’d come out of the pub. I could hear people milling around.” Fox twisted further in his seat, his eyebrows raised.

  “Why is that… Are you saying that you don’t think he did it? That somebody else…?”

  My brain went into overdrive. Anybody could have heard him on the phone, telling Fox that he wanted to talk. Anybody could have known that he was about to crack. I felt sick.

  “I’m not saying anything,” Fox said. “I’m certainly not telling a reporter, off the record, that I think something else is going on here.”

  He held my gaze. My brain whirred and whirred and I didn’t like where my thoughts were taking me. I didn’t want to tell Fox that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a reporter any more.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

  Fox sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t going to answer me.

  Finally he said, “Marion… She’s too good for you.”

  I felt my stomach drop, but he wasn’t finished.

  “But you know what? This morning, when she came into work… I haven’t seen her like that before. Not ever. She was – the energy. I know you did that. So this is me trying to man up. Okay?”

  He scowled. We were never going to be friends, but maybe this was good enough. I gave him a quick nod.

  “What about the suicide note?” I asked.

  “It’s not a note. It’s just my phone number and your name.”

  “He knew something,” I said. “He definitely knew something.”

  “Cassie. He wanted to tell you. I know you and Marion had been talking about the past. Walker felt like he needed to talk to you for a reason.”

  My thoughts ground to a halt. If I’d been here an hour earlier, maybe he would still be alive. Maybe I could have done something.

  “Maybe it was about Olive,” I whispered. “And somebody killed him for it.”

  * * *

  At the station, Fox made me a coffee before sitting me down in the same interrogation room as a couple of days ago. We walked through my morning, slowly. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Darren – or my mother. Hot, sticky guilt made me sick. Actually sick, this time. I didn’t even have the energy to apologise when I bolted for the bathroom.

  This was my fault. I’d pointed the finger at Darren, he’d tried to talk to me, and now he was dead.

  I kept thinking about the note. Not the one he’d left but the one I’d seen years earlier. My brain was stuck in a loop, remembering my mother and the way she had left me.

  Cassie, I’m sorry. I tried. It’s long overdue. Just let me go and you’ll be better off. Nothing works any more, nothing makes the pain stop. This will do it. Mum.

  It hadn’t made the pain stop. At least, not for me.

  * * *

  By the time I got back to my house it was mid-afternoon. I felt exhausted and shaky, too much caffeine and not enough food making my stomach queasy. I let myself into the house as quietly as I could, in case Gran was napping.

  The lounge was empty. Gran’s knitting lay in a confused mass of yarn on the arm of one sofa, and her book lay on another. Silently I slipped my shoes off and padded up the stairs. She was in her bedroom, curled up on her side with her bad arm cradled by pillows. I let out a small sigh. I needed a minute before I could face anybody else.

  As I stepped back into the hallway my phone let out a plaintive buzz. I went into the bathroom before pulling it out.

  you’ve been hard to find.

  My palms grew slick. I gripped the phone hard and tried to breathe slowly. I didn’t have my contacts saved on this phone, I reasoned. It could be anybody. But even before the second message came, I knew it wasn’t. I knew.

  aren’t you glad you kept digging around in the dirt? look what you’v
e done. now he’s DEAD and it’s all YOUR FAULT.

  I automatically tried to delete the message before I stopped myself, my hands shaking. My belly clenched, even though I hadn’t eaten anything since throwing up at the police station. Bile stung the back of my throat.

  It was him. If I wasn’t sure before, now I knew.

  Who are you? I texted back. What do you want?

  i told you to leave it alone. back off. last chance.

  Or what? I wrote.

  No response. I waited for long, hot seconds. Sick and shivering like I had the flu. I hit dial, the number flashing, different from the one I’d told Henry to check.

  I didn’t know what would happen if somebody answered. But of course they didn’t. I was about to throw my phone out of the bathroom window when it started to buzz again. Insistent this time. A call.

  My whole body clenched. I swallowed hard, sweat under my arms.

  “Hello?”

  “She lives! At long last you pick up the bloody phone.”

  Relief flooded through me at the sound of Henry’s familiar voice. I felt salty tears prickle the back of my throat but I held them back.

  “Hi,” I said. “Now isn’t a good time.”

  “Typical. That’s just the kind of reaction I’d expect after I go to all this trouble to find valuable information for you.”

  I was still trying to calm my breathing, my heart thudding an uneven rhythm.

  “Heno,” I warned. “That’s not funny.”

  “Sorry. Look, I was just calling about that Walker guy you asked me about—”

  “You’re too late,” I said.

  “What? Why?”

  “He’s dead.”

  There was a humming quiet as Henry digested this. I wanted him to leave me alone to process it myself, even contemplated putting the phone down, but I didn’t do it. Then I realised he’d asked a question.

  “What?” I said.

  “Foul play?”

  “Heno, can we just leave it? We’re not helping.”

  “Well I’m only asking because there was something that was bothering me a bit after we last spoke. That warehouse that Walker’s dad sold – Walker only got a small amount of the money. The rest went somewhere else. Walker’s had years doing minimum-wage jobs and accruing credit-card debt. It’s like the money just disappeared.”