I only wake up when I hear the thud of thunder. A loud clap reverberating through the house. Then again, the exact same sound, and I realise that it isn’t thunder at all. It is somebody knocking at the door. I glance at my phone. 11.07 p.m. No good news comes at this time of day. I nudge Antonio awake and then feel sick with the realisation that it could be Elle. It feels just like that night when she called about our mother having died.
‘What is it?’ he mumbles after first stammering something unintelligible in Italian. More knocking.
‘It’s the door,’ I whisper. He looks down at his watch, stands up, pulls his T-shirt on. Adjusts his boxers, and what’s in them. I slump down underneath the duvet, listening. Although I can’t hear what is being said, I can hear the tone of the conversation, and I know straight away that it isn’t light or trivial. But I also know that it isn’t Elle, so feel relieved.
I pull on my shirt, and less than a minute later Antonio is back in the lounge with two people following. They stand with authority, dripping on my laminate floorboards, the drops running through the cracks. They have left clumps of mud across the runner in the hallway. One of them is a woman. Her face is angular, like a Rubik’s Cube out of line, and make-up-free. Her ears are set too low on her head, as if they have slid down, melted. She smiles at me, but I know there is no kindness in that smile. It is formal, a kind of well, I’m in your house so I might as well look polite smile. The man next to her is large, over-proportioned in just about every dimension. I know straight away that they are police.
‘Good evening, Dr Harringford. I am DC Forrester and this is DC McGuire. We need to ask you a few questions about your sister, Eleanor Harringford.’
I look around the room and make my assessment of what this looks like. There is a bottle of wine on the table to start with, the shape of which could easily be mistaken for champagne. Two empty glasses. The television is playing in the background on mute, and I have that distinct look of somebody who not long ago was having sex. Happy couple, no problems. But these are police and they want to ask about my sister. That means they probably know that my parents have just died. Which means they probably know I am set for a big payout. Elle is probably the one who called them, and I am hit by a somewhat underwhelming fear that this looks like a celebration.
‘OK. How can we help?’ Antonio steps straight in. Got to love him for trying, but what could he possibly do? He has never even met Elle.
‘May we sit down?’ DC Forrester asks as she positions herself on the couch opposite. I don’t answer, yet Antonio ushers DC McGuire into the seat next to her.
‘What about my sister?’ I say, kind of tired. I say it casually, as if we might be the parents of an unruly child and are used to visits from the police. Oh, what has Eleanor been up to now? What trouble has she got herself into? A pencil through the little girl’s hand? Oh goodness, what a minx.
‘Your sister has been reported missing, and we are working alongside a team in Edinburgh to help locate her. She was last seen two days ago in Horton, the village where she lives. There are no further reported sightings, not in the village or nearby cities. She hasn’t been home, either.’ DC McGuire hasn’t spoken yet, but he is taking all the details in. No pictures of family, no trinkets placed on the cupboards. The only books are medical or morbid. Anaesthesia. The Pocket Handbook of Anaesthesia. Pain Management. Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices. Pharmacology Success! Killing for Company. I might as well have a guide on how to murder and conceal a body.
‘But you aren’t just police officers conducting a search. You’re plain-clothes officers,’ I say, knowing that already this thing has escalated. Thoughts are racing in my mind, and in just about every scenario I do not look good.
‘There are plenty of uniformed officers doing house-to-house, Dr Harringford. Rest assured. But yes, we are from CID. Criminal Investigations Department.’ Antonio is doing that thing he does, shuffling from one foot to the other in a way that he thinks looks casual, but that he only ever does when he is nervous. ‘Your sister was last seen by the owner of the public house, the –’ she stops, flicks through her black notepad – ‘Enchanted Swan. She was running around the churchyard late at night in the rain. She hasn’t been seen since. Based on what has been happening during the past week, we are trying to build up a picture of her movements. There are anecdotal accounts of mental health issues, so she is what we would call a vulnerable adult.’ I almost laugh, and stop myself. I think I have covered it up, but I guess nothing gets past a cop’s eyes. ‘Is there something you find funny, Dr Harringford?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. It’s just, I have never heard anybody describe Elle as a vulnerable adult.’ I compose myself, pull the duvet higher. I wish I was wearing knickers. ‘In fact, quite the opposite. What can I do to help?’
DC McGuire takes over for a bit. It is effortless the way he just steps in, as if they have rehearsed this. ‘We understand that you have experienced a number of losses in your family of late.’
‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ Antonio interrupts. The break in conversation comes just as a flash of lightning crosses the sky. The thunder follows only a second later.
‘White, no sugar,’ says DC Forrester.
‘The same. Thanks.’ McGuire turns to me and links his hands together. ‘At times of stress, existing problems are always amplified. We understand that you lost both of your parents recently. Our condolences.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, kind of coldly. I should have tried to look hurt, like it was difficult for me, but I guess some things are just too well programmed for an automatic override.
‘I’m sure this is difficult, but I want to ask about your mother. What was the cause of her death?’ he continues.
‘I think cancer.’
‘You don’t know how your mother died?’ DC Forrester chips in, squinting in my direction.
I pause, and swallow. ‘I believe it was cancer, but I haven’t seen the medical records or spoken to a doctor.’
DC Forrester looks around at the books, stands up and wanders over after checking that I don’t mind. She picks up Pharmacology Success! and flicks through the pages. ‘You’re a doctor yourself, right?’ I nod. ‘Were you not interested?’ She sets the book back down and looks around at the absence of personal objects. ‘Let’s look at it like this. One of my family gets involved in a crime, I would want to know what was happening. I’d want to know the details of the case, what facts were known, what hypotheses were being made. Because that’s how my mind works. It’s my job to be curious. Suspicious.’ She picks up Killing for Company, a biography of serial killer Dennis Nilsen, a man who kept the bodies of his victims to ease his loneliness. She sets it back down, expressionless. ‘I would have thought as a doctor you might like to know how your own mother passed away.’
I tuck my hair behind my ears and brush my fringe from my eyes. Antonio slips back into the room with a tray of tea. I reach over, take mine, all the while clinging on to the duvet.
‘Our relationship wasn’t very good,’ I offer. ‘It wasn’t what you would call a normal mother–daughter relationship.’
‘Yes, we understand you were adopted by your aunt.’
‘No I wasn’t. I just lived with her.’
‘Why?’
‘Why didn’t she adopt me or why did I live with her?’
‘Both,’ says DC Forrester.
‘I don’t know.’ Antonio sits down next to me and takes my hand in his. ‘I went to live with her when I was three years old. Nobody ever told me why exactly.’
‘You never asked?’ I shrug my shoulders, letting them know I have no answer. ‘Not very inquisitive, are you? We already spoke with your aunt. She told us your mother couldn’t cope with two children, that she was overwhelmed. I guess you’d call it post-natal depression nowadays.’ Antonio strokes my hand, relieved to be learning the truth. But I know this is crap. Bullshit that even now my Aunt Jemima is happy to accept. I want to know if they real
ise that Aunt Jemima wasn’t at the funeral, but I don’t ask, certain that the question would act like a fan to the flame of suspicion.
‘I think that’s it,’ I agree. ‘Post-natal depression. Our relationship was almost non-existent. We didn’t talk or exchange letters. To her it was like I didn’t exist. So when she died, I didn’t ask.’ I don’t add in any of the assumptions I made regarding Elle’s involvement.
‘So let me build up a picture here,’ says Forrester as she picks up a mug of tea and sits back down. ‘You had no relationship with your mother. None with your father.’ She looks to me for confirmation and I give it with a quick nod of the head. ‘How’d you find out about your mother’s death?’
‘Elle called me.’ They look confused. ‘Eleanor. My sister.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I went there for the funeral.’
McGuire follows Forrester’s lead and picks up his mug. ‘So you dropped everything and took a flight for the funeral?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ I slide my hand out from Antonio’s.
‘Even though you had no relationship with either of your parents.’
‘I guess you could put it like that.’ It kind of hurts, listening to the past being reduced to the skeleton of details. It feels like we are doing it a disservice somehow, making it smaller than it really is. It makes me sound stupid: Little girl dashes to mourn Mummy who never wanted her. I must look really pathetic to them.
‘Presumably you went to support your sister?’
‘Yes, I suppose you could say that.’ While that isn’t strictly the truth, saying that I went to find out why they never wanted me seems so heartbreakingly lame that I cannot bring myself to admit it. Especially when I have just agreed to Aunt Jemima’s version that post-natal depression forced them to give me away. ‘I went there because I wanted to support Elle.’
‘Eleanor Harringford.’
‘Yes.’
‘And how did you find her when you arrived? What was her mental state like?’ They sip at their tea in unison.
‘I’m not a psychologist, how would I know?’
Forrester looks to McGuire with half-pursed lips, a little wrinkle crease forming on her cheek like the crescent-shaped scars on my hip. She raises her eyebrows in a way that makes me think she has got me down as a wiseass. ‘No, Dr Harringford,’ she says, irritated, ‘you are not a psychologist, but you are her sister. You know her. You share the same blood. You must be able to tell me if she was crying, sad, happy, elated. These are simple emotions, Dr Harringford.’
‘She was OK.’ Their heads slide in towards me, as if I have just announced that she occasionally turned into an alien. ‘Elle isn’t like most people. I don’t want to paint her in a bad light, but she didn’t seem particularly sad at what had happened. Not regarding my mother anyway. If you knew her—’
‘So,’ she interrupts. ‘Eleanor Harringford was in a reasonable mood following your mother’s death. Not taking it too badly. What did you do together in the days before your mother’s funeral that would lead you to believe that she was in a reasonable mood? Coping with the loss, so to speak.’
I run over the events in my head. Our activities don’t look good, and it makes both me and Elle appear heartless and cold. In this moment I hate her more than I ever have. Where the fuck has she gone? ‘Not much. Simple stuff. We hung out. We ate dinner. After the funeral, I left.’
‘Simple stuff, hm.’ She huffs and hums like I might have done when gazing over a weird rash on somebody’s skin, trying to decipher what she sees and still appear intelligent. ‘But you didn’t leave immediately after the funeral, did you?’
‘No. Not immediately.’ Her eyes are fixed on mine, waiting for me to elaborate. ‘I stayed one more night.’
‘Where?’
‘At the house.’ The first outright lie. I am a good liar, this is known. But to the police? In a missing-person inquiry? For a vulnerable adult. They exchange a glance that makes me uncomfortable because it looks like they know otherwise. Antonio spots it too and turns his attention to me. ‘We did go out for a while that night. For a few drinks. I guess it was all a bit much for both of us.’
‘With Mr Guthrie and Mr Waterson.’ Antonio stiffens next to me, and the jealousy in his blood rises. Of course it doesn’t help that I haven’t told him anything about Greg and Matt. That makes it automatically suspicious.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They were friends of my sister’s,’ I add in an attempt to detach myself from their presence.
‘And then you left the following morning?’
‘Yes.’ I know what is coming. I can feel it. It is as if I am watching a freight train, the lights glaring in my eyes because I am standing on the tracks. As if it is coming towards me, the horn sounding, yet I am unable to run.
‘Right after your father died.’ I nod. ‘How did Eleanor take the news of your father’s passing?’
‘She was upset. I would say she didn’t take it very well.’
‘When she called you about your mother, would you say that she was upset? Or did she seem calm?’
‘She was calm.’
‘So it would be reasonable to suggest that she was more upset by your father’s death.’
‘Perhaps.’
DC Forrester crosses her arms. ‘So she calls you, calm and seemingly dealing with your mother’s death, and you rush on a flight to get to her because you say you wanted to support her. Yet when your father dies and Eleanor is visibly upset, you take her car and leave. We found it at the airport, a grey Mercedes with the number plate KV58 HGG. Is that correct?’
‘I don’t know about the number plate. But yes, I took her car. I wanted to get away.’
‘From Eleanor? The sister you went there to support?’
‘Excuse me, officer,’ interrupts Antonio. ‘But what has all this got to do with Elle’s disappearance?’
‘We are simply trying to establish her mindset,’ says DC McGuire, stepping in. ‘Plus, we found her car with the keys left in the ignition.’ He turns to me. ‘I’m sure you agree that we would need to rule that out as a relevant fact. So you confirm that you took the car?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, that saves us about forty-eight hours of CCTV footage,’ he whispers to Forrester.
‘And you, Mr Molinaro?’ asks DC Forrester. ‘Where were you when all this was happening?’
‘I stayed here. Irini likes to do these things alone. She didn’t want me to meet her family.’
‘Why is that, Dr Harringford?’ asks Forrester, looking at me.
‘It’s pretty obvious I didn’t have a good relationship with them. You already mentioned that Elle has issues with her mental health.’
‘No, in fact we told you there was nothing more than anecdotal reports. I’m sure as a doctor you appreciate that we can’t discuss her medical history with you. But, just for clarity, we’ve checked into her history and there is nothing of any significance reported.’
‘But there is, I’m sure of it. Elle told me herself that she spent time in a mental health facility.’
‘We are not at liberty to discuss it any further.’
‘But it’s important. That’s why I didn’t want her in my life. She was very difficult.’ As soon as I have said, it I realise how awful it sounds when I am trying to sell myself as a supportive sister. ‘I just preferred it when there was a distance. It was better for both of us,’ I lie.
‘But still you went there to support her,’ Forrester says, too sarcastic for my liking. ‘And since?’
‘We’ve been here. I haven’t been to work, I called in sick. Instead we stayed home. We needed some time together. To reconnect after the time apart.’
‘Well, it looks like you’ve been doing a good job.’ DC McGuire smiles as he stands up.
DC Forrester, the one who seems to be playing the role of bad cop, follows. ‘Try to be available over the next few days. I’m sure we will have more questions.’
They walk t
owards the door and I follow, the duvet wrapped around my waist. ‘Oh, just one more thing,’ says Forrester as her partner opens the door. The rain pelts down and wets the doormat. ‘The name Joseph Witherrington. Does it mean anything to you?’
I think for a second before I say, ‘No. I have never heard it before.’
She smiles. ‘OK, thanks. Try not to worry. We receive more than seven thousand missing-person reports each year. The majority of people turn up safe and well. In fact, some of them even choose to go missing, especially if they feel threatened or at risk.’
‘I don’t think anybody threatened Elle,’ I say. They don’t say anything, only snatch a quick glance at one another.
DC Forrester flashes that same false smile as she did when she arrived. Fixed and set and as unlikeable as mine. ‘Most of them turn up eventually.’
25
Antonio is already awake when I surface from a dream about Robert Kneel. He is sitting up in bed with the lamp on. I look at the clock, catch the image of the night sky in the corner of my eye. 3.01 a.m.
‘You’re awake,’ I say, stating the obvious as he sits motionless staring at the wall.
‘I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about your sister.’ He reaches to the side and picks up a bottle of water. He must have been downstairs to get it, because it wasn’t here when we fell asleep. ‘You were dreaming.’
‘How do you know?’ I hold my hand out and he gives me the water.
‘You were mumbling, saying a few words.’
I swallow, use my hand to wipe the drips from my lips. ‘What was I saying?’
‘Something about a robber. Robert? I don’t know. It was nonsense. Gibberlish.’
‘Gibberish,’ I correct him. He does this every now and again, when he tries to use unfamiliar words. Repeating them like a parrot, and not always correctly. He doesn’t acknowledge the correction or the mistake. I hand the bottle back. ‘What do you think has happened to her?’
If You Knew My Sister Page 18