by Anni Taylor
He checked his watch. “I have to go. Good luck.” He stopped after a few steps and turned back to me. “Your stalking skills need a lot of work, by the way.” He shot me a smile that was friendlier than I deserved.
I watched him thread his way into the city crowds.
He wasn’t Tommy’s abductor.
I started walking in the opposite direction. I didn’t know where Bernice had gone. She might have headed back home for all I knew.
Rain slashed through the city now, washing along the street and making everyone move faster.
31.
PHOEBE
Wednesday morning
IT WAS ONLY WHEN I WAS trudging back to Nan’s house in the rain that I saw the link between the little boat in my pocket and the third letter.
I was watching the torrents of rainwater rush along the gutter of my street. In the past, I’d let Tommy sail a boat along that gutter in the rain. Never his favourite yacht—just paper boats that wouldn’t make him bawl if I failed to run and save them from the drain in time.
Back when Luke had asked Trent Gilroy if the third rhyme could mean that Tommy was at the bottom of the harbour or that his body was being concealed on a boat, the thought had made me want to drink a bottle of Luke’s bourbon and curl up on my bed and force my mind to shut down. I hadn’t thought enough about what else the rhyme could mean.
But now I knew exactly what the rhyme of the third letter meant.
I was sure of it.
Little Boy Blue
Why’d she let you go?
On red ships and yellow boats
’Round and ’round you row
The rhyme was talking about Tommy’s nightlight.
The boats on the nightlight went around and around, with little wooden children rowing them. And the ships and boats were red and yellow.
I stopped dead still.
If I’d written that rhyme, I would have seen that connection straight away.
I didn’t write that rhyme.
I didn’t write any of them.
I had no memory of writing the letters because I didn’t write them.
But how did my fingerprints come to be on the paper inside the third letter?
My breaths quickened. Whoever the person was, maybe they’d given me the paper to hold when I was sleepwalking. Yes, that could well be what happened. I had long periods of time that I couldn’t account for.
The police video didn’t show where I’d gotten the letter from. Someone might have given it to me. Someone who was out of the frame of the camera. I’d thought I’d been given a knife that night, and I thought I’d returned to my house to put it away for safekeeping. But what if I’d put the knife in the letterbox, thinking that the letterbox was something else—just a safe place?
The rain drenched me while thoughts raced through my head.
The same person who wrote the letters had stolen the nightlight. And they knew that I would understand the rhyme. I was the one who had bought the nightlight. I was the one to switch it on for Tommy each night.
Why was this person signalling me with the nightlight clue?
I thought back to the first letter. The letter-writer had deliberately impregnated it with a coffee aroma. The person knew that I knew the café well. And they must have known that I’d always been able to pinpoint even a vague scent. And they knew that the words about Tommy not remembering his mother would cut me especially deep. I’d always thought I wasn’t good enough as a mother.
This person had to know me very, very well. All of this was meant for me. The rhymes were meant for me and me alone.
This person was trying to crush me.
They’d sent me the letters, and they’d framed me.
Why were they doing this?
Was Tommy really dead and this person was trying to torture me, making me believe I could find him?
Would Bernice know about the nightlight? She’d never been in my house.
I had no evidence to tie Bernice to the letters. The only evidence that I could possibly take to the police was if I found the paper that the letters were written on. The police hadn’t found the paper or envelopes at Nan’s house. They had to be somewhere.
If the stationery was at number 29, I hadn’t seen it. Maybe it was—it was too hard to search every single hiding place. And I hadn’t been looking for stationery then.
And if Bernice had the stationery, she’d hardly be keeping it at number 29. She’d be secretly storing it away in her own house. But I couldn’t search Bernice’s house. Could I?
Even if I could summon up the daring to actually do it, Bernice and her mother hardly ever left the house. They only went out twice a week. Once for groceries and once for the bingo and trivia night down at the local club. Occasionally, they made trips to the doctor’s surgery.
Nan had a key to the Wick house—she’d had that long before I was even born. And Mrs Wick had a key to Nan’s house. The idea being that if either of them went into hospital, then the other could fetch some clothing and toiletries and take them into the hospital.
God, if Mrs Wick had access to Nan’s house, then Bernice also had access to Nan’s house. She’d had access to the typewriter and the ink.
I had to take a look inside their house. I wouldn’t be breaking in, exactly. Not if I went in there with a key.
The trivia comp at the club was on tomorrow night. Mrs Wick and Bernice would be gone for three or so hours. Bernice was good at trivia, and she’d stay until the end, trying to grab the prizes.
Nan wouldn’t be at home either. She almost always went with Mrs Wick and Bernice, unless her arthritis was acting up.
There was no going back now. I was going to see this through to the end.
I hurried up to Nan’s house and ran inside and upstairs to the shower, ignoring the look of dismay that Nan shot me. I’d clean my wet footprints from the stairs later.
Standing in the shower, I let the warm water sink into my bones while I planned what I would do the following night. It felt almost good to have a plan, after so much uncertainty.
I deposited the tiny nightlight boat into a trinket box on top of my dresser and then spent the rest of the day cleaning Nan’s house. When Nan cleaned the house herself, she missed all the corners and dark, dim spots. I made sure I missed none of them.
Nan stepped up behind me when I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the grime from the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink.
“Don’t become your mother,” she said.
Her words sent hackles between my shoulder blades. I turned. “Just because I’m cleaning?”
“Cleaning every speck won’t make any difference. If it’s clean enough, it’s clean.”
I was about to answer when a sharp series of knocks carried through the hallway.
Nan stood back and let me go to the door.
Sass rushed in, red knotted scarf and red lipstick and clatter. She squealed a hello. “Ohhh, Phoebe. You poor thing!” Grabbing me, she hugged me tightly. “He never deserved you. He just never did.” Stepping back, she brushed hair back from my face. “How are you? Don’t even answer that. You’re not okay. I can see that.”
I managed a smile. “Sass, I’m doing okay. I think.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She eyed the plastic kitchen gloves in my hand. “Doing some cleaning?”
“Yeah. Anything to keep my mind off things.”
“I know what you need. The girls and I have arranged a special dinner for Friday night. It’s a Christmas in July thing.”
I grinned, wondering which one of them had come up with that idea. “Sounds festive. But I’m not feeling very . . . festive.”
She put on a fake shocked face. “You can’t say no to celebrating Christmas with your oldest friend!”
“I just don’t know if I can face . . . people.”
“Hey, don’t worry. There won’t be anyone you know there. It’ll be the perfect Christmas, without any drunk, over-friendly uncles or family arguments
. It’s a touristy thing. People from around the world. It’ll be fun.”
We headed upstairs to my room then, on some kind of unspoken signal, just like we used to do when we were teenagers. We talked on for an hour.
Sass, with her red high heels kicked off, padded over to the window. “I miss waving at you from my window.”
Sass’s house used to be directly across from mine, and her bedroom window faced mine. We’d wave to each other each night before going to bed. There was just flattened rubble on that side of the street now.
She peered down onto the footpath. “Ugh. There’s Bernice. She wears the weirdest gear.”
I crossed the floorboards and looked down over Sass’s shoulder. Bernice was walking in through her gate—her head and her shoulders tilted forward like she were burrowing an invisible tunnel. She wore a fuzzy blue jacket with a long, shapeless dress and boots.
Sass pulled a face at Bernice’s retreating figure.
“Hey,” I said. “Have you seen Bernice about lately, with a man?”
Sass paused as she tucked her scarf into her vest, her eyes widening. “Bernice has a man? Lord above. Poor guy. Someone needs to warn him.”
“No, I haven’t actually seen her with anyone.”
Sass frowned at me, giving a slight confused shake of her head.
I hesitated. Sass already hated Bernice, and if I were to tell her about the duck-head umbrella and what I’d found at number 29, she might well turn into a bull in a china shop. But I decided to take the risk. My past and Saskia’s were bound up with Bernice and that house. She’d understand more than anyone what Bernice was capable of.
Sass’s confused look had already turned to worry by the time I took a breath and began telling her everything, taking the boat out of my trinket box to show her.
“I’m coming with you,” she told me as I finished my last sentence. “I’m not letting you go in there alone.” Taking the boat from me, she studied it. “I remember the nightlight. This is definitely a piece of it.”
“You can’t come with me. I’m not involving you in this.”
She eyed me steadily. “I’ve been involved ever since Bernice stuck those knives in each of our names. I grew up on this street. Trust me, I’m involved.”
Tilting her chin, her gaze travelled out to the grey sky beyond the skyscrapers in the distance.
32.
PHOEBE
Thursday night
I MADE NAN EGGS AND TOAST for dinner and then headed into the living room to wait. The day had been long, with nothing to fill it.
Dr Moran had rung at 4:00 p.m., to check on my small steps. I lied and said that I’d been out to see a movie. She might have been more impressed if I’d told her I searched an abandoned house yesterday morning, stalked a man, and was about to search my neighbour’s house.
Finally, it was almost eight o’clock. Time for the Wicks and Nan to head down to the club.
Nan dressed herself in her usual thick tartan jacket and smart trousers for her trip out.
“Will you be all right here on your own?” she said, her eyes crinkling. “You really should come along with us. I think you’d enjoy yourself.”
“Trivia’s not my thing, Nan. I have the memory of a gnat. I wouldn’t be able to answer a single question.”
“Well, you could just enjoy the socialising. I’m sure Bernice would like your company, rather than just hanging with us oldies.”
You mean, Bernice would like a chance to gloat on my suffering, firsthand? I didn’t know for sure if Bernice had done anything wrong. But whether she had or she hadn’t, she’d still gloat on my suffering.
“I’d rather just stay here.” I smiled to soften my words.
She sighed. Triple the huff volume. “All right, then.”
I watched as she headed out the door. As soon as she closed the door, I peeked through the living room blinds. I needed to make sure that both Bernice and her mother were going tonight. They were both standing at Nan’s mailbox.
I ran upstairs to change into dark leggings and a black jacket. As long as I was going to break into someone’s house, it felt right to be dressed like I imagined a thief would. Returning downstairs, I took out the key to the Wick house from Nan’s collection of keys in the top drawer of her dining buffet and started to prepare the things I’d need.
A rap at the door made me jump. For a split second, it seemed that the police were here, knowing ahead of time that I was about to commit a crime.
But it was Sass at the door, dressed in black. She looked more like a movie villain than a house thief—with a tight leather jacket and shiny skin-tight pants and boots. She’d tucked her thick red-blond hair under a ski cap.
“Do you have gloves?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Ziplock bags?”
“Yeah.” I gave a half smile. We sounded like criminals already.
Outside, the night was still and clear. We pushed the gate open and stepped along the path to the Wick house. Sass clung unhelpfully to my arm as I inserted the key and unlocked the front door.
Sass walked in first. She gasped—loudly.
Closing the door, I turned to see what she had.
Boxes. Boxes and boxes and boxes. All sizes. Piled high. And things. Vases, ornaments, and trinkets—even paintings that I recognised from the café.
“Wow,” Sass remarked, finally remembering to lower her voice. “Someone’s a hoarder.”
“How are we even going to search this?” I eyed Sass in frustration.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure how we’re going to hack a path through it.”
A narrow pathway through the boxes led to a small space where a two-seater sofa and the TV stood. This tiny space had to be where Mrs Wick and Bernice watched TV.
Boxes and containers were stacked up in the kitchen and on the stairs.
Sass blinked at me. “So, which one of them do you think is the packrat?”
I ran my bottom lip through my teeth, trying not to accidentally elbow any of the boxes and tip them over. “Has to be Bernice.”
“Why her?”
“You’ll understand when you see the room at number 29. This is like that, multiplied.”
I couldn’t imagine Mrs Wick being the hoarder. Sass and I had been in this house when we were kids. It’d been neat and clutter free.
“It’s bizarre,” said Sass. “Like a TV show where people come in and clean up the hoarder’s house. It’s that bad. Did you have any idea?”
I shook my head. “I’ve seen boxes being delivered here lots. But I didn’t expect this.”
Either Mrs Wick was holding back on telling Nan about the hoarding, or Nan was keeping her secret well.
Deciding to look in Bernice’s room only, we picked our way up the stairs.
Every room was filled with boxes, except for Mrs Wick’s bedroom. The third bedroom was packed to the ceiling.
I edged inside Bernice’s room. A dark shape jumped at me from behind a column of boxes. A scream caught in my throat. A furry grey creature stood on the floor with an arched back, hissing. Mrs Wick’s cat.
Stepping over to the window, I looked through it and down onto Nan’s yard. Bernice had a clear view.
Sass squeezed in behind me. “Let’s get started.”
But her voice had an air of defeat. Our mission was impossible. We couldn’t search every box in this house for a set of stationery. The only thing we could have a try of looking for was the nightlight. At least it was large.
We poked around for a while but found nothing.
Sass groaned as she lifted a large box back into place. “Maybe she destroyed it.”
I sat on Bernice’s bed. “I don’t know. It looks to me like she just doesn’t throw anything away. And all this stuff, it’s just so organised.” I exhaled. “There’s no toys here in the house. No kids’ stuff. I know it sounds crazy, but Tommy’s nightlight doesn’t belong here.”
To my surprise, she nodded. “It’s no
t here. So where is she keeping it?”
I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. “I feel like just waiting here and asking her.”
Sass’s eyes opened large in alarm. “Don’t do that. Bernice will deny it, just like she denied what she did to that bag lady. You know she will. All that will happen is that she’ll know what you know. We have to be smarter.”
I felt my anxiety ease a little. Sass was here to organise me. Like she used to when we were kids. Like she had when I first lost Tommy.
“What we need to do,” said Sass, “is to set up cameras in number 29. Motion-detect cameras. I’ll talk to the guys who film our home renovation shows and see what we need to do.”
“Cameras—Damn, I should have thought of that.”
Cameras didn’t tell the whole truth, though. They hadn’t told the truth about me and the letters.
“Just be sure not to tell Kate what we’re doing,” Sass said. “I trust her but not the guy she married. If he finds out what we’re doing, he’ll try to stop us. He’s the police. And once they get involved, it’s all over. I’m not sure about telling Pria, either. She starts crying if we even mention number 29. It’s just you and me, okay?”
“Okay.” I drew in a breath that reached all the way to the pit of my stomach.
“I’ll get the cameras organised. On Saturday, after we go to the Christmas in July thing.”
“I seriously have to go to that?”
“You seriously do. Your doc was right about one thing. You’ve been by yourself too much. Luke’s chosen to go his own way. And now you need to go yours.” Sitting beside me, she slung an arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “And along the way, we’ll find out just what Bernice Wick is up to.”