was leaving. He was going away and never coming back. But they must never tell Elizabeth or Alba. It was their secret. It would be their duty, as the only true Ashbys left in the house, to hate these interlopers, the ones responsible for the dissolution of their family. And he promised he’d keep in touch, as long as they kept his secret.
The final parting gift of Charles Ashby to his wife, the thing he hoped would break her mind as well as her heart, was a letter to the police telling them he feared his wife meant to kill him. He knew she’d never actually go to jail—which was a shame—since they’d never find a body. But the stress of it all, the interrogation, the malicious gossip, the cruel press, the lifelong suspicion might just be enough to send her right over the edge.
—
For the first time in her life, Alba takes more than five minutes choosing what to wear. In two hours she’s tried on six black sweaters, three white shirts, ten navy T-shirts and four pairs of faded jeans. The books strewn across Alba’s bed watch her procrastinate, flapping their pages impatiently. After she decides on the black sweater with the least number of noticeable holes, and the darkest pair of jeans, a dozen books open and snap shut a few times, applauding the fact that she’s finally dressed.
An hour later she’s standing outside iron gates looking up at the words Park Street Community College on a sign high above her head. She watches the teenagers shouting in the playground, thinking they look like hardened street kids who know much more about life than she does. It’s a long way from the sheltered, uniformed students of Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Alba tightens her grip on the letter in her hand. Then she takes a deep breath, pulls herself up to her full height of five feet, two and a half inches and strides through the gates and into the playground.
“Excuse me.” Alba stops a fairly normal-looking boy and addresses him in what she hopes is a friendly yet confident tone. “I’m looking for Mr. Mackay’s classroom, do you know where it is?” The child just stares up at her. “Do you have any idea? Or perhaps you could just point me in the right direction?” Alba waits but is only met with the same blank stare. Alba gives up and keeps walking.
Once inside she wanders through the corridors, hoping no one asks why she’s prowling around a secondary school, hoping the school isn’t too vast and contains no deserted corridors where she might be cornered by a gang of knife-wielding teenagers. A bell rings. Instantly the halls are flooded with frantic bodies, their high-pitched voices and squeals setting Alba’s nerves on edge. Being surrounded by hundreds of children, scuttling past her like scorpions, makes the hairs on the back of her neck twitch. She stiffens and pushes through the crowds.
At the end of the corridor a door stands ajar and, though she can’t explain how, Alba knows this is the one. This is his door. When she reaches the classroom she sees his name etched on the wood:
MR. MACKAY
11A
Alba stares at the letters, until they start to swim in front of her eyes. Just then the door opens, hitting her in the face.
“Ouch!” Alba stumbles back, rubbing her nose as a young girl runs off, laughing. A man steps into the corridor and, for a moment, Alba’s vision is compromised and she can’t see him. At first, he doesn’t see her.
“Oh goodness, oh dear, I am sorry, are you—”
Then Alba looks up and Mr. Mackay stares at her. And Alba stares at him. She’s studied every one of the photographs the private detective took and knows every line of his face, every inch of him. But she still can’t believe that he’s really standing before her.
“Oh,” he gasps. “Oh, my . . .”
Alba blinks a few times and focuses on her father. He is short and stocky with gold-rimmed spectacles and a mop of messy brown curls. He’s only a few inches taller than Alba and when she looks into his eyes she sees they’re exactly the same as her own. She glances at his clothes: cheap polyester shirt and tie, gray cardigan with holes at the cuffs, polyester trousers frayed at the edges.
His bright blue eyes, wide behind his glasses, are slowly filling with tears. A dark mist comes off him in waves and his pain is