through the coffee-table clutter, sweeping us up the stairs and into the study, there you go, we’ll keep you updated! And he was gone, with a firm click of the door behind him.
The study looked subtly, undefinably off-kilter, the wooden elephants lined up too neatly on the mantelpiece, the patterns of book spines all wrong on the shelves, everything half an inch out of place. It made me want to back out the door. “Well,” Hugo said, after a moment, blinking at the pile of paper he had left behind. “Where were we?”
I went through the census PDFs like an automaton: pick a street, pick a house number, click on original census form, skim the names, back button and move on to the next house. I had no idea what I was seeing. Footsteps thumping back and forth overhead, in my room; thud of a drawer closing. Somehow it hadn’t sunk in till then what search the house actually meant, and the thought of Rafferty pawing through Melissa’s underwear sent me into an impotent rage that almost stupefied me, left me staring at the laptop screen, blind and panting.
Scrapes of furniture being moved, muffled voices through walls, feet going up and down the stairs. It went on and on. I knew I should be hungry and so should Hugo, but neither of us suggested making lunch.
At some point, after what felt like days, Rafferty knocked on the door. “Sorry, quick question,” he said. He had an armful of large brown paper bags with clear windows running down the sides. “Who owns these?”
He spread out the bags on the rug for us to inspect. “I think this is mine,” Hugo said, pointing at what looked like a heavy khaki jacket, big pockets, worn and dirt-smudged. “I haven’t seen it in years. Where was it?”
“Do you remember when you got it?”
“Goodness . . . twenty years ago, it must be. I used to wear it for gardening, back when my parents were alive and we took that stuff more seriously.”
“When did you see it last?”
“I have no idea,” Hugo said tranquilly. “A long time ago. Do you need it?”
“We’re going to have to take all of this, yeah.” Rafferty watched to see what we thought of that. His stubble had darkened, giving him a dashing renegade look. When neither of us said anything: “We’ll give you a receipt. Any of the rest ring a bell?”
“That was mine,” I said, pointing to my old rugby jersey. “Back in school. And that”—a red hoodie—“that could’ve been mine too, I’m not sure? And I think those”—grubby pair of thick-soled black creepers—“were maybe Leon’s? And that was sort of everyone’s”—a cobwebby blue sleeping bag. “For when we slept out in the garden, when we were kids, or later for if friends stayed over. I don’t know about that”—a maroon wool scarf, dusty and bobbled. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”
“Nor do I,” Hugo said, holding on to his desk so he could lean over to examine it more closely. “It might have been Leon’s, I suppose. Or it might have belonged to one of your friends. Teenagers strew things everywhere they go, don’t they?”
“We’ll ask around,” Rafferty said. “The good news is, we’re done here. The lads are packing up, and then we’ll be out of your hair. Thanks for all your patience over the last—”
Downstairs, the front door slammed and Melissa’s voice, fresh as summer, called out, “Hi, I’m home! Oof, this rain, it—” There was a startled silence.
“That’s Melissa,” I said, standing up. “I’d better—” and while I was getting down to her and trying to explain what was going on, the cops came clumping down the stairs with their evidence bags and their cameras and whatever else, and Rafferty and Kerr shook all our hands on the doorstep and made more meaningless noises about how much they appreciated our cooperation, and then the door closed behind them and they were gone, leaving the three of us finally alone in the sudden high-ceilinged emptiness of the house.
We went out onto the terrace to face the damage. The rain had stopped, just a haze in the air and the occasional leaf-drip rattling through a tree. That last strip of grass and poppies was gone: the garden was mud, nothing left but the lines of trees backed up against the side walls in what looked like a doomed last stand, broken by the jagged crater—shockingly wide and deep—where the wych elm had been. The uprooted bushes