all this research might have affected you? Mentally?’
‘Absolutely,’ I told him with a little laugh. I meant it to sound like a joke though it was true.
He sighed. ‘No. I was talking about what happened on your computer. When Lesley and I were last here you said you had someone saying they were frightened of the Devil.’
I put my spoon down and looked him straight in the face. ‘I did.’ I kept my gaze steady.
His eyebrows dropped. ‘Lesley was concerned. There was no evidence of any “chat” on your internet history.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s because …’ my words died before they reached my tongue. I was going to say it was because it was Rebecca, but I knew how that would sound.
Joe didn’t let it go. ‘Because?’
He seemed a whole lot more sober now. I almost regretted feeding him.
I shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘Go on.’
I shook my head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘No,’ I said and forced a smile. ‘How’s your pasta?’
He ignored the comment and placed his hands on the table. ‘What happened to your mirror?’
Ah. I had forgotten about that. After I’d tried to call Rebecca up and failed, I had covered it over with a blanket. I didn’t want any surprises, I think. Seemed perfectly sensible at the time, but I could see, now, that to an outsider, it probably looked freaky.
‘I had an accident,’ I said simply.
Joe wasn’t having it. He leant forwards. ‘What’s going on with you, Sadie?’
His face was so full of concern it touched me. I was a tough cookie, but to look at him just then, sitting across the table, wanting to find out what was happening with me, for no other reason than that he cared about me – well, it made me crack a little. And I had so much to bear on my own. Maybe if I just told him a bit, maybe he could help me.
‘I think I’m being haunted,’ I said, my voice breaking slightly. ‘I saw someone in the mirror. In fact, I know who she is now.’ And I told him how I knew.
I could hear how it sounded as it came out, so I peppered my narrative with qualifiers. I even told him what Felix had said about incorporating some of these experiences into the book.
When I finished Joe had his arms crossed and a stern look about him.
Very gently, he asked, ‘Is there any history of mental illness in your family, Sadie?’
I laughed out very loudly. Too loudly. ‘Not the reaction I was hoping for,’ I said.
He repeated his question. ‘Don’t be evasive, I’m trying to help.’
‘Well, you’re not. It’s nothing to do with my mental state.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No.’
‘But your mother suffered from depression and psychosis.’
It was like a slap round the face. I pushed back from the table and expelled a long noisy breath, breathing in again quickly to try and stifle my building anger. It wasn’t easy. There was so much of it in me, coiling and uncoiling like a serpent in my stomach. ‘How do you know that? Have you been looking me up in your databanks?’
He held my gaze. There was peace in his eyes and a kind of rigorous strength. ‘You told me,’ he said very calmly. ‘The first time we met, sitting on the beach in Westcliff.’
I ran my hand over my lips. Of course. I had forgotten about that. ‘Sorry. Listen, I’m not experiencing psychosis. This is something different.’
‘It doesn’t sound like it. I’d like you to promise me you’ll see a doctor.’ He could have been talking to a twelve-year-old.
‘No, I won’t,’ I half shouted. The serpent was uncoiling. I pushed it back down and commuted my anger into a sulk, quite forgetting that the same thought had occurred to me only two days since. I moderated my tone. ‘If it sounds like madness then why has my editor asked me to put some of my experiences in the book, eh?’
‘It seems bizarre,’ he said softly. ‘I really don’t have a clue why he’d want you to.’
‘Exactly,’ I said with a nasty hiss. It was coiling upwards through me. ‘You don’t have a clue. You’re a policeman not a creative.’
He didn’t even smart. ‘In my job I have seen how people can,’ he paused to find the right words, ‘how they can spiral downwards quickly. Especially after a shock or a bereavement. One minute they’re on a minor with a “drunk and disorderly”, the next you’re locking them up because they’ve turned to junk or they’re homeless. It doesn’t