for a garage situated twenty miles away in Thirsk and a list of names and times in unfamiliar handwriting.
Why had Jason collected these things together? Surely he didn’t think Vicky had anything to do with Barney going missing? He’d always told me that, like the police, he believed everything she’d said happened that day and was angry at the way she’d been vilified in the press.
And how the press had gone for her.
Although Vicky had never strayed from her story, certain sections of the media had made sure that there was always a question mark over her involvement in Barney’s disappearance. Ultimately, as far as they were concerned, it all came down to Mrs McCallum’s witness statement and the fact she couldn’t recall Barney ever having been in her flat that day.
They had ignored the old lady’s deteriorating memory and instead developed a series of increasingly fantastical theories about what might or might not have happened. Through underhand sources they had discovered that, although Barney’s fingerprints and hair had been found in Mrs McCallum’s flat, as per Vicky’s story, the police had not been able to establish whether the traces were from that day or previous weeks’ visits. On top of all that, they had revealed how Vicky had suffered with postnatal depression in the months after Barney was born. Putting the two together, they’d concocted a scenario in which, somewhere between Vicky’s last appointment and her journey to Mrs McCallum’s flat, she had accidentally or intentionally hurt Barney and, after disposing of his body, had made up the whole disappearing-into-thin-air story in order to protect herself.
Looking back, I thought that the press and internet forums latched on to Vicky in the way they did because they were otherwise at a loss as to what might have happened. To have had a child vanish defied all rational logic and spoke to our greatest, darkest fears: specifically, the fear that, no matter how hard you tried to protect your babies, someone or something could take them and there was nothing you could do about it. By casting Vicky as a potential suspect, flimsy evidence aside, they had been able to explain away something that otherwise terrified them and their readers.
I looked again at the collection of documents Jason had decided were so important he’d kept them locked away. Had he realised something about Vicky’s story that the police had missed? If so, how long had he thought this? He would almost certainly have told Martin about any possible new leads, whether they involved her or not. But then, maybe he had gone to the police with his theories and maybe they had been dismissed?
I didn’t hear the door open.
‘What are you doing?’
It was Jason, back from his run.
I jumped. Trying to stand up and turn to face him all at the same time, in my haste I knocked the cereal bowl flying. Milk and soggy bits of cornflake splatted onto the documents spread out on the desk and began dripping onto the carpet below.
I looked around for something to mop up the mess, but Jason was already pushing me out of the way. He slipped off his T-shirt in one easy movement and began dabbing at the pages.
‘Why are you going through my stuff?’
I went to answer but my head was so crammed with the implications of what I’d just found that I couldn’t speak.
‘Heidi, I asked you a question,’ he said, trying to salvage the damp sheets of paper.
‘I wanted to refresh my memory,’ I said. ‘To look through your files and see if there’s anything that might have been overlooked.’
‘Why the sudden interest?’
He’d cleaned up as much of the milk as he could and, for the first time, he took in exactly what it was I’d been looking at. He froze. I held my tongue, waiting for him to explain. But he said nothing. Coming back up to standing, he screwed his soiled T-shirt into a ball and went to leave.
‘Why have you got a file on Vicky?’ I asked in the strongest voice I could muster. ‘And why are you keeping it in a locked drawer?’
He paused for a second and then, trying to make out like he hadn’t heard me, kept going, headed for the stairs. I followed behind.
‘What does it all mean?’ I shouted after him.
But still, he ignored me. A cocktail of worry and anger began to form in my stomach. Trailing him into the kitchen, I tried again.