says. ‘And Ellie has to keep hers in her locker. Sarah didn’t want to buy them, but they kept on at her for months, claiming all their friends had them.’
‘Which probably isn’t true.’
Delilah bends to close the dishwasher. ‘She knows that. But she feels guilty.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘She talks to me. I listen.’
Joe hears the rebuke in his mother’s voice and wonders whether to acknowledge it. She’s right that he keeps conversation with his ex-wife to a minimum. It’s too easy to slip into bitterness and blame. For the first time he realises that his relationship with his former partner is mirroring that of his parents. His mother, as far as he knows, hasn’t spoken to his dad in over a decade.
From the next room, they can hear the low buzz as one of the kids watches a YouTube video.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ his mother says and Joe braces himself for bad news about Sarah, even the kids, and is a little surprised when Delilah continues, ‘It’s about Bella Barnes.’
The murdered rough sleeper. The immediate relief Joe feels is followed quickly by the guilt that always accompanies any thoughts he has about Bella.
‘What about her?’ he asks.
‘We did an appeal for information, especially any sightings during that last week.’
‘And?’
‘We got a few. Mostly not significant, but a couple that worried me.’
Joe knows that look on his mother’s face. ‘Spit it out, Mum.’
‘She was seen, by more than one witness, hanging around your flat.’
Inside Joe, something twists. ‘Seriously?’ he says.
‘Joe, did she ever come into your flat?’
He knows she has to ask him this. ‘No.’ Doesn’t mean he has to like it.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m bloody sure.’
‘Did you ever meet her in private?’
His mum is doing her job. ‘I saw her on the street, occasionally in one of the parks, mostly at the church hall. That’s it.’
‘Did you know she was hanging around your flat?’
He hadn’t, but he isn’t entirely surprised. He’d suspected Bella had a crush on him. Coming after what happened with Ezzy, this could be bad for him.
‘You may be asked to come in and say all that officially,’ Delilah says.
Bella and Ezzy. Two young, vulnerable women hanging around his home, trying to make the relationship personal? One time, anyone would put down to bad luck, but twice?
‘Joe, don’t worry about it. We already know you knew each other. I had to ask, you know that.’
He does. Work always comes first with Delilah. They are silent for several minutes and then she says, ‘So what’s really bothering you?’
He picks up a pan lid and envelopes it with the towel. ‘Something happened. It might be nothing, but—’
His mother stops moving. ‘What? What happened?’
‘Someone may have broken into the flat last Sunday. During the night.’
Instantly, he has his mother’s full attention. ‘When you were asleep?’
He lets his head nod.
‘Was anything taken?’
‘Nothing that I can see. The only sign someone had been in at all was the back-door key on the mat by the fire escape rather than in the lock.’
‘Could have fallen out,’ she says.
‘Yeah.’
She knows him too well. ‘What else?’
‘A knife,’ he says. ‘Mine. I found it on the kitchen worktop and I know for a fact I put it away the night before. Or I’m going mad.’
‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before?’
Joe has no answer to give her.
‘Please tell me you haven’t washed the knife.’
‘I put rubber gloves on and wrapped it in clingfilm,’ he says.
‘I’ll have a team round tomorrow. For heaven’s sake, Joe, what were you thinking? After what happened with—’
‘It wasn’t Ezzy Sheeran, Mum. It can’t have been. One way or another, at her own hand or someone else’s, she’s dead.’
‘We’d better bloody hope so. Get the locks changed tomorrow. And you’re sleeping here tonight.’
Joe doesn’t argue. He might be pushing forty but – there’s no getting away from it – being with his mum makes him feel safe.
34
Felicity
Felicity does not find her car. She combs the nearby streets, checks every town-centre car park and even jumps on a bus out to the west campus to make sure it isn’t at work. Her missing car, though, feels like the least of her worries. If anything, it pales into insignificance beside her missing husband.
She tries to look through the wedding album for clues but finds she can’t see Freddie’s smiling, handsome face without wanting to be sick. After several attempts she gives up. The photograph of the two of them at the altar, along with the dress and the