Page 100 of The Memory Wood

Another line from Proverbs.

She glances briefly at her colleague. ‘You’re losing me a little here, Kyle. Shall we take a couple of steps back? I just got back from Meunierfields. I took a walk through the Memory Wood.’

I hadn’t expected her to say that. ‘You did?’

‘It’s different to how you left it. But we found some of your Memory Trees. Bryony Taylor’s. A few others.’

‘Did you find Mama’s?’

MacCullagh blinks. ‘There’s a tree for your mother?’

‘An oak. You couldn’t miss it. If it burned, maybe … maybe that’s why she disappeared.’

A shadow passes across the detective’s face, or appears to: right now, my imagination’s running pretty wild.

‘We haven’t found it,’ she says. ‘But we have plenty ofpeople searching. If it’s there, we’ll let you know. You said earlier that you were living in that cottage alone. Was that true?’

‘Yes.’

‘You rented the place from the Meuniers?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did you deal with Leon Meunier directly?’

I’m about to answer when I remember Ephesians, and the Book of Proverbs, and my vow to speak the truth. ‘No,’ I reply. ‘And actually … I didn’t live there alone.’

‘Who else?’

‘Mama,’ I say. ‘Papa. And my brother.’

I know they won’t believe me, but I can’t help that.

‘Your brother?’

‘Kyle,’ I tell her. ‘Kyle North.’

Under the table, MacCullagh’s phone starts ringing. Ignoring it, she stares at me. ‘I thought you were Kyle.’

‘Oh.’ I nod. ‘That’s true.’ The ringing phone is distracting. I wish she would answer it. My head starts to thump. I close my eyes, open them. ‘I guess I mean Elijah.’

MacCullagh flinches. Her chair scrapes against the floor. Still watching me, she pulls the phone from her pocket. When she stands, her colleague stands too. ‘Interview terminated, seven forty-two p.m.’

Before I can say anything more, both officers leave the room.

Mairéad

‘MacCullagh,’ she says, limping along the corridor with DS Halley trailing in her wake. Her mind is racing. She cannot believe what she just heard.

On the line is Paul Deacon, the crime-scene manager at Meunierfields. ‘We found two more trees,’ he tells her. ‘Both with inscribed names.’

‘Mama,’ Mairéad says, through gritted teeth.

‘That’s one of them.’

‘Don’t tell me the other.’

‘Elijah,’ he replies.

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