Page 102 of The Memory Wood

III

I have no watch but now and then, in the different rooms I visit, I spy a clock, or someone’s wristwatch, and marvel at how quickly time races by. Detective Superintendent MacCullagh appears every so often, but she asks hardly any questions, except to find out how I am. I tell her I’m OK, even though I don’t understand what’s changed. When I ask about my Memory Trees, she says they’ve found more of them. Mama’s oak survived. Bryony’s and Elijah’s, too.

For a while, I wait in a first-floor office with a partial view of the road. Outside, in the amber glow of the streetlamps, I see vans bristling with aerials and white dishes. I know they’re from TV. I think of theDaily Telegraphheadline:HOPE FADES. If only someone would bring me a newspaper. I could ask Rita, perhaps, but I doubt she’d agree.

I’m wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, a navy top. They’re the nicest clothes I’ve ever owned – they smell like they’ve been washed in rose petals. I have a toothbrush, a tube of paste, even something to spray under my arms. Rita says I can have a haircut later, although it might take time to organize.

When I see her next she has a bag over her shoulder.‘We’re getting out of here, Kyle. Somewhere you can be yourself for a bit. Read a book, relax.’

‘Will there be biscuits?’ I ask. Immediately, my cheeks fill with colour. I didn’t want to sound foolish, and now I do.

She laughs. ‘Biscuits aren’t going to be a problem. In fact, biscuits are mandatory.’

Earlier, I tried to imagine MacCullagh as my wife. But in a contest with Rita Ortiz, she wouldn’t get a look-in.

‘We’ll be leaving in a police van,’ Rita says. ‘That doesn’t mean you’re in trouble. But this case has attracted a lot of attention. There are quite a few nosy parkers outside.’

‘I saw them.’

She beckons me to the door. ‘Well, they aren’t going to see you.’

IV

The journey from Shrewsbury police station is one I’ll never forget.

Five police officers form a scrum around me and hustle me into the van, so fast that I don’t even see the gathered journalists. The flash of their cameras is like lightning.

‘Is Elissa Mirzoyan dead?’ one of them shouts. ‘Did you kill her?’

Then the doors close and we’re accelerating away. I wonder if their cameras picked me out. Elissa made theTelegraph’s front page. I hope I don’t.

‘You can relax a bit now, Kyle,’ Rita says. ‘The worst is over.’

‘How far’s this place?’

‘Oh, thirty minutes or so.’ She smiles. ‘Do you like Thai food?’

‘I’ve never had it.’

Her eyes widen in mock-horror. ‘You mean you’ve never tasted pad thai?’

‘Nope.’

‘What about tom yum goong?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘Gaeng panang? Moo ping?’

The names are so funny that I can’t suppress a giggle. Then I remember Gretel, and the fire, and all the other kids who died. I close my mouth, ashamed.

‘It’s going to be OK, Kyle,’ Rita says.

But this woman who isn’t a detective doesn’t know what I know.

No one does.

Mairéad

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