Lock Me In. Kate Simants

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СКАЧАТЬ a bit suspicious.’

      I stared down at my feet. ‘It’s not mystery bruising.’

      ‘OK.’ He waited.

      ‘I was … sleepwalking. Mum tried to steer me back to bed. I was agitated. She had to be … forceful.’

      ‘And this was, when? Last night?’

      I nodded, my heart hammering. Mae inclined his head to get another look.

      ‘Looks like she fought pretty hard.’

      ‘I was just confused,’ I mumbled.

      ‘Confused. OK.’ There was a pause. ‘See. Ellie, I get confused all the time. Sometimes I can’t remember if I’ve left the oven on. Or I lose my car, or, you know, I annoy someone and I get confused about what I might have said to upset them. But I can’t remember a time when confusion has ever ended up in me being held by the throat.’

      ‘I’m telling you it wasn’t him.’

      Mae stayed where he was for a moment. Then he got to his feet, steadied himself against the motion of the boat under his feet, and turned to me.

      ‘So for now, we’re classing this as a low-risk case—’

      ‘Low risk. What does that mean?’

      ‘It means that we wait and see what happens. This is still very early days. To be honest it’s only because I saw your name on the information that it’s me dealing with this and not just a bobby making a couple of calls. But look, you have to realize that everything we have here is pointing to Matt having just gone away somewhere.’ He tucked everything into his bag. ‘It’s a dynamic thing, though. If anything changes—’

      ‘But what does it mean you will do?’ I interrupted. ‘You have to do something.’

      He pressed his lips between his teeth for a moment, measuring his words. ‘Look. Men are weak. Sometimes they are really shitty. I’m sure he’s been great to you, and break-ups can be awful but—’

      ‘No. It’s not a break-up. He is the most honest, the most grounded person you’ll ever meet. He is a good man, and I can rely on him. I can. You’re making a mistake.’

      He watched me for a second, like he was trying to find something in my face. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got a hundred other jobs stacking up and this is just,’ he gestured around the boat, to me. The whole thing. ‘It’s just not a police matter,’ he finished at last. ‘I’ve already done more than I am supposed to.’

      ‘Fine. Then go.’ I turned away. He would not see me cry.

      On the deck, he crouched and turned back to me. ‘This isn’t about you, you know. Men are shits. He didn’t deserve you.’

      I watched him swing himself down onto the pontoon, and I thought about how much Matt had given me. How bottomless his patience was, how hard he’d tried to help me believe in myself.

      Mae was right. Matt didn’t deserve me. He really, truly did not.

       17.

       Mae

      Mae had just swung his leg back over the crossbar when he heard the blip-blip greeting of the siren. Kit, in a squad car, a heavy shade of pissed-off darkening her face.

      ‘You planning to answer your phone any time soon?’ The window was wound all the way down and her shirt sleeve was rolled all the way up. The pointed toe of the 1950’s pinup girl tattooed on her bicep peeked out just above her elbow.

      He dug his phone out, failed to wake it, showed her the screen. ‘Dead. Sorry.’

      ‘No deader than you are.’

      He unsnapped the fastener under his chin and took the helmet off, leaning an elbow on the roof of the car. ‘How do you mean?’

      Kit turned to speak into the radio clipped onto her lapel. ‘Got him,’ she told it, then, ‘I’ll deal with it, Ma’am.’ To him, she said, ‘Get in.’

      ‘That’ll be, “get in, Sarge”,’ he corrected, then gestured to the bike, opened his mouth to argue that he couldn’t, but she cut him off.

      ‘Get in the car, Sarge, right now. You forgot to collect your daughter, and she’s gone missing.’

       18.

       Ellie

      I sat still for a long time on Matt’s sofa, listening to the boats bump and creak. Thinking about the list. I’d looked for all the things on it, ticked them off one by one. Every single one of them was gone.

      My phone rang: it was the hospital.

      I didn’t even say my name when I answered. ‘Have you found him?’

      There was a pause. ‘Sorry, Ellie, found who?’ the caller said, and I placed her voice. It was Helen, who managed the volunteer schedule at the children’s ward where I worked. ‘I was calling about the session you were going to do with the kids this morning.’

      ‘Oh god, I’m sorry, I—’

      ‘Look, I’m afraid to tell you that we can’t have you volunteering here anymore.’

      ‘What? Why?’

      ‘We need reliability. We can’t have the children disappointed.’

      ‘You told me you were crying out for volunteers! That’s why Matt got my forms rushed through, so I could—’

      ‘Nothing was rushed,’ she said. ‘Look I’d love to keep you but the children have to come first, and if you can’t keep your promises to them—’

      ‘I’m sorry, I just—’

      ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m sorry too, but that’s where we are.’ She said goodbye coolly and hung up.

      I stood there in the kitchen, blinking, not believing it. Matt was going to be so disappointed. He’d suggested the volunteering in the first place, had set up my interview, helped me with the application. I’d loved it, too. I’d even started to believe maybe it could lead to an actual job, one day. And now I’d lost it. I slumped down onto the arm of the sofa.

      Something caught my eye. A big metal bulldog clip hanging on a hook next to the sink, and between its teeth a wedge of scraps of paper. I reached over and took the clip down. Just receipts, mostly: a few postcards. But right at the back, with a fold of card across the top to protect it from being marked by the pressure of the clip, was something else. A faded, square-shaped photo, СКАЧАТЬ