I think back. ‘Yes, I pushed it.’
‘Did you touch Lizzie?’
‘No.’ I didn’t get the chance. I wish I had.
‘Did you touch anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Think, anything at all: to steady yourself, perhaps? Or did you pick anything up?’
‘I can’t remember. I don’t think so.’
He writes some more, then says, ‘Because you’ve entered the crime scene, we need to take your clothes and your shoes. How close do you live?’
I tell him.
‘We’ll send someone with you now; if you can change immediately and put everything you’re wearing in the bags you’re given.’
‘Broderick Litton,’ I say, ‘he stalked Lizzie. She reported it. You lot did nothing. You must find him.’ I’m shivering, my words broken up. My knees buckle. He reaches out an arm and steadies me.
‘Do you have an address, date of birth?’ he says.
‘No. Check your files – there must be something there.’
‘We will do.’ But he goes nowhere. ‘We’ll take further details when someone comes round to you – they won’t be long.’
Jack brings Florence to the car. She’s fallen asleep and barely stirs when he eases her into the booster seat I keep in the back.
‘What happened?’ I ask him before we part.
‘I don’t know,’ he says, shaking his head, fresh tears streaking down his face. ‘I’d been to the gym. She was fine when I left. I just saw her…’ He can’t go on, and I hold him close. One of the police officers gets in the passenger seat and I start the engine.
Florence has a little bed in my room for when she comes to stay, but I’m not going to sleep and I don’t want her to wake up alone after all this. Did she see Lizzie? Did Jack manage to get her downstairs and out of the house without her waking? He’d have had to walk through the living room with her. The house is small, modern, the only thing they could afford.
Oh God. Jack was at the gym, so Florence must have been in the house when…
I lay Florence on the sofa and cover her with a blanket.
I change out of my jumper and jeans and walking shoes and put them into separate bags, and the policeman takes them away.
The house is cold, so I go into the kitchen and put the heating on. Milky comes and weaves around my legs. I stare at the vegetables on the counter, the crumbs of soil drying on them, the wispy roots of the carrots, the vivid green of the runner bean pods. Out of the window is a black sky and a frail new moon, scimitar-bright.
My head aches, a thudding pain beating in my temples and behind my eyes, and the words
