Page 119

Seven months earlier

UNMAPPED

March 11th, later

The detectives signal that we should go inside, so I show them over the threshold into the house you built for me. I don’t offer them a drink, and I watch their eyes roaming across the mess I tried to tidy.

I tell them I haven’t seen you. That I’ve come here by myself to visit the old place again. But, of course, they don’t believe me. They continue asking questions, and I’m sure they know more than they’re letting on. I give them what they want, some of it anyway.

‘Kate Stone is not my real name,’ I say. ‘My name is Gemma Toombs and, yes, I used to know Tyler MacFarlane. He kidnapped me when I was sixteen and held me here for several months.’

I pause, looking out the window towards the Separates. Is it a mistake to admit all this so soon? The detectives are writing copious notes they will hold me to later.

‘So why exactly did you come back?’ Detective Inspector Braithwaite asks, frowning.

‘Couldn’t get it out of my head,’ I say. ‘This land. It gets into you, this place.’

Detective Sergeant Manikham nods, so I continue.

‘I needed to say goodbye to this place, I never got to last time. Things wouldn’t feel finished unless I did.’

I’m not sure they understand what I’m talking about, or if they believe me, or even if I care.

‘Do you mind if we look around?’ Detective Inspector Braithewaite asks.

What else can I say but yes? It’s not my property, it’s not even yours.

But your evidence is everywhere. I may have wiped the blood off the spade, the iron, but it won’t take them long to know you wore the suit lying in the dirt, or fixed the car. It’s impossible, Ty, to pretend you were never here. I need a new tack. I’m feeling flustered now as I trail behind them. The crickets jumping around the house have jumped inside me, swirling through my insides, stirring up my anxiety. But I can’t let the detectives know. I have to keep lying, do what you and I discussed last night.

‘I haven’t seen him,’ I repeat, ‘not inside prison or since he was released.’

‘How do you know he was released?’ Detective Sergeant Manikham says.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘because you just told me.’

Her eyebrows are raised. We all know I’m a liar.

And so, the story comes out. Some of it. I admit that I knew your dates because I received a letter, but that it didn’t matter anyway as I was already planning to come back and see the land again. By myself. But it all seems like such a damned coincidence, doesn’t it? And these detectives know it too.

As they investigate our bedroom, I see my old clothes—the ones you were wearing—laid out on the bed. I see all the thingsI’ve moved, sorted. Might they think I’ve done all this just for me? Perhaps there’s a chance they won’t see signs of you here. Not immediately, anyway.

Will that give me time to sort out my story? Run?

Give you time to disappear?