Page 82 of Breaking the Dark

“Seriously?” says Jessica. “I mean, you and I have both been inside the Old Farmhouse, so we can all agree that no work has been done on that house since at least 1936.”

“Yeah,” says Lark. “I did kind of think that.”

“And did you ever see her again? This woman?”

“No. Just that one time.”

Jessica pauses for a moment, giving herself time to work out how to follow this thread without letting the twins know that they have been under surveillance.

“After spending time there, with Belle and Debra, did either of you ever feel anything, like a discomfort in your eyeballs?”

The twins look at each other again. “No,” says Fox, with a dismissive tone that suggests the question is bizarre.

Lark shakes her head. “No,” she says, but she sounds less convincing.

“Why are you asking them that, Jessica?” asks Amber with concern.

“Because I had a very strange experience when I was there. Someone flashed a light in my eyes and I came away with partial memory loss, and very sore eyes. And I think you might have had the same strange experience. Did you?”

The air crackles with unspoken truths.

“No,” says Fox.

“No,” says Lark.

Jessica sighs. These kids are not going to crack, not here in front of each other, in front of their mother. “Did you ever meet anyone else when you were at Debra’s house?” she says, changing tack. “An older woman maybe?”

“Nope,” says Fox. “Just Debra and Belle.”

“Nobody else ever came to the house?”

“No, apart from food deliveries.”

“Did you ever see anything strange there? Anything that didn’t make sense?”

“Seriously,” says Fox, blowing out his cheeks slightly. “We made friends with this crazy girl named Belle, who was being looked after by a regular-seeming woman named Debra and we spent a lot of time with her. We played with her dogs, we rode her quad bikes, we watched old movies with her….”

“Wait, what kind of movies?”

“Like, I dunno, ones from the eighties? Belle really liked the eighties. The films, the music, the fashion, all of it.”

“Right. Okay. Yeah.” Jessica nods along with Fox’s words as pieces of the puzzle jostle in her head, trying to find ways to fit together. “And you and Belle, have you been in touch much since you left the UK?”

“No, not really,” says Fox quickly. “She doesn’t really do phones, you know. The reception there is terrible. She said we could write each other letters, but that sort of hasn’t happened. And I’m not really a letter-writing kind of person anyway.”

“I wrote her,” says Lark. “Like a month ago. But I never heard back.” Her eyes go to the clock on the wall. “You know, we really gotta—”

“Yes. Sure. Sorry. But seriously, this is a major case now in the UK. Your dad will be hearing about it, he’ll want to talk to you, the police will likely want to talk to you, so you know, if there’s anything, anything at all…?”

“There really isn’t,” says Fox, firmly.

Lark echoes his words with a small shake of her head, then slips from her stool and disappears into the hallway. Fox slides off his stool too and puts his empty bowl into the dishwasher, watched with eagle eyes by the small black dog, before grabbing a water bottle from the fridge and leaving the room.

Jessica exchanges a look with Amber, who has her arms clasped tight around her waist. She shrugs and plucks at the sleeve of her blouse. A moment later the children call out goodbye to their mother, who absentmindedly tells them to have a good day, followed by the bang of the door and the click of the elevator.

Amber sighs. “I don’t know what to say.”

Jessica glances around the apartment. “I’d like to take a look in their rooms.”