Page 96 of No Safe Place

Sunday | Evening

Andy

He’d been sat in the room for so long, he was pretty sure they’d forgotten about him. They’d paused the interview and left him with a bored uniformed officer. Andy sat still and tried not to listen to his heavy breathing.

Eventually, Detective Field came back in, with DS Riley and a female officer he hadn’t seen before. Field looked harried, and Riley was clutching armfuls of folders.

‘Interview resumed at—’ Field glanced at the clock ‘—6.58 p.m. We’ll put you somewhere more comfortable and process your release tonight, Andy. But first—’ Field took a seat, but on the very edge of the chair – like she’d be up again at any moment. ‘When did you last see Ruby Jacobs?’

‘Ruby?’ Andy frowned. ‘It would have been Paige’s funeral, I guess.’

Paige’s funeral had been one of the worst days of his life.

All the rows of people, and the sounds of sniffling, orders of service being fanned in front of damp eyes. The long groan of the church doors in the wind, the rustle of black clothes.

He didn’t hear any of it. None of it mattered.

He remembered sitting in the back row, holding Sam’s hand and watching Paige’s family walking through the church, to their pew at the front.

There was no way that many people would turn up for his funeral. The priest spoke about rebirth and Paige’s sister got up and read the eulogy. Neither of her parents could face it. They stayed sitting, clutching each other.

Paige was a talented actress. She was a writer. She was an OCD survivor .

Was he an OCD survivor? He supposed so.

‘Andrew?’ Field said, snapping him out of his thoughts. He was back in the room, back at the table, in the station, being interviewed. ‘Are you in contact with her?’

‘No.’

‘Does she know where you live? Has she been to your house?’

He looked between the detectives. ‘No?’

She turned and Riley handed her a file. The female detective shifted from foot to foot. Field spread the file open, and a familiar face looked up at him.

Older than last time they’d been in the same room. At the church.

Andy’s vision blurred, and then he blinked the big dark eyes back into focus. Took in the uneasy, familiar smile of the girl in the photograph.

‘You haven’t seen her?’ Field pressed. ‘Not even walking past her in the street.’

‘What is this?’ Andy shook his head, eyes going back to the photo of Ruby. ‘No—’

It was surreal, how similar they looked. Sam said so too, after the funeral. There was only ten months between them. Basically twins, Paige said in a group session once.

Riley had a hand on the door, poised to dash out.

Andy put his hand out for the photo and stared down into the face.

‘Is that who you think did this?’ he asked. ‘Paige’s sister?’