Page 35 of The Vanishing Place
The four of them sat around the kitchen table, each with a plastic cup of water. Effie had decided against the added complication of hot liquids and hard ceramics.
Anya sat next to Effie with her head down, pulling at her fingers. There was a visible agitation to the girl’s legs, the hot hum of fight or flight thrumming through her muscles, but she was there. Lewis hovered in the doorway, just in case.
Morrow nodded at her young colleague, Detective Constable Wilson, then gave Effie an encouraging smile. Effie didn’t dislike Morrow, which was something, but there was a formality to the detective that didn’t sit well. The woman was all procedure. All rules.
“Are you comfortable, Anya?” asked Morrow.
The girl didn’t react. She just stared downward, her attention fully committed to picking the frayed skin from the sides of her nails.
“Anya, your aunty is going to explain the situation to you,” Morrow continued, “so that you understand what is about to happen.”
Effie slipped a hand across the table. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, Anya.
Okay? You’re not in trouble. The questions the police officer is about to ask you are all about us helping you.
Nothing else. You haven’t done anything wrong.
We just want to try to work out what happened, so we can help. ”
Anya’s eyes flicked toward Effie’s hand.
“But,” Effie continued, “if you do want to tell us anything, it’s really important that you tell us the truth. Do you understand?”
A nod. A small but definite nod.
“Good,” said Morrow.
She shuffled on her seat, the chair dwarfed by the detective’s big-boned figure. Her uniform pulled tight across her square shoulders, and the buttons at the front of her shirt strained. There was a hardness worn into her face, but her expression was kind.
“Let’s start with an easy question, shall we?” Morrow smiled at the top of the girl’s bowed head. “How old are you, Anya?”
Nothing.
For a few seconds, it was silent, just the quiet tap of Anya’s right foot.
“May I?” asked Effie.
The detective signaled for her to go ahead.
“Anya, would you be willing to answer yes or no to the detective’s questions?”
She nodded.
“Are you six?” asked Morrow.
A shake.
“Seven?”
Another shake.
“Eight?”
Anya nodded.
For the next five minutes, the detective asked questions about the bush and the hut, painting a picture of the girl’s life. Nothing hard. Nothing about that day. Sometimes Anya answered. Sometimes she didn’t.
“And you lived in the hut with your Uncle Four?” asked Morrow.
Anya shook her head.
“So you lived alone?”
Another shake.
“Who did you live with?”
Silence.
“Sorry.” Morrow shook her head. “I mean—”
“How about…” Effie turned, searching the kitchen bench, then reached over and grabbed a few sheets of paper and a pencil. “Maybe you could draw some of your answers. That way, you don’t have to talk to us.”
Anya eyed Effie. Thinking. Then she lifted the pencil and started drawing.
The adults sat in silence as the child scratched the pencil back and forth, leaking pain and memory out onto paper.
Anya hunched over the table, her face centimeters from the drawing, with her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth.
It was the same picture that she’d drawn for Effie—two bodies with X s for eyes.
The man had a cross carved into his torso, and the woman was lying in a pool of blood.
Morrow looked over at Effie, then back at Anya. “And the man,” she said, pointing at the picture, “that’s Four?”
The girl nodded.
“Did Four ever hurt you?”
Anya shook her head.
“Did Four chain you up?”
She nodded, her face calm, and Effie winced.
“Was Four punishing you for something?”
Anya shook her head again.
“But he kept you chained up?”
The child gave another expressionless nod—no anger, no nothing—and Effie had to bite into her tongue.
“And the woman,” Morrow continued, as if they were talking about the weather, not about child abuse. Not about the cruel sickness that festered in Effie’s family. “The woman is Tia, your mum?”
Another nod.
“Did you live with your mum?”
A nod.
“Was there anyone else who lived in the hut with you?”
She shook her head.
“Did your mum ever hurt you?”
Anya shook her head again and Effie let out a breath.
“And what about Four, did he ever hurt your mum? Did he ever punish her for anything?”
Anya stilled, and the quiet gnawed through Effie’s stomach.
“Was your mum scared of Four, Anya?”
The girl didn’t move, didn’t blink, and Morrow glanced at her colleague, a thousand words caught in a single glimpse.
“When you left the hut,” asked Morrow, “was your mum alive?”
Anya shook her head.
“Your mum was dead?”
A nod.
Then the girl’s hand slipped into Effie’s, and she curled her fingers around Effie’s thumb.
Effie caught the detective’s eye and frowned at her, pleading, but Morrow kept going. She had to keep going.
“And your mum’s body,” said Morrow, “it was on the floor next to your uncle’s when you left?”
Anya nodded.
“You’re sure?”
The girl frowned, then she nodded once, slowly, as though her muscles had jammed and she had to unstick them.
Morrow took a breath, her expression unreadable. “Anya, did someone kill your mum and your uncle?”
Anya nodded.
“And did you see the person who hurt them?”
She nodded again.
“Was it a man?”
Anya held the detective’s gaze, her head perfectly still, and for a moment the entire room seemed to pause. Morrow asked the question again, and Anya’s fingers uncurled from Effie’s thumb, but she didn’t respond.
Eventually, Anya dipped her head and returned to her drawing, gripping the pencil so hard that her fingers whitened. No one spoke as she wrote. When she finished, she dropped the pencil without looking up.
Anya had written two sentences, the letters scrawled in thick gray.
Mum broke his rules.
Mum wouldn’t say sorry .
Morrow pulled the paper toward her and looked across at Effie.
“Whose rules?” asked Morrow, turning to Anya. “Were they Four’s rules?”
Anya looked at the detective, her face and lips unmoving, then she held a finger to her lips.
Morrow looked from Effie to the picture and back again. Anya had added a third person to her drawing—a stick figure in the trees. The figure had long hair and a dress that hung to her ankles. Her eyes were marked with the same two X s. And underneath, Anya had written a name.
Hana .
“This person here…” Morrow pointed at the figure. “She’s called Hana?”
The girl nodded.
“And,” asked Morrow, her voice soft, “is Hana dead?”
Another nod.
“Did Hana break the rules?”
Another nod.
“Was Hana a child like you?” asked Morrow.
“Shh,” Anya whispered. “No more questions.”