Case Histories

Franciscans, Jackson reminded himself. "Like some hippie order," Julia had said. "They go around barefoot in the summer and they make their own sandals for the winter, and they keep animals as pets and they're all vegetarians." Amelia and Julia had briefed him at length about the convent. They seemed genuinely to despise Sylvia's vocation. "Don't be fooled by that holier-than-thou stuff," Julia warned him. "Underneath all that penguin crap she's still Sylvia." "It's just a form of escapism," Amelia added dismis-sively. "She doesn't have to pay bills, or think about where her next meal's coming from. She never has to be alone." Was that why Amelia frowned so much, then, because she was alone? But hadn't Julia said something about a "Henry"? It was difficult to imagine Amelia in the arms of a man. Whoever Henry was, he wasn't doing it for Amelia. (When did he stop calling her " Miss Land " and start calling her "Amelia"?)

Amelia said that she hardly ever visited Sylvia but they kept up a fitful, dutiful correspondence, "although Sylvia doesn't exactly have much to write about – prayer, prayer, and more prayer – and then, of course, she does a lot of what is housework by any other name – they bake communion wafers, and starch and iron the priest's vestments, all that kind of stuff. And she does a lot of gardening, and knits things for the poor," she added disparagingly, and Julia said, "She's making the knitting up," and Amelia said, "No, I'm not," and Julia said, "Yes, you are. I have visited her, you know, quite a lot," and Amelia said, "That was when you were auditioning for a nun in The Sound of Music," and Julia said, "No, it was not," and Jackson said wearily, "Oh, shut up, the pair of you," and they both turned and looked at him as if they'd just seen him for the first time. "Well," he said, "really, catch yourself on," and wondered when he'd started speaking like his mother.

"Well, that was interesting," Jackson said, addressing Marlee via the rearview mirror. She looked as if she were nodding off to sleep. Sister Michael had taken her off to feed her, once she'd made the acquaintance of Sister Mary Luke's dog ("Jester" – his racing name apparently. He was a rescue dog). The other interns had fussed around Marlee as if they'd never seen a child before and she seemed more than happy with the beans on toast, angel cake, and ice cream they had rustled up for her. If they'd given her chips they would probably have had a convert for life on their hands.

"Don't mention to your mother that I took you to a convent," he said.

Actually it hadn't been that interesting. Sylvia knew he was coming, Amelia had telephoned ahead and explained that Jackson was looking into Olivia's disappearance again but didn't tell her what had prompted this. After Marlee had been taken away by Sister Michael, Jackson produced the blue mouse from where it had been squashed into his pocket ("enclosed") and showed it to Sylvia. He wanted the shock factor. He remembered Julia saying that Amelia fainted when she saw it, and Amelia, after all, was not a fainter. Sylvia looked at the blue mouse, her dry, thin lips compressed together, her small, mud-colored eyes not wavering in their gaze. After a few seconds, she said, "Blue Mouse," and reached a finger through the grille. Jackson moved the blue mouse closer to her and she touched its old, infirm body tenderly with one finger. A tear rolled silently down her cheek. But no, she hadn't seen it since the day Olivia disappeared and she couldn't even begin to imagine why it would be in among her father's possessions.

"I was never close to Daddy," she said.

"The angel cake was nice," Marlee said sleepily.

Jackson 's phone rang. He looked at the number – Amelia and Julia – and groaned. He let his voice mail pick it up, but when he played the message back he was so alarmed at what he heard that he had to pull the car to the side of the road to listen to it again. Amelia was sobbing, a primal inchoate kind of lamentation that was grief, raw and untempered. Jackson wondered if Julia were dead.

"Breathe, Amelia, for God's sake," he said. "What is it? Is it Julia?" but all she said was, "Please, Jackson [' Jackson?' He'd never heard her call him that. It sounded way too intimate for Jackson 's liking], please, Jackson, please come, I need you." And then she was cut off, or she cut herself off more likely so that he would have to go to Owlstone Road and find out what had happened (not Julia, surely?).

"What is it, Daddy?"

"Nothing, sweetheart. We're just going to take a little detour on the way home." Sometimes Jackson felt as if his whole life were a detour.

We went to a convent!" Marlee shouted as she ran through the front door.