I Know What I Saw

He looks at me. ‘As far as I was aware, the money was yours. I was holding it for you. As it happens she didn’t ever ask me for it and even if she had, I’m not sure I would have given it to her.’

I take a breath and try and process what I am being told. The money is still here. Improbably, after all these years. A flood of warmth towards Seb for his friendship, for his reliability, fills me.

‘Where is it? Can I see it?’

‘It’s in the loft. See it whenever you like.’

‘Can we go now?’

‘Now? Really?’ he says and waits. He reads my expression. ‘Okay. Come on then.’

We walk along the corridor and up the stairs. At the top flight he pauses, looking for something. I do not know what until he emerges from a room with it in his hand: a fishing pole for pulling down the hatch. He looks up to spear the catch, and then a ladder slides smoothly down.

‘I’ll go first and stick the lights on,’ he says, and climbs up. I follow him. The loft is boarded with plywood and is neat and tidy, as lofts go. There is dust, but there are patches where it has been unsettled recently. I watch as he ducks his way across and under the beams. When he stops he looks around and beckons me over.

‘Here,’ he says.

As I trace his path on my way to him, I see something that catches at a memory. There is a small cardboard box, like a gift box. The memory of it pierces me. I hold it up to Seb.

‘This yours?’ I ask.

He squints at the box and says, ‘No, that’s one of yours, isn’t it? One of the bits you left. Police took a couple in the search until I got them out. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop them. Shit, look at the mess they’ve left.’ He looks around at the upturned boxes and sticks of broken furniture.

I look at the box in my hand and see trinkets in there from a past life. A miniature doll with the head of a cat. A polished green stone that Grace gave me. A ticket for a concert. Some plastic gold coins. And beneath it all, a small volume of Proust. I pick it out and stare at this thing of mine from a third of a century ago.

‘Xand?’ Seb calls then. He is waiting for me.

I stop and put the book into my pocket and pick my way towards Seb until I’m next to him, staring down where he is. There is the trunk. I had forgotten it until now. There’d been an old pine trunk outside the house when I’d come by with the cash. It was Seb and Nina’s coffee table. One of the sides had developed a crack which was enough for Nina to throw it out. When we took the money into the loft, I remembered it.

‘Sure,’ Seb had said when I suggested using it to put the money in. I’d dragged it up the ladder and we’d put the bags into it. Seb had locked it with a padlock he had found and given me the key.

Now looking at it I see there’s a layer of dust over the top, thinner than I expected. I bend to open it just before reminding myself again that it is locked and I don’t have the key. Did I keep the key? Have it once? There’s a memory there, but it’s too muddy to reach.

Immediately my brain begins to filter what I know about picking locks once again. This lock is a simple one. The principles are similar, I think, and I rummage around in my head for what I need. Something thin and metal like a pen clip. I hold the lock to examine the mechanism and see something that confuses me. It’s in the open position. Unlocked.

I look for Seb to show him the lock but he’s busy picking up things that have been knocked over in the search. ‘Seb,’ I say, showing him the lock.

He stops scrabbling around on the boards and sees the lock. He frowns momentarily before turning a little pale.

‘What the—’ he says.

I lift the lid slowly and stand up.

Seb and I stare at each other. The trunk is empty.

34 Wednesday

‘The police,’ I say. ‘The police have been up there. They must have taken it.’

Seb stops to consider this. ‘No. They were here but they didn’t take the cash. Whatever they took they put into clear bags and made me sign for.’

We make our way down the ladder. I turn over the possibilities.

‘Unless the police came back,’ he says, pushing the loft hatch shut, ‘and took it.’

I unpack this as he clicks the latch into place. ‘Wouldn’t they have to leave something to say they’d been? A notice or something?’

‘Yes, I suppose.’ He makes his way to the kitchen.

‘Who else had access to it?’ I follow him into the kitchen and catch my reflection in the black of the windows.

Seb puts the kettle on to boil but then stalls. ‘Nina. Could be her. Can’t be anyone else in fact. Nobody else has been up there.’

‘You think Nina stole it?’ I say, shocked. I think of the fine dust layer on the top.

‘I know. It doesn’t really sound like her. You know how she was even back then – she always had money. I can’t see her stealing it. But there aren’t any other candidates. Unless – no, I don’t think I’ve even had a plumber up there for longer than ten minutes,’ he says. ‘I don’t know who else it could be.’

‘Seb, I need to get it back, or at least find out what happened to it.’