Lost

Mrs. Swingler shakes her head, making the beads clack.

The hallway behind her is crammed with boxes and chests. I notice a small movement, then another, as though the shadows are shifting. Cats. Everywhere. Crawling out of boxes and drawers, from under the bed and on top of wardrobes. Dark shapes leak across the floor, gathering around her, rubbing against her pale legs and nipping her ankles.

“When did you last see me?”

She looks at me oddly. “Last month . . . you was in and out of here all the time.”

“Was I with anyone?”

She glances at the Professor suspiciously. “Is your friend trying to be funny?”

“No. He has just forgotten a few things.”

“You were seeing her upstairs, I suppose.”

“Do you know why?”

Her laugh rasps like a violin. “Do I look like your social secretary?”

She's about to shut the door but thinks of something else. “I remember you now. You was always looking for that little girl got murdered. It's her fault, you know.”

“Whose fault?”

“People like her shouldn't have kids if they can't control them. I don't mind my taxes going to sick kiddies in hospitals and to fix the roads but why should I pay for single mothers, sponging on welfare and spending their money on cigarettes and booze?”

“She didn't need handouts.”

Mrs. Swingler hitches up her caftan. “Once an alkie, always an alkie.”

I step toward her. “You think so?”

Suddenly she's less sure of her ground.

“I'll be sure to tell my mother. One day at a time, eh?”

The Professor pulls the cage door closed and the lift jerks into motion. When we reach the foyer, I turn back toward the stairs. I have searched this building dozens of times—in reality and in dreams—but I still want to search it again. I want to take it apart, brick by brick.

Rachel is missing. So are the people who left bloodstains on the boat. I don't know what any of it means but a twitch of the brain, a nervous shudder and something like instinct tells me to worry.

It's getting late. Streetlights are beginning to blink and taillights glow. We skirt along the side path and reach the rear garden—a narrow rectangle of grass surrounded by brick walls. A child's wading pool lies upturned in the shadows and outdoor furniture has been stacked outside a shed.

Beyond the rear fence is Paddington Recreation Ground where muddy puddles dot the turf. To the left is a lane with garages, while to the right, across half a dozen walls, is the Macmillan Estate, a drab, postwar council housing estate. There are ninety-six flats, with laundry hanging from the balconies and satellite dishes bolted to the walls.

This is the spot where Mickey and Sarah used to sunbathe. Above is the window Howard watched them from. On the day Mickey disappeared I came to the garden to find some shade and quiet. I knew then that she hadn't just wandered off. And a child doesn't accidentally go missing in a five-story mansion block. It felt like a kidnapping or something worse.

Missing children, you see, no good news can come of them. Dozens disappear every day, mostly runaways or throwaways. A seven-year-old is different because the only possibilities are the stuff of nightmares.

I crouch gingerly and stare into the pond where ornamental carp are lazily circling. I have never understood why people keep fish. They're indifferent, expensive, covered in scales and have such a fragile hold on their lives. My second wife, Jessie, was like that. We were married for six months and then I went out of fashion faster than male thongs.

As a kid I bred frogs. I used to collect the spawn from a pond on our farm and keep them in a forty-four-gallon drum cut down the middle. Baby frogs are cute but put a hundred of them in a bucket and you have a squirming, slippery mass. They finished up invading the house. My stepfather told me I was “fantastic” at raising tadpoles. I'm assuming he didn't mean “fantastic” in a good way.

Ali is standing next to me. She pushes hair behind her ears. “You thought she might already be dead on that first day.”

“I know.”

“We hadn't done background checks and SOCO hadn't arrived. There were no bloodstains or suspects, but you still had a bad feeling.”

“Yes.”

“And right from the outset you noticed Howard. What was it about him?”

“He was taking photographs. Everyone else in the building was searching for Mickey but he went back to get his camera. He said he wanted to have a record.”

“A record?”

“Of all the excitement.”

“Why?”

“So he could remember it.”

5

By the time I get back to the hospital it's almost dark. The whole place has a sour smell like the dead air in closed-up rooms. I have missed a physiotherapy session and Maggie is waiting to change my bandages.

“Somebody took some pills from the pharmacy cart yesterday,” she says, cutting the last of the bandages. “It was a bottle of morphine capsules. My friend is in trouble. They think it's her fault.”

Maggie isn't accusing me but I know there's a subtext. “We're hoping the capsules might turn up. Maybe they were misplaced.”